Legend500

Actual numbers: 25,750. SMU numbers: 328,991.

Some nice dreaming going on here. By 2023, everybody's media rights will be renegotiated, and the players are much different. What was a good competitive bidding process between networks flush with money will be a 1-company bid with several others looking for good value assets. ESPN and Fox are not only losing subscribers hand over fist, but they're merging. That means the incumbent bidders for more than a couple games will be ESPN and... well... Fox has to spin-off the regional networks, but it's not clear that with streaming that anyone wants them. Which means that the next round will be contraction, not expansion. There's a significant possibility that a Megaconference (backed by ESPN) will form, and if it doesn't, there will be a rationalization in the G5 when the AAC, Sun Belt, MAC and Mountain get the sort of contract that CUSA has already moved to. If there's a megaconference, all hell will break loose, but if not, then it's the death of the XII. Texas stayed in because they got a league network all to themselves, but that Longhorn Network deal is going to get off-loaded - either as a result of the merger or ESPN and Texas agreeing to a deal to close. There's two, perhaps even 3 other power conferences that would absolutely let Texas keep a streaming version of the LHN AND get a conference distribution, and that's the deal Texas (and by extension Oklahoma) will take.

And here I was trolling my cache... Well done, good sir... Moobs.

Presented to you without comment. Do watch it all. Fear in box form.

These facilities which I ran into while at NT led me onto an odd road that ended in me going to Harvard and becoming a nuclear strategist in my free time (which, considering my other day job is as a probate lawyer, seems incredibly self serving). Me of 2011 was somewhat off, as Army of Dad said, the NIKE-Hercules system was for the interception of Soviet strategic bombers, not ICBMs (which the Soviets wouldn't throw into service against sites in Texas until much later). They actually did deploy the system to Denton, but it didn't last long - inter-branch squabbles and a growing realization that self-nuking was bad put an end to the system quickly. The FRC site off 288 remains the far more interesting site. FEMA HQ-6 has massively expanded out there, and as I understand it, the disused portions of the old Facility have been pressed back into use. As we now know from declassification and everyone in the nuke community knows as trivia, the Denton site was originally chosen by the Eisenhower administration, with the responsible agency (which would eventually become FEMA) originally operating out of Stoddard Hall at TWU. While it was publicly known as a Federal Regional Center, it was actually a Federal Relocation Center, chosen for it's mid-continent location, easy access to the Eisenhower System, presence of two universities, close location to the (then just Army's) AAFES HQ in Dallas, and relative anonymity. Plus Eisenhower liked that it was close to Denison, and some Senator from Texas liked that it was in his state. While the facility has been superseded by different plans, the involvement of Denton in such planning is ongoing - the TI plant was part of that, as is UNT's EAP program. UNT, TWU and Denton have an incredibly interesting role in the development of our disaster response and continuity systems. TI never got in, which is a shame. The program which that plant was meant for, though, had absolutely nothing to do with the missile base. However, that doesn't mean it wasn't related - the FRC site was absolutely related, as was the TI/Raytheon facility along University on the west side of McKinney. The NIKE missiles were built at the PANTEX plant in Amarillo and storage bounced around between several sites, all connected by rail. RUAC was moved pretty much because of the DISD stadium, which was the final nail. The towers would have made any SE inclination below 40 deg an eyeball hazard. But yeah, the glow from DFW also made the facility less useful, but that's a problem the Astronomy Department can't solve without moving our facilities into Oklahoma. To make this football related, I tried using the old airport perimeter road on which the new RUAC is situated to get to Apogee, but some ahole went and build a bigger runway on it.

Real mad. NT-77 UT not A but not that A but better than SA - 3

So far the Blue Lot situation has been generally unacceptable. It's not a matter of "gosh, any stadium is packed before a game and after a game" - that's totally fine. It's how the contractor (and by extension, UNT) seem genuinely shocked - SHOCKED that people are coming to the game. This problem is caused by having a main parking lot with one entry/exit only, and then trying to keep that exit open for general traffic - that's ludicrous. I've never been waiting to get into the Manor Garage because the City of Austin decided that Dedman should stay two-way in case somebody needed to go get chicken fingers before the game. I've never had problems entering and exiting the North Sun Bowl lots, even in the rare case that they're full, because somehow UTEP uncovered the secret of multiple entries. We waited about 45 minutes to an hour to get out of the blue lots, which nearly beat the "leaving-the-game" record for me. And that record isn't even really fair, because it counts the walk up JFK Blvd. to the Red Line and waiting for an Alewife train. Even more ludicrous is the exiting traffic flow - keeping all of the traffic to one lane in case somebody arriving late for the game needed to park to watch SMU or Louisiana Tech's band in the 5th quarter. Eventually last game everybody overruled them and formed a left-turn and a right-turn lane. As it should have been from the start. There's also the staffing question. At 4 PM, there were 6 people working the blue lot entrance. At 530 there were three people. That's just hilarious. The traffic situation is absolutely shambolic, and has a bigger impact on attendance than "only" going 4-1.

I've always been a proponent of the good vs bad "problems to have" school. Last night, losing to a lesser but more disciplined team in a game that mattered a lot, enjoying the fact that Blue Lot traffic is still borked, noting that we came up 700 short of a sellout and people in the stadium from start to finish - all I saw were good problems to have. A decade ago, I would have traded anything for a packed stadium with overwhelming North Texas chants. Possibly even a 1-11 season just to finally get that sort of atmosphere. I'm sad we lost, but damn glad at where we are. Now let's regroup and hang 70 on poor UTEP.

The real question is whether the beIN deal is better or worse that what the American or MAC have to do for their ESPN and Fox tie-ins. Is it better to have a traditional schedule, with games on Saturday, or would we be OK with UNT-SMU moving to a Friday night, or having a mid-week game almost every week starting in October. because that's what's on offer with ESPN and Fox (although very shortly they'll be the same thing). I actually like the risk CUSA is taking by going with the nontradiitonal combo. ESPN/Fox would bury the conference like they do MAC and American games, and some games would only be Plus content. CUSA's deal means that there's a chance at free content, and that we're the head conference on several networks. Facebook Watch (and its competitor YouTube Premium) have a much brighter future and even more reach than ESPN (weekly watchers on Watch are around 50 million vs. ESPN's 1.9 million) and it's good to get on that train early. Also, the CUSA structure now allows for a quintuple-rights structure, when ESPN offered triple, at best, and one of those was local broadcast. Now, instead of the old offer tree of ESPN->ESPN+->Local, the tree is now CBS->Stadium/Sinclair->beIN/AlJazeera->Facebook->ESPN->Local. That's more chances to be seen, and less of a chance of playing Rice at 5pm on a Tuesday.

I mean, depending on looks he can do it at my house, too.

While at law school I drove by one every September at 10 & Cincinnati. Considering how many UNT peeps were at St. Mary's, it seemed like marketing to the converted. Otherwise, I've seen a whole bunch more billboards go up everywhere conceivable on the Dallas side. Which is good. Blow your ad budget out of the water in a year like this.

Pfft. How basic. I've got one word for you all - plastics. "That's not my bladder, sir but it is a bladder, sir."

J'Mar Smith was one of the Klingons-of-the-Week on Star Trek, I think. The one that had his biceps chewed off by a man-sized bacterium.

If "home game" means "playing in front of mostly your own fans..." then no, no they don't. Ever.

I know I agree but i don't but I do. This is almost as confusing as the first time I kissed a cheerleader while eyeing the quarterback.

If GBR’s gonna help us keep Seth, the situation just changed to our benefit massively. Please enjoy the thread.

Part of the problem is that people are underestimating both SMU and Incarnate. The Cardinals demolished SFA and look to compete for the American... sorry, Southland championship. As hard as this next thing is to say... SMU played a ridiculously difficult OOC schedule, and deserves a lot of respect for that. At the end of the year at least 2 of the 3 teams will be ranked. Respect for that, they’re a good team laid low by great competition.

My sincerest gratitude and thanks. Now. Ahem. Please [REDACTED] give us enough to bribe incentivize the ADs at Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, Tech and West Virginia. I'll even cover the dump truck to deliver it. Kansas people can probably be had with a flashlight and teaching them the mastery of fire.

So you need me to drop-in and upvote. Payload en-route.

The Composite has us at 52, but they've only got about 1/3 of the total ensemble members reporting, so that will change. Highest ranking is 17, lowest is 93. of the 45 currently reporting, 2 have us T25, 10 have us in ORV territory.

This is nice. motherfuckingeagles.com now points there.

If you wanna track... https://www.flightradar24.com/AAY4406/1de1a4d6

That effort was very notable.

Your efforts this year have been notable.

I honestly think we need to dampen our expectations. The SEC will probably consider taking Texas over us, but we could restock the XII pretty well - Definitely bring in our sister Houston, and SMU - as long as they bring some wurst from Kuby's. I also think we could effectively replace Baylor with Abilene Christian. There'd be very little drop-off in competitiveness but a huge one in criminality. We need a travel partner for West Virginia, so maybe Marshall as well. Jokes aside, the methodology left out something he discussed extensively, I presume accidentally. The amount of fan engagement relative to on-the-field success is an extremely interesting metric, and one I can see having great relevance to this.