MVC Expansion

[thefish7]

Oh sorry. That is just something I know. Butler wouldn't join the A10 either without a solution for travel (I'd imagine that means divisions). The source of this knowledge I can't even imply.


There's just no point of moving unless it's to a league that would come with significant revenue increases. In the Horizon League, Butler can be a consistent top 25 team and recruit top 100 players. There's just no incentive.

The Big East is really the only option that works

Understood, thanks. I wouldn't want to join the shattered husk of the Big East as much as I'd want to join certain Big East schools if I were in their shoes.

[Bravesfan]

Oh sorry. That is just something I know. Butler wouldn't join the A10 either without a solution for travel (I'd imagine that means divisions). The source of this knowledge I can't even imply.


There's just no point of moving unless it's to a league that would come with significant revenue increases. In the Horizon League, Butler can be a consistent top 25 team and recruit top 100 players. There's just no incentive.

The Big East is really the only option that works

I agree, but there is no reason that the Valley can't become a consistent muti-bid league again if teams do what they need to do to play the "big boys". Illinois St. is hopelessly lost in that department as illustrated with their offensively weak scheduling in recent years. But the rest of the conference, except for Creighton ironically, beefed up their schedule this year. If the conference as a whole can upset some people this year, there are two or three teams that can potentially make a run for the NCAA Tournament, which would be an incentive for Butler to join in the future. Throw in Butler's recent series with Bradley, and their recent games against Evansville, and maybe they consider joining.

And even if the chances are slim, at least they still could be considered until the day they say they are not moving from the Horizon League.

[TheAsianSensation]

As for the Big East, I'm reading various reports about their meetings the last couple days and what they're discussing. And a couple of them made me laugh out loud. That place is a hot mess. I would not want to be in that blast radius when it implodes.

[Coogles]

Oh sorry. That is just something I know. Butler wouldn't join the A10 either without a solution for travel (I'd imagine that means divisions). The source of this knowledge I can't even imply.

There's just no point of moving unless it's to a league that would come with significant revenue increases. In the Horizon League, Butler can be a consistent top 25 team and recruit top 100 players. There's just no incentive.

The Big East is really the only option that works

No point?

Butler has a big-time marketing problem and it begins and ends with the Horizon League. It took half of Connersville visiting Hinkle for Matt Howard's last game on senior day to push attendance over the 7,000 mark for the first time since the 60's. Whether Collier or anyone else in that athletic department wants to admit it, the Horizon League is a dud of a league from a sales standpoint, full of directional and commuter schools, or privates that haven't been relevant in longer than anyone can remember.

Any time Stevens is asked about the Horizon and conference realignment he redirects and mentions how the perception of the conference doesn't match reality. That perception doesn't just exist amongst journalists; it echoes amongst fans and in the Indianapolis community as a whole. Never has it been more clear than this past year during the Monday night game against UIC. That game came on the heels of losing at Youngstown, but they had also just won at Cleveland State two days prior. Attendance at that game was awful. Reported attendance was 5,287; actual attendance couldn't have been much over 3k. The entire lower bowl was half filled at best, with scattered fans around the rest of the building. Completely without exaggeration, there were not more than 10 students in the Dawg Pound at both ends of the court.

It's only going to take one bad year for these newfound fans to disappear. Even when the team is feeding off of a trip to the national championship game the year before, nobody cares about the program after January 1 becuase of the conference we're in.

As for revenue, an extra 1,500 upper level season tickets sold this year would add up to $523,500.00. I don't think that's an unreasonable bump given what programs the programs in Omaha and Peoria are able to accomplish. A non-football Big East isn't going to rake in the media rights, either. What happens while we wait ever so impatiently?

From Geno Ford -

"We have as good a fan base as anyone in the country. Last year, we had a team that lost 20 games and the final home game had 10,000 people in attendance. That doesn't happen in very many spots. Kentucky hasn't lost 20 games very often, but you take a program like that and I'm not sure they'd have 10,000 show up for the last game of the year if they were struggling like that."

Point is, MVC fans seem to genuinely care about the conference season. Even some die-hard Butler fans just want it to be over with so we can hurry up and get to March.

[amckillip]

I agree completely with coogles (Welcome!) and TAS. The Big East is the definition of a sinking ship, hopefully good schools like Butler realize it. Butler has been to two national titles the last two years and can't generate the support and attendance BU has. This has tons to do with the fact that the average fan can't tell you anything about more than 4-5 teams on the schedule and most people couldn't tell you another team in the horizon outside of Butler. But all NCAA BBall fans know Bradley, WSU, Creighton, SIU, UNI, etc. particularly because they have been in the NCAA lately, and 4 of the 5 have made a deep run recently. Heck, everyone even knows Indiana State, because of Larry Bird. To say that a move to the MVC wouldn't help Butler is incredibly microscopic in scope. Revenue-wise, year in and year out it would be a huge help to the school.

As far as the Big East goes on the surface it looks like a good move, but it would be an ill-timed short-sighted move that ends up costing them IMO.

[TheAsianSensation]

All you need to know is that a recent Big East meeting reportedly got quite heated and reached its apex when one of the member schools had "harsh words" for Notre Dame's role in everything.

Another part of it, after Temple was brought up as a candidate, was spent listening to Villanova apparently try to tear apart every attribute Temple brought to the table.

The basketball schools tried to force a $15 million buyout on the football schools, which was unanimously voted down.

The football schools are split 3-3 on whether to invite Boise St.

Here's the game plan. Wait for that thing to destroy itself, THEN worry about getting in contact with them. And I'm not even sure I'd want to be part of a destructive group of programs like that. The Big East could invite Bradley tomorrow and I'd say, 'hell naw" at this point.

[Indy_BB]

Can I be more plain? Butler does not have any interest in joining the Missouri Valley Conference. Conferences they would join is moot.

I'm not sure who the expansion targets would be, maybe Oral Roberts, but Butler is irrelevant to the discussion.

[tornado]

Can I be more plain? Butler does not have any interest in joining the Missouri Valley Conference. ....

-- but just a year ago I am sure you'd have agreed that..
-Pitt had no interest in joining the ACC
-Mizzou had no interest in joining the SEC
-BYU had no interest in leaving the MWC to join the West Coast Conference
-etc, etc, ....things do change...

[Coogles]

-- but just a year ago I am sure you'd have agreed that..
-Pitt had no interest in joining the ACC
-Mizzou had no interest in joining the SEC
-BYU had no interest in leaving the MWC to join the West Coast Conference
-etc, etc, ....things do change...

Things do chamge, especially when you have a new president.

I'm sure it will be a complete waste of my time, but I already had a "Why the MVC is a better fit for Butler" article written that I'm paraphrasing to mail to Danko, the university's new president. He was the dean of the business school at Villanova, which is another reason why some were excited about Butler's chances of being an early invite to some non-football Big East. Either way he'll bring adifferent perspective on athletics than his predeccesor.

[Indy_BB]

I suppose you are right, there's always a chance.

Whether or not that chance is more likely the the LA Lakers joining, I guess, doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread.

[tornado]

but Indy -- if Butler were an independent - we'd scoff at the idea of them joining the Horizon -- we'd be laughing that it would be a huge step down...
yet that's exactly where they are....

and what if some of the Horizon who have decent football like Youngstown leave and Butler is left in a, say, 6 or 7 team Horizon with a handful of RPI 250 teams...they might reconsider...

[ph]

actually, the results may surprise you....

Using Google maps and asking the distance between the cities in question, here's what Google says..

Omaha is not closer to AFA
Omaha to Colorado Springs - 606 miles
Omaha to Terre Haute ------ 565 miles
Omaha to Evansville --------604 miles

Wichita is closer by a little over 100 miles from each of the Indiana schools
Wichita to Colorado Springs - 490 miles
Wichita to Terre Haute ------ 607 miles
Wichita to Evansville -------- 611 miles

Actually, university to university, I get Creighton 601mi to AFA (there is a 574 mi route, but not I-state) and 607 to Evansville.
Also 9hr 19 min vs 10hr 4min..
Technicalities aside, we agree AFA was too far for the MVC.

[TheAsianSensation]

but Indy -- if Butler were an independent - we'd scoff at the idea of them joining the Horizon -- we'd be laughing that it would be a huge step down...
yet that's exactly where they are....

and what if some of the Horizon who have decent football like Youngstown leave and Butler is left in a, say, 6 or 7 team Horizon with a handful of RPI 250 teams...they might reconsider...

Youngstown's the only one with football, and them leaving with their bad RPIs would actually be a boost to the Horizon. (Butler and Valpo have non-scholly football and would not be any factor in leaving anywhere because of it)

[TheAsianSensation]

I think the Butler/Horizon situation can be accurately descirbed as this: Butler won't actively pursue another conference, including the MVC. They won't initiate the move. However, if the environment around them changes (the Big East crumbles, for example), they could move as a reaction.

Butler moving conferences would be a reactionary move, not a trigger action. Butler won't trigger, but will respond, in terms of conference realignment.

[tornado]

Youngstown's the only one with football, and them leaving with their bad RPIs would actually be a boost to the Horizon. (Butler and Valpo have non-scholly football and would not be any factor in leaving anywhere because of it)

I know - I was talking about the future -- the non-scholarship FB schools might step up and Wright State is teetering on adding FB as a scholarship sport - they just spent half a million bucks building a field...
remember -- if they think there's money to be made by stepping up their FB programs - they are helped by the fact that they see the endless taxpayer dollars being doled out to Ohio State and elsewhere - and they want some...

and Cleveland State is already looking at what coach to hire for their potential new FB program...

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/wrightstatesports/entries/2011/07/27/football_field_progressing_at.html

http://www.dawgscooper.net/2011/02/cleveland-state-should-consider-mangini.html

http://www.cleveland.com/sports/csu/index.ssf/2008/10/plan_to_add_football_at_clevel.html

FOR THOSE interested -- more on the supposed slush fund - stash of $$ Ohio State has hoarded from taxpayer sources...
that you haven't heard much about in the press.....
Their "Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund" sounds suspiciously like a secret slush fund...

http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2011/07/15/story-ohio-state-university-athlete-car-repair.html

http://www.thelantern.com/campus/jocks-get-free-socks-athletes-receive-perks-unavailable-to-other-students-1.2210603