Conference realignment discussion - v. 2015

[stever20]

We should definitely keep an eye on Davidson. Half an hour outside of Charlotte. Interesting when you compare Charlotte's market to other Big East cities' markets.

1. New York
3. Chicago
4. Philadelphia
7. Washington D.C.
22. Charlotte
27. Indianapolis
35. Milwaukee
36. Cincinnati
52. Providence

http://www.tvb.org/media/file/2015-2016-dma-ranks.pdf

UNC, Duke, NCState and Wake Forest and Charlotte all probably have a much, much larger share of that market than Davidson though.

But being in that market makes us more valuable because that means their cable providers will have to put FS1 in the basic sports package and that makes Fox more money and in turn us more money during the next contract negotiations.

Butler isn't the #1 team in Indianapolis but they get us in that market. Same with any of us with a large and popular state school. I bet there are more Ohio State fans in Cincy than X fans, or more maryland fans in DC than GTown or PSU fans in Philly than Nova fans. It doesn't matter when the TV negotiations start, it gets us into another top 25 TV market.

Disagree with you with Georgetown- I think it's probably at least 60/40 Georgetown. Frankly maybe even closer to 70/30. And would think for basketball in Philly- not only Nova but Temple as well are bigger than Penn St. (Gumby?)

[falcon]

Big East should stay with the private school/no big football theme, if they decide to expand. Ten schools works fine at present. If they go to 12, I'd guess it would be Dayton and SLU, with Dayton being placed in the East division. Davidson has great basketball, but has a very small student population, and would bring few followers to the post-season tournament.

[NJRedman]

Big East should stay with the private school/no big football theme, if they decide to expand. Ten schools works fine at present. If they go to 12, I'd guess it would be Dayton and SLU, with Dayton being placed in the East division. Davidson has great basketball, but has a very small student population, and would bring few followers to the post-season tournament.

No divisions! Why do people keep saying divisions? Do you know how many D1 conferences have divisions in BBall? 2, the MAC and OVC. Why would we go down that path? Every conference is moving away from them in basketball because they don't work.

People, stop suggesting divisions. It's never EVER going to happen.

[falcon]

Why do you keep insisting divisions don't work? Which conferences with 12 schools do not have two divisions? If the big east went to twelve schools, to play everyone home and away would total 22 games. With two divisions, it would be 16 games, leaving far more room for tournaments, playing other power conference schools, and keeping some local rival games. Conferences like the mountain west have one division because they have only 11 schools for basketball. In football, where they have 12 members, they have two divisions. Not complicated.

[stever20]

Why do you keep insisting divisions don't work? Which conferences with 12 schools do not have two divisions? If the big east went to twelve schools, to play everyone home and away would total 22 games. With two divisions, it would be 16 games, leaving far more room for tournaments, playing other power conference schools, and keeping some local rival games. Conferences like the mountain west have one division because they have only 11 schools for basketball. In football, where they have 12 members, they have two divisions. Not complicated.

in basketball- there aren't divisions- except for like 1-2 smaller conferences....

Also not going back to 16 games. In men's basketball of the top 20 conferences, only like 2 play 16 games- and those 2 have only 9 teams so 16 is round robin. Would hurt the SOS to lose 2 league games. Also would hurt the tv inventory.

If/when we expand, it'll remain at 18 games. Just won't be round robin any longer.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Divisions are better for football - basketball, not so much. In football, when you only have 8-9 conference games to schedule, divisions come in handy to piece schedules together. In basketball, when you can have double the amount of conference games, divisions don't matter as much. Heck, when the old Big East had 16 members in basketball, they still didn't use divisions.

[SHOCKvalue]

Their as good as their current coach and have made it past the Elite 8 1 time in the last 30+ years. Great pedigree.

Sorry, felt compelled to register and respond here.

I would not argue that WSU is an institutional fit in the BE. WSU is primarily an engineering and business school, and one that allows most comers a chance at a college education, many from a first generation perspective. It is an extremely diverse school, from both a socio-economic and racial perspective. Alternatively, the BE is populated primarily by highly-selective schools who cater mostly in the liberal arts and humanities. Oil and water, essentially. To say nothing for the private versus public contrast, which is obvious.

Anyways, for perspective here's how WSU would fall in the competitive context of the BE. If you would like a source link please ask, as these are real numbers. All figures are out of a total of 11, due to the purely conceptual, never-happening WSU BE inclusion. There is a lot of data compiled here, but I am a numbers and stats guy both by education and by profession, so it is all entertainment to me.

Men's Basketball Spending
$5,607,186
9th out of 11 MBB programs
BE median = $6,755,143
WSU's figure does not include the additional ~$1.5M coming into the program with Gregg Marshall's new contract that will increase total spending next reporting year. With that extra $1.5M included, WSU would land 6th out of 11 programs, and above your conference median. With FS income like you BE guys get I'm not sure what the equivalence would be, but based on the spike in spending I noted with Creighton (MVC to BE transition) I would guess that to be another $1M-$1.5M in MBB spending, so apples to apples in the grand hypothetical, WSU would land somewhere around 4th or 5th out of 11 based on current baseline.

Overall Athletic Department Revenues
$22,667,859
7th out of 11 athletic departments
BE median = $25,538,605
Again, the above $22.7M figure does not include the new ~$1.5M coming in to the WSU AD due to the new coaching contract, nor the ~$4M per annum (?) you BE guys get from the FS contract. If you did add them in, then WSU would land in the 4th or 5th spot in overall AD spending in the BE. WSU outpaces the three schools you added in 2013 by roughly $4.5-$6M in overall annual AD spending, and that's after those schools have absorbed the FS BE money.

Arena Seating Capacity
10,506
9th out of 11 arenas (or 7th out of 11 if SHU and Nova are in their smaller on-campus venues)
The city of Wichita does have a 15K seat downtown arena (where WSU plays one "home" exhibition-type game per year), but history, game atmosphere, and sentimentality keeps WSU basketball in their on-campus venue otherwise. Koch Arena carries the same meaning and weight to WSU stakeholders as Hinkle Fieldhouse does to Butler.

Average Home Attendance
10,806
3rd out of 11 fan bases
WSU's average attendance is greater than our arena capacity due to the single off-campus "home" game each season in a larger venue. This attendance level is not a spike due to current program success, it is more of a constant. In the darks ages of the 1990's (for WSU MBB) attendance was still in the 7K-8K range.

NCAA Tournament Appearances
12 appearances
10th out of 11 (Butler is 9th with 13 appearances)
BE median = 22 appearances

NCAA Tournament Games Won
15 wins
tied for 7th out of 11 with two other BE programs
BE median = 21.5 wins

NCAA Sweet 16's
6 S16's
6th out of 11
BE median = 4

NCAA Elite 8's
4 E8's
tied with one other BE program for 5th out of 11
BE median = 3.5

NCAA Final 4's
2 F4's
tied with four other BE programs for 4th out of 11 (two of your programs have never been to a F4 - Creighton and Xavier)
BE median = 2

Total Appearances in AP Top 25
128 weeks
7th out of 11 teams
WSU betters the three programs added in 2013, plus Seton Hall. Creighton bringing up the rear with essentially half the total AP poll appearances (67) as WSU.

Total Appearances in AP Top 10
61 weeks
6th out of 11 teams
This time, far outpacing the three programs you added in 2013, who combined have just 28 AP top 10 appearances. Creighton in particular has only appeared in the AP top 10 twice in their entire history.

Nielsen DMA Market Ranking
65th Nationally according to Nielsen's 09/26/2015 estimates, with 439,330 "TV Homes"
10th out of 11 media markets
It might surprise you to know that Wichita's media market is bigger than Omaha's (74th nationally), due mostly to a larger geographic footprint.

Carnegie Classification
RU/H: Research University (high research activity)
2nd out of 11 universities
The Carnegie Classification is an objective measure of research activity in higher learning, respective to each university. There are essentially nine classification levels in the Carnegie system, and WSU is considered to reside in the second highest classification. Georgetown (and the majority of P5 schools) has garnered the very highest classification (RU/VH), and four other BE schools have earned the classification just below where WSU resides (DRU). Fully half of your conference is not considered to be a research university, and resides in the much larger (by volume) non-research classifications. This includes the three universities that joined the BE in 2013. This is not an academic relevancy attack, simply objective perspective.

R&D Expenditures (NSF)
$61,388,000
2nd out of 11 universities
BE median = $3,962,500
I was shocked to see how little research activity there is in the BE from a fiscal perspective. Only Georgetown betters WSU in research expenditures (and WSU is not close - GU does almost $180M per annum). Once Georgetown is removed from the total, the remaining BE institutions generate only $74M combined. Remove Georgetown, Creighton (~$30M), and Marquette (~$21M) from the total, and the BE as a whole produces barely $23M in research R&D. Really surprising to me. Again, this is not a criticism on academics at all, but as is said it is "not nothing."

Endowment
$290,500,000
7th out of 11 universities
BE median = $443,350,000
Again, I'm personally surprised WSU is so competitive amongst a group of private Jesuit schools, in the context of retained endowment.

To reiterate, I completely agree - barring major ideological change in the BE - WSU is not and will not in the future be an expansion candidate, but the above hopefully proves to some of you that WSU isn't near the statistical outlier to the current BE membership profile as some would like to believe, save the whole private Jesuit versus public issue (which is a big one). WSU would be middle of the pack in many metrics, and towards the top in a few areas, as contrasted with the current members.

[falcon]

There aren't too many 12 school conferences, anymore. I can think of the Pac 12 and the MAC. Do they use one or two divisions? If they play 18 conference games, it would have to be unbalanced. The advantage of playing more Power Five opponents is getting some of the games on ESPN. At any rate, it's a moot point, unless we expand.

[NJRedman]

Why do you keep insisting divisions don't work? Which conferences with 12 schools do not have two divisions? If the big east went to twelve schools, to play everyone home and away would total 22 games. With two divisions, it would be 16 games, leaving far more room for tournaments, playing other power conference schools, and keeping some local rival games. Conferences like the mountain west have one division because they have only 11 schools for basketball. In football, where they have 12 members, they have two divisions. Not complicated.

Why do I keep on insisting on no divisions? Because conferences stopped doing them a while ago. The Pac doesn't use them at 12, the SEC dropped them while still at 12, the B1G short stop at 12 didn't result in divisions, the ACC at 12 didn't go to divisions...should I keep going? Oh and the Big East went with divisions for a few years then dropped them.

Yeah like I said, no divisions.

[pki1998]

I bet there are more Ohio State fans in Cincy than X fans, or more maryland fans in DC than GTown or PSU fans in Philly than Nova fans. It doesn't matter when the TV negotiations start, it gets us into another top 25 TV market.

I can't speak for the number of Maryland Fans in DC, or Penn State fans in Philly, but this does not hold true in Cincinnati. On the Ohio side of the river there are many more UC and XU fans than OSU fans. On the Kentucky side of the river there are more UK Fans. In fact in the Cincinnati area, OSU is probably the fifth most popular college basketball team behind (Cincinnati, UK, Xavier, and Indiana). Miami (OH) and UD probably have about the same number of fans in Greater Cincinnati.