Conference realignment discussion - v. 2015

[jaxalum]

I think you are referring to Muddy Waters on the A-10 board. He finally gave up the day X went to the BE without his Flyers. A Basement check in Dayton revealed no bodies.

And let's face it, Fox (after approval from the President's) will decide who would join anyway. It's all about the money and they will have to cough it up if they want to expand.

that's right. I did suspect that Muddy was KYFlyer from the older A10 forum though. Our fine conference brethren have no idea what they would be getting themselves into if that guy set up shop here.

[Xudash]

Lmfao the witch hunt is on. Xavier posters want to out anyone that's a Dayton fan. Who cares this is getting really sad.

This is a Big East board.

It can easily be argued that a number of UD fans are spending way too much time here.

Fans of other Big East schools - Big East fans of schools other than Xavier - are noting in this thread that UD fans are annoying. You can LMFAO all you want, but, as a UD fan, you should remember your place here.

Dayton fans have come onto this board attempting to take shots at Xavier. Are you that stupid that you think that will go unchecked on this board? And do you understand that, as a UD fan, you absolutely are on the outside looking in? If you're gig now is to begin taking direct shots at Xavier posters here, that isn't going to work out very well for you.

[Xudash]

On that note, to all our new Creighton friends, it must be a relief that Wichita State fans aren't attempting to make any connection with WSU pursuing a Big East invite. Imagine what it might be like if WSU fans were hanging around here as much as our friends from our Little Brother.

[Gopher+RamFan]

I would not add VCU but would be open to WSU as its rabid fan base which will support a coaching change like Dayton.

You would support WSU, not VCU because of fan support? VCU has had the most fans in the A10 tournament (yes beating out the vaunted Dayton fans - even though they were there #2 seed) since joining the league each year. VCU has shown it will travel to New York, it is on the East Coast and is higher rated academically (#157, in the same range as SJU).

Not supporting coaching changes? VCU has made the right hire 3 times straight (Capel, Grant, Smart) each time the candidate had no head coaching experience. VCU is completing a $25 million practice facility in September, and by far carries the Richmond market (University of Richmond offers "buy one get one free" tickets, VCU has sold out 66 straight games - since before the Final Four).

If people think Dayton fans are annoying on here, wait until Wichita St. Fans show up.

[R Jay]

I would not add VCU but would be open to WSU as its rabid fan base which will support a coaching change like Dayton.

You would support WSU, not VCU because of fan support? VCU has had the most fans in the A10 tournament (yes beating out the vaunted Dayton fans - even though they were there #2 seed) since joining the league each year. VCU has shown it will travel to New York, it is on the East Coast and is higher rated academically (#157, in the same range as SJU).

Not supporting coaching changes? VCU has made the right hire 3 times straight (Capel, Grant, Smart) each time the candidate had no head coaching experience. VCU is completing a $25 million practice facility in September, and by far carries the Richmond market (University of Richmond offers "buy one get one free" tickets, VCU has sold out 66 straight games - since before the Final Four).

If people think Dayton fans are annoying on here, wait until Wichita St. Fans show up.

+1
Especially on the WCC fans.

[billyjack]

I have no problem with Dayton, but our conference mates come first, so I support Xavier first.

This also applies to other nearby rivals:
Villanova with Temple, St Joe's, and La Salle.
St John's with Manhattan, Fordham and Iona.
PC with URI. I'm good with Holy Cross, different state.
Creighton with Wichita (former rivals).
Georgetown with George Washington.
etc.

[MUBoxer]

I like the old conspiracies that Dayton wasn't going to get in because there's a "Jesuit mafia" of Georgetown, Marquette, Xavier and Creighton that was going to pass them up for another Jesuit University like SLU or Gonzaga.

[sheg]

I'm an unabashed Dayton fan, and I love reading this thread. It's hilarious, all this sniping between Dayton and Xavier fans. None of it matters much, as the crap here is inconsequential to the powers that be that will decide these type of things. I don't think we'll even hear publicly about any expansion talk until spring of 2016 at the earliest, so everyone is tilting at windmills.

Just a few thoughts:

1) someone mentioned the Muddy Waters poster. He should be banned on sight from any message board about any topic ever. He is the worst poster in the whole world. If his post is strictly factual, he's ok, because he does research, color codes and charts and images and...never mind. The bad outweighs the good by orders of magnitude.

2) I THINK that everyone here overweights the "market" (maybe the presidents and Fox and ADs feel otherwise, of course). But any talk about Dayton market size (which is deceptive because the Dayton MARKET is bigger than the Dayton DMA) or overlapping with Cincinnati are really moot points. We're not talking about huge land grant schools with billions of alumni and lots of t-shirt fans that can demand premium carriage rates like the big ten network can in its member states. It's why Pitt would never be a candidate for the B1G, despite being an academic fit and better athletics than Rutgers - it's because they deliver precisely ZERO premium-rate subscribers to the BTN (because of PSU).

That thinking doesn't apply to the BE. These aren't schools that draw the eyeballs like the big state schools, and that's not an insult. Those schools have tons of t-shirt fans (people that aren't otherwise affiliated with a school) that the privates will never have in the same numbers.

Fox Sports is doing the same business model that all other sports nets are doing - providing live sports action - one thing that actually attracts advertising dollars. In today's world of DVRs and skipping commercials and streaming Hulu, two types of TV are still primarily watched live: news and sports. You don't need ginormous ratings to have an especially valuable audience, as long as they're captive, and they are for live sports.

3) I THINK that there is truth to what was rumored two years ago re: the Fox contact regarding number of teams. This is simply common sense: 20% more teams equals 20% more inventory equals 20% more pay. Maybe Fox decides they've got enough inventory and won't pony up, but I'd be surprised (and we can't disprove a negative).

4) NOBODY in the BE is "delivering a market." There's simply too much competition from football and hockey and the NBA and the big state schools and people that don't like sports (shocking I know). And all candidates have that same drawback. "Overlapping markets" is simply silly. If anything, intense rivalries (which are often due to close proximity) DRAW more eyeballs than the sum of their parts.

To be continued...

[sheg]

5) Others have mentioned the appeal of watching a game on TV where the stands are full. If I'm flipping channels and see a close game where the fans are going nuts, it's more likely to grab my attention. Attendance is not a game-changer, but it's not nothing.

6) expanding to 12 does two things that matter a lot to a conference: add a second session to day one of the conference tournament (and the associated revenue and tv rights); and increases the PERCENTAGE of bids. Without rehashing the jpschmack posts, he's right about one thing: more members, all consistently winning 70% or better of their non-con games, puts more conference members in the tourney. The A10 proved it last year- .700 non-con, 6/13 members in. The previous year .650, 5/16.

The most important factor in getting more bids though is one I don't mentioned a lot: having more teams in increases the chance that one or more makes a deep run...and THAT'S where respect and (future) ratings come from.

Let's say the BE will always get 60% of its teams in. 6/10 or 7/12, rarely 8? Sure, team 7 will be an 11 seed, but 11 seeds make deep runs too. Not as often, certainly, but enough to offset occasional bad luck or bad refs or bad matchups.

So, assuming that expansion is on the radar in the next two years, you need two schools that win a lot of non-con games. You need schools that show well on Tv and can garner national respect when warranted. You need schools with large, active fan bases that can travel, especially to MSG. Ideally, you need good geographic and institutional fits. You need respectable performance in other sports (a very small factor). You need financially sound programs that have shown the institutional commitment to competing at the highest level.

Dayton checks all those boxes, even B.A. (before Archie), and even more so now. Take them, don't take them, whatever, it's out of my (and your) hands. There's lots of reasons why it might not happen:

1) there's no expansion anytime soon
2) a Jesuit conspiracy against Marianist Dayton (although I think that's silly too)
3) a Xavier conspiracy (again, mostly silly - the regional competition for recruits and students makes some sense though)
4) it's SLU and Richmond because somebody insists that an East Coast member be taken
5) the moon is in Sagittarius the day the vote is taken.

Who knows. I want Dayton in the Big East. Know why? Selfish reasons. I want season tickets to Georgetown instead of George Washington, Villanova instead of Lasalle, SJU instead of Fordham, the others instead of the others, and the closest geographic rivals to be Xavier and Butler instead of SLU and Duquesne.

I also want the worst team in my conference to be 150 RPI instead of 270. I want 3/4ths in the top 100 instead of half, and half in the top 50. I want my team to go 10-2 non-con like it does every year, then play in a respectable conference where winning it gets a 1 or 2 seed, 12-6 gets you a 4 seed, 9-9 gets you in the dance.

Maybe I won't get my wish. The A10 is still a good conference, but the Big East is a few steps up the ladder.

[Butlerfan28]

I think that "Brand" should be top priority if any team is ever added. We are trying to build a brand that is respected nationwide. Had we not collapsed in the NCAA, we would've been much closer to that goal. But it was still a net positive. Most schools seem to be a positive trajectory with maybe Creighton being the only question mark. B12 had a bad NCAA tourney but no-one is going to realistically question their pedigree. We need to aim for that same stature.

You can't build a brand without a clear and credible brand image you are trying to communicate. That requirement is a fundamental of brand building. So the first question is what is your brand image and the second is what is are the facts credible to support that brand.

Currently the brand is a mix of private, Catholic, highly rated colleges and schools that excel in basketball. Given our performance in the tournament and our refusal to add public schools were are trending towards the former and not the later.