Re: Is Homogeneity Of Membership Good Or Bad?
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Bill Marsh wrote:You're absolutely right, Warrior. The Big East is more stable today than it was 10 years ago. Just to be clear, stability is not the issue for me, long term earning power is.
I don't see West Virginia, or UConn, or Kansas, or any other football school coming to the Big East. Those days are over. If the Big 12 implodes, the remnants will likely form a new all sports conference with the best of the American. At least, that's how I see it.
I agree with you, Bill. But, let's look at the possibility of three schools being left behind in the Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor (as an example). Those three, coupled with BYU/Colorado State/Houston/SMU/Tulsa/Memphis/Cincinnati/UCF/USF still isn't getting a Big 12 deal. I find it hard that this group evens gets a substantial bump from the current AAC deal. Would it be more financially viable, then, for certain football programs to go independent (BYU, ISU, KSU, BU, UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, BYU, UMass) and have a defacto "Independent" scheduling agreement? Those schools then would park Olympics in more regional-based conferences, thus saving money on travel and other expenses.
FBS Independence, today - IMHO, is a death-sentence for a football program. However, there was a point in time where many successful football programs were independents. If there was a collaborative decision from a handful of schools to go that route (thus keeping all TV revenue for themselves regionally for any football games), it *could* end up being a better financial decision for these types of schools, rather than being in a national G5 conference where you are sending your teams all over the place in hopes of getting a lottery ticket out.
Again, I'm not saying this will happen, but I do think more athletic programs need to have alternative methods of success for FBS football, rather than - especially for AAC/G5 schools - hoping for the best and praying against the worst.