I agree that the Birmingham market will be a great asset to TV negotiations, and CUSA is in a better position now versus last week in regards to television negotiations.
That said, given Banowsky's affinity for the 16 team model, I wonder if we'd be better off (in light of recent events) to jump to 16 SOON.
IMO, Banowsky should approach our television negotiations with just that arrow in his arsenal. The B1G obviously felt that growing the league would help maximize television, and who is to say that the numbers wont come out better for us all (expenditures vs income) if we make the Eastern and Western footprints more dense (allowing for closer rivalries) and basically operate the two divisions as their own leagues that come together at playoff time. With an imaginative branding campaign, I think being the first 16 team football conference since the WAC could set CUSA apart.
Given our headquarters are based there, I think we'd be well served to plant the CUSA flag in Texas and take Texas State (effectively locking out the MWC) and off their tourney success I think we should offer Georgia State to bolster basketball.
Those are two programs that have a world of potential under the CUSA umbrella, shrink our footprints, and give us tons of marketing possibilities. I REALLY like the idea of establishing the brand as the only conference with 5 Texas schools (lets not forget that Texas is a HUGE state, where football is religion... lots of eyes on TV sets).

If you look at the map, they'd fill the two biggest holes in the East and the West. We'd almost be 2 separate bus leagues (and basketball would be better).



The main thing I want to know is: (1) Would the money be better with those 16 - and a greater regional identity? and (2) If the money is not better, are we really going to get that much more per school with 14 vs 16, that outweighs the potential savings on running basically two denser bus league footprints that could play amongst themselves and, then, really make our playoffs that much bigger of an event when the time comes.

NO.

(06-04-2015 08:32 AM)pilot172000 Wrote:  NO.

This.

I'm not sold yet either; but I definitely think its a good arrow to have in our ammunition kit when we take the league to market.

If we come out ahead, financially, on either end (and stir up more fan interest with a closer knit group) I think everybody wins.

That's a lot of ifs though.

Will adding the two schools you mentioned add enough TV contract money to improve upon the per-school payout to make up the difference between splitting the money 14 ways and splitting it 16 ways with a bit more per-school on top? Banowsky probably knows the answer to that, no one here does.

It would depend on the two schools we add. Unfortunately, I don't see much out there that's really attractive.

(06-04-2015 08:39 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  Will adding the two schools you mentioned add enough TV contract money to improve upon the per-school payout to make up the difference between splitting the money 14 ways and splitting it 16 ways with a bit more per-school on top?

That's the question. Another question is, is the pie really big enough to notice a huge difference between 14 and 16 in our operating budgets (when you factor in the potential of less travel)?

With the CUSA television contract negotiations ongoing, I'd be interested in what the impact would be. Would the conference get paid more up front? It looks like 16 may be the magic number for everyone (the B1G and ACC seem to be working towards it), and - if that's the case - CUSA gains most by acting sooner, especially since we're in such a huge growth process with certain schools moving up. It's a deal where we might be better served just getting that maturation process started for everyone now.

Frankly, I only asked because I'm trying to get into Banowsky's head since he's been a proponent of reaching that number. I remember Terry Holland had numbers that supported that plan as well.

I've never understood the rationale for going to fourteen. Sixteen just seems silly.

(06-04-2015 08:49 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  I've never understood the rationale for going to fourteen. Sixteen just seems silly.

But once at 14, does 16 make more sense? It's definitely a different world from 12 to 16... but is 14 to 16 really that much different? In fact, do the real advantages kick in at 16 with two balanced divisions at 8?

I'd like to know how television perceives that question. They'd definitely have a greater regional marketing identity if we structured our competition a certain way.

Can we stop pretending that Georgia State is some basketball powerhouse? They had a great team last year and will probably have a pretty good one again, but it's not like they have a long history of success. They have bad facilities and, like the rest of us, are one bad coaching hire away from being awful and irrelevant again. Decisions should never be made from looking at things in a 1-2 year vacuum.

Any decisions we make going forward if we ever expand should be based on support. We don't need more teams in the league with 1000 butts in seats.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Dear god no. Going to 16 would get you guys within range of what the MAC or Sunbelt make off the TV deal.

I have tried to relay this point before but let me try to explain this one more time.

As the the previous responses indicated the answer is No.

Whether we have 12, 14, or 16 teams the TV money is not going to be drastically different either way. From a TV perspective, we have reached a point of diminishing returns.

Further, even if adding two more schools would add another $3 million dollars annually to what we are going to get now (which is an overly generous figure because there aren't two schools who can add that much value to the TV deal -- i.e. that's more per those two schools than we collectively earn per school) it still would not be enough to recoup what we will lose in having to share revenues with two additional members.

Let's assume we will annually earn about the same we did this year which was approximately $16 million (which obviously could be higher if we make the Access Slot and the two additions we add probably are going to weigh on us not help us achieve that). That's $1.14 million per school. We also earn about $1 million per school in TV revenue, so that's $2.14 million per school in revenue from the Playoff and TV deal. Now with the extra $3M, we would take in an extra $187,000 per school, but we would also have to share our playoff money which doesn't increase because we have more schools. That would be a net decrease in the playoff take by $140,000, so in a best case scenario we have $47,000 more dollars in football revenue by adding two schools. And remember this is all an unrealistic assumption that provides overly optimistic financials. A more realistic assumption would be that our TV revenue stays the same at $1 million per school at which point adding schools turns into an immediate reduction of $140,000 per school in revenue, so the cost benefit by adding two additional mouths as a result of the new Playoff distributions can be immediately deducted not worth it.

However, that fails to take into account the additional sharing we would have to do writ large across the league including the revenues from the NCAA Basketball Tournament. We are only going to earn about $220,000 per school from the NCAA Tournament this coming year (rough estimate), and since I don't see anyone out there who is also going to help us become more multi-bid worthy we're sharing that static number too, which would reduce our per school revenue per school by another $30,000 or a total of $170,000 less per school.

And because revenues tend to increase over time, we would be looking at a net decrease of around $1 million per school over the next five years by adding two more programs. It simply doesn't make a lot of financial sense.

Depends on who is negotiating with the league and what they want.

If Fox (or NBC) truly wants to compete with ESPN across multiple platforms (ie. the two national channels each has, the regional channels they have and the online platform with maybe a select game or two on their OTA channel) then the network needs A LOT of content (compare ESPN G5 inventory to Fox, it is staggering, ESPN holds something like 220 G5 football games this year, Fox holds around 40), more than the league can provide at 14.

If that is the model 16 or 18 even would be more profitable than 14.

So far don't have any evidence Fox or NBC wants to go that direction

(06-04-2015 08:49 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  I've never understood the rationale for going to fourteen. Sixteen just seems silly.

This.

14 is a too many mouths to feed. 12 is a good number but at this point getting there is damn near impossible.

The only advantage that could be had by going to 16 would be decreased costs in travel by playing more regionally though even at 14 the league doesn't seem to be too interested in that either.

It is perhaps possible you could significantly reduce costs by having all the teams on either side of the Mississippi play each other more often on their side of the river.

(06-04-2015 08:47 AM)BoKnows Wrote:  

(06-04-2015 08:39 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  Will adding the two schools you mentioned add enough TV contract money to improve upon the per-school payout to make up the difference between splitting the money 14 ways and splitting it 16 ways with a bit more per-school on top?

That's the question. Another question is, is the pie really big enough to notice a huge difference between 14 and 16 in our operating budgets (when you factor in the potential of less travel)?

With the CUSA television contract negotiations ongoing, I'd be interested in what the impact would be. Would the conference get paid more up front? It looks like 16 may be the magic number for everyone (the B1G and ACC seem to be working towards it), and - if that's the case - CUSA gains most by acting sooner, especially since we're in such a huge growth process with certain schools moving up. It's a deal where we might be better served just getting that maturation process started for everyone now.

Frankly, I only asked because I'm trying to get into Banowsky's head since he's been a proponent of reaching that number. I remember Terry Holland had numbers that supported that plan as well.

IN all honesty, Terry Holland believed that the league had lost most of it appeal when UCF, Houston ,SMU and Memphis left the conference. This is why he kept advocating for ECU to get out of Conf USA even after he had lobbied hard for ODU and Charlotte to join the league. He was concerned that there were no longer any peer schools in COnf USA for ECU. The 16 team model was based on having anchors like UCF, Memphis ,Houston and ECU to sell to the tv networks. Holland was hoping for the best of both worlds.

He wanted the conference to have regional rivalries, he loved the idea of teams hopping on a bus and driving 2 hours to play the game( he loved this idea especially for the fans and revenue potential) and he wanted to the conference to have the best non BCS schools in the country. When the Big East expanded with the first Conf USA raid, this dream gave way to the reality of staying in Conf USA or leaving. Terry Holland believed ECU staying in Conf USA would cause ECU to fall behind in the football arms race.
I believe he thought that the conference had lost its value on the open market.
Many ECU fans were frustrated with Terry for pushing hard for ODU and Charlotte. I think Conf USA became frustrated with him when he took the Big East invite and ran with it, leaving ODU and Charlotte as two new start up programs for COnf USA with no natural rivalries. Holland believed strongly in having natural geographic rivals.

Having said this, Terry Holland was the best AD ECU ever had,and is credited with making ECU an attractive candidate for expansion.

**** Terry Holland and ECU.

(06-04-2015 08:49 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  I've never understood the rationale for going to fourteen. Sixteen just seems silly.

At the time there was massive realignment going on. CUSA was losing members en mass and it looked like we were about to lose a few to the mountain. Boisie and San Diego St had agreed to join the Big East and it looked like UTEP and a player that be named later were leaving CUSA. The Big East was still talking about going to 16. CUSA acted proactively and added WKU and ODU. Boisie extorted the mountain and San Diego stayed which ment UTEP was going nowhere and we ended with 14. Better 14 than becoming another WAC. In addition they had yet to pass the twelve team payout maximum for the non cartel conferences. In the context of the events and the time in was not a bad move

As long as you would prefer competing against 15 other teams for one conference championship as opposed to 11 for one.

Fans put so much store in incremental tv money as if it is the end-all and be-all goal of a conference.

If you could get an extra half million a year for your school in tv money to go to 24...but it halved your odds of a championship in perpetuity....would you?

Letting incremental tv money overrule every other consideration isn't necessarily good long-term for a school, or the sport.