American Athletic Conference

[ISASO]

Please, Eric, get us out of the D-2 league this will become.

[CBB_Fan]

We need to look at this differently than we are. Marquette, DePaul, St. John's, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall and Villanova

We need to look at TV Markets. Money is the key to survival, and here are the numbers that matter:

Obviously the 7 have their markets, and the name to go with them:

St. John's - Queens, NY (#1)
Seton Hall - New York, NY (#1)
DePaul - Chicago, IL (#3)
Villanova - Philadelphia, PA (#4)
Georgetown - Washington, DC (#9)
Marquette - Milwaukee, WI (#35)
Providence - Providence, RI (#52)

Teams mentioned as possible affiliates and others I think should be considered:

St. Joseph's - Philadelphia, PA (#4)
UMASS - Boston, MA (#7)
Detroit - Detroit, MI (#11)
Cleveland St. - Cleveland, OH (#17)
Denver - Denver, CO (#18)
St. Louis - St. Louis (#21)
Duquesne - Pittsburgh, PA (#23)
Butler - Indianapolis, IN (#25)
Xavier - Cincinnati, OH (#34)
VCU - Richmond, VA (#58)
Dayton - Dayton, OH (#64)
Wichita St. - Wichita, KS (#69)
Gonzaga - Spokane, WA (#75)
Creighton - Omaha, NE (#76)

I would dig into breaking this down on average between TV Market, avg RPI the past 5 years, and athletic budget. I wonder if we could make up some of the difference in TV market size.

I actually did some analysis of this, but I used information on actual college basketball viewership (Nielsen metered ratings). We apparently were enough of an interest to be listed as a major team in KC, one of the biggest media markets for college basketball. Here is how that turned out:

Top 37 College Basketball markets (by Nielsen metered market rating):

1. Raleigh-Durham 30,872
2. Louisville 30,332
3. Kansas City 26,313
4. Charlotte 26,241
5. Atlanta 25,219
6. Columbus 25,182
7. Greensboro 24,192
8. Cleveland 21,198
9. Indianapolis 19,979
10. Chicago 18949
11. Cincinnati 18,818
12. Detroit 18,427
13. Nashville 16,393
14. Los Angeles 15278
15. St Louis 15,047
16. Houston 12870
17. Hartford 12,075
15. Pittsburgh 11,715
16. Memphis 10,719
17. Birmingham 10,343
18. Las Vegas 10,322
19. Dallas/Fort Worth 9909
20. Dayton 9,872
21. Knoxville 9,500
22. Norfolk 8,625
23. San Diego 7957
24. Phoenix 7347
25. Oklahoma City 7,126
26. Jacksonville 6,698
27. Richmond 6,153
28. Fort Myers 5,547
29. Washington D.C. 5561
30. Tulsa 5,291
31. Milwaukee 4782
32. Greenville 4,614
33. Tampa/St. Petersburg 4137
34. Albuquerque 3316
35. San Francisco 3251
36. Orlando, Florida 1945
37. West Palm Beach, Florida: 707

So here is what we can get when we plug teams in:

Catholic 7 (estimating non-listed markets at 0.15 rating)
DePaul (Chicago): 18494
Georgetown (Washington, D.C): 5561
Marquette (Milwaukee): 4782
----information below may not be accurate----
Seton Hall (New York): 12367
St. John's (New York): 12367
Villanova (Philadelphia): 2304 (smaller actually, as that would be for all college basketball teams in Philly)
Providence (Providence): 267 (I'd expect about 1000-2000 in reality)

Potential candidates
Wichita State (Kansas City): 26313 (smaller, because KC is split already between KU, KState, and Missouri fans, but would also dominate Wichita market)
Butler (Indianapolis): 19979
Xavier (Cincinnati): 18818 (larger, because it would also draw a portion of Dayton)
Saint Louis (Saint Louis): 15047
Duquesne (Pittsburgh): 11715
Dayton (Dayton): 9872 (see: Xavier)
VCU (Richmond): 6153
Richmond (Richmond): 6153
----information below may not be accurate----
Creighton (Omaha): 622 (would expect 2000-3000)
Gonzaga (Spokane): 315 (would expect 1000+)

Essentially, population is important, but the sports ecology of the local environment plays a HUGE factor. The biggest thing I took from those rankings was the impact that college football and the NFL had on college basketball viewership. Areas with a lack of quality college football (North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky) simply have more room to expand and create fans. The NFL has an even larger affect; major NFL cities tend to be really saturated markets which makes it hard for CBB to get viewers. Kansas City is likely an exception because of the continued excellence of KU and perennial lackluster performances from the Chiefs, and I still think that the local NFL team might be responsible for keeping them from being the #1 overall basketball city.

[ShockerFever]

Some funny stuff from Terrence Haute Trib Star Trees Beat Writer Todd Golden on MVC Conference realignment. He must also take time to read the most delusional and awful fan forum I have ever seen.

http://whiteandbluereview.com/?p=21646

Stay undefeated in the MVC for two more weeks!
P.S. there is also some great stuff by Oourt Jester in this thread by your CBB FAN:
http://csnbbs.com/showthread.php?tid=608810&page=8

Thanks Todd Goldey for stopping by Shockernet and caring enough about us to mention us in your media briefings. Unfortunately, a Terre TruckStop beat writer's opinion on anything WSU and "big time" is worth about peanuts.

[ShockerFever]

The latest!
$500 million

http://m.espn.go.com/ncb/story?storyId=8817624

Wowza!

Looking more and more at the Catholic 7, I don't get much of the appeal. I certainly wouldn't be interested in watching much of that. Most of those schools are horrible and have been horrible in basketball for a while now. Not to mention ugly. I've never seen a team ugly games up as much as Georgetown does.

Those saying this new league would be a 5 or 6 team mega bid league are full of themselves. It doesn't look like a big deal to me personally. Sure, it's gonna pay for your meals for a while, but I would equate it to Big East v 2.0. And in case you missed anything, Big East v. 1.0 hasn't been doing so well lately.

[wsushox1]

The Indiana State beat writer makes some good points though.

[Ta Town Shocker]

The Indiana State beat writer makes some good points though.

Did you read his article? He was referring to our message board and the speculation by fans of a potential move to the MWC. The guy is a tool.

For all of the fan hysteria about what conference their school is going to jump to if the MVC were to implode, I’ve never seen a single reputable source that has any of the MVC schools — aside from Creighton — going anywhere.
A scientific study could be done on the group-think it takes among some on a message board fanbase like, say, Wichita State’s, to speculate amongst themselves about moving to the Mountain West Conference, then collectively convince themselves it could happen, and then think it’s a distinct possibility it will happen.
This despite the fact that WSU doesn’t play football, which drives the vast majority of these moves, and that it’s never once been mentioned as an expansion candidate for that conference, or any other that I’m aware of, by anyone other than people speculating on message boards or blogs. It’s pie-in-the-sky

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

$500 million., yes. But not with equal distribution.

But based on initial reports, Butler and Xavier would not be willing to join if they do not receive an equal share. It is believed Dayton and Creighton would be the same way.

Wonder, based on TV rating above, what would happen if 10-12 basketball dedicated schools not in the C7 banded together?

East:
Xavier
Butler
Dayton
VCU
George Mason
Richmond

West:
Creighton
Bradley
Wichita State
Gonzaga
St. Louis
St. Mary's

[ShockTalk]

$500 million., yes. But not with equal distribution.

But based on initial reports, Butler and Xavier would not be willing to join if they do not receive an equal share. It is believed Dayton and Creighton would be the same way.

Wonder, based on TV rating above, what would happen if 10-12 basketball dedicated schools not in the C7 banded together?

East:
Xavier
Butler
Dayton
VCU
George Mason
Richmond

West:
Creighton
Bradley
Wichita State
Gonzaga
St. Louis
St. Mary's

This! I've felt all along that this C7 is a very self-centered thing. Imagine DePaul, Seton Hall, and Providence getting twice the TV revenue that Xavier, Butler, and VCU. If this is how the C7 sees things at the beginning, it isn't going to get any better later.

Your league, DSB, simply reminds us that the additions the C7 are considering (to be lesser members) are better basketball schools on the whole than the original C7. In other words, the C7 in banking on the quality of the additions to make them big bucks without equally sharing those dollars.

[SubGod22]

Even without an auto bid the first 5-7 years, that conference could get half the schools dancing just about every year and COULD be a top 5 conference.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

It could also create travel partners, hit many of the top basketball markets, and cover all time slots sequentially for TV purposes.

[CBB_Fan]

This! I've felt all along that this C7 is a very self-centered thing. Imagine DePaul, Seton Hall, and Providence getting twice the TV revenue that Xavier, Butler, and VCU. If this is how the C7 sees things at the beginning, it isn't going to get any better later.

Your league, DSB, simply reminds us that the additions the C7 are considering (to be lesser members) are better basketball schools on the whole than the original C7. In other words, the C7 in banking on the quality of the additions to make them big bucks without equally sharing those dollars.

I am VERY doubtful that this sort of deal will ever come to pass. Sure, you can say that it may only be temporary,or that the schools would still make significantly more than they would in the MVC or A-10. But that isn't really true. TV revenues are only a small portion of total athletic revenue -it would bump Xavier from $15 million to $17 million, for example- and an even smaller portion of a school's operating budget at around 1%.

More so, it starts the league off with no stability and without an equal balance of power. That is bad for the schools coming in and bad for the conference in general. The Big East broke up because the basketball schools were treated as inferior members of the conference, and doing the same thing to the incoming members is a good way to destroy the conference before it ever starts. It also firmly enforces the idea that the new members are "just mid-majors" which would make the whole conference look more like a better A-10 than a revitalized Big East.

This would also translate to a permanent power deficit between the new teams and the Catholic 7. It is very similar to Texas and the Big 12; I believe Notre Dame joined the ACC largely because it didn't want to give up control to another power hungry mega-school like Texas. The new schools also realize that giving the Catholic 7 all the power could translate to even greater cuts in future, when the DePauls and Providences of the Big East decide they'd rather get $6 million than $5 million and take even more of the TV revenue from the incoming members.

However, the good news is that if this sort of thing really happens, Wichita State is back on the drawing board because many of the potential candidates would not join. I would not want to join that Big East though, even with the extra money, and would prefer to join that group of mid-majors. And those mid-majors are under far less of a time-table than the Catholic 7, which would allow them to completely control the negotiations.

[SB Shock]

It seems to me if u are having a league where some teams are given more benefits than others is just eventually going to cause bad blood.

[shockerfan]

At least now we know that jester has been lying all along about being a WSU fan.

No kidding. What a tool. Someone should call that loser out on that site. Some "wsu fan" he is LOL. UNC can have that idiot! Man up courtjester!!!!

[Zardoz]

Thanks Todd Goldey for stopping by Shockernet and caring enough about us to mention us in your media briefings. Unfortunately, a Terre TruckStop beat writer's opinion on anything WSU and "big time" is worth about peanuts.

Worse, sometimes peanuts are good.

[Kung Wu]

Did you read his article? He was referring to our message board and the speculation by fans of a potential move to the MWC. The guy is a tool.

WSU doesn't have football? Crap, why didn't I consider that when thinking about conference realignment?