GrayEagle

Wow, how did you guys ever find Denton to become a student? The main reason that you don't hear as much about North Texas as you did about SMU and TCU is conference. SMU and TCU were in the Southwest Conference and obviously we were not. Had we been in the SWC and the other two in a lesser league then we would be a lot more familiar to the metro than them. Another reason has been our lack of advertising. I believe that the four new goals just introduced will address that. The location within the Metroplex has nothing to do with that. The center of the metro area is in the vicinity of Irving and DFW airport. There isn't much difference in distance to any of the three FBS universities. Now move out of the Metroplex and you might have a valid argument. The key to recognition is being more newsworthy than SMU or TCU and we haven't done that. Then again, if it takes cheating or a drug scandal to get us well known then I'd rather remain anonymous. I'd imagine that the Nashville market is somewhat similar. Vanderbilt is a much older university and is in the Southeastern Conference. It's much tougher for Middle to compete against that amount of money and tradition. But, if MTSU can get a couple of Top Ten finishes nationally they would be the talk of Nashville. Ditto for us in the metromess. Houston is likely the same. Put UH in Conroe, give them the success that they've had and see if they don't outdraw and outpublicize Rice. I've been a marketing and advertising manager in my lifetime and have pored over demographics and Nielsen reports for hundreds of hours. User reports with more details can be purchased for specific targeting. The networks will have that information before making the decision on TV contracts. Not to worry.

Let's see...our ticket sales divided by total attendance equals about $6.50 per ticket. Your ticket sales seem okay. You had $1,666,379 revenue from total attendance of 72,884. That averages $22.86 per ticket. The next year (2011) our revenue was about $6.8 million from football and an additional $6.9 million from unallocated sources. Total athletic revenues were $22,417,616.

Yes, but they weigh each factor differently. It would work against us because alumni giving has what seems to be a much heavier factor. The second heaviest is what others think of you. No one but our students like us so that hurts us as well. Entrance exams only tell you the caliber of student that you are getting; not how well they are taught.

I hope that Juris Frog isn't a future attorney. Sit on months of undercover work? Really?

Whoa, Nellie! You're totally wrong about that. Being in the heart of the metro can have little to do with being in the heart of a TV market. For example, the Dallas Fort-Worth TV market covers more than 30 counties in north Texas. They are the #5 market in the U.S. with 2,571,310 TV homes. Houston is America's 10th largest market, covering more than 20 counties with 2,185,260 TV households. That's their respective markets. Not that being in the center would be an advantage but UNT is near the center of the metro area (now the 4th largest in the U.S.) because the population of Denton County and the counties that abut it is 5.777 million. The entire DFW Metroplex is only 6.4 million. I'm not as familiar with the Nashville area but their TV market has more than a million households while Memphis has less than 700 thousand. So MTSU has the same possibility for exposure as Vanderbilt and the SEC technically but in no market is the SBC going to get as many viewers as the SEC unless everyone is watching both. With the influx of cable and satellites telecasting sports networks it's no longer important to be located where there is a strong signal. One slight advantage that UNT and MTSU might have is that each has double the college enrollment of the FBS teams in their respective areas.

My bad! It is collegesearch.collegeboard.com.

It doesn't quite as good when using SAT. Following is the median SAT score for incoming freshmen at SBC, MWC, and CUSA schools: Rice 1425 Tulane 1315 Air Force 1295 Tulsa 1265 UAB 1180 Estimated as ACT equivalent Colorado State 1135 FIU 1135 Wyoming 1095 New Mexico 1090 North Texas 1080 Florida Atlantic 1070 Nevada 1045 East Carolina 1035 Middle Tennessee 1035 Arkansas State 1030 UNLV 1025 San Jose State 1010 Marshall 1005 Western Kentucky 995 Southern Miss 990 ULM 960 Louisiana 955 Estimated based on ACT Memphis 950 Estimated based on ACT Fresno State 940 UTEP 920 Troy 920 Estimated based on ACT The source for these figures is collegesearch.com. Of the six departing members (for the Big East) we beat only Boise State and Memphis and are tied with Houston. When compared with all the FBS we rank tied for 88th.

First of all, correct me if I'm wrong but I think that the author of this text. Mark Ferguson, is ArkStFan. I think that he has mostly identified the players but I'm still not sure about their order of appearance. My opinion, and that's all it is, is that there will be 20 teams that will start the new conference in July of next year. In addition to the 16 who are current CUSA and MWC members I would like to see the following added: Temple Temple is in the largest available market and would come for football only, balancing Hawaii. They had a horrible program for many years, even being kicked out of the Big East, but when coach Al Golden went there he turned their program around and it is continuing. Last year, they averaged nearly 30,000 (but I believe that they had a home game against Penn State to boost that average). North Texas Everyone on this board knows our strengths and weaknesses but the undeniable fact is market size makes up for our other shortcomings. That, and the fact that the administration is behind athletics and our budget increased to more than $22 million last year. Being 20 miles from the 3rd busiest airport doesn't hurt either. San Jose State I know, Utah State is the sentimental favorite but San Jose brings much more to the table in terms of market and even stadium-size and long-term power rating. On my all-time rating chart the Spartans are #86 and the Utags #92. Not much difference, but San Jose has been more competitive than Utah State. Another slight markdown is that the Aggies stadium only seats 25,500. Utah State should be in the next expansion round after this. Louisiana Tech Okay, by rights I should be listing FIU here, right. FIU does have the Miami market and still a good football program (for the last two years only) but little else. Their facilities, in spite of an on-campus stadium still smack of the FCS. More than that they are joined at the hip with Florida Atlantic and any addition should include FAU as well. La Tech has the highest all-time power rating of the possible additions (68) but they are in a remote (hard to get to) area. If Temple declines then I would add FAU and FIU for the numbers and get Louisiana Tech in the next round of expansion. Although the ECU Chancellor indicated that the conference could eventually have 32 teams, I think that it stops at 24 and Florida Atlantic, Utah State, FIU, and Middle Tennessee should be the leading candidates for the final selections.

A few comments about UTSA: UTSA is not a FBS university yet. They begin their transitional year in 2013 and will be a member in 2014. They haven't played an FBS opponent yet, much less a full schedule. Further, no one knows how long it will be before they have a winning season. As I understand it, the Alliance will have its members set to begin operation in 2013. UTSA should be fine in time but they are not ready for a conference where most of the members have been at the highest level for 30, 40, 50 years and up. San Antonio is the 38th largest market. It is a good market but it is roughly 1/3 the size of the Dallas-Fort Worth market. As someone posted in another thread, TV networks are mostly looking for people. One reason is that people do not usually watch one team only. Many college football fans will watch any game telecast in the area. UT-San Antonio should move up the ladder much faster than their counterparts. They have a veteran coach kicking off their program and San Antonio is a great destination city so they will attract a lot of roadies. They need to be careful scheduling many highly ranked teams until they can be competitive. I know that the timing stinks but UTSA is still 3-4 years away from a mid-level conference.

I don't know his demeanor; whether he is harsh and grating or fairly soft-spoken but I do think that he'll do a good job for the Sun Belt. I think that it's in his genes to have a large conference because he's seen what can happen if you have barely enough teams to operate. I look for there to be 12-16 teams in the Sun Belt in the not-too-distant future. Who knows how many will be from the WAC? Probably none early. If he brought in UTSA and Texas State he'd be doing a great disservice to UTA. San Jose and Idaho are simply too far. Denver would be almost as isolated as they were in the Sun Belt. He'd probably like to take them all...and he may figure out a way to do it. On second thought maybe the Belt becomes the next 16-24 team conference. Twenty four teams? Really? It has a familiar ring.

I'll stick by my no promotions whether you agree or not. Being the first year of Apogee the AD should've pulled out all stops to see that the stadium was filled for every game. Other than publicity there was little to lure anyone to Opening Day. Even recognitions of past athletes and long-time supporters was lame. The distribution of tickets was not well done throughout the year. There should have been booths/staff throughout the campus promoting game days with tickets for distribution. Homecoming is no promotion. I know of 65 since I've been around and I've been to 60 of them. Most every college has them but the AD does little extra except recognize HOF entrants. I wasn't aware of Parents Weekend so I'll give you that one if anything other than designating the weekend occurred. The free food and the sunglasses were clever enough but too late to be effective. I didn't get any sunglasses by the way. IMO you hit them with everything you've got the first year. Free tickets to students with a purchase by a ticket buyer. Giveaways that are publicized well in advance. Sell...Sell...Sell. I also disagree with you on the fraternity situation. When you join a fraternity you are told that any act of disrespect by you discredits the fraternity. Fraternities have been kicked off campus because of the acts of a few, taking the innocent along with the guilty. In the military the entire unit suffers from the bad conduct of one of its members. Now, if a fraternity complied with the rules and was kicked off too then that's wrong. That may have happened; I don't know. UNT90, there have been many admitted into conferences who were not worthy at the time. They may have been worthy in the past but not at the time of admittance. SMU (CUSA), Rice (CUSA), San Jose State (WAC), FAU (SBC), and Baylor (Big 12) are but a few. Over the years North Texas has been better than Temple but Temple has been pretty good since Al Golden came there and continues to be. There can be other needs for the conference besides wins on the field. If that were the only criterion then Louisiana Tech should have been the first invite. Public opinion favor or not, the presidents of the member universities vote the candidates in. They have access to facts and needs and vote accordingly. Now there could be an individual that would vote against us because their alumni did not want us or that we threatened their market...i.e. SMU. However, most are fair and honorable people who are only looking to better the conference. I'd bet that Lane Rawlins knows every one of them. How many voting universities do you know for a fact that deem us unworthy? I don't know of any. The fact that one of the presidents mentions another university in an off-the-cuff interview is annoying but likely has little or no bearing on his/her vote. Again, what you bring to the table overrides popularity.

How many quotes have there been from people supposedly in the know that TV markets will drive this expansion? What markets are open to increase the conference numbers? The largest is #4 Philadelphia. That's why Temple is first to receive an offer. Next is DFW, the #5 market. That would be North Texas. Logically, if Temple accepts they would be the 17th member and we should be offered then as #18. Those combine for about 5.5 million TV homes. If they want to expand beyond 18 then the next largest TV market is the San Francisco Bay area where San Jose State is located. They are the sixth largest market with about 2.5 million homes. The next size market with an FBS team available is Miami, the home of FIU. That market contains about 1.6 million homes. The more possible people served the better the total dollars. Right now the most important facet will be selling advertising. The bigger the potential audience, the more advertising dollars. When our administration is ready to talk about expansion, they will. Until then, we and other fan boards can speculate all we want and it won't change things. I'm sure that President Rawlins has been working behind the scene for months and nothing that we or others say will add to or take from what he has done. Expansion is not a public opinion poll.

The final tomorrow is at 11:00 am on Channel 11.

About the only thing that we could have done has passed. Fill Apogee Stadium. The AD staff failed to communicate with the students and had no promotions to boost attendance. We don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Going public, in my opinion, doesn't enhance our chances to move up the ladder and gives a lot of ammo for boards. To me, the way to do it is to do it quietly as Memphis did. Of course, not every school has the CEO and founder of a Fortune 500 company. We still have a chance even if there will only be 18 members. There are still only 16 members at this point. Supposedly, Temple has been offered #17 but there is not word whether they have accepted. We need to stop being so self-masochistic. As to Vito's blog I didn't see anything capricious or condescending about his article. Embarrassing needs further explanation.

Monica Thieu leads in the Jeopardy College Championship by a margin of $8,000+ going into the final day of Jeopardy. Great pub for North Texas.

If this merger does not have interdivisional play it will be a consortium or alliance; not a conference. Why not just make a financial consortium where each member agrees to combine forces under one umbrella for a TV contract and let each conference operate otherwise on their own? If there is no interdivisional play there can be no games televised against a conference member in the other division, except the championship game, because they will never play. A conference member that you never play? Really? My choice would be a 20-team conference with two geographically based sections of five in each division. You would play the four in your section every year, two in the other section of your division and one in each section of the other division every year. Under this scenario you would play each member of the conference at least once every five years. Not great, but it would give the conference some sense of unity. Otherwise, give a board composed of equal numbers from the two conferences, power to negotiate TV contracts and some input into scheduling in each conference. You could even require a certain number of households totally and let each conference determine the teams in their conference as long as certain requirements are met.

Per Nielsen, FAU is considered to be in the West Palm Beach marketing area. It ranks 38th with about 788,000 households; a little more than half of the Miami TV HH.

I agree with the first two. Texas State and UTSA might have a decent chance at the Sun Belt, especially if Benson becomes commissioner. SJSU, because it's in such a large market (and this expansion seems all about market size) has a decent chance at the MWC whatever. ULM hardly has the budget for the Southland; which is where they belong. However, I doubt that they'll ever be voted out (particularly to let Louisiana Tech in because of Tech's past attitude toward the SBC). By the way, while I don't like La Tech's attitude toward the Belt I can certainly understand it. They went to a pretty solid conference (at the time) and continued to receive great payouts as teams departed, so why not stay? It's just that the golden goose has been stolen and it's time for them to leave. If they can't get in the Alliance then the Sun Belt becomes their only alternative so their AD can't be too comfortable as well. I'd also add Utah State to that list. If you check their record and facilities they don't measure up to a higher profile conference. Beautiful school with good basketball and academics but a less than stellar football record and following.

If this has already been decided then someone should inform the sixteen college presidents that are coming to Los Colinas this weekend to save their money. Not that it can't happen but why is it the member schools don't know about it? Would it be better for us? If we are excluded from the merged conference then that would be an easy answer. But, if we are included, that would mean that the expected revenue would more than exceed the associated costs and the prestige would help recruiting. There is also the matter of how it is to be structured. If only football (and possibly basketball) will have interdivisional play the travel costs wouldn't be that bad. It could almost be like having separate conferences. Although both conferences have been stripped of their best teams, the opportunity for more 'Boise types' to emerge will happen.

Boy, is that a no-brainer. If CUSA produces more revenue for them then the answer is a resounding YES. FAU, while not as large as FIU, has a more cohesive campus. They have a new stadium to pay for as well. They were competitive in football early and maybe Pellini can get them there again. West Palm Beach is a pretty large market, comparable to San Antonio, Birmingham and Las Vegas. Their budget is an easy fit for CUSA. I'd prefer them over FIU, but that's just me.

If our votes could get him here I'm sure that it would be near unanimous. He could draw some Dentonites and Denton students to see perhaps their best quarterback ever. Sounds like win on our side; I just hope that he feels like it a win for him as well.

I believe that AAU is more about research than academics. Based on SATs of incoming freshmen, Utah would still be ahead of Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State and Washington State.

If Pitino wanted Temple so bad then why didn't he start a little arm-twisting when there was still an opening? The only opening now will be if he leaves.

I was right there with you until the last three blahs.

The reason that I add North Texas is market. They're going after the largest markets for TV contract negotiations. The fact is that we may have already agreed so there is no need to publicize that at this time. The west could add San Jose State and pick up four huge markets to add to their totals. I looked at the county that the university is in and the adjacent counties (actually abut the locale county) and came up with the following: Temple 3.401M, FIU 4.537M, San Jose State 4.770M and North Texas 5.777M. That's more than 18 million people in those four markets alone. Using the same criterion that would raise the total exposure in the merged conference to more than 38 million people. That's just people within their own state; I did not cross state lines. Does that mean that each team dominates their particular market? Of course not but it also doesn't mean that viewers don't (or won't) watch more than one team in their market. So that's a lot of exposure. Adding those four teams to the conferences after defections would bring the total to 20 teams. They could stop there or add two or four teams for quality. Louisiana Tech is really the only team that fits that billet but Utah State might be included in the west for balance. That's my take and only Temple will require any selling. The other three would no doubt jump at the opportunity. The league would have to be structured in such a way that Temple only had to make a trip or two to the west per year (for the major sports). There are several things that I don't like about FIU. Mostly their disjointed campus and their crappy stadium (which I think affects attendance) but the stadium is correctable. They are a big market with a pretty decent team though and that will likely weigh enough to get them included.