harsh reality from this guy...
http://www.sunherald.com/sports/col...-of-southern-mississippi/article83199052.html
http://www.sunherald.com/sports/col...-of-southern-mississippi/article83199052.html
S. Miss writer telling it like it is, "C-USA should dissolve"
- Thread starter andy4theherd
- Start date
Very poor suggestion....IMO......to have Marshall in the Atlantic division.
I've always played devil's advocate when it came to lobbying for a membership to the AAC but I think we may be at a point where we have to do everything we can to switch conferences. I just hope our fans are ready to pony up when/if Mike asks for help.
If a move to the AAC doesn't happen trimming the TX and FL fat (maybe keeping FAU) is appealing.
Marshall
Southern Miss
La Tech
WKU
UAB
FAU
ULL
Appy State
ODU
Charlotte
That's a nice 10-team G5 league with reasonable travel. Also makes keeping a terrible football program like Charlotte more palatable.
Would still be a decent basketball and very good baseball league - even without Rice.
If a move to the AAC doesn't happen trimming the TX and FL fat (maybe keeping FAU) is appealing.
Marshall
Southern Miss
La Tech
WKU
UAB
FAU
ULL
Appy State
ODU
Charlotte
That's a nice 10-team G5 league with reasonable travel. Also makes keeping a terrible football program like Charlotte more palatable.
Would still be a decent basketball and very good baseball league - even without Rice.
Any move that would keep Marshall in any semblance of C-USA would be a bad one. Back to the MAC, to the AAC, or bust.
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the points he made about actual on-field performance was the most upsetting. we've had top 25 football teams the last two seasons, we had teams win NCAA tourney games, and we just sent 4 teams to the NCAA baseball tourney...
and it means jack and shit...
and it means jack and shit...
In assume you mean AAC not ACC. However, where would the money to compete come from? We are about $13 million budget per year less than anyone in the AAC.
Meister, I won't lie, if I were the person making the decisions and the final call Marshall would be back in the MAC. It's just as viable a league as CUSA these days, has some teams that consistently perform well or are starting to have consistency, and the member schools will be getting more revenue. Add in natural rivalries, better and cheaper travel, and the ability to compete for league championships every single year.
Nope. I like being in a conference with them in a "I hate them" sort of way. Just the way it should be, right?
I'd probably remove Charlotte or Appy in favor of them. Or, go to 12 and pick up Ga Southern, too.
AAC is only logicall choice. Just because our budget is 13 million less than their lowest member means little. Cost of living in WV is half that of most states. Also accounting can be done with or without certain costs to make your numbers appear higher than they are.
If the B12 takes an AAC member I hope Hamrick has us looking good for when the pretty girl picks up the phone.
If the B12 takes an AAC member I hope Hamrick has us looking good for when the pretty girl picks up the phone.
the budget thing doesn't hold a lot of water. the AAC is basically the old CUSA. we played and competed with these same guys back then.
honestly though, we belong in the MAC...
honestly though, we belong in the MAC...
The mac isn't a conference. It's a place where you play mid week for espn and kill your gate and recruiting and you get fired up to play Marshall as your superbowl
Agree. I do NOT want to make trips to Mt. Pleasant and Ypsilanti anymore.
May 15, 2020. The day THE AMERICAN!!!!!!!!! 's TV contract expires. If current trends continue (I think they well accelerate, actually) ESPN will have 12.4M less subscribers than today. And then? The same type of deal you see here. That random collection of teams brings nothing to the table much different than this random collection, at least in football. Basketball maybe something. But not much.
So MU pays $7M WE DO NOT HAVE to get out of CUSA and into this THE AMERICAN!!!!!! Could not happen earlier than the 18 football season.
All that for 2 years of grandfathered money and then the same deal we have now, or worse
As to the MAC, no thanks. Greenhouse covers it. Tuesday night in the cold before no one for nothing. No thanks.
So MU pays $7M WE DO NOT HAVE to get out of CUSA and into this THE AMERICAN!!!!!! Could not happen earlier than the 18 football season.
All that for 2 years of grandfathered money and then the same deal we have now, or worse
As to the MAC, no thanks. Greenhouse covers it. Tuesday night in the cold before no one for nothing. No thanks.
I never thought I would say going back to the MAC was a good idea, but I am saying it now!
MU fans spend to much time worrying and hoping for other entities to fail or underachieve to somehow make the Herds plight more palatable.
No to the MAC because of Tues/Weds games alone. If it could be worked out that we only played those types of games on the road, then I would be ok with it.
The AAC's TV contract won't drop much if any imo. It's just time to face reality guys.
AAC is much better and a lot more respected than any other G5 conference.
The AAC's TV contract won't drop much if any imo. It's just time to face reality guys.
AAC is much better and a lot more respected than any other G5 conference.
Not to mention, FlyHawk, has anybody here thought just what going to the MAC would do to our FOOTBALL RECRUITING, specifically? CUSA gave us a presence in Florida and DOC has mined it very successfully for quality recruits, as our recent record indicates. NO games in FL, even against the likes of FIU and FAU, would adversely affect our recruiting there, IMHO. Now Doc tells recruits from south FL that they will go HOME for a game every season!!! How many future recruits from south FL, and their families, will be enamored about potential games in Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, Muncie, Buffalo, etc. on cold November Tuesday or Wednesday nights??????
you guys come up with all these reasons why the MAC sucks.... nobody disputes those.... it may be time to start coming to terms with the fact that Marshall doesn't have a lot of say in where it goes....
We have left the Mac now twice. What makes anybody think they would take us back? Definitely would take a long time to make up for the $7 million buyout.
A whole lot of dominoes have to fall yet to create a new league which will be most likely the merging of several Lesser conferences.
A whole lot of dominoes have to fall yet to create a new league which will be most likely the merging of several Lesser conferences.
Anybody notice how much this sounds like the posts about CSTV when CUSA made the decision to move away from ESPN and embrace CSTV a number of years ago? So many on these message boards posted with confidence about CSTV's enormous future and the competition that would bring down ESPN.
ESPN is in transition, no question, but for the record, they had a record year financially last year, they simply did NOT meet Disney's growth projections. The entire industry is changing, but that doesn't mean it is going away. If I were going to bet on who survives and who adjusts to the new business models, I'd still put my money on ESPN. The great "shakeup" to which you refer was a layoff of 300 out of 8,000 employees.........31/2 years ago, they laid off 400 out of 6,000. in the 3 years between ESPN added a net of almost 2000 employees....... your reports of their demise, are greatly exaggerated.
That said, the industry is indeed in transition. Fox is now positioned to strongly challenge in the space, but at the same time has committed tremendous resources to rights acquisition, which by the way, is the primary cause of ESPN's headaches (along with cord cutting--- a much misunderstood phenomenon).
Don't look for massive changes in the way either does business in the short term....... in the long term, it will be dictated by how well either or both figure out ways to adjust and particularly new delivery systems direct to the consumer. ESPN has always led the way in technology (WatchESPN being a great example)...... It will be interesting to be sure, but the conclusions on this board are often way over the top and seldom based in reality.
I posted about a year ago, that the TV contract would be dramatically disappointing, even before the slip of the lip at Disney that brought on the stock slide and "panic" about ESPN on wall street.
What will happen to AAC in their next rights negotiation? Sam C believes he knows, but like everyone else, its just an uneducated guess based on oversimplified data.
If the AAC continues to prosper and programs grow, they will see an uptick in rights dollars, if they experience mass defections (won't happen) then they will suffer too. But in the current environment, if I were them, I wouldn't be too concerned, they look to be in demand a couple of years down the road and should be fine.
I thought the CSTV deal was stupid from the get go. We chased the dollars and lost in the long term. I know two people who worked at ESPN at the time and both said it was a terrible move by CUSA. If anyone thought CSTV would have blossomed into something great, they were idiots who didn't know a thing about media or the sports business.
Dear DSHOE, I am no expert on this however, many things are in transition and nobody including you completely know the future. For example, how many years ago was it that Blockbuster was a big deal? Today people use providers like Hulu and Netflix and we all know that Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010. Look at XM radio. Today it looks pretty good with it's revenue stream but with new technology now available I will be shocked if people continue to pay a monthly fee when they can now play their own music in their car using their smartphone and a Bluetooth IMO. That brings me to cable. How long will people be forced to carry an array of channels that they have no use for? If the day comes and I believe it will, when subscribers can cut out channels they don't want- ESPN could be in a bad spot.Believe me I don't take the movie channels for this reason and would love to cut away about half of my channels I have with Direct tv. For the record I like ESPN and was not trying to bash them although they haven't been a friend to Marshall in recent years IMO.So all I was trying to imply was hold steady cause sometimes what looks like a bad deal today turns out not to be such a bad deal later. Of course I could be wrong but I am saying this based on many trends I have noticed across the board in our nation.
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Please LIST the ACTUAL circumstances that make AAC rights worth MORE in the next go-around.
There are not any. Fact is, CUSA rights went down because the rights for all non top shelf rights are going down, because the revenue stream is getting smaller every day. And, when AAC rights, or Indy Car racing rights, or NHRA rights, or MWC rights, or pro tennis rights, or WHATEVER non top shelf rights come up, the league/conference/sanctioning body will get less. Because there is less to give.
The ESPN model was simple. More or less force "everybody" to pay for ESPN, even the majority that, given 100% a la carte status, would not buy any sports channels whatsoever. Simple. And it made people plenty of money. Copied by the other 3 major broadcasters, and, in various modified forms, by RSNs, and by networks offering other genres of programming.
That time is coming to an end. A discussion of ESPN's merit relative to CBSSN releative to Fox relative to BeIN, is a discussion of the Acme buggy whip company relative to all the other buggy whip companies. Acme (ESPN) may very well have been the premeire buggy whip maker the market leader.
Until nobody bought ANY BRAND of buggy whip whatsoever. The fact that Acme was the best kept it alive for a few months more than the rest.
Remember Blockbuster?
While ESPN's Longhorn Network is a failue, it is going to be the future. Single team (internet delivered) channels. In that world, MU ain't Notre Dame. It ain't even WVU. But it certainly ain't Cincinnati either. If you cannot GIVE AWAY home game tickets, how many subscribers to your channel you think you are going to get.
And meanwhile Disney will be saying "but, but, but, you just have to take SNY and pay an in-market rate for UConn football statewide even thought you could care less about it, in order to get the Mets...."
And the new a la carte customer will say "no, just the Mets games, please".
End of paradigm.
There are not any. Fact is, CUSA rights went down because the rights for all non top shelf rights are going down, because the revenue stream is getting smaller every day. And, when AAC rights, or Indy Car racing rights, or NHRA rights, or MWC rights, or pro tennis rights, or WHATEVER non top shelf rights come up, the league/conference/sanctioning body will get less. Because there is less to give.
The ESPN model was simple. More or less force "everybody" to pay for ESPN, even the majority that, given 100% a la carte status, would not buy any sports channels whatsoever. Simple. And it made people plenty of money. Copied by the other 3 major broadcasters, and, in various modified forms, by RSNs, and by networks offering other genres of programming.
That time is coming to an end. A discussion of ESPN's merit relative to CBSSN releative to Fox relative to BeIN, is a discussion of the Acme buggy whip company relative to all the other buggy whip companies. Acme (ESPN) may very well have been the premeire buggy whip maker the market leader.
Until nobody bought ANY BRAND of buggy whip whatsoever. The fact that Acme was the best kept it alive for a few months more than the rest.
Remember Blockbuster?
While ESPN's Longhorn Network is a failue, it is going to be the future. Single team (internet delivered) channels. In that world, MU ain't Notre Dame. It ain't even WVU. But it certainly ain't Cincinnati either. If you cannot GIVE AWAY home game tickets, how many subscribers to your channel you think you are going to get.
And meanwhile Disney will be saying "but, but, but, you just have to take SNY and pay an in-market rate for UConn football statewide even thought you could care less about it, in order to get the Mets...."
And the new a la carte customer will say "no, just the Mets games, please".
End of paradigm.
I believe we are getting away from the story which is that Cusa should consider desolving. Always thought even though we are not ND why can't we be independent a couple years. We have the marketability and somewhat name brand. At least we couple maybe get our own schedule and not be penalized for the Rookies to the league.
Find a league or wait it out , hope hammick can make some nice pitches and fly some guys to the greenbrier . sell the team not the league !
Find a league or wait it out , hope hammick can make some nice pitches and fly some guys to the greenbrier . sell the team not the league !
Sam,
If you could ever get out of your own way on these posts, you have lots to say...... drop the hyperbole and condescending remarks and you might be taken seriously. There are just so many assumptions you make and conclusions that you draw that don't appear to be based on anything more than your passions.......hate for AAC and love for MU. Both blind you to logical discourse and until you can get beyond that, it is difficult to engage in meaningful debate.
Seriously, who do you think would really play us at home? Do you have any real idea how difficult it would be to schedule weeks 3-13 without a conference? Absolutely not feasible for MU to go it alone
Nice list of ACTUAL circumstances that make this AAC worth more in the next go around.
Really I have no "hate" of this AAC. I have contempt for people that say Bagdad Bob level idiocy. And when you are running a league that everybody who could left and everybody who eventually can (if any) will, and went thorugh the last realignment with pretty much a scenario of the week (none of which panned out) you need to turn the arrogance meter down a couple of notches. It is a "tallest midget" competiton anyway.
Really, I get it. Part of what I will call the ESPN paradigm is to, despite the actual facts, buy into the AAC (not exclusive to the AAC, but it is the least true about it than any other) that being IN a place is the same as being SIGNIFICANT IN that place. In other threads you have bragged about, more or less, extorting people in Conn. to pay in market for UConn, despite their total disinterest in it, as a part of the deal for the Mets channel. I get it. Same with the idea that UC equals not only Cincinnati, but all of Ohio, and that an AAC tie up with ESPN (or whatever) means it can zap people all over Ohio for that esentually fanless team.
And that paradigm worked, and made people rich. As did Blockbuster. Buggy whips. Pay phones. Atari 2600s.
The question is will it continue to? And should third (fourth ? ) tier sports deals like the AAC and CUSA take a totally arrogant approach that nothing has changed, or be proactive.
What I THINK is going to happen (think, don't know, nobody knows) is that college sports is going to something like the Longhorn Network or the SEC Network, except instead of "extorting" everybody to pay for it based on geography and inclusion in complex multi-channel deals with cable and dish companies, a la carte. Channels based around one team, or one conference or one state or region.
And, with a good fan base, a long tradition, and good performance on the field, IMHO, MU is in a better shape in that world than teams, such as Cincinnati that give away tickets to their games and still draw nothing. In fact, CUSA, or at least the top half of it, is in a better shape than the AAC in that world. The main unifying theme of the AAC seems to be fundamental disinterest.
Really I have no "hate" of this AAC. I have contempt for people that say Bagdad Bob level idiocy. And when you are running a league that everybody who could left and everybody who eventually can (if any) will, and went thorugh the last realignment with pretty much a scenario of the week (none of which panned out) you need to turn the arrogance meter down a couple of notches. It is a "tallest midget" competiton anyway.
Really, I get it. Part of what I will call the ESPN paradigm is to, despite the actual facts, buy into the AAC (not exclusive to the AAC, but it is the least true about it than any other) that being IN a place is the same as being SIGNIFICANT IN that place. In other threads you have bragged about, more or less, extorting people in Conn. to pay in market for UConn, despite their total disinterest in it, as a part of the deal for the Mets channel. I get it. Same with the idea that UC equals not only Cincinnati, but all of Ohio, and that an AAC tie up with ESPN (or whatever) means it can zap people all over Ohio for that esentually fanless team.
And that paradigm worked, and made people rich. As did Blockbuster. Buggy whips. Pay phones. Atari 2600s.
The question is will it continue to? And should third (fourth ? ) tier sports deals like the AAC and CUSA take a totally arrogant approach that nothing has changed, or be proactive.
What I THINK is going to happen (think, don't know, nobody knows) is that college sports is going to something like the Longhorn Network or the SEC Network, except instead of "extorting" everybody to pay for it based on geography and inclusion in complex multi-channel deals with cable and dish companies, a la carte. Channels based around one team, or one conference or one state or region.
And, with a good fan base, a long tradition, and good performance on the field, IMHO, MU is in a better shape in that world than teams, such as Cincinnati that give away tickets to their games and still draw nothing. In fact, CUSA, or at least the top half of it, is in a better shape than the AAC in that world. The main unifying theme of the AAC seems to be fundamental disinterest.
I would like to see MARSHALL return to The MAC and bring So Miss, Charlotte, App State, MTSU, & WKU with us.....TRAVEL would make more Cent$.
Why Charlotte? The SCHOOL with the greatest future. About 26,000 students and growing...very modern campus with lots of $$$$ available. App State student population continues to grow (17,000)....WKU (21,000)....MTSU (25,000)...Marshall 14,000), So Miss (15,000).....MAC schools are located within easy driving distance of Huntington. We already play Ohio, Miami, & Akron, periodically. I liked playing BGSU, W. Michigan & Toledo. I know we will never abort Florida schools because most of our football guys hail from there. Perhaps a MAC North & MAC South...
HerdZilla22 in Charlotte
AGREE....AGREE......AGREE......Sam's posts are like old Western movies.....Good Guy (White hat)----Bad Guy (Black Hat)......who ends up with Woman is left to your imagination....
HerdZilla22 (Sweeney in Charlotte)...Hot as Hell too.....
First, Marshall does not have 14,000 students. My wife is an on campus academic advisor, keeps me updated on enrollment numbers, and the number is more around 11,000. That's still great for MU, though.
Secondly, Charlotte is not in some great position to suddenly matter in football. Who are they going to recruit in the Carolinas? All of the guys already committed to UNC, USC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, or even Appalachian State?
Secondly, Charlotte is not in some great position to suddenly matter in football. Who are they going to recruit in the Carolinas? All of the guys already committed to UNC, USC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, or even Appalachian State?
I work at Marshall, and the actual headcount has hovered around 13,500 for the past few fall terms. When it comes to FTE's (Full Time Equivalents), we are closer to 11,000. It may take 2-3 part-time students to equal 1 FTE.
