(08-11-2019 11:35 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  That's the root of the problem, the school is writing an $11M plus check each year to keep athletics funded. Student athletic fees are already pretty high.

...

$15,159,430 is already taken in fees from the 19,958 full time students (over $750 per head -- which is the highest of any FBS school), so that is not a realistic source for additional revenue.

For what it's worth, mandatory student athletic fees are revenue in the same way a check written by the university is revenue. There isn't a meaningful difference between tacking a mandatory athletic fee onto the semester's tuition and raising tuition to pay for a transfer to the athletic department, although it is a little more honest.

...and yes, UConn's among the biggest offenders out there.

(08-12-2019 07:59 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  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.

Eh, the UConn/Big East situation was pretty unique in the world of college sports for a number of reasons, and ECU's identity is pretty tied in to being a "football school". They'll cut the rest of the department to the NCAA limit before they do something that would seriously impact football (kind of like UConn is willing to possibly set football adrift to preserve basketball).

The MAC is already plenty compact, and the MWC schools have nowhere to go (although if someone gets booted that's a different discussion). If there's a significant impact, it's more likely to be the travel in Conference USA and the Sun Belt being less sustainable going forward. You already hear noise about it from time to time, but I could see schools on the geographic fringes of those leagues looking a little harder at more sensible olympic-sports conferences.