Valley Expansion

[thefish7]

As much as it'd piss off everyone here, Duquesne(16) would be a more attractive option than Bradley. Pittsburgh > Peoria.

You had me right up until here. I agree that Pittsburgh is greater than Peoria, but I don't think Duquesne is more attractive than Bradley by any measure-- basketball or money. That's fairly akin to saying Detroit Mercy is more attractive because it's in Detroit. Heck by that logic Detroit is probably more attractive than Duquesne because Detroit (despite all its problems) is probably > Pittsburgh.

[squirrelgotdead]

TAS-I think LaSalle and St. Joseph's would both be in that above league. Even though Duquesne offers the Pitt market, I do think the two Philly's are a package.

Houston, DePaul's attendance has only really stunk the past few years. That is for a variety of reasons, their non-con has been less than stellar and as the team has been bad, interest dwindled. However, in the first few years of Big East play, they were easily getting 18-20K+ for their home dates against the likes of Syracuse, UConn, G'town, 'Nova etc. So it's a not a completely lost cause, and offers much greater potential than a Bradley.

[TheAsianSensation]

You had me right up until here. I agree that Pittsburgh is greater than Peoria, but I don't think Duquesne is more attractive than Bradley by any measure-- basketball or money. That's fairly akin to saying Detroit Mercy is more attractive because it's in Detroit. Heck by that logic Detroit is probably more attractive than Duquesne because Detroit (despite all its problems) is probably > Pittsburgh.

It's close. But I think marketability is the new rage these days, and that tilts in their favor, unfortunately. But it's close, and Bradley's basketball program > Duquesne's basketball program, but I don't think the difference is large enough to sway other factors.

LaSalle a package deal with St Joe's? I'll take squirrel's word for it, although I'm skeptical.

[thefish7]

It'd be interesting, for the sake of these arguments, to know something about revenue of the programs in question-- tickets, TV, advertising. I think Bradley would end up quite a bit higher in the list than we tend to give it credit for. I'm not foolish enough to compare Bradley to DePaul-- DePaul is in a MUCH larger market and actually has fan interest, but location is not the only thing and that's the problem with a school like Duquesne which is near zero interest.

[squirrelgotdead]

Well, Duquesne interest has increased the past few seasons as the program has rebounded from decades of dormancy.

Sometimes being good at the right time is all it takes.

Or if you are Bradley, just the opposite.

[basketball nut]

The one thing we have to think about is will the BCS have BB only conf. as the BE is now or will they get really picky and go to 4-6 conf makeup of 12-16 teams that then will play their own tournaments and develop their own tv pkgs as individual conf and/or as a BCS tv rights for cable or possibly both.
I really think as this aligns out these schools will seperate from the NCAA completely and have all of their own tournaments. Then the rest of schools will be governed by the NCAA and we will have a major crack down on what these schools can and can't do. Only time will tell but this is how it is shaping up.
One other thing if these schools break off from the NCAA will the benefits change for the student athlete? Just something to ponder.

[squirrelgotdead]

TAS seems to think there will be room.

I am firmly in the camp of "No."

A couple reasons for my view:

1) This is about closing the door. The end game here is consolidation of power. At present, it looks like there will be more than 64 teams, but football will still be a requirement.

2) Short-term, in order to salvage itself, the NCAA will do everything it can to prevent a split by the BCS members, which may mean they have to rule that you must play BCS/FBS level football in order to play basketball at that level. I've been saying this for 3 years and I am even stronger in this belief than ever before. The one caveat I always add is that there *MAY* be a window that states "Your league or a certain % of your league must play football at the FBS level" to play at that level for hoops which means that the window remains open for schools like DePaul and Marquette, but Valley schools would all have to commit to making the jump in order to remain relevant.

[TheAsianSensation]

This is about closing the door. The end game here is consolidation of power. At present, it looks like there will be more than 64 teams, but football will still be a requirement.

I do disagree with this on one front: The current Big East members that don't play FBS football (Marq, DePaul, G'town, et al) will be allowed to join the 64 football members in the liftoff. There is far too much value in some of those schools.

And Bradley's hope would be to somehow find a place in there.

And you're also assuming the NCAA is competent enough to make a power play to attempt to keep everyone in their organization.

[thefish7]

Duquesne's increased fan interest resulted in an average attendance of just over 3000 fans/game, squirrel. I just don't buy it. Not saying we have a place at the table, because I'm not sure we do, but as far as basketball programs as a package go, I think we're probably top 75 or a little better.

[squirrelgotdead]

Duquesne's increased fan interest resulted in an average attendance of just over 3000 fans/game, squirrel. I just don't buy it. Not saying we have a place at the table, because I'm not sure we do, but as far as basketball programs as a package go, I think we're probably top 75 or a little better.

Basketball with NO football means you have zero leverage. I can not stress that enough.

[TheAsianSensation]

I'll change my mind and say Bradley > Duquesne. I can be swayed. Bradley would still then be #16 in a 16-team conference, which isn't exactly a vote of confidence here.

[squirrelgotdead]

I do disagree with this on one front: The current Big East members that don't play FBS football (Marq, DePaul, G'town, et al) will be allowed to join the 64 football members in the liftoff. There is far too much value in some of those schools.

And Bradley's hope would be to somehow find a place in there.

And you're also assuming the NCAA is competent enough to make a power play to attempt to keep everyone in their organization.

I don't know if I would call it competence, but rather faith in that the NCAA always gets it wrong.

In other words, the NCAA immediately recognizes the threat of losing it's biggest members. Therefore, out of desperation, it alienates 2/3rds of its money-making entities at the DI level by appeasing the BCS types.

And again, there will be a caveat that will likely say "Your league or x% of your league's membership must play football at the FBS level" whereby those schools and others who are in position to make a move (such as UMass and Richmond) could make the jump.

Well, after a few years, they are faced with the same problem of more schools making the jump to FBS simply for DI basketball, and the BCS still leave.

So it's not competence, but rather a knee-jerk reaction that only prolongs the inevitable, and in the meantime reaps internal havoc among its membership.

Also, I think the NCAA still only has an interim President who has stated he was going to leave the membership decisions to his full-time successor. So I have to wonder if there will be an emergency NCAA meeting at some point this summer.

[thefish7]

I'll change my mind and say Bradley > Duquesne. I can be swayed. Bradley would still then be #16 in a 16-team conference, which isn't exactly a vote of confidence here.

LOL, I'm not exactly confident either... I think it really would be intersting to know about total revenues for these programs to understand better. Though I'm a little skeptical in regards to Richmond and Charlotte being > than Bradley in a basketball focused conference. Richmond most definitely unless they want to play some football, but Charlotte?

I think the thing is about Bradley, we probably don't make much with our Comcast broadcasts, but I bet viewership isn't bad. We're probably about a 350,000 person TV market (more if you include BloNo, but I don't think BU can lay claim to that market hehe) and Bradley would consistently own that market (particularly if playing on Nat TV against good opponents) and deliver strong viewership for each game. My professional trade is that of a buyer and my suppliers like to have a mix of big time cyclical customers (high peak, high margin customers who suffer from a lot of demand variability) and good consistent customers (lower margin but lower demand variability to ensure good baseline business all the time). That's how I view Bradley as a revenue stream, maybe a little unspectactular and without a chance of gaining that much significant viewership or attendance (though I think we could match Creighton with sustained success in a major league so ~14K-15K in time) but you know we're going to deliver a nice solid amount of revenue at all times.

[houstontxbrave]

I think one thing a little lost in this is the non revenue sports.

If you start putting all these basketball only conferences all over the place with teams from Nebraska to NC to Mass the travel costs in non revenue sports will be difficult to accept.

It has to be a huge issue right now at at place like SLU, there isnt to much direct TV revenue to suppliment costs in the A-10. And if you start moving schools around and expand conferences who is going to pay for the softball teams of the worlds to travel everywhere.

Even more if the BCS's splitter off in basketball and that NCAA tourney money/CBS/ESPN money evaporates.

This is going to be a mess for the Bradleys of the world.

[thefish7]

I don't know if I would call it competence, but rather faith in that the NCAA always gets it wrong.

In other words, the NCAA immediately recognizes the threat of losing it's biggest members. Therefore, out of desperation, it alienates 2/3rds of its money-making entities at the DI level by appeasing the BCS types.

And again, there will be a caveat that will likely say "Your league or x% of your league's membership must play football at the FBS level" whereby those schools and others who are in position to make a move (such as UMass and Richmond) could make the jump.

Well, after a few years, they are faced with the same problem of more schools making the jump to FBS simply for DI basketball, and the BCS still leave.

So it's not competence, but rather a knee-jerk reaction that only prolongs the inevitable, and in the meantime reaps internal havoc among its membership.

Also, I think the NCAA still only has an interim President who has stated he was going to leave the membership decisions to his full-time successor. So I have to wonder if there will be an emergency NCAA meeting at some point this summer.

I think the problem with that line of thinking is that the NCAA doesn't make a lot of money off of football-- the schools are who make that money. The NCAA's bread-and-butter is March Madness. I still think the best solution for everybody could be for FBS football to seperate altogether and do their own thing (heck, pay the players, who cares? except maybe the NFL hehe) leaving all other sports to the NCAA and affiliations that make more sense for the members and those other sports. I don't think that's what's going to happen this time around, but I think it's maybe the most elegant option.