Where there's smoke....

[FlyerFan]

I don't buy the Richmond rumors. Seems way out of left field.

I still believe the five joining are going to be Xavier, Dayton, Butler, SLU, and Creighton

Then where does the 6th lacrosse team come from?

The decision on who to add or not is going to have nothing to do with lacrosse. Why do people keep bringing up lacrosse? Revenue sports are the worlds in which decisions revolve.

As far as lacrosse goes, here are the solutions:
1) One of the non BE 7 adds lacrosse upon joining;
2) A school is recruited to play lacrosse as an 'affiliate' member of the new conference (this is very common throughout college sports for nonrevenue sports);
3) The lacrosse schools join another conference as affiliate members for lacrosse;
4) Lacrosse is shut down.

[yorost]

No way lacrosse is shut down. It's a sport that has been gaining steam in recent years. Besides, are any sports going to get shuttered in this? Part of the point of all of this is to have the money to be able to have better athletic departments.

As someone said, Butler is a good bet to bring lacrosse back with the influx of money. I'd like to see DePaul add it, too.

[aughnanure]

Unless Gonzaga, BYU, and Notre Dame (been rumored more talk is emerging) make it interesting I think:

SLU, Creighton, Xavier and Butler are all in. The final spot comes down to VCU, Richmond, or Dayton...unless there's a sleeper emerging somewhere we can't see.

[sandw04]

DePaul is not likely to add a sport like Lacrosse due to constraints on facilities.

Richmond, however, seems to me to be a solid addition. Keep in mind that the new conference will primarily be about the ability to draw butts in front of TV screens. As far as the quality of men's basketball, DePaul really sucks right now. Will that be the case in 5 years or so? No one knows. But will Chicago still be a major TV market? For sure and it will also be a location where many alumni from different colleges call home.

If inclusion into the new conference was based solely on the current quality of men's basketball, they Richmond would be out. I have no reservations about Creighton, and they have a great men's team with great tradition and a great following out in Omaha. But Richmond offers at least 3 things that Creighton cannot offer to the new conference: 1) a larger TV market 2) an eastern geographic location, as the newer members all seem to be west of the 5 eastern members of the C7 3) Richmond is a private, but non-Catholic institution, giving the new conference at least a tad bit more private and more secular appearance.

A conference divided into eastern and western divisions with 12 schools would look like this: EAST Providence, St. Johns, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, Richmond WEST (2 of: St. Louis/Creighton/Dayton), DePaul, Marquette, Butler, Xavier.

IMO the new conference will not include any BCS football schools due to lack of stability. That eliminates Cincy and UCONN. I also believe it eliminates non-BCS schools that are public institutions like VCU and Wichita State, as the appeal of the new conference will be as a private school league.

JMO, I have been reading this board for a few weeks, just joined, and think having this board is a great idea.

[jkc_dawgs]

Butler is spending money all over campus, and rumor has it that they are soon going to build a basketball facility. Butler has little money to spend. You probably won't see the lacrosse program come from BU.

[SixTwentySix]

I don't buy the Richmond rumors. Seems way out of left field.

I still believe the five joining are going to be Xavier, Dayton, Butler, SLU, and Creighton

Then where does the 6th lacrosse team come from?

The decision on who to add or not is going to have nothing to do with lacrosse. Why do people keep bringing up lacrosse? Revenue sports are the worlds in which decisions revolve.

As far as lacrosse goes, here are the solutions:
1) One of the non BE 7 adds lacrosse upon joining;
2) A school is recruited to play lacrosse as an 'affiliate' member of the new conference (this is very common throughout college sports for nonrevenue sports);
3) The lacrosse schools join another conference as affiliate members for lacrosse;
4) Lacrosse is shut down.

People bring up lacrosse because it matters. Volleyball matters. Men's and Women's soccer matters. No, they're not nearly as big of a concern as basketball, but they matter. It's called an athletic department, not a basketball department. And these schools will try to make every sport happy, it's their goal.

Getting a team like Butler and Xavier to add sports is possible, but costs a lot of money, time, and effort. Scholarships, staff, recruiting, a ton of planning, scheduling, equipment, not to mention the legal side and paperwork. You don't just throw a switch and you have a team. Joining as, or bringing in, affiliate membership is a bit easier but still a massive headache, plus now you're juggling more conferences for multiple sports each year. The simplest solution would be to get a school that already has the sport, and then you're done.

I stress things like lacrosse because it blows my mind how many people on these forums think the only thing that matters is how many times a teams been to the final four. Like every decision revolves around a tournament resume. It's ignorant (Not you FlyerFan, your list of solutions made sense, I'm just making a point). And people need to stop having this dream that all 10 or 12 teams will be amazing and have a winning record, it's not possible. Every conference has teams at the top and teams at the bottom, that's just how it works.

The main things that the C7 are looking for are potential and contribution. Strong all around schools with at least a solid basketball program/history. They wont pick a team over another because it has one more sweet sixteen, a cooler mascot, or hotter cheerleaders (although the last one isn't a bad idea).

/end rant

[jkc_dawgs]

I can tell you that Butler doesn't have that many hot cheerleaders.

[SixTwentySix]

I can tell you that Butler doesn't have that many hot cheerleaders.

lol

[Eight Legger]

Sorry if this is a duplicate post, as I don't see my original response anywhere. But my basic point was that if things come down to UR needing to make a certain financial commitment in order to be in this league, then we're in. We're already spending $15M+ to renovate the Robins Center after this year and renovate an adjacent gym into a basketball practice facility. We certainly have the resources to come up with more money if needed, especially for this cause.

I'm also becoming a little more curious about our decision to go D1 in lacrosse next year – something that was pretty unpopular with many on campus because adding it caused us to axe men's soccer and cross country/track. However, I'm now wondering if the administration did so with this very scenario in mind in part at the urging of someone like a Georgetown? Perhaps not with any assurance that we'd be in if we did so, but with the understanding that we would look more attractive if we had it. I have no idea if lacrosse plays a role in this or not, but adding things up makes me feel that it might for us.

I think someone's point on another thread here makes sense as it relates to us and VCU – if the league wants this market, then it can probably get it by picking either of us. Does the value that VCU brings so far outweigh the value of what UR brings that it would be worth making VCU the ONLY public school in the league and having to open all league books to FOIA stuff? I would suspect not.

[Bluejay]

Joining as, or bringing in, affiliate membership is a bit easier but still a massive headache, plus now you're juggling more conferences for multiple sports each year.

I don't think that affiliate memberships are that big of a deal or that hard to put together. In the MVC, we recently voted to add Dallas Baptist, a strong baseball program, as an affiliate member for baseball only. Northern Iowa is a affiliate member of some other conference for wrestling. Creighton is an affiliate member of the WCC for crew.

Because these sports are not revenue generators, conferences don't seem to be all that concerned if a school pops out or in for that nonrevenue sport. They have a big problem however, if their conference members try to move the revenue sports. For example, the WCC will never allow Gonzaga to move only their basketball program to the new conference, but if Gonzaga wanted to move crew, the WCC probably couldn't care less.

I suspect an easy fix to lacrosse would be to just recruit another school for an affiliate membership. If you only need one, it shouldn't be that difficult to find one.