Are we sure Gill wasn’t just in Huntington for vacation? It’s quite lovely this time of year.

(08-08-2021 09:05 PM)herdfan129 Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 08:54 PM)Nugget49er Wrote:  I am actually shocked that in the, what 3?, threads we have going right now about Marshall and what they are going to do, nobody mentions their Men's Soccer. The Belt doesn't sponsor the sport, so where will they play? I suppose they could ask CUSA if they could stay here, and while it might be hard to say no to the defending National Champions, it would also be tough to bail them out after they just stuck it to CUSA. It would be interesting to watch that unfold.

Agreed, but Coastal and Ga St play soccer that I know of... I wonder if we could get WVU, UK, and South Carolina to follow the defending national champs to the Sun Belt. I don’t see why they would care as it’s only for one sport.

That would be 6 schools right there.

Either way, I don’t see this happening. Marshall is happy for the most part with CUSA East. I don’t see us leaving our CUSA East schools. If anything, I think we are trying to take CUSA East and merge with the Sun Belt East.

Coastal is in CUSA soccer!

(08-08-2021 11:31 PM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 09:05 PM)herdfan129 Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 08:54 PM)Nugget49er Wrote:  I am actually shocked that in the, what 3?, threads we have going right now about Marshall and what they are going to do, nobody mentions their Men's Soccer. The Belt doesn't sponsor the sport, so where will they play? I suppose they could ask CUSA if they could stay here, and while it might be hard to say no to the defending National Champions, it would also be tough to bail them out after they just stuck it to CUSA. It would be interesting to watch that unfold.

Agreed, but Coastal and Ga St play soccer that I know of... I wonder if we could get WVU, UK, and South Carolina to follow the defending national champs to the Sun Belt. I don’t see why they would care as it’s only for one sport.

That would be 6 schools right there.

Either way, I don’t see this happening. Marshall is happy for the most part with CUSA East. I don’t see us leaving our CUSA East schools. If anything, I think we are trying to take CUSA East and merge with the Sun Belt East.

Coastal is in CUSA soccer!

Yes I know. I was just naming Sun Belt schools who play soccer.

Coastal
Ga So
Ga St


I’m not worried about our soccer program when it comes to realignment. I’m sure we will find a conference somewhere considering we just won a National Championship.

There's no way the Sunbelt is poaching any school from CUSA. They had a great football season last year, but I doubt they keep that going consistently. Not to mention, their basketball is horrendous. No one wants to join the Sunbelt. It's a decent football conference right now with an above average media deal for a mid-major, but no one is beating down it's door to join up but FCS startups. Any notion of a CUSA school joining that conference is laughable. Please stop.

Lets look at a few numbers to see why any move to the SBC is a foolish thing to even think about

Here are donations and you can throw Ark St numbers out the window. Schools dont have swings like this in donations. They just dont. Ark St added in naming rights to their stadium and building funds money as "donations". Other schools dont do this and no school is going from $84,237 in 2012 to $6,281,980 three years later.




Conference pay out and while the SBC is paying more over the last few years. We are still talking about are talking about 11% of Marshall's 30 million budget difference between these SBC members. Marshall's conference pay out is higher than any CUSA school so I think (not a fact) they are counting money in this part of the budget different. I will show why I think this next.



Either Marshall is not selling in this area as much as their fans believe they are and not the "brand" they think they are or they are counting this money in on media/conference pay out.

But once again we see Ark St fudging on numbers...no one else goes from making 5x what they made in a short span. As a matter of fact Its very clear what Ark St is doing by when they started having huge swings. They starting with this fuzzy math the last time colleges started moving to make them look better. No team is going to have a drop across the board in ticket sells and see their donations go fro 1/2 million to 6 million dollars. Its not happening.


Money spent on football and Marshall is middle of the road. Once again I will point out Ark St and the unnatural fluctuation in their spending. My belief as I said before they throw everything and the kitchen sink into this...building cost. No other schools that I found do this. Its to make their budget look higher and revenue to look higher to be more attractive to other conferences




Travel cost and as you can see Marshall is not going to save on traveling not when you compare Ark St to Marshall and both schools without a major hub to travel out of. The one thing the jumps out to me on the travel is why did Marshall's traveling expense jump 25% in one year when it had been level the previous 3 years? This has nothing to do with CUSA and everything to do with Marshall. The other thing to notice is Ga St and their traveling cost is fairly level and the lowest...

Once again fly into or from cities with major hubs cost less. I did not research this its just an opinion based off what should be common sense. So prove me wrong, if I am. It's also why I believe traveling cost would rise for Marshall playing in the SBC. Other than Ga St which city has major hubs? New Orleans for ULL and still a 2 hour bus ride.

Here's the numbers for Marshall from 2005-2019 and keep in mind they are a year behind...

reporting 2018 numbers in July of 2019

The below chart is Donation, Tickets sold and Corporate Sponsorship, Advertising, Licensing. This is what I believe the numbers to show. While Marshall has a fanbase willing to donate and buy tickets and its very consistent and health. Marshall has very little room for growth. Other wise what you see today there's very little chance winning will increase the numbers. Not only that but Marshall has maxed out their fanbase and no matter what conference they play in. No matter which schools are in those conference. Unless its a move up to a P5 level....

Marshall will not have anything but very minimal growth. Might have a spike but then its coming back to the norm its been for the last 15 years. Someone else might read these numbers different but that my take away on it. If Marshall was a company what you bought it for today would be about what you sold it for in 15 year, adjusted for inflation...2.5% yearly. But Marshall is the most stable program in these areas in CUSA. So they have that going for them...even if there's hardly any chance for growth


Adjusted for inflation

(08-08-2021 05:09 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 04:59 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  So Marshall is joining the SBC? When do you think this will happen and who will be the 12th? Maybe USM? No Marshall games in Florida so maybe the 12th would be FAU?

At least it would be very rare for Marshall to trek to Texas. You would really like that fact.

Best case for Sunbelt inclusion is USM and UAB and they drop ULM. But I don't know if that's even possible or if they'd want to or if the Sunbelt would want to. And I agree with most that it's premature till we know more about the trickle-down from the B12. The only thing I'm sure about is I'm glad Marshall is at least exploring options, which is a fact. Whether those options include getting out at all costs or trying to salvage a better CUSA for our interests, I can't speculate.

Sun Belt said bye to Idaho and NMSU (sort of). Since then the Sun Belt has gone from 9th and 10th rated football conference to 7th and 6th (2020) I believe. So the trend for the Sun Belt began once the fat was cut off.

If C-USA had the foresight, they never would've expanded to 14 schools in the first place.

(08-08-2021 05:56 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  First of all even if the "visit" were true, I think you guys could be missing the primary rationale for such a meeting.

To me, it actually would give the premise of a split credibility and Gill could be trying to sway Marshall not to f* with the Sun Belt membership in starting a new league or reforming C-USA. Or at the very least to understand what's happening to try to stay in front of it. To me, it would signal concern by the SBC brass about what Marshall is actually up to and how that could negatively impact the SBC.

And if that were in fact to be the case, I would give the guy credit for doing so. In one visit just to have his league's back, he would have done more than Judy has done in years.

Couldn't he have done that during a Zoom call? Or perhaps there is further debate about a C-USA/Sun Belt divide and conquer;though I have no clue how that would take place.

Now lets look at S. Miss and you can see they have mood swings that affect them more than Marshall. They seem to have a lot of room for donations as you can see from the below chart. Their spike in 2006 (really year 2005) was when Louisville, Cincy, TCU got the invite to the BE and S. Miss was trying to make that push to raise their profile...donations. You see it again in 2012 when once again S. Miss is trying not to be left behind from the AAC. Neither of them worked and you see the drop. So unlike Marshall with the right push...the current AAC S.Miss does have room for some growth. Dont think that works for the SBC.

Tickets sold is another story and like Marshall S. Miss has probably maxed out their fanbase. It might vary a couple thousand in a winning season but its been fairly stable no matter who was their conference mates.

As far as brand, unlike Marshall S. Miss does have some room for growth when they are winning but we are talking minimal growth with 1/2 million to 3/4 million a year max.

So overall, like Marshall unless they get a conference invite to a P5 their program has reached its peak with little growth if the current AAC invited them. As a company its something you pass on unless you get inside information that a move is coming. Other than the SBC. Because if they make that move and still lose which is a high possibility...the bottom drops out

Now we come to UAB and there's a big difference in UAB than Marshall or S. Miss...

Basketball drives the UAB fanbase and football only mattered once it was dropped. But as the chart shows the rise in donations for the football is already starting its drop down. You can see the spike in tickets sold after UAB went to the NCAA tourney. From 2005-10 UAB was fairly level in tickets sold and they were consistently winning 20+ games a season in basketball. Then you see the decline till they went back to the tourney. You see another spike but not a huge one (1/2 million dollars) in 2018 which is budget year 2017...football returns. Then you see a drop the very next year in tickets sold....17-16 basketball season

Corporate Sponsorship, Advertising, Licensing has increased after football was brought back but with all the national press and goodwill stories it was a million dollar growth. Other than that and the 2 years without football...no growth at all.

Once again UAB has a fanbase that will get very little growth from winning. Its a little too early to till if the return of football and winning with the new stadium will affect that. Most of the time you get A bump but I predict it flatten out again. Like Marshall. Like S. Miss, UAB will not see any growth from a conference move unless its a P5. A move to the current AAC with the same schools will probably boost their basketball fan base. But when you are looking at the dollars and compare that to fans....

UAB has way less room to grow than either of those two. UAB has been flat just as the other two but at a lower level.

You would think the "flagships" would be doing better in this area

(08-09-2021 02:16 AM)ericsaid Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 05:09 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 04:59 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  So Marshall is joining the SBC? When do you think this will happen and who will be the 12th? Maybe USM? No Marshall games in Florida so maybe the 12th would be FAU?

At least it would be very rare for Marshall to trek to Texas. You would really like that fact.

Best case for Sunbelt inclusion is USM and UAB and they drop ULM. But I don't know if that's even possible or if they'd want to or if the Sunbelt would want to. And I agree with most that it's premature till we know more about the trickle-down from the B12. The only thing I'm sure about is I'm glad Marshall is at least exploring options, which is a fact. Whether those options include getting out at all costs or trying to salvage a better CUSA for our interests, I can't speculate.

Sun Belt said bye to Idaho and NMSU (sort of). Since then the Sun Belt has gone from 9th and 10th rated football conference to 7th and 6th (2020) I believe. So the trend for the Sun Belt began once the fat was cut off.

If C-USA had the foresight, they never would've expanded to 14 schools in the first place.

If CUSA never expanded to 14 schools Appy St would still be play FCS football

Now we come to a move up from FCS football and a basketball school its very clear you can see the growth and it has continued even while losing in football. But the one thing you can also see...reaching a max on the fan base. In my opinion none of us has enough room in this area to grow that will make a difference. We are all limited. ODU has the most potential to break away from that limitation.

ODU is a company you want in on early and you ride it till you see it reaches its max growth. It's close to being there but still has some room for growth...unlike the previous 3 schools it can grow in two areas...football and basketball. While the fan base might be limited and max out close to the number of seats they have. You can have revenue growth by maxing out the ticket prices. When your stadium is only 50 to 65% full for 95% of games (S. Miss/Marshall) its hard for fans to buy into a large increase. They know they can walk up and get that ticket. With ODU if they start winning and competing for conference championships in football. They will not have a problem increasing ticket prices and with that donations...GROWTH. A move to the AAC current line up and I think you see the lines on that chart jump at least another 2 million in donations and tickets. Not only will football tickets increase but so would basketball and ODU has the healthiest basketball base in CUSA. You can see that huge spike in donations and tickets sold after going 27-9 in basketball. Then a drop after the 5-25 three years later then no major drops but they have become stagnate in CUSA . Unlike Marshall that has shown over the past 15 years their fanbase will continue to support football even when its stagnate for a long period of years. We dont know which way ODU will go without a new conference that is perceived to be better in basketball. Or CUSA improving basketball along with football

(08-08-2021 03:32 PM)Johns1124 Wrote:  https://csnbbs.com/thread-926654.html

Keep the BS and anecdotes to here and HerdFans. Stop embarrassing the conference with your hillbilly BS.

What's embarrassing is how sensitive you are and that you don't understand how a message board works. Message boards are for "anecdotes" and rumors and speculation. You are truly the worst of Herd fans...Docsucker through and through...bar so low you could stop, drop, and roll over it kind of girl. You'd probably be cool with going back to the MAC or I-AA...afraid of everything.

I assume this version of CUSA is in serious danger of changing after the movement finish falling, so I would like to ask 2 questions.

1) The fans of the East is all for this rumored split, But If a split does not happen for reasons not related to realignment, meaning you still have 14 members, what is the next best steps?

2) If the AAC takes 1 or 2 schools from CUSA, and UAB is included in that 1 or 2 schools, the split should be dead before it ever started, so what would yall want to do at that point?

(08-09-2021 07:22 AM)balanced_view Wrote:  I assume this version of CUSA is in serious danger of changing after the movement finish falling, so I would like to ask 2 questions.

1) The fans of the East is all for this rumored split, But If a split does not happen for reasons not related to realignment, meaning you still have 14 members, what is the next best steps?

2) If the AAC takes 1 or 2 schools from CUSA, and UAB is included in that 1 or 2 schools, the split should be dead before it ever started, so what would yall want to do at that point?

1.) If the conference stays as is, the best first step is to fire Judy and replace her with someone dedicated to improving the conference.

2.) I don't think UAB going to the AAC drastically changes the split plan. It may make it more difficult to poach eastern SBC teams, but there are a lot of candidates in the east in both FBS and FCS. I think a split could still happen.

(08-09-2021 03:04 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(08-09-2021 02:16 AM)ericsaid Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 05:09 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 04:59 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  So Marshall is joining the SBC? When do you think this will happen and who will be the 12th? Maybe USM? No Marshall games in Florida so maybe the 12th would be FAU?

At least it would be very rare for Marshall to trek to Texas. You would really like that fact.

Best case for Sunbelt inclusion is USM and UAB and they drop ULM. But I don't know if that's even possible or if they'd want to or if the Sunbelt would want to. And I agree with most that it's premature till we know more about the trickle-down from the B12. The only thing I'm sure about is I'm glad Marshall is at least exploring options, which is a fact. Whether those options include getting out at all costs or trying to salvage a better CUSA for our interests, I can't speculate.

Sun Belt said bye to Idaho and NMSU (sort of). Since then the Sun Belt has gone from 9th and 10th rated football conference to 7th and 6th (2020) I believe. So the trend for the Sun Belt began once the fat was cut off.

If C-USA had the foresight, they never would've expanded to 14 schools in the first place.

If CUSA never expanded to 14 schools Appy St would still be play FCS football

Not true. SBC was planning to expand to 12 to meet the requirement for a conference championship game. App and likely GS would be added. Idaho and NMSU would not have been invited at all if WKU and MT don't leave for CUSA.

(08-09-2021 12:45 AM)Ourland Wrote:  There's no way the Sunbelt is poaching any school from CUSA. They had a great football season last year, but I doubt they keep that going consistently. Not to mention, their basketball is horrendous. No one wants to join the Sunbelt. It's a decent football conference right now with an above average media deal for a mid-major, but no one is beating down it's door to join up but FCS startups. Any notion of a CUSA school joining that conference is laughable. Please stop.

I think it's coming down to regional rivalries and fan excitement. Our Media Deal sucks, so the only way to make any money is ticket sales and CUSA isn't generating any fan excitement. Appy State and Georgia Southern will sell tickets at Marshall and the Appy Fans will travel and spend money on tickets, concessions, hotels and local restaurants.

Judy's Facebook deal is a joke!

I just don't see SBC teams coming to C-USA or vice versa unless something significant changes. To recoup the fees to exit a conference and to join a conference (there are costs on both sides) the payout/income would have to be significantly different. Does either conference provide a significant enough increase to make it worth it? As they sit now, no, I wouldn't think so. ESPN would have to promise something substantially more than what either conference is getting to make it worth it. There would have to be some sort of collaborative agreement between the conferences to swap teams without exit or entrance fees. And unless the swap benefits both conferences, that will never happen. As much as I am a fan of the C-USA east split, I don't see it.

(08-09-2021 01:04 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  Lets look at a few numbers to see why any move to the SBC is a foolish thing to even think about

Here are donations and you can throw Ark St numbers out the window. Schools dont have swings like this in donations. They just dont. Ark St added in naming rights to their stadium and building funds money as "donations". Other schools dont do this and no school is going from $84,237 in 2012 to $6,281,980 three years later.

Actually, looks like Ga State likely did the same thing in 2018. I am not sure what survey is pulling this donation information or what the definition for the data is, but it isn't uncommon for naming rights and building contributions to be in donations. WKU counted the Houchens $5M in its donations (it was split over two fiscal years.) Donations to fund renovations are also counted.