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The Sun Belt is about to either implode entirely or become the next power conference


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I know many on here like to treat the Sun Belt as a punching bag but they'll be just fine. I've think they've settled into their identity much better than the far-flung CUSA or AAC. Doesn't mean they have a higher profile or better programs,  just saying they have found their footprint, especially after ditching NMSU and Idaho. 

Curious to what ArkStatefan thinks about the job Benson did. 

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35 minutes ago, meanrob said:

I know many on here like to treat the Sun Belt as a punching bag but they'll be just fine. I've think they've settled into their identity much better than the far-flung CUSA or AAC. Doesn't mean they have a higher profile or better programs,  just saying they have found their footprint, especially after ditching NMSU and Idaho. 

Curious to what ArkStatefan thinks about the job Benson did. 

The SBC has done fairly well, considering that they are always looked at as the lowest rung on the FBS ladder and lost a lot of their members a few years ago to CUSA. 

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On 8/15/2018 at 3:57 PM, meanrob said:

I know many on here like to treat the Sun Belt as a punching bag but they'll be just fine. I've think they've settled into their identity much better than the far-flung CUSA or AAC. Doesn't mean they have a higher profile or better programs,  just saying they have found their footprint, especially after ditching NMSU and Idaho. 

Curious to what ArkStatefan thinks about the job Benson did. 

Commissioners get too much credit and too much blame.

I saw a fawning piece talking about how league revenue per team went up 2000% or some such number under Benson. Yeah Karl Benson is the reason the CFP exists and shares 10x more revenue and Benson is the reason ESPN wanted to include more games on linear TV and pay more for streaming rights. Likewise Benson is the reason that three more bowls wanted to affiliate with the league.

Load of bunk.

Bowl games want the warmest available body that will buy the most tickets.

Television wants content and pays what they think the content is worth, they don't care if the commissioner is a silver tongued devil or stutters and mangles words. Their data tells them what they can pay and get the ROI they want and they aren't going to pay more than their data tells them because the commissioner is a good negotiator.

The commissioner deserves no credit if a team advances in the NCAA Tournament earning more units, that is an accomplishment of the school and coaching staff. The only impact the conference has is on the RPI and the seeding of the team(s) making the dance and even that is still on the individual schools.

Benson or Waters weren't to blame when AState had a hard time selling tickets and getting donations and deserve no credit when athletics at AState brings in $20 million in donations.

Assume Jim Delany or Roy Kramer or Mike Slive had been commissioner of the WAC when the MWC 8 broke away or when the eastern schools defected to CUSA or most of the rest defected to MWC. Three of the best commissioners ever in most people's minds and they would have failed to keep those schools because they had options they considered to be better than what they had in the WAC.

Did Utah make it to the Pac-12 because the MWC was a great league or did Utah make it because they took care of business, built their program, and had academics that the Pac-12 was comfortable with?

Far easier to declare the commissioner sucks than face the fact the league's value to television and bowls and caliber of play in basketball isn't as a good as the Big XII's or the AAC's and things get priced accordingly.

Commissioners are facilitators. They help the presidents find a path to consensus. Roy Kramer once said when he walked into an SEC meeting he knew three presidents had one opinion on an issue, three had a different opinion and six didn't have an opinion on it and his job was to help them find away to get to a 12-0 vote.

Benson faced that with the last Sun Belt expansion. There was a lot of support for NMSU but not 75% support. There was even less support for Liberty and Eastern Kentucky. In the end it was suggested to talk to Coastal and they reached unanimous agreement that Coastal despite the football facilities was a good addition with their nationally prominent baseball and decent mid-major hoops.

He helped the presidents find a way to an 11-0 vote. That's what a good commissioner does.

 

Edited by Arkstfan
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11 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

Commissioners get too much credit and too much blame.

I saw a fawning piece talking about how league revenue per team went up 2000% or some such number under Benson. Yeah Karl Benson is the reason the CFP exists and shares 10x more revenue and Benson is the reason ESPN wanted to include more games on linear TV and pay more for streaming rights. Likewise Benson is the reason that three more bowls wanted to affiliate with the league.

Load of bunk.

Bowl games want the warmest available body that will buy the most tickets.

Television wants content and pays what they think the content is worth, they don't care if the commissioner is a silver tongued devil or stutters and mangles words. Their data tells them what they can pay and get the ROI they want and they aren't going to pay more than their data tells them because the commissioner is a good negotiator.

The commissioner deserves no credit if a team advances in the NCAA Tournament earning more units, that is an accomplishment of the school and coaching staff. The only impact the conference has is on the RPI and the seeding of the team(s) making the dance and even that is still on the individual schools.

Benson or Waters weren't to blame when AState had a hard time selling tickets and getting donations and deserve no credit when athletics at AState brings in $20 million in donations.

Assume Jim Delany or Roy Kramer or Mike Slive had been commissioner of the WAC when the MWC 8 broke away or when the eastern schools defected to CUSA or most of the rest defected to MWC. Three of the best commissioners ever in most people's minds and they would have failed to keep those schools because they had options they considered to be better than what they had in the WAC.

Did Utah make it to the Pac-12 because the MWC was a great league or did Utah make it because they took care of business, built their program, and had academics that the Pac-12 was comfortable with?

Far easier to declare the commissioner sucks than face the fact the league's value to television and bowls and caliber of play in basketball isn't as a good as the Big XII's or the AAC's and things get priced accordingly.

Commissioners are facilitators. They help the presidents find a path to consensus. Roy Kramer once said when he walked into an SEC meeting he knew three presidents had one opinion on an issue, three had a different opinion and six didn't have an opinion on it and his job was to help them find away to get to a 12-0 vote.

Benson faced that with the last Sun Belt expansion. There was a lot of support for NMSU but not 75% support. There was even less support for Liberty and Eastern Kentucky. In the end it was suggested to talk to Coastal and they reached unanimous agreement that Coastal despite the football facilities was a good addition with their nationally prominent baseball and decent mid-major hoops.

He helped the presidents find a way to an 11-0 vote. That's what a good commissioner does.

 

My only disagreement is I'm pretty sure Benson made the decision to move the WAC to the twenty or so teams that forced the MWC teams to break away. Guess it's possible the future MWC teams voted for the expansion then changed their minds but to me the WAC expanding to that many teams was a bad decision. You could say the WAC was always a doomed ship but I'd say Benson had a big hand in running it into the ground. 

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8 hours ago, meanrob said:

My only disagreement is I'm pretty sure Benson made the decision to move the WAC to the twenty or so teams that forced the MWC teams to break away. Guess it's possible the future MWC teams voted for the expansion then changed their minds but to me the WAC expanding to that many teams was a bad decision. You could say the WAC was always a doomed ship but I'd say Benson had a big hand in running it into the ground. 

He was selected April 20, 1994 and the expansion to 16 was announced the next day.

It isn't logical to think that they debated six schools from scratch in roughly 24 hours. His own version is he was interviewed on Sunday. Later in the day they called him to inform he had been hired and was told they had voted to add the six teams.

https://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/s_756924.html

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57 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

He was selected April 20, 1994 and the expansion to 16 was announced the next day.

It isn't logical to think that they debated six schools from scratch in roughly 24 hours. His own version is he was interviewed on Sunday. Later in the day they called him to inform he had been hired and was told they had voted to add the six teams.

https://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/s_756924.html

Thanks for the info. I knew his hiring was close to the expansion, didn't know it was that close. 

 

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I regularly read the local “birdcage” crap catcher Austin American Statesman for the sports section articles.  Other than a daily diet of UT, A & M, and anything Big 12, it’s pretty hard to find articles regarding G5 conferences, much less G5 teams.

This morning they had a really nice article on the Sun Belt Conference and the success they have had in bowl wins and general stature the past two years.  Troy knocking off the LSU Tigers, and the two bowls wins each of the past two seasons. Good article for the SBC.  You have to acknowledge they have done well.

BTW, in the same edition, a long article was written about the facilities expansion going on at State universities and the Big 12.  Rice, Houston, Baylor, OU, UT, etc.  All mentioned.  Left out of the article completely?  UNT.  Still no respect.

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9 hours ago, meanrob said:

Thanks for the info. I knew his hiring was close to the expansion, didn't know it was that close. 

 

They would have been better off waiting rather than just plowing in.The smart play would have been to take UNLV and Nevada and call it a day and let SMU, TCU, Rice, Tulsa figure out their own problems because CUSA wasn't going to take them at that point. CUSA was being formed as a hoops league that happened to have football. They wouldn't have had much to pick from. La.Tech, AState, ULL, Northern Illinois, NMSU or join the Big West.

Edited by Arkstfan
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