(04-26-2016 10:36 AM)HeadsetGuy Wrote: a bad TV deal and conference membership goes kaput...Rice and UTEP will go west, many dominoes yet to fall...a CUSA 3.0 reshuffle en route
If there is basically no substantial TV deal, what other factors do you think should keep these two schools, who have a ton of history between them, or anyone else here in CUSA?
Tradition? Really?
I've thought that CUSA wouldn't be so bad because it was based around the south, but as much as I wouldn't want Rice to likely disappear out west in the MWC, (road trips would be nonexistent for almost all fans) I really don't see much to keep us here. UTEP is half a country away from the other CUSA members, so a western based conference works better for them as well.
I was hoping ASN would kind of ramp up into something, and that the next TV deal would at least hold serve at level and give all CUSA schools more national exposure, but the opposite appears to be what is happening.
Not to mention the CUSA bowl game tie-ins are basically terrible. There's only one (HOD) where we have a chance to play a middling P5 school, and even that is not guaranteed.
The MWC had these bowls last season, tell me if you think that is better, worse or the same as what CUSA has:
The Hawai'i Bowl versus The American OR Las Vegas Bowl vs. Pac-12*
The Poinsettia Bowl versus Navy
The New Mexico Bowl versus Conference USA
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus MAC
The New Orleans Bowl versus Sun Belt
The Arizona Bowl versus Conference USA
The Armed Forces Bowl against Big Ten
The Cactus Bowl if either Big 12 or Pac-12 cannot fill their slots.
* for 2015 and 2019 the MWC will play in either the Las Vegas or Hawai'i Bowl but not both.
It's maybe not much better, but I think it is a bit better, and the payouts are certainly better.
It's a shame, but really, what else besides this board is there to keep those schools here if we can't get at least $1 million from a TV deal (which is half of what the AAC gets)?
More than other CUSA schools, Rice sports needs that money as we have such a small student body (although growing a little but) that it's not as easy for us to just decide to lay additional costs on even more student fees. We're finishing building a $32 million upgrade to our giant stadium, with more renovations planned. We've recently completed major upgrades and rebuilds on our Tennis, track swimming and basketball facilities. We have one of the top college baseball parks in the entire country.
IF CUSA doesn't pay, don't we and really everyone, have to look to other conference options to increase or at least maintain revenues? It's not like we're getting much gate from most of the CUSA members other than the two closest TX schools, UNT and UTSA, and maybe a bit from La Tech, but we just don't have too much in common with those schools, don't share much history with them, and student application pools don't intersect a whole lot between us, as we're a small private university that has been around for over 100 years. Other than being thrown together in CUSA during all the realignments, what else is there?
Apparently there is a TV deal... 
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