I don’t think letting in 3 western schools necessarily breaks the bank for the AAC West schools. They already have to get on a plane to travel to the ETZ schools in the conference. They’d just be flying West instead of East.

The only school I see having costs go up is Memphis. Memphis likely gets pushed East rather than Navy/Wich St so they’d be adding more flights into the ETZ at the expense of bus trips within the CTZ. If the American is suddenly a P6 in terms of play off appearances, I bet FedEx would write a check to help defray some of that extra travel.

TV revenues makes travel expenses irrelevant.

SEC makes $55 mil per school in tv revenue and probably spend $8 mil for travel. If you're really considered about travel expense, cut some of you're non-revenue sports.

The name of the game these days is getting more tv money. Deliver more markets across more timezones to compete for more timeslots. If you can improve streaming numbers that helps too, tell all your fans to get ESPN+ so we can offer more your sports to your fan base.

(06-14-2021 02:10 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  Even with travel partners, it is impractical to fly women's volleyball teams thousands of miles to compete. The NCAA/conferences are going to have to make regional play permanent for the minor olympic sports.

It would have to be up to conferences.

And the idea sounds better as a concept than it would be in practice. For many schools, one big benefit of being in a conference is having most of your home schedules in every team sport automatically filled every year.

Some teams have a dozen or more Division I non-conference opponents that are ≤ 3 hours away by bus, but others, especially in the west, have only two or three.

If you have to replace more than half of your home conference games in every sport, every year, by getting 5 or 6 more non-conference teams, in every sport, to travel to Laramie or Lubbock or Pullman, good luck with that.

(06-14-2021 10:23 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  Travel isn't an issue with the SBC since all members have travel partners. When a school sends their teams out for away games they'll get a two-fer out of it. And the bulk of the conference is pretty concentrated. The rectangle of Little Rock down to Lafayette, over to Statesboro up to Atlanta is fairly compact.

Texas State and UTA are outliers to the rest of the schools.

AUK: it doesn't matter to swimmers and track athletes?

(06-14-2021 11:40 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 10:04 AM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 09:24 AM)SMUstang Wrote:  Following the pandemic, for the G5 conferences especially, geography will be more important than before because of travel budgets and lost class time, and will become more of a factor in future conference makeup considerations. The MAC and MWC are in pretty good shape, but the rest of the conferences are not.

SMUstang

Counterpoint: this pandemic showed that the only thing that conferences can really count on is TV revenue, which is where geography is irrelevant.

Now, I think geography is always going to be a practical factor (e.g. why every proposal that has Gonzaga joining a stronger Eastern-based conference is nonsensical regardless of the potential TV money), but I just think so many people are misreading what the pandemic showed here regarding college sports.

Most of the critics of pandemic-related travel issues (e.g. Nebraska and Rutgers in the Big Ten) were people that didn't like conference realignment in the first place. Yet, they totally gloss over the fact that the only reason why at least the P5 conferences were able to salvage a fair amount of revenue this year was because of lucrative TV contracts... which were completely what conference realignment was all about.

I agree to some extent. But the West Virginia move to the Big XII, Rutgers move to the B1G and the Pittsburg, Syracuse, and Louisville move to the ACC, and Connecticut move to the Big East were driven by $, nothing less. They are all outliers.

SMUstang

Yes, driven by money. When there is enough money to drive such moves, they will happen. When there isn't a lot of money involved, moves will be few and far between.

Also, as Frank's comment implies, pretty much all D-I athletic departments are going to be dealing with a revenue shortfall for the next few years in everything except TV money. Ticket sales, donations, and corporate sponsorships evaporated during the pandemic, and they are not going to return to pre-pandemic levels overnight, if they ever do. In many places, people will just buy tickets less often. Most donors will give less going forward. Diehards who still want to keep their season tickets will buy the tickets and make the bare minimum donation needed to keep them instead of giving more as they used to. Etc., etc.

To be fair, other than the mediocre football, Syracuse was joining a bunch of like-minded sports schools with its basketball and lacrosse programs while fitting into the private ACC rota of Duke, Wake, BC, and Miami.

(06-14-2021 11:40 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 10:04 AM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 09:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 09:24 AM)SMUstang Wrote:  Following the pandemic, for the G5 conferences especially, geography will be more important than before because of travel budgets and lost class time, and will become more of a factor in future conference makeup considerations. The MAC and MWC are in pretty good shape, but the rest of the conferences are not.

SMUstang

Counterpoint: this pandemic showed that the only thing that conferences can really count on is TV revenue, which is where geography is irrelevant.

Now, I think geography is always going to be a practical factor (e.g. why every proposal that has Gonzaga joining a stronger Eastern-based conference is nonsensical regardless of the potential TV money), but I just think so many people are misreading what the pandemic showed here regarding college sports.

Most of the critics of pandemic-related travel issues (e.g. Nebraska and Rutgers in the Big Ten) were people that didn't like conference realignment in the first place. Yet, they totally gloss over the fact that the only reason why at least the P5 conferences were able to salvage a fair amount of revenue this year was because of lucrative TV contracts... which were completely what conference realignment was all about.

I agree to some extent. But the West Virginia move to the Big XII, Rutgers move to the B1G and the Pittsburg, Syracuse, and Louisville move to the ACC, and Connecticut move to the Big East were driven by $, nothing less. They are all outliers.

SMUstang

Yes, driven by money. When there is enough money to drive such moves, they will happen. When there isn't a lot of money involved, moves will be few and far between.

Also, as Frank's comment implies, pretty much all D-I athletic departments are going to be dealing with a revenue shortfall for the next few years in everything except TV money. Ticket sales, donations, and corporate sponsorships evaporated during the pandemic, and they are not going to return to pre-pandemic levels overnight, if they ever do. In many places, people will just buy tickets less often. Most donors will give less going forward. Diehards who still want to keep their season tickets will buy the tickets and make the bare minimum donation needed to keep them instead of giving more as they used to. Etc., etc.

Full concurrence with both your and Frank's remarks. The increasingly supreme power of home viewing will save the athletics budgets. A more national ... rather than regional ... market for big brand names has developed and will continue. TV deals ... not fannies in seats ...will reline the athletics dept. coffers.

(06-14-2021 05:03 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I don’t think letting in 3 western schools necessarily breaks the bank for the AAC West schools. They already have to get on a plane to travel to the ETZ schools in the conference. They’d just be flying West instead of East.

The only school I see having costs go up is Memphis. Memphis likely gets pushed East rather than Navy/Wich St so they’d be adding more flights into the ETZ at the expense of bus trips within the CTZ. If the American is suddenly a P6 in terms of play off appearances, I bet FedEx would write a check to help defray some of that extra travel.

The Olympic sports travel issue is overplayed. Pre-Covid, ECU softball played OOC games in Hawaii, UCF women's soccer played in Arizona, and Cincinnati volleyball played OOC games in Colorado. San Diego State and Sacramento State have been AAC MEMBERS(!) in women's rowing since 2015.

Many Olympic sports play 4 or fewer conference road games, in which case it is easy to completely avoid East-West road trips, if that is truly desired.

(06-16-2021 02:10 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 05:03 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I don’t think letting in 3 western schools necessarily breaks the bank for the AAC West schools. They already have to get on a plane to travel to the ETZ schools in the conference. They’d just be flying West instead of East.

The only school I see having costs go up is Memphis. Memphis likely gets pushed East rather than Navy/Wich St so they’d be adding more flights into the ETZ at the expense of bus trips within the CTZ. If the American is suddenly a P6 in terms of play off appearances, I bet FedEx would write a check to help defray some of that extra travel.

The Olympic sports travel issue is overplayed. Pre-Covid, ECU softball played OOC games in Hawaii, UCF women's soccer played in Arizona, and Cincinnati volleyball played OOC games in Colorado. San Diego State and Sacramento State have been AAC MEMBERS(!) in women's rowing since 2015.

Many Olympic sports play 4 or fewer conference road games, in which case it is easy to completely avoid East-West road trips, if that is truly desired.

While the Devil is in the details, I think that those facts do not go as far to prove the conclusion as made out ... there is a difference between budgeting for A long OOC road game and committing to budgeting for multiple long conference road games across all or most of your subsidy team sports each year.

And if a conference is, or is looking at, trading off more play within divisions for less play across divisions to save money, that would make the schools in the division receiving the geographic outlier more sensitive to the geography.

(06-16-2021 02:10 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(06-14-2021 05:03 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I don’t think letting in 3 western schools necessarily breaks the bank for the AAC West schools. They already have to get on a plane to travel to the ETZ schools in the conference. They’d just be flying West instead of East.

The only school I see having costs go up is Memphis. Memphis likely gets pushed East rather than Navy/Wich St so they’d be adding more flights into the ETZ at the expense of bus trips within the CTZ. If the American is suddenly a P6 in terms of play off appearances, I bet FedEx would write a check to help defray some of that extra travel.

The Olympic sports travel issue is overplayed. Pre-Covid, ECU softball played OOC games in Hawaii, UCF women's soccer played in Arizona, and Cincinnati volleyball played OOC games in Colorado. San Diego State and Sacramento State have been AAC MEMBERS(!) in women's rowing since 2015.

Many Olympic sports play 4 or fewer conference road games, in which case it is easy to completely avoid East-West road trips, if that is truly desired.

I have found that, in general, many of the schools in the east freak out about travel and distance more than western schools. We travel, we're used to it, we budget for it, and nobody gives not all that much of a thought. Hearing some of this howling over a few hundred miles one way or another makes me chuckle though.

Todor: the eastern half of the country has MUCH smaller states AND is more densely populated

(06-16-2021 09:34 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Todor: the eastern half of the country has MUCH smaller states AND is more densely populated

Neither of which affect the length of a mile. I'm just chuckling over their perception.

We had this discussion awhile back, when I suggested UNLV to the PAC-12 and it was pointed out Westerners consider 200 miles "no big deal" while it's a big deal here.