(08-12-2019 07:59 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (08-11-2019 10:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (08-11-2019 09:07 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote: Yeah, no kidding. Where else are they going to go?
Kind of an odd angle for that story to take.
Yes, seemingly, because at first glance, as others have noted, ECU is the poster child for a school with infinite opportunity costs, the AAC is obviously their best possible home so they ain't going anywhere.
But at second glance, the explanation is also pretty clear: UConn leaving the AAC has set off tremors and reverbs, it's been a kind of shock wave, and so constituencies at other G5 schools are asking the same questions about their futures, and thinking along the lines of UConn. And this is a manifestation of that. Will these tremors be just that, temporary shakes that pass, or will more dominos in all G5 leagues fall? We'll see.
It also underscores the weakness of the media deal that Aresco signed. Bottom line is that it is clear that while an extra $5m (the difference between the old deal and new deal) is surely welcome, it in no way keeps up with the expenses of trying to maintain the facade of a program "in touch" with the P5, which are rising faster. The P5, with true rising revenues, keep upping the bar on expenses of all kinds, which is just ratcheting up what is needed for aspirational G5 to stay in the ballpark.
All the touted Aresco deal did was slow the rate at which AAC schools are falling behind their comparison P5 benchmarks, and only temporarily as well.
So schools like ECU are now trying to come up with new ideas given that even with the new media deal, it's just high student fees and rising deficits as far as the eye can see. The article mentions playing more pay-for-play games with P5, a 0-1 strategy that is the opposite of what UCF is trying to do, and one that abjectly reinforces the lower status of the G5 school doing it. But bills have to be paid, and ECU doesn't have a Big East option like UConn did.
I actually think the AAC got a fairly good media deal. However, to your point, the core issue is that even a "good" media deal at the G5 level might not be sustainable for these athletic departments in the long term.
It's also a reflection that of what I've stated many times before: the "Football is all that matters!" line of thinking applies to the P5, but it isn't necessarily the best line of thinking for the G5. At the G5 level, basketball revenue has significantly more *relative* importance compared to football. (Total football revenue might be generally higher at virtually every school, even at "basketball schools", but that also comes with much higher expenses.)
The football positioning of a lot of schools (particularly in the AAC and MWC) has largely been driven more by the hope of eventually cashing in on a P5 lottery ticket than actually having a financially sustainable home in the G5. That was certainly the case for UConn. If UConn truly believed that it was going to the P5 within the next decade, then it would have sucked it up and stayed in the AAC. UConn simply got smacked in the face with the reality that it went from being a frontrunner to replacing Maryland in the ACC (a spot that eventually went to Louisville) to being an afterthought in the Big 12 expansion bake-off. Once UConn came to the self-realization that it simply wasn't ever realistically going to get to the P5, it was better off leveraging its core basketball brand to go back to the Big East.
To be sure, UConn was in the unique position of having a natural home in the Big East that may very well end up making more financial sense for them (even as a football independent). There isn't a natural home for any FBS school to have a similar setup as of now.
However, maybe some schools need to start thinking outside of the box with different setups. For instance, Gonzaga and BYU have financially outgrown the WCC, yet joining the MWC as non-football members isn't any more attractive (with less control and power in exchange for little, if any, financial gain). Could Gonzaga and BYU spearhead a western equivalent of the Big East instead? Maybe pitch schools such as Houston and UNLV with solid basketball brand names (plus schools like Boise State and Air Force that have football programs that could conceivably survive on their own) that creating a western equivalent of the Big East for basketball with independent football could yield a better financial return than staying in a G5 league as a full member. I'm not saying that this would actually end up being true or that's even viable, but the point is that the "Football is all that matters!" thinking for G5 schools needs to at least be reevaluated.
It feels like the G5 leagues are old line brick-and-mortar retailers trying to compete against Amazon and Walmart. No matter what they do, they're simply not going to be able to compete with the size and scale of the P5 conferences. The brick-and-mortar stores that are still performing well have largely all found a different niche lane compared to Amazon and Walmart. The Big East has a different lane and it has been working for them both financially and competitively. If all that you're selling is that you're a cheaper and lower-ranked version of a P5 conference, though, then that probably isn't going to be sustainable.