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Legend500

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Everything posted by Legend500

  1. I know when I'm watching students getting their brains scrambled for my amusement that the presence of naughty words negatively affects the experience.
  2. My apologies. It's just that whenever I talk to American fans it gets hard to tell the difference between FCS, FBS, and Division II schools, whether they play football or not.
  3. To be fair, he has a point. UNT should never lose to a team in a conference which competes with FCS basketball conferences for members (and sometimes loses), needs non-football teams like Wichita State to help prop up its academic and basketball credentials, and that has a strength of schedule so bad that even going undefeated won't get them into the playoff.
  4. Ok, that's enough of worrying about BS where did they put the troughs? It's the only place in the universe where every man is honest.
  5. Just a few quick points to summarize. 1) Nobody cares about football performance when making conferences. Just ask Tulane. Or UTSA. Or Coastal Carolina. Or SJSU. 2) Academics are a little different, because money, faculty and conference standards are a thing. Just ask Tulane. Or Vandy. Or Rice. The list of top schools which haven't been poached by MWC/AAC is very small - FIU, Rice, SoMiss, UNT and UTEP. 3) Am I missing something because I'm pretty sure SDSU is a credit union? 4) If TV markets drive the next wave of realignment again (which is looking increasingly unlikely), then whosoever holds the MWC's contract at the time has to go North and Northern if they want to expand. 5) Budgets are beginning to become more problematic for everybody. Idaho and UConn are a beginning, not an end. 6) I remember the 2000s. After playing in a glorified colander, the number 2 reason given why we didn't have good attendance was because of our conference, and after building Apogee, the number two way of improving it was to play Texas teams. 7) MWC would double our annual take. At the cost of sending bowling to Honolulu. We'd probably end up spending more than we'd make.
  6. Mountain West won't happen without a "travel" "partner." #GoCollegeofMines If they did make such a move, I don't think AAC sits around and does nothing - letting the Mountain back into Texas would have SMU and Houston screaming just like it was the early 2000s again. I'd expect the AAC to counter by inviting us and either Rice or UTSA. At that point, it's an easy choice in my book - the AAC is the resurrected husk of an FBS-level MVC, but with SMU a member now as well.
  7. Depends on what your aim is. More money? AAC would be about $10 mil more in revenues and expenditures. Championships? UCF is as well positioned as Liberty. Conference reshuffle? If - IF the big boys have to raid the AAC, it's probably the most unstable conference in the country. Perception? It's a G5 conference. We're acting like a bunch of third class passengers on the Titanic arguing over the most prestigious place to drown. As I see it, our best option comes as a result of contraction, not expansion. At some point, teams like Tulsa or Rice will go the way of UConn.
  8. If we want in to AAC, we need to start spending like one even without an invitation. In discussions with SMU and Houston administrators, wanting to block UNT never comes up. Sure, there's history, but those schools also remember that there's good history there as well - Houston wouldn't have gotten into any conference without us dragging them from TIAA all the way to MVC, and we were one of the only teams willing to play SMU when they needed us, and many of their undergrads go on to become our grad alumni. The big difference isn't facilities (anymore, thankfully), location (everyone would love to have a shot at recruiting this or the San Antonio market), performance (hi Tulane) or market (ESPN's figured out that .02% of the market is better than .01%). The problem is cash - mainly the fact that we spend too little on our programs. It's gotten a lot better, but still, we need to increase spending by around $20 million annually to be attractive. Nobody from the west is getting in anyway - Wichita already makes basketball unbalanced. But if they're gonna do it, I can give you the first list they'll see: 67 Old Dominion C-USA $46,203,813 $46,181,753 $28,681,512 62.08 68 Boise State Mt. West $45,486,486 $45,456,789 $12,615,561 27.73 73 Arkansas State Sun Belt $39,459,027 $39,459,027 $12,624,293 31.99 75 Texas State Sun Belt $38,445,832 $35,915,260 $27,787,153 72.28 76 Charlotte C-USA $37,931,802 $33,246,728 $25,709,896 67.78 82 Appalachian State Sun Belt $35,058,621 $35,065,566 $21,257,458 60.63 83 Central Michigan MAC $34,692,784 $31,792,125 $25,077,606 72.28 84 Florida Atlantic C-USA $34,509,259 $34,102,683 $23,953,161 69.41 87 Middle Tennessee C-USA $34,040,334 $34,040,334 $22,376,798 65.74 88 Coastal Carolina Sun Belt $33,703,994 $33,704,483 $28,251,293 83.82 89 Florida International C-USA $33,389,929 $33,003,699 $24,028,758 71.96 94 North Texas C-USA $32,150,203 $36,363,381 $21,398,461 66.56 95 Texas-El Paso C-USA $31,781,343 $32,039,189 $18,486,004 58.17 99 South Alabama Sun Belt $30,693,877 $27,949,252 $20,664,956 67.33 100 Western Kentucky C-USA $30,439,066 $30,439,067 $16,853,917 55.37 101 Georgia State Sun Belt $30,230,203 $29,859,420 $22,423,489 74.18 102 Troy Sun Belt $29,962,107 $29,962,107 $21,711,635 72.46 107 Texas-San Antonio C-USA $28,772,631 $30,104,385 $17,385,928 60.43
  9. Liberty is a non-starter for 347 different reasons. Lack of solid student base, absolutely no market, poor leadership decisions and institutional problems all augur against. Not gonna happen. As far as the Rice rumor, it's just part of the off-season joke competitions going around. With little realignment news, we've resorted to making our own fun. Not to say it would be impossible, Rice and the only FCS conference they've joined have talked, but I don't think there's anything coming down on that front.
  10. It's entirely fine for a school to have more than one rival in athletics. My other (FCS) school has almost an entire conference of rivals. UNT's fall into a few broad categories. Historical possibilities would be our conference mates. TIAA starts us off with Rice, TCU and Texas State. After the TIAA died we formed the Lone Star Conference (in Denton) with Texas State, and made a titanic mistake in allowing Houston to join. Being jackasses, we and Houston left that one to form the Gulf Coast Conference (also in Denton). Houston then had the brilliant idea to leave that and join the Missouri Valley Conference, which was a great idea we jumped at when they had to replace Oklahoma State. The MVC gives us a list of interesting possibilities: Louisville, Cincy, Memphis and NMSU. Southland and beyond is sufficiently modern, so let's stop there. Number is also important, of course. Here we come up against an anomaly. There's one team, the team we've played the most, who we've never been in a conference with. That suggests that both schools see each other as some sort of special case, which in turn suggests a rivalry. If you play each other every 2-3 years for nearly a century, despite never being in the same conference but because everyone in your locality knows everyone else, that's a rivalry. So there's #1: SMU. For number of times we've played, it's an easy list. NMSU, UTEP, Tulsa and Arkansas State round out the top 5. But wait - we've heard about one of those teams before. Let's keep listening. Balance is there, and has a role to play. So who have we played more then 12 times and kept the series within 20%? That's some familiar names, because conferences. Louisville, Cincy, Southern Miss, MTSU, Houston and 3 Louisianas. What if we expand balance to 40% spread... still reasonable. What happens then? I hope you like Marty Robbins and Marty Robbins of the Suburbs. NMSU and UTEP, again. Memorable games show up here. Bowls are important, and yet again three teams show up - Cincy, Southern Miss and Memphis. But it's the 1959 Sun Bowl that's the most instructive, so say hello to #2 NMSU and #3 UTEP. Double bonus: UNT fans from the 2000's will recognize NMSU's frequent propensity to lose when it mattered to us, and UNT opened the Sun Bowl Stadium in 1963. What about a non-numerical, entirely subjective standards... the "they're just like us" standard and the "they dun lapped us" standard. Can anyone else recall another major metro team in the state which wrongly spent years being overshadowed by a private school that is now on the same-ish level? I can. What about a school whose program we helped start that now has surpassed us? If you're gonna consider UTSA, you first have to consider Houston. SO... in sum I've got 3 definite rivals - SMU, NMSU and UTEP. Honorable Mentions go to Houston and Texas State. Insufficient information but it sure looks like it will be is UTSA's category - ask me in a decade. Parting thought: us, Rice, Cincy and Memphis should form a music conference.
  11. It is. For now. But not for long if they're paying the American that, unless Time Warner really wants to blow millions broadcasting an SMU-UCONN game on Thursday at 6.
  12. It's the right question. We've had our first test case in the post ESPN-Fox merger world, and the AAC got an interesting deal. Good money, no grant of rights. First some basic information: Conference/revenue per school/rightsholder. How many years the deal is for isn't included because no conference will actually see the end of the current deals. AAC: $6.9 million (ESPN) C-USA: $400,000 (CBS/Stadium/ESPN/Facebook) MAC: $670,000 (ESPN) Mountain West: $1.1 million (CBS/ESPN) Sun Belt: $350,000 (ESPN) The new agreements for AAC and the Sun Belt, minus a game a week, is all about ESPN+. ESPN has already indicated it's going to charge much more for the service in the very near future, and that contract is an indication of that. A question for the ESPN-only conferences is how will a paywall affect viewership and exposure for their programs. AAC gets to be the guinea pig now that the Sun Belt showed the technology worked. So far, re-negotiations have generally increased the payout 3-5x, with the C-USA being the one outlier because of how fragmented it is. So far streaming has lead to a marked increase in the fees paid to schools. What happens next is out of any conference's hands - does ESPN try to lock down a monopoly? Does Stadium decide to start growing by pursuing the Mountain and C-USA? But the biggest question is Facebook. If it came between more money and a paywall vs. less money and a place on everyone's news feed... I would be tempted to go with the latter. So the answer to the questions are: will people pay at least $14.99/mo for games? Will Facebook decide to go all-in? What is Stadium's model? The AAC and the C-USA may both end up being guinea pigs for the two sides of this debate.
  13. Unlike the schools that didn't belong in the SWC to begin with, we're far more careful about what we buy.
  14. I'd by into Houston as an academic institution if they finally realized that being located at the corner of MLK and Calhoun is... inappropriate.
  15. Some are in decent shape, but both have programs which, even getting $7 a year, are barely sustainable. Near us, Tulane and Tulsa are examples of this.
  16. Absolutely, the AAC has some great programs but name alone isn't anything in the G5 anymore. Just ask UCF or Boise - it's winning and potential. We need to recognize the entirety of the G5 for what it is - a collection of programs equally screwed, yet insist on eating each other instead of fixing the problem. Local rivalries, away games which people can get to, names that people know regionally if not nationally - those are the way forward for now. Mountain to Belt, everyone needs to have a come to Jesus about that with the exception of the MAC, which is a stable conference for a reason. The P4 need realignment. The G5 need implosion. The future of the market presages the outcome. What can UNT do to prepare for the future - very little, we're in pretty good shape. The only thing that needs to happen is the replacement of our Southland game with a Texas State series. But the most important task is keeping our series with Houston and SMU. It's no coincidence that Wren extended SMU and scheduled Houston, and it's good news that they seem happy to play us every year.
  17. It's a good - if somewhat risky - result for Houston. Not having to sign a Grant of Rights is a huge deal, worth far more than the money (although that helps with a program that's bleeding cash). Houston now has the flexibility to move, assuming that the Big XII survives the coming apocalypse in a recognizable form. There is, however, a downside here. AAC is now tied to the fate of ESPN+. When they raise prices, how many people will pay a monthly fee? How negatively will the lack of exposure effect recruiting and income? Is this merely the best paid of the mid majors, now that the AAC is consigned to the same package that CUSA, MAC and Sun Belt have? A growing dynamic that concerns ESPN is Stadium/Facebook/Twitter. Will advertisers prefer a gated game over one accessible to all? Will people log on, check facebook, and settle on the game that's on their feed? Tough questions we'll find out about soon. Another potential downside is betting on the Big XII. If there's no XII left or just a few stragglers, Houston will get left at the altar. That means staying in a conference where you're giving up several million dollars a year so that you can have... Tulane, Tulsa and ECU in the conference. No matter the outcome, I've Coogs in my immediate family, so GO COOGS except for a few hours in September.
  18. What's telling isn't necessarily the numbers, but the lack of a Grant of Rights. AAC was expected to get between 6-10 million/team/year, and had to take the low end to avoid it. That means that a few schools expect to have... other options soon enough. If I'm not Cincy, Houston, Navy or UCF, I'm very happy with the money but already sizing up potential programs to date, because I know my time is limited.
  19. I'm not sure but EVERYONE HERE IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND WE NEED TO STRING A RAINBOW BETWEEN THE WINDMILLS!
  20. Given the current situation in Frisco, time to warm up Ye Olde Offseason Thread. Who’s ready to GET INCARNATED!
  21. Not totally - this is only an upgrade for the 2nd-4th quarters.
  22. Great facility. Given the growing popularity of the MLS, the diminishing popularity of the MLB, and the fact that we've got a brand-spankin' new soccer facility, I think the next step is obvious.
  23. Being from El Paso, I am quite happy. Having gone to UNT, I'm ecstatic about telling anyone with an SMU degree that they should go to graduate school at a real university like UTD if they want to get into our PhD programs.
  24. This ignores, of course, that the P5s have some pretty big splits within themselves. The teams that have the most to lose from P5s splitting off are P5 teams who aren't in the special 24 that would leave. There will then be opportunities for consolidation and some departures for the remaining P5s. This will undoubtedly sweep up some G5s, but by then everything will be burning already. The last round of realignment was about inventory, but with less money to spend and with inventory assured, the next round will be about optimization and efficiency. In this, Wren is well ahead of the ball and doing a great job. You can safely assume that Texas, Oklahoma and A&M will be part of the "optimization," so building ties with the have-beens is incredibly important right now. Wren sees this efficiency trend coming, which is why adding Houston and Baylor to our schedule to make us an Texas-centered program is so important. UNT's aim should always be to be in the conference with the most Texas teams. That guarantees exposure, enhances attendance, and provides some viewership buy in which doesn't fully exist now. While we're a ways from the promised land, a certain number of programs leaving the NCAA is to our benefit. If the 24 model is what happens, for example, it leaves the XII in very precarious shape. In that case, it's up to Tech, Houston and us to get everybody wrangled into one SWC. It's a pipe dream now, but every G5's efforts in the state should be driven towards an ultimate goal of a reborn SWC with some combination of Baylor, Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, Texas State, Texas Tech, UNT, UTEP, and UTSA, with the possible addition of LATech, NM, NMSU, OSU, Tulsa, and Louisiana.
  25. Yeah, but he went to Jesuit which means he's one of "those" guys. No I don't know what I mean, either.
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