With permission to share from Dooley on the UCONN Boneyard website:
1. TV/Markets (within 2 hour radius):
http://www.tvb.org/media/file/2015-2016-dma-ranks.pdf
UConn would provide potential viewership into the following markets within a 2 hour radius-
#1 New York (which includes Southwest CT) - 7.3M TV homes (6.5% of U.S.)
#8 Boston/Manchester - 2.4M TV homes (2.1% of U.S.)
#30 Hartford/New Haven - 945K TV homes (.8% of U.S.)
#52 Providence/New Bedford - 600K TV homes (.5% of U.S.)
#116 Springfield/Holyoke - 246K TV homes (.2% of U.S.)
Total potential reach: 11.4M TV homes
Conversely, here are how some of our competitors stack up (and I'm trying to be as liberal as possible). I consider Houston, Cincinnati, BYU, UCF, and USF as UConn's top competitors -
#10 Houston - 2.4M TV homes (2% of U.S.)
#11 Tampa/St.Pete - 1.9M TV homes (1.6% of U.S.)
#19 Orlando/Daytona - 1.5M TV homes (1.3% of U.S.)
#18 Cleveland/Akron - 1.5M TV homes (1.3% of U.S.)
#27 Indianapolis - 1M TV homes (1% of U.S.)
#31 Columbus, OH - 900K TV homes (.8% of U.S.)
#34 Salt Lake, UT - 885K TV homes (.7% of U.S.)**
#36 Cincinnati - 860K TV homes (.7% of U.S.)
#50 Memphis - 636K TV homes (.5% of U.S.)
#61 Ft Myers, FL - 505K TV homes (.4% of U.S.)
#63 Lexington, KY - 472K TV homes (.4% of U.S.)
#64 Dayton - 460K TV homes (.4% of U.S)
#77 Toledo - 400K TV homes (.3% of U.S.)
Total potential COMBINED reach (Houston, Cincinnati, UCF, and USF): 12.3M TV homes
**BYU should also be counted as number of LDS members in the U.S.
There are a total of 6.46M LDS Church members in the U.S.
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-...ed-states.
When combined with Salt Lake, UT, BYU brings a total potential reach of 7.2M TV homes.
CONCLUSION: UConn is the unquestioned #1 candidate for potential TV reach. I am by no means saying that every 11.4M TV home will watch UConn. But not every TV home listed in their respective demographics, including all 6.46M LDS members, will watch our B12 competition either. We are talking about potential TV reach which is important for any movement towards a B12 Network launch. If Texas decides who the 12th member will be (assuming that the "rumors" about Cincinnati being #11 is true), then we would bring the most potential TV homes to their Longhorn Network.
2. Academics - if Texas is the school that has ultimate veto power and academics are important to them, then UConn is the unquestioned #1 candidate by academic profile. UConn would weigh in as the #2 ranked school, behind Texas, by the U.S. News & World Report.
http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com...ities.aspx
Here are the 2016 US N&WR rankings:
#52 Texas *AAU
#57 UConn
#66 BYU
#72 Baylor
#82 TCU
#108 Oklahoma
#108 Iowa St *AAU
#115 Kansas *AAU
#140 Cincinnati
#146 Kansas St
#149 Oklahoma St
#156 USF
#168 UCF
#168 Texas Tech
#175 WVU
#187 Houston
Of course, there are other factors when measuring a school's academic strength. By in large, U.S. News & World Report is used as the "gold standard" for U.S. school rankings, hence my use here. UConn's overall ranking and Top 20 public university ranking certainly bodes well for UConn's academic strength. With the research expansion projects taking place, thanks to the $1.5B bonding allocation from the state of Connecticut, and aggressive faculty hiring initiative (with the goal to increase student body and alumni while creating a better student:faculty ratio, of course) puts UConn on track to rise in the rankings even further.
*AAU members are noted
3. Athletics - we are obviously talking about athletic conference expansion. This category also bodes well for UConn.
As cited by Jacobs in today's article, UConn has won 4 national championships in the two major sports (football and men's basketball) since 1999. The only other school to have done that is Florida (2 football, 2 men's hoops). As we all know, UConn has won men's and women's basketball titles in the same year twice ('04 and '11). No other school has ever done that. There is no questioning the strength of UConn basketball. UConn would easily become the top basketball program for men's and women's in the B12.
Without question, UConn is a "basketball school". Thankfully, there is room inside of the P5 for "basketball schools". For "basketball schools" to be successful (and bring money to a conference), it must be competitive in football. By no means do basketball schools need to bring a national championship pedigree to the gridiron. BUT, like I said, basketball schools have to competitive in most seasons. Let's look at how other "basketball schools" have fared since UConn made the move up to being a full D-1 football member in 2002, with specific attention paid towards schools with basketball programs that are in or around the same class as UConn (Kansas, Kentucky, Arizona, Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse, Louisville).
UConn: First, a brief look into our D-1 football history. I broke it down to pre-Pasqualoni and post-Pasqualoni eras and then a total record.
Edsall: 65-46 record. 2 shared Big East Conference championships. 1 BCS bowl appearance. 5 total bowl games.
Pasqualoni-present: 21-40. 1 bowl game.
Total: 86-86. .500 record since becoming a full-time D-1 football program. As you will see, this stacks up VERY favorably to the "basketball schools" currently in a P5 conference.
Syracuse: 58-105. 5 wins vacated by NCAA for rampant cheating. 4 total bowl games (2 as member of Big East member with UConn; 2 as member of ACC) - invited to ACC before program turnaround where, ironically, they have had more success in the ACC than Big East with/against UConn.
Kansas: 62-108. 1 Big 12 Championship. 1 BCS bowl game. 4 total bowl games.
Kentucky: 71-100. 5 total bowl games, although they were 7-5 bowl eligible in 2002 but were under NCAA sanction and prohibited from postseason play.
Duke: 58-113. 4 total bowl games (last 4 seasons including 2 ACC Championship Games). Their record would be MUCH worse if it weren't for an impressive 33-20 record in the past 4 seasons.
North Carolina: 70-89. 16 wins and 2 bowl games vacated because of ridiculous amount of cheating. 6 total bowl games, including 1 ACC Championship Game.
Arizona: 83-91. 7 total bowl games; 1 BCS bowl game (1 PAC Championship Game).
Louisville: 97-56. By far, the most impressive of the "basketball schools". 8 total bowl games; 2 BCS games. If it weren't for a Pasqualoni-esque 15-21 Steve Kragthorpe era, their record since 2002 would probably be even more impressive.
Other Olympic Sports:
B12 sponsored sports:
http://www.big12sports.com/ViewArticle.d...=208327961
Soccer is sponsored by 9 of the 10 B12 members (KSU does not). UConn finished #2 in the country in attendance in 2015 and offers national championships and appearances.
Baseball is sponsored by 9 of the 10 B12 members (ISU does not). With a recent infusion of former UConn players in the MLB (Scott Oberg, George Springer, Nick Ahmed, Matt Barnes, Mike Olt) in addition to having dozens of players drafted, UConn Baseball adds a competitive program for B12 baseball.
Field Hockey is not sponsored by the B12, so UConn would keep its nationally elite program in the Big East.
Ice Hockey is not sponsored by the B12, so UConn would keep its program in the Hockey East.
4. Brand Value - again, UConn holds a VERY sizeable advantage over every other of its competitors.
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/ (thank you @Bonz_44 and @CL82)
2014 revenue by school by AAC (*includes BYU):
1. Connecticut - $72,155,789
*BYU - $59,032,406
2. SMU - $55,349,010
3. Central Florida - $51,871,022
4. East Carolina - $48,743,915
5. South Florida - $46,895,838
6. Houston - $45,437,943
7. Cincinnati - $42,861,532
8. Memphis - $41,420,631
9. Tulane - $41,004,900
10. Tulsa - $40,329,852
11. Temple - $39,888,882
Yes, UConn has the 3rd highest subsidy for athletics at $27.2M. But that also shows the level of commitment to athletics that UConn strives for each and every season. If you put UConn in a P5 conference (with P5 TV money!), then the subsidy naturally shrinks by $10-$20M and is replaced with TV money income. At the end of the day, you can put UConn's P5 revenue potential (replacing subsidy with TV money) at around the $80-$90M range. In other words, firmly within the P5 structure as-is with room for upward growth.
Before Tier 3 media rights became a thing of the past, UConn also stacked up with its P5 peers. UConn signed a Tier 3 media deal with IMG valued at $80M over 10 years, which, at the time, placed UConn in the top half of similar deal values. UConn also signed a Tier 3 media contract with SNY for women's basketball only, valued at $1.14M/yr. Combined, this put UConn's Tier 3 media rights well over $9M/yr which would be valued in the upper half of P5 member values. UConn also signed an apparel contract with Nike at around the same time as its IMG Tier 3 medial contract, and that contract was valued at $2.775M in 2014-15. This would put UConn at 27th, ahead of Cincinnati ($2.625M with Under Armour...which was signed more recently than UConn's deal). USF comes in at $1.67M with Under Armour; Houston at 500K with Nike; UCF, Memphis and BYU are not listed (but I imagine BYU has a comparable deal with Nike that UConn has).
5. Facilities - UConn boasts state of the art facilities for most of its athletic programs.
Football enjoys one of the nation's top facilities in the country, the Burton Family Football Complex and adjacent Mark R Shenkman Indoor Training Center. Both opened in the Summer of 2006. Football plays its home games at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, whose capacity is roughly 40,000, and is known for being one of the loudest stadiums in the country (ask Dave Wannstedt or Robert Griffin III). Footings were already built in the original stadium to easily support expansion of up to another 10-15,000 seats. In the summer of 2015, UConn and UTC/Pratt & Whitney reached a deal that gave UConn an additional 25 acres of parking land (enough to support an additional 10-15,000 fans) in exchange for naming rights to the stadium. Expanding "PAWSARF" would be very easy and very fast.
Both the men's and women's powerhouse basketball programs enjoy the newly opened Werth Family UConn Basketball Champions Center. Home games are split between the XL Center in downtown Hartford and Gampel Pavilion, located on campus. The state is currently discussing ways to renovate XL Center that would also allow UConn to increased revenue from ticket sales and concessions in exchange for continuing to play some of its games in Hartford.
UConn Soccer received an $8M gift for a soccer renovation to Joseph Marrone Stadium, a stadium that housed the #2 average attendance in the country in 2015.
UConn Baseball and UConn Hockey both will undergoing renovations in the near future. Hockey enjoys playing its home games at the XL Center in front of the #1 average attendance in Hockey East in 2014-15 while its on-campus facility, the Freitas Forum, is expanded to meet Hockey East's minimum seating capacity requirement of 4,500.
After running some of the numbers in the most important metrics, it is clear that UConn is the top candidate for Power Conference expansion. UConn's value far exceeds any of its competitors. UConn's value exceeds many grandfathered members inside the Power 5. UConn, and most of its 223,000 alumni, is located in the middle of the densely populated area in the country. UConn brings excellence in athletics and academics. UConn is a state, flagship university with no other "game" in the entire state of Connecticut to compete against for entertainment dollars. UConn's fans are amongst the most passionate in the country, sending some 15-20K fans to the Fiesta Bowl, as well as tens of thousands to its many other bowl games, and providing its basketball team with "home court" advantage whenever it plays in New York or Boston. UConn fans have also adopted Texas as its postseason home away from home, having won three national championships inside Texas' state lines.
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UC and UH or UConn to Big 12?
