Conference Realignment: What Next?

[MullinMayhem]

Of course it makes no sense geographically, but these arguments are long gone in terms of conferences. At the end of the day, college hoops is a big business. It's all about eyeballs, money, new TV deals, and power. This is not 1826...the traveling can be worked out with planes. I don't understand why some think it's such a huge deal to fly 6 hours a few times in a season with how much money programs will have with adding them. This is all about money, and adding Gonzaga will get us a lot more. If we don't make moves like this, we're allowing other conferences to become better. We need to do everything we can to keep up.

[butlerguy03]

Of course it makes no sense geographically, but these arguments are long gone in terms of conferences. At the end of the day, college hoops is a big business. It's all about eyeballs, money, new TV deals, and power. This is not 1826...the traveling can be worked out with planes. I don't understand why some think it's such a huge deal to fly 6 hours a few times in a season with how much money programs will have with adding them. This is all about money, and adding Gonzaga will get us a lot more. If we don't make moves like this, we're allowing other conferences to become better. We need to do everything we can to keep up.

Absolutely. Geography, butts-in-seats, and market size are irrelevant.

Eyeballs and value to cable/streaming is all that matters. The ability to tag along with the Football Five, should they decide to do their own thing, should be considered as well.

[Hall2012]

Of course it makes no sense geographically, but these arguments are long gone in terms of conferences. At the end of the day, college hoops is a big business. It's all about eyeballs, money, new TV deals, and power. This is not 1826...the traveling can be worked out with planes. I don't understand why some think it's such a huge deal to fly 6 hours a few times in a season with how much money programs will have with adding them. This is all about money, and adding Gonzaga will get us a lot more. If we don't make moves like this, we're allowing other conferences to become better. We need to do everything we can to keep up.

Absolutely. Geography, butts-in-seats, and market size are irrelevant.

Eyeballs and value to cable/streaming is all that matters. The ability to tag along with the Football Five, should they decide to do their own thing, should be considered as well.

Anyone can provide value to cable/streaming when they're winning. But what happens if the wins dry up? At least those other things can raise the floor a bit.

[butlerguy03]

Of course it makes no sense geographically, but these arguments are long gone in terms of conferences. At the end of the day, college hoops is a big business. It's all about eyeballs, money, new TV deals, and power. This is not 1826...the traveling can be worked out with planes. I don't understand why some think it's such a huge deal to fly 6 hours a few times in a season with how much money programs will have with adding them. This is all about money, and adding Gonzaga will get us a lot more. If we don't make moves like this, we're allowing other conferences to become better. We need to do everything we can to keep up.

Absolutely. Geography, butts-in-seats, and market size are irrelevant.

Eyeballs and value to cable/streaming is all that matters. The ability to tag along with the Football Five, should they decide to do their own thing, should be considered as well.

Anyone can provide value to cable/streaming when they're winning. But what happens if the wins dry up? At least those other things can raise the floor a bit.

That's why you add programs, not players or coaches. Gonzaga is a HUGE risk, but maybe one worth it right now.

Programs, not teams. Just because a school has been ranked the last 2 years doesn't mean it is sustainable. Butler, Creighton, Xavier, and Gonzaga were/are programs that defied losing steam over decades, avoiding that dreaded move back down to mid-major status like VCU, Wichita, or George Mason.

[UD Flyer Fanatic]

Trying to keep my UD bias in check, I'd take Gonzaga first in a heartbeat if I were the commissioner of the BE. I think travel can be managed- though it's easy to underestimate the travel impact on the BE non-revenue sports which would be a challenge.

I think SLU and UD would then be tied for #2- and would take both (and maybe a 3rd if that made sense) if I were making the call. I'd value the similar profiles to the BE core.

One factoid that is relevant (and admitting to showing my UD bias here)- and I give credit for this observation to the publisher of our UD pride website: "it's rare and special for a non P6 MBB program to participate exclusively in the 4-5 Tier-1 in-season basketball tournaments on an annual basis. Even solid BCS schools slip into a second-tier tourney now and again. Not Dayton. We have standing invitations every four years to the tournaments only Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan State agree to play in.... There's maybe only 20 programs in the country that receive this exclusive "members only" access every year to the best tourneys, and a bigly part of the reason is the cabbage Dayton fans bring to these events. Money talks and butts in the seats makes for good TV.

[Hall2012]

Dayton fans certainly travel well and I applaud them for that. It absolutely addresses a need of those early season tournament, of which even the best struggle to draw because of the travel time and expenses necessary to get to them. It is impressive, I just don't see it as much of a selling point for expansion because it doesn't address any sort of a Big East need. The tournament already sells out every sesssion and the majority of our teams easily fill their buildings. As for the ones that don't...well Seton Hall used to be there and I'll just say that getting overrun by UConn and Syracuse fans at the time didn't make the atmosphere better - it ruined it. Nobody will ever get excited about a large contingent of visiting fans showing up to their building. So I'm open to be convinced, but while I agree that Dayton fans travel well, at this point I see it as more of a minor plus rather than a big selling point.

[kayako]

There's no way something likes this got leaked to people marginally connected to Gonzaga (podcaster, some St. Mary's fan who is allegedly friends with Randy Bennett, Pepperdine PA guy, etc,,) while the likes of Rothstein and Goodman are kept in the dark. Oh, and that Boise tease turned out to be facilities upgrade. We can all relax now

[kayako]

One factoid that is relevant (and admitting to showing my UD bias here)- and I give credit for this observation to the publisher of our UD pride website: "it's rare and special for a non P6 MBB program to participate exclusively in the 4-5 Tier-1 in-season basketball tournaments on an annual basis. Even solid BCS schools slip into a second-tier tourney now and again. Not Dayton. We have standing invitations every four years to the tournaments only Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan State agree to play in.... There's maybe only 20 programs in the country that receive this exclusive "members only" access every year to the best tourneys, and a bigly part of the reason is the cabbage Dayton fans bring to these events. Money talks and butts in the seats makes for good TV.

Dayton gets in those MTEs because the A10 stinks. Saint Joes was just in an event with Kansas, Gonzaga, and Auburn.

[Omaha1]

Any addition to the Big East needs to make us better. Gonzaga does that. Dayton does not.

Moving on.

[UD Flyer Fanatic]

Sorry I wasted your time Omaha. I'll try to do better. Other than Gonzaga and ND, I doubt that any other team meets your standard.