Conference Expansion: More On Big East Adding Boise State, San Diego State
by Jeremy Mauss on Dec 6, 2011 12:10 PM PST
in Conference Expansion
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PrintAssuming there are no more snags in the process, the Big East will be adding Boise State and San Diego State as football-only members for the 2012 season. CBS' Brett McMurphy broke the story about expansion and also added that Air Force is stil weighing their options and if they decline an offer to join the Big East the league would then move on and see if Temple would be interested in joining.
Both Aztec and Bronco fans are excited about the move because it will net them an overall better football schedule --mainly because the bottom of the Big East is better than New Mexico and UNLV -- and some are happy to be off of the Mountain West's television deal. I can sympathise that with Aztec fans since one of the major cable carriers did not carry the Mtn., but really the television deal is a positive for the league because a lot of games may not have been able to be seen had the league gone with ESPN.
OBNUG makes a good point about the move:
I appreciate that the Broncos are making every effort to move the program forward and to keep growing into one of the best football schools around. The Big East will help, no matter what shape it's in when the Broncos get there. Sure, I worry about the Big East retaining its AQ bid and scoring a big TV contract. But in a college football world where you have to keep moving to survive, I'd rather see Boise State take a leap than stand still.
Change is vital to survival and the Mountain West is a bit slow when it comes to change, and not to hash up an old argument too much. However, had Craig Thompson and the rest of the schools added Boise State and TCU at the same time things might have been different.
Now here is a map of the new Big East, I would add one for the Mountain West but there is not one.
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Ok, I'm gonna laugh at this one
SDSU and BSU are gonna get majorly screwed with travel expenses. Plus one of those east teams will be moved to the west… and the amount of catfighting that will entail, plus bitching, plus bad feelings might just push a program like Louisville (who has been mentioned as a west team) to be far more proactive in seeking a position in the Big 12. So yeah, how about that BE stability?
Big Distances
If the BE were smart, and I know that’s a stretch, it would add AF and another team or two in between the west coast and the mid west ASAP to keep the inevitable fracture from happening. AF specifically wants Navy and Army, but they are on the East Coast. Look at the distance between Houston/SMU, Louisville/Cincy and then SDSU and BSU. That is too far flung to hold together.
"Big East" and "smart"
don’t belong in the same paragraph, let alone same sentence.
I don’t see this as providing any long-term stability for the Big East. In the same way the Texas teams bailed out of the WAC, I think that BSU and SDSU will eventually bail out of the Big East. It’s a question of what it will take for them to move.
If the Big 12 were to come along and take Louisville and either Cincinnati or Houston, that might do it. Who knows.
Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS
BSU travels about that much already
Coach Pete has already said an extra hour in the air isn’t that big of a deal…
by BSUbluNorange on Dec 6, 2011 12:34 PM PST up reply actions
I'm not trying to be a sour grapes kinda guy...
but this just seems so ludicrous to me. I honestly cannot see the upside to all this about 3 years down the road. I do think AQ is going to be moot in this next cycle. Then you guys are stuck with no regional rivalries that can be driven to with all of the power in the BE sitting in the east with that division plus the bball schools.
I don't know about the long-term merits of the idea
But the travel is not a huge deal. You’ll have 4 or 5 Big East road games a year. One or two of them will be no worse than normal MWC or WAC road trips. None will be worse than a Hawaii or LA Tech road trip. You’re only joining the Big East in football. If you were joining for all sports, you’d basically be becoming Hawaii, but you’re not.
And every Big East football school that hasn’t left yet is 100% committed to leaving if they can get in the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, or Big 12. The only differences are in how open they are about it, and how good their prospects are. I don’t think Boise and SDSU will ever play a conference game against UConn or Louisville. This isn’t going to change anything on that score.
Yup
Long-term, it’s just not stable. Short-term, there’s some logic to it.
The BCS folks have an annual meeting in April. I think it would have made much more sense for Boise to publicly state “we’re going to hold off making a decision until we hear more about the future of the BCS.” That way, if Houston, SMU and UCF really wanted to join the Big East, they could do so without Boise State, but they’d know that they will make a decision later. If those three schools’ decision is primarily based on Boise being in the Big East, that’s not very wise IMO.
I agree that all of the current (five) Big East schools are still looking to get out. If the Big 12 or ACC calls, they’re gone. I don’t expect the Big Ten to get involved (except for possibly Rutgers … B1G looks at AAU only, except for UND). SEC is also unlikely, but I guess anything is possible.
Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS
Devil's Advocate
If we’re being honest, travel in the MW has never all that simple, e.g., getting to Laramie. Traveling to Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force, and BYU all entailed long bus rides.
houston & SMU i get
Boise & San Diego less so
i hope Big 12 throws a wrench and take Louisville & Cincinnati
by fracas on Dec 6, 2011 12:39 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
It's got to make sense to SDSU
Since the MWC and CUSA are merging (at least in football), they had to be saying, “Well, if we are going to be in a far flung league, we might as well join another far flung league with better TV revenue already on the table.”
The low estimate for a new Big East TV deal is $6.4 million
according to media consultants working with SDSU. For an athletic program on a ramen budget, an extra $5 mm/year makes a ton of sense.
Whatever
Same guys that said SEC was going expand by 2 to 14 and double the amount of money… Seriously they told Missu could get $20mil more than Big 12, which already gets $20mil. That would mean the SEC would double its contract, while the Big 12 stayed flat. That doesn’t make sense… You can get anyone to say anything if you have an agenda going in.
Well
I agree that those “double the money for Mizzou” reports are probably not accurate.
The thing is, the Big East was offered $1.4 billion for 9 years by ESPN. They turned it down hoping to get an even better deal (and then Syracuse, Pitt, and WVU decided to bail out).
Even if we assume their next offer is only 60% of the previous ESPN offer (which would be $840 million for 9 years), SDSU is still likely to get around $5 million per year. That’s much more than they’ll get from the MWC.
FWIW, I agree that the Big East will probably try to paint the best possible picture for the future of the conference to SDSU to get them in (although it didn’t sound like they needed much convincing).
Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS
Couple of real questions I have
Ok we can agree that TV revenue is at best questionable, but here’s the real questions I think everyone has missed.
Can Boise and SDSU continue to recruit in their primary California grounds while playing a conference schedule that is dominated by EST games? Were already drawing the 3 or 4th best player in the region. Now have more competition with Utah and Colorado stepping up their game in the area. Western TV markets are goign to be dominated by the PAC and the new MWC/CUSA merger. I lived in SoCal and you get nip, nada, zero Big East games, and SDSU isn’t going to change that.
Secondly how will SDSU and Boise deal with playing back east regularly? The NFL record is quite clear that teams comign from the west and going back east 2 or more timezones historically struggle. There isn’t a large enough database for college football, but the NFL history sould be applicable. With college football having such a small margin for error there is a distinct possbility that SDSU and Boise could find this to be a problem.
Huh?
4 conference home games – Pacific time
2-3 non-conference home games – Pacific time
Road game vs Boise or Air Force – Mountain time
Road game vs Houston or SMU – Central time
1-2 non-conference road games (probably @ Pac 12 schools) – Probably Pacific or Mountain time, with an outside shot at Central
Admittedly, road game vs USF, UCF, Louisville, Cinci, Rutgers, UConn, or Navy is Eastern Time
But I doubt SDSU plays more than 3 EST games a year.
As an SDSU alumnus
I’m very “meh” about this move but I echo OBNUG’s thoughts: Moving to the BE will help if only marginally.
I can honestly say I am just as dissapointed as ya’ll that the MW never quite reached the summit.
The more I look at the maps
The more I think the Big East should have ignored BSU and SDSU and gone after Houston, SMU, UCF, Tulsa and one of Memphis / ECU / S. Miss. It would have been much more geographically sensible. No, they don’t have the appeal of Boise State, but they’re also far less likely to bail out in the future (and Tulsa & Southern Miss are quality football teams).
I don’t think the travel for BSU & SDSU is a huge issue – it’s only for football, and (at least in the short term) it does give them more exposure, probably more TV money and possibly a BCS AQ conference (depending on what happens the next go-round). I still think it sucks, but I can’t blame ’em for going for it.
Do yall think that at some point, if the conference commissioners / university presidents / etc. pull their heads out of their butts and create a 16-team playoff, BSU and SDSU might consider going back to the MWC? Long-term, I really don’t see the western teams as stable members of the Big East.
Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS
If I were to guess
The Big East has to know all the football schools are trying very hard to leave, and Louisville, UConn, and a dance partner for them in the Big 12 and ACC respectively, are likely to leave. The rest of the decent CUSA schools would be snatched up after that (also at that point the non-football schools bolt, because only Memphis of that set has decent basketball and they do have their limits there).
Maps
I don’t get why ECU and S. Miss aren’t more on the radar. ECU has been steadily improving and has a decent stadium and is moving in the right direction. Last time I checked, Southern Miss beat Houston for the championship in Houston.
they're in small, oversaturated markets dominated by other conferences
ECU would be the 5th AQ conference school in NC, with all the others in the ACC, as well as all the AQ schools in VA and one in SC. And NC really doesn’t have the population to support 2 AQ conference football programs, let alone 5.
Southern Miss would be the 3rd AQ conference school in Mississippi, with all the others in the SEC, as well as all the AQ schools in Louisiana, Alabama, and one in Tennessee. And Mississippi really doesn’t have the population to support 1 AQ conference football programs, let alone 3.
And really, the Big East has always been about big city schools, not small town schools.
Nonetheless, they’ll both be on the list if/when anyone else leaves the Big East.
And really, the Big East has always been about big city schools, not small town schools.
Yup, that’s been their M.O. The Big East tends to look at markets more than anything else. It’s probably why they rejected Penn State in the 1980s.
However, I’m not sure I agree regarding NC’s population. North Carolina is tenth in population in the United States (9.5 million), not much less than Georgia or Michigan. Two of the AQ schools (Duke & Wake Forest) are private universities, so they don’t really “count” in terms of needing North Carolina’s population to support them (I know that Duke gets a lot of students from the northeast).
Having said that, I think ECU is ignored in part because it has football “and that’s it” regarding athletics. Southern Miss might be the same (don’t know enough about ’em). Both do have the problem of being overshadowed by bigger programs in the state and being in small markets, as you mentioned.
I’m a little surprised they didn’t get Memphis … yes, the football stinks, but it’s in a big market and has a very good basketball program. I’m not sure anyone can really understand the philosophy (is there any?) of the Big East re: expansion.
Big East = Conference USA Part Duex
Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS
If Memphis football weren't so terrible
They’d be in; the Big East still is thinking adding schools mostly for basketball isn’t necessary, and doesn’t want to add someone likely to go 0-8 in conference football for years. As long as Louisville and UConn don’t leave (and they probably will, but no invites have gone out yet), that’s reasonable; right now the Big East basketball tournament is arguably more difficult than the NCAA tournament.
The folks are wrong
That’s the mistake a lot of the talking-heads have been making with this… Size of the city the stadium is in has very little to do with the true value of said member instituation. Best reporting on this disconnect was perhaps done by the NYT. They not only looked at the city size, but google searches on the university…. Some interesting results of this show that NYC is a college football town, just not a Rutgers town, the support though is split between a wide varity of major headliners. It also showed that dispite being in a small populous state Alabama has extreme value. And for note Houston and SMU were very poorly represented in this, with each near the bottom of C-USA. The NYT results match very well with general TV ratings. And this would match the failure of the WAC 2.0 18 member conference or Metro conference to attract good TV contracts. TV executives don’t care what size the city your in… They care what kind of ratign you can pull.
RIP SDSU Hoops
Fire Bud Black.
Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. -- Vince Lombardi
by Sam (sdsuaztec4) on Dec 6, 2011 5:47 PM PST reply actions
For what its worth
The UT is reporting that SDSU was “assured” 4 OOC games against the Big East each season.
Still feeling this is knee jerk
I’ll say it again… Let those with wanderlust leave… I’ve got to say I’m a little surprised by SDSU’s move, but let’s not forget the SDSU up until last year was one of those schools at the bottom of the conference.
But let’s stop with the foolishness… As for those saying MWC should have done this, or that and it would have kept Utah, BYU, or TCU that’s stupid. First let’s be clear that the Big Ten, PAC-12, SEC, and Big 12 moves were not influenced by what was going on with the MWC. Those four make moves in relation to each other without influence by any other conferences. TCU’s clear goal since ‘96 has to been to join Big 12 with it former SWC conference mates. Utah while not as explicit was clear in its intention to be the head of the class, like the Arizona schools in the late-70’s, and like said desert schools was given the chance of a lifetime. There is nothing that the MWC could have done to stop those two from taking those opportunities. BYU’s story is far more complicated, but BYU started down the path on independence a long time ago. I think once Utah left they wanted to explore this and get special treatment, like what they tried with the Big East.
TCU was unavoidable
but Utah and BYU may not have been
the MWC could have been like the early Big 12, expanded and ran by Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Optimistic thinking...
but in the big scheme of things… the MWC and “BCS Busters” has been a sideshow taking attention away from what was really happening. And that was the conglomeration of power by the SEC, Big 10, and ACC. The PAC 10 was outside of this, but due to their commish seeing which way the wind was blowing (plus having a pretty significant distance and mentality buffer from those big three conferences) it has survived and prospered. The Big 12 got poached, and the BE was decimated. Now we are hearing all the talk about AQs being done away with… which is interesting seeing where the ranked teams are going now. So after the change we probably will see 3 to 4 SEC teams making these big BCS style bowls, several teams from the B1G, and maybe one or two from the ACC. BE will get left out, non-AQs will not be represented (BCS busters are all in the big conferences now), and the PAC will still have a strangle hold on the Rose bowl.
So even if the MWC had taken those teams and gotten a slightly larger TV deal… the tectonic changes in the big (and big money) conferences would have made those decisions meaningless. We still would have seen the changes in membership.
No way
Once Larry Scott took over the PAC was going to 12 (only holding it back was the old commish)… Colorado was a natural choice at it came close to joining back in 1996, except Boulder had already committed to the then new Big 12. Colorado wasn’t comming alone and Utah was the obvious partner for Colorado. Geographically it fits, it is a state flagship univerisity with good academics and strong research, and it had improve its athletics to be competitive. There is not other university that really could match what Utah brought. No way ever could the MWC go from splitting off from the WAC to havign the same TV drawing power as the PAC in a short 10 yrs or so. As you saw the PAC immediately after the Colorado/Utah admision got hte biggest TV contract out there. To suggest Utah would pass that up is delusional.
And once Utah left BYU wasn’t sticking around… It has jsut lost its primary focus and rival and had/has a unique vision to athletics. In fact it is my belief even with Utah staying BYU would have eventually left the conference. The LDS church and the university have made it clear that they have a difference vision, one that really isn’t compatible to being in a conference. They want to use BYU athletics as an extension of the church thru BYUtv. For that they need to have the rights to rebroadcast worldwide every game at a minimum, and likely retain TV rights fro non-conference home games. As you saw with he Big East negotionations that isn’t compatible with being in a conference… Rember BYU is a unique entity, even more so than Notre Dame, due to the connection to the church and the goals of the church.
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