Arkstfan

Let's say 12 teams. That's 11 games. What is going to produce more straight revenue before considering expenses? 11 bowl games with 22 G5 teams or 11 tournament games involving 12 G5 teams? I think the tournament. Instead of playin for 11 trophies, you are playing for one. Half the teams you see playing this Saturday are playing next Saturday and you start recognizing players and coaches and get more engaged. So I think replacing 11 bowl games with 12 game tournament is likely to produce more money while costing less to put on because the participants own the stadium, at least until the final, half the teams aren't traveling. The ones that travel are staying one or two days instead of four. You've got no need for a local ticket selling person in each bowl town, the home team does the hustling to sell tickets. Lower cost more drama. It's made for TV. I was looking at old AState schedules. 1975, 76, 77, 78, 79 we didn't play any traditional "P5" teams (had a game with Cincinnati in there). Looked at y'all and Memphis and USM and other than USM going Bama nearly every year, there just weren't many go to this place, get a check, go home games, most games against the power programs were depending on the school home/home, 2 for 1, 3 for 1, 4 for 1 deals. Oddly the "buy games" I found poking around (clicked a link by accident) was LSU bought a game against WAC member Utah and bought a home game against Pac-8 member Oregon State. When the money got crazy, selling a game to generate revenue became the norm, it just didn't used to be the norm and even an old fart like me had forgotten. The normal buy games you find in that era were things like Tulsa going to Arkansas every year or when A-State was playing in Memphis all the time, you hop on the bus day of the game, play and go home type deals. We may be heading that direction, not because we choose to live within our capacity to self-generate revenue but because TV is going to squeeze Big Ten and SEC for more conference games and more big non-conference games to get that next bump in money. If you get to the point they won't play, I like our chances outdrawing UFL, besides we pay better.

Some musings. First, G5 realignment for efficiency? HAHAHAHA yeah that's been bandied around and ain't no one ever bit on it. I'm very happy with what Sun Belt West looks like, odds are a shuffle gives me something I don't like especially since every let's draw a pretty conference on map nerd out there is convinced Arkansas State belongs in a Texas alignment when its basically same distance to Atlanta as Denton and there's a LOT of schools closer than UNT, the closest G5 in Texas. Now as to a playoff. To quote former Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters when someone asked him if the flavor of the day G5 consortium idea would work, "You only need one network to love you." If you can get CBS, Fox, NBC, or even ABC/ESPN on board to go all-in and carry the bulk of this tournament on over-the-air TV on Saturdays, then it's going to deliver better audiences than virtually every G5 v G5 bowl game that ever existed. Bundling a 7 game or 11 game or even 15 game tournament is going to be more efficient and more marketable than TV rights to a bunch of single game bowls and same for sponsorships. Financially it is more cost effective to send Toledo to Jonesboro on Friday to play Saturday than to send A-State and Toledo both to Montgomery and make them both spend four nights there. You will sell more tickets presumably to UNT hosting Utah State in Denton than you likely sell for the same game in Tucson or Albuquerque. The finances start making sense fairly easily. Here's the critical element to me. Third Saturday in December has long been G5 Bowl-a-Palooza on TV, that's now first weekend of the CFP with one game Friday and three on Saturday. If ESPN bothers to put any bowls that day, they get swamped and they are probably on ESPN2 or ESPNU. Fourth Saturday is likely to be flooded with games like the Liberty Bowl and Alamo Bowl P4 vs P4 games. Again if G5 get that slot, it's probably ESPN2 or ESPNU. Maybe get to play bowl games the Saturday after New Years but the competition isn't just NFL, it's NFL playoff football. The likely outcome is the Texas Twister Tyler Texas Bowl pitting AAC #6 and MAC #3 is going to be played a 2pm on Tuesday before Christmas or such. G5 is likely getting shifted to more weeknight bowl games and maybe more weekday games during work hours. If that's what's coming down the pike, then fine. Find me a network that will commit to Saturday over-the-air broadcasts in addition to cable channel broadcasts during the four Saturdays that CFP isn't playing. Probably best scenario is play one week, take a week off then play the next two in consecutive weeks in a 7 game format. No rocket science involved, top team from each G5 (so four champs plus whomever from the league getting a CFP berth) and three at-large based on whatever arbitrary and senseless ranking one cooks up or if 12 then 7 at-large. Bowls pretty much fade out and coaches getting laurels for 6-6 and 7-5 not so much any more.

Interesting. UALR started as a juco run by Little Rock school district. When the schools got closed as part of the Central High crisis, the district spun it off as a private school so it could stay open. UA-Fort Smith (Division II) was created as a juco by Fort Smith School district before getting its own charter and board as WestArk. Only ones I know of that started by local school districts

Well they aren't going Big XII unless it's a backfill. They will probably be sour about the league losing its big money producers and align with Stanford and Cal trying to block any expansion candidate while holding out for a raid of Big Ten, or SEC or Big 12.

Some Memphis folks think the Tigers would pass on Pac-2 offer. Seems pretty clear Florida State and Clemson are going to leave with just the exit date and cost to be worked out. If they leave seems likely UNC and UVA would leave too. Memphis would be the best candidate to pull up that doesn’t have baggage of an in-state school whining about not elevating them.

The consolidation I’m sure helped but Pan American was a cool name.

You find a network who will give you numbers based on various hypothetical scenarios.

NCAA will no longer include the Pac-12-10=2 as an autonomy conference. If the league survives they'll have same voting power as the G5 leagues. They won't be on the Board of Directors, but will stay part of the Division I Council like the G5 which beats being FCS and non-football who have less representation. The autonomous group have a limited ability to make optional rules (such as full cost of attendance) that the non autonomy can choose to follow but they get no say in those rules. Losing that status and with it the better than G5 independent but not as good as P4 payout from CFP is another blow to Pac-2 having big carrots to offer schools that might make them willing to pay exit fees to join. Supposedly Pac-2 wants Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, UNLV, SDSU and some mix of Memphis, UNT, UTSA, Rice, Tulane. With those advantages eroded, they are going to have to show an impressive media rights deal to successfully raid.

They withdrew. Sort of like Nixon resigning.

Not everyone is going to land in the $EC or B1G. Everyone else is fighting for scraps and needs to figure out who they want as business partners in that endeavor. UTPA/UTRGV ever since being nudged out of the Belt has wanted to be in the Southland. Glad to see them find that fit.

WNIT is 48 teams at campus sites. WBI is 8 teams I think in Florida.

WNIT still do autobids to all conferences? They used to extend invite to the highest rated team from each conference that wasn’t picked by NCAA.

Power Five uh Four uh Two is only tier of professional sports where teams play regular season games against lower tier. NHL doesn’t play AHL, NBA doesn’t play G League, etc I would wager SEC and B1G are leaving money on the table not playing only conference games or only against the other league. Day will come that they’ve bled all revenue sources and that’s last one left and they’ll go that way.

A10 today isn't the A10 of a decade ago or two decades ago. In the past 20 years they've lost Xavier, Temple, Charlotte, Butler, and now UMass.

People act like the NCAA is some independent entity that makes decisions that people gotta live with no matter what they think. Remember. The commissioner of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA are all employees of the owners. They are just the day-to-day managers and they have to keep a majority of the owners happy no matter how good or noble they want to be about their league. Conference commissioners are doing the same role for the university presidents. The NCAA is a complex beast where all are equal but some are more equal than others. Lamar gets more say in how things go than West Texas A&M, UNT gets more say than Lamar, Texas Tech gets more say than than UNT, and while on the organizational chart, Texas Tech has the same say as Texas, we all know that with the SEC and B1G saber rattling, Texas gets more say than Texas Tech. The basic system is UNT and Texas State are simultaneously wanting someone to hold Texas and Texas A&M in check while not making UT and TAMU so mad that they leave. Even West Texas A&M wants the NCAA to not piss off UT and TAMU because they get to be in the NCAA for the price of a token dues payment every year and the NCAA picks up a good piece of the costs for good post-season events for them to compete in. They don't want the NCAA to be like the NAIA where dues are large enough to cover not only the administrative costs of running the organization but also the cost of post-season events. The old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference broke up because NAIA dues were assessed based on enrollment and the larger schools could go and deal with more complex compliance issues in NCAA Division II that would require hiring another person and still come out ahead financially over paying NAIA dues. So the Division II and III schools are both appalled by how Division I athletics are run while enjoying the financial benefits of it being an insane system... as long as the high value schools stay. It's a mess but no one likes the alternative.