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This is why trusting message boards and twitter can be misleading. People often have good info, but might not quite have the full picture. Deals such as this one typically have a revenue sharing agreement once thresholds are hit. Ours is no different, it should include this revenue sharing. I think the university admin and Wren did fine with this. It was in the works after RV and before Wren to help fill the gap in our ad sales. Wren took it on once it arrived. The real problem is that the existing folks doing corporate sales have been under performing. If they had been hitting it out of the park the deal wouldn't pencil at 500k annually. With the new agreement we will likely come out ahead by 200k annually in the first few years of this deal. With a school of our size in our market sales should have been much higher in my opinion. I think over time our sales folks have built community ties, but fostered a culture of low payment for sponsorship that became standard in the community. Time to change that line of thinking and I hope this is a first step.

Why would anyone want NMSU in their conference? You people need to quit trying to relive a game that happened over 15 years ago.

Oh Gray, why stop there?? We can take ACU and SFA and maybe A&M Commerce and some of the better high schools. It's a great chance to recreate Southland-style glory!

We should just wait for the big 12 to disintegrate and try to put ourselves in position to step up to that aac caliber conference that forms in its wake.

I have said, for a decade, that we should regionalize our conference and try to form an exclusive partnership with Fox Sports SW (or some network of the like). Begging to be on ESPN12, or being happy when ESPN2 shows a single conference game, has gotten us nowhere. We can survive, and be happier, by building regional interest, and abandoning the "if we can just build or do_X_we can get invited to _X_conference" idea. I don't care if we ever play Texas or Iowa again...I do care that I can't go to watch us play FAU or FIU.

I did a two-parter for my site. http://www.scout.com/college/arkansas-state/story/1770179-the-realignment-craze http://www.scout.com/college/arkansas-state/story/1770314-making-realignment-work I think AState could be a big loser in this because geographic realignment almost certainly takes us out of Alabama. That's one of our top recruiting areas and even though not always our top signing area, it produces many of our top players. Unless AAC gets involved, we are 300 miles from our closest conference opponent no matter which direction things go. The critical difference between G5 and P5 comes from carriage fees. Houston delivers good ratings but there aren't enough people who will call their cable company and cancel service and switch to Dish Network if their cable company doesn't offer the channels carrying most AAC games while Dish does. When Direct and SEC were fighting over contract terms and the season was approaching Dish and Comcast began putting up billboards and sending out direct mail touting they had SEC Network and Direct didn't, Direct soon agreed to terms to carry it. That's what the P5 is getting paid for, their ability to retain and attract paying customers, not the number of viewers. I've been arguing for years the G5 trying to mimic the P5 was foolish, that we should be focusing on regional sports networks and over-the-air syndicated networks with a limited number of weeknight national telecasts.

Paper? Like what fer da terlet?

I really don't see CUSA and the Sun Belt merging as they are now aligned. The problem is that there are a couple or more schools that won't be in conferences with other colleges. You also realize that we almost never kick a university out of a conference once they have been a member. In fact, the only time that I can remember that happening was when Temple was "kicked out" of the Big East. One possibility for realignment is to form a new conference; inviting nearby universities. For example, let's say UTEP, North Texas, Rice, UTSA, LaTech, and Southern Miss resigned from CUSA and formed say, the Southwest Conference. They invited Texas State, Louisiana, Arkansas State and, if UTEP is amenable New Mexico State. We might even talk to Tulsa, Tulane, SMU and Houston. I doubt that we'd get any takers from the last group but we could offer. Although I prefer all-sports conferences, we could even consider UTA and UALR for basketball (or all sports except football). That would be a fairly tight league, especially when compared to the current CUSA and Sun Belt Conferences. The NCAA should allow a little bending of rules since they've created this monster. And yes, I realize that someone holds the Southwest Conference naming rights but it might be worth the cost if the price isn't too high. That would leave 14-16 universities from the two conferences: ULM (appeasing Louisiana Tech), UAB, Troy, South Alabama, Florida Atlantic, FIU, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Marshall, Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, plus the two basketball schools. Eight are from CUSA and eight are from the Sun Belt so they could keep either name or combine them. That way, no one was "kicked out" of their old conference. Maybe we can beat this one to death. Realignment is my favorite over uniforms and scheduling and right up there with recruiting and player progress for off-season topics.

Lived through it during the Big West days. Sucks. Besides the late start you get no coverage in the Sunday papers and Monday is full of Cowboys. Bad deal.

I'll never know what it's like to be a college athlete. But, after season after season of losing, the notion of playing for a proven winner seems, to me, to be a reason to stay. And hope to hang on. Oh, and get an education. GO MEAN GREEN

Agree. Looks to me like we landed a high-quality coaching staff. Turn 'em loose and try to keep 'em happy. Looking forward to returning to the SuperPit this fall after a LONG absence.

12 games, buddy.

And zero coverage on the local news.

I saw this and it causes me concern. Sounds like laziness in the athletic department.

Merger makes a lot of sense. West div and east div with a championship game. You would have one administrative staff so cost there could be cut by 50%! I like the C-USA name.

Utep lost their offense when Jones left. However we seem to struggle against the teams (utep and UTSA) that are run oriented and physical. I think more pieces of the puzzle have been filled for the L man's offense. He went 5-6 with mostly carry over players from a run offense. I know I have the green colored glasses on as a sip the green kool aid on the patio watching Scrappy play the guitar. I say we go 7-4.

Regional rivals are what makes this sport fun. UNT may not be one of the big boys, but it does not mean we can't have a great team that competes in whatever damn conference we are a part of.

Amare Jones, we have offered.

The question is, what d Tulsa, Tulane, $mut, and Houston do? You're right, they'd scoff at the idea, but surely someone at each of those schools realize there is no other option. Or is everyone associated with those schools that disillusioned?

👀👀👀

don't invite ark state just to watch the AD go ballistic again, lol. Ark St would be a good addition. Does this mean we will be playing SFA, Texas State, UTEP, UTSA, SMUT, Tulsa, ULL, LA TECH, ARK St and Lamar, Sam Houston State and Texas Southern? I guess we could play tech, OKS or Oklahoma for money. No much to be excited about but maybe it helps attendance (with the exception of SMU). We help SMUT's home attendance more than they help ours.

The younger amongst us are asking what is a Sunday paper? While I get the argument, times have changed a bit. I turn to the internet for my scores....the same concept that brings us low def "live when not buffering" images of our CUSA games. The late night games on Saturday night are a gas. If North Texas was on late night six times a year, it wouldn't bother me a bit. Now, paying for all of our teams to play in Hawaii or any of the MWC states? Expensive. GMG

So I heard Brice was essentially given his walking papers but Brown wanted to be closer to family. Any truth to this?

Great articles. It would appear that the best, [and perhaps only] chance for CUSA and SBC to realign is when their existing T.V. contracts expire in 2020. I don't see the AAC as a player in any conference changes, and at age 74 hope I live long enough to see common sense dictate action instead of egos. Good luck with that, but in my opinion Wren Baker is a mover and a shaker and could get it done in my lifetime.

"Cooley, you're a good poster and bring good info to this board. I agree that Brice was not utilized properly, and I was hoping he could claim the starting center spot and have his potential maximized under McCasland. That being said, your post in this thread, which you said would be fun to revisit, indicates you thought he'd be an impact guy well before his junior year" I think I said that he would provide about 10 point and 10 rebounds right away. And, could help the team right away Of course no one saw him gaining 40 pounds over the summer (which I since mentioned as well) and was way out of shape. Benford didn't play him for strange reasons his soph year. I don't consider 10 pts and 10 rbs an impact guy. Was hoping/expecting a bigger force in CUSA by his Jr. year. This is what surprises me that he left after Benford. Most other coaches could probably get more out of his size and talent here. We will never know. If Benford (coaching) was the problem why get rid of all the players as well?

Brice was great with the fans and kids. I wish him well where ever plays next. I do hate to lose players but I expected it would happen. Bedford could not win with these guys so I am Ok with the changes. I will be buying season tickets this year to support the new coach.

This is what will happen--no matter what. I don't know that the AAC and MWC will be forced to be on this level, but I expect the SBC, MAC, and CUSA to form their own level of play that includes a playoff system and national championship.

Yes, our weight room was the size of UofH strength coaching staffs offices. Way to small, can't wait to see what they do with that aspect. Any idea how long the timeline is until the drawings for that are released?

Slap on the wrist and a total joke. So you're telling me I don't have to go on the road for 2 years and still get paid? Heck yah, this dude won for sure.

There are still 2 sides, just one of the sides is wrong 100% of the time.

You sure? Has anyone in the AD approached them to see if that's true? I bet Smatresk would still have some buddies over there to work with... kinda like Rawlins helped us get into C-USA.

Yeah, he's a knucklehead, and those are good points. I don't condone the guy's behavior at all. At all. I just am really tired of the entire "gotcha" culture that has been fostered by the internet and cell phones, and "concerned citizens". But yeah--he played himself.

The would be a line up with some nice size!

Well, then they will fit right in with SMU.

Much ado over nothing.

There are a lot of non-NPR public stations. Most either create much of their own programming or carry from alternate sources like American Public Media. A few years back, KERA Fm was pushing some of the less popular public syndicated programs toward KNTU as KERA didn't have the air time but also didn't want another full NPR affiliate in the area. There is also a whole category of non commercial radio stations that "serve the public interest " but aren't affiliated with NPR. For example, KCBI.

KNTU is not a public radio station as in they are not an NPR affiliated station and doesn't get funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

KNTU is a public radio station. They get funding from UNT to basically keep the lights on. The rest of the money to operate the station comes from listeners giving money, and a pretty limited amount of underwriting. At last check, NTTV was on Verizon and Charter -- but only in Denton County. They have started to do a lot more shows centered around UNT sports. When I was there, they could only broadcast the games that weren't already being televised. They aired the Portland State game. I helped on Mac's final Spring Game broadcast on NTTV.

With regards to "buyouts" in an AD's contract .... Does anyone know if this is normal?

Not only have we made great hires, but those individuals have also made great hires. For once when we do loose somebody there is an assistant that could be the next coach or AD! GMG

We need to just keep doing what we are doing and shoot for a better conference than either one of these conferences. The Sunbelt is not a good league. Conference USA is turning into Sunbelt 2.0 already. It wasn't that long ago that Conference USA was to merge with MWC. That obviously didn't happen. UNT is doing all the right things these days in terms of investing in athletics when many of the schools in our league aren't. I for one, for the first time ever have confidence in the university leadership, athletic department leadership, and coaches to work at moving forward towards betters things. I think most of us can agree things are different now.

I hope this is a good thing. I guess the 500k/year is really nice. The one concern I have, is that outsourcing it to a company that may not care what is with UNT media in 15 years could lead to as little investment as possible to maximize the short term. However as the deal itself is 10 years, this may be a bit overly pessimistic.

Maybe Brett saw all the bitching on here and wanted people think how good we might actually have it

when you hire high-level people you will always have this risk

I think too many people use the minuses as a form of "punishment". Too often it seems people get a -1 for no real good reason.

Especially here in the Metroplex. Maybe on a National scale, sure... but here in DFW, no.

Why did the UAB post player not just go up with it when he was open? He literally waited for the defender to collapse on him and took a contested shot. UAB is about too be down five. They need to start pushing it.

I agree. I was hoping to maybe see Tony Mitchel drop for a home game this season. It would be cool to see the previous seasons seniors on opening night the next season. We need a good run of some solid players to return and continue to hep the program grow. I would love to have a new arena in the next decade. If UTA can have a nice new arena I think we can one up them! The only former player I ever see at games is Lyons and that may be just because he was going back to get his degree.