American Athletic Conference

[UofMemphis]

Please explain to me how the ACC Grant of Rights has anything to do with UConn, Cincy and USF. How does the grant of rights stop the ACC from adding members? How does the ACC Grant of Rights stop the Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ... ?

See middle of article

Why would the ACC or Big 12 want to dilute their TV contracts? The Big 12 and ACC have evaluated UConn, Cincy, and USF...they don't add enough and are viewed as "back ups" at best.

From the article: the ACC has only been interested in those schools as backups in the event that it suffered more defections.

UConn even admits they have nowhere to go..,

http://m.espn.go.com/extra/ncaa/story?storyId=9452292&src=desktop

[The Mad Hatter]

Why would the ACC or Big 12 want to dilute their TV contracts? The Big 12 and ACC have evaluated UConn, Cincy, and USF...they don't add enough and are viewed as "back ups" at best.

From the article: the ACC has only been interested in those schools as backups in the event that it suffered more defections.

UConn even admits they have nowhere to go..,

http://m.espn.go.com/extra/ncaa/stor...92&src=desktop

You can't tell me simultaneously about how great the football money is going to be over the long term while telling me that none of the BCS conferences have any interest in any of your schools. If these schools really have a good enough football product to bring in serious money, they would draw attention from BCS conferences. If not, then the AAC's long term football money is going to be underwhelming.

[UofMemphis]

Where did I say the AAC has a great TV contract? I simply said it's a lot better than CUSA.

As I said...UConn, Cincy, and USF have been evaluated by both the ACC and the Big 12...they have had multiple chances to take them...as the posted article said...they are viewed as back ups...and GORs ensure no one is leaving...so they are stuck in the AAC.

Even the UConn AD admits as much.

[The Mad Hatter]

Where did I say the AAC has a great TV contract? I simply said it's a lot better than CUSA.

As I said...UConn, Cincy, and USF have been evaluated by both the ACC and the Big 12...they have had multiple chances to take them...as the posted article said...they are viewed as back ups...and GORs ensure no one is leaving...so they are stuck in the AAC.

Even the UConn AD admits as much.

In your explanation of why the AAC was better off without the basketball only Big East schools you stated:

football is where the money is at....and we're in this to make money.

Again, glad they are gone.

Problem being, you just admit that none of the schools in the AAC are really in a position to make big money off of football, otherwise they would be expansion targets of the BCS conferences.

The fact that they are better off than the CUSA of old was does nothing to address the question of whether the AAC is financially better off for focusing on football. CUSA was a football conference, so if football is always the money-maker, CUSA should have been great. Instead, CUSA became a conference without an identity. It was never really good at anything while trying to do everything. The same threat exists for the AAC unless they focus on basketball, since that is the one major sport they legitimately have a chance at being very successful at and gaining national prominence.

CUSA did not give Memphis much help as a basketball program precisely because of its over focus on non-productive football. As a Memphis fan, why are you defending the AAC following the exact same approach?

[UofMemphis]

I never said we're better off without the C7...I said I'm glad they're gone...they made a voting split so we could get nothing done...with them gone we can move forward with OUR vision of what the conference should be...you should stop putting words in my mouth.

Cincy, UConn, Houston, ECU, UCF all have very good football programs...they can make plenty of money...just not 20-25 million per year, per school like the power 5...there is a big difference between what the AAC makes and what the ACC make...I have no delusion that we will make that much...but I do feel we could double up or even triple our current contract...we plan on doing what the BE did...become the clear #6 conference.

football is not "non productive" and unlike some schools we're never going to give up on college footballs biggest money maker...football

[shock]

@UofMemphis: your period key seems to be sticking. I'm not saying i want to know what made your keyboard all sticky, but you do spend a lot of time on shockernet, and @WstateU: does have some pretty good threads. Just pointing it out so you can take care of it. ;)

[UofMemphis]

@UofMemphis: your period key seems to be sticking. I'm not saying i want to know what made your keyboard all sticky, but you do spend a lot of time on shockernet, and @WstateU: does have some pretty good threads. Just pointing it out so you can take care of it. ;)

I don't have a keyboard...I have a glass screen with buttons on it...it's easier for me to type like this...besides, I like it here.

[MoValley John]

I for one, don't want to know anything about his sticky periods.

[shock]

I don't have a keyboard...I have a glass screen with buttons on it...it's easier for me to type like this...besides, I like it here.

Edit: oh, and bs on the smartphone and easy crap. 90% of my posts come from an iphone. not easier to hit periods three times.

[The Mad Hatter]

I never said we're better off without the C7...I said I'm glad they're gone...they made a voting split so we could get nothing done...with them gone we can move forward with OUR vision of what the conference should be...you should stop putting words in my mouth.

Cincy, UConn, Houston, ECU, UCF all have very good football programs...they can make plenty of money...just not 20-25 million per year, per school like the power 5...there is a big difference between what the AAC makes and what the ACC make...I have no delusion that we will make that much...but I do feel we could double up or even triple our current contract...we plan on doing what the BE did...become the clear #6 conference.

football is not "non productive" and unlike some schools we're never going to give up on college footballs biggest money maker...football

Let's put the idea that football is more profitable to the test. Certainly, gross revenue will be higher, but if you spend more on football, that doesn't matter. Therefore, net revenue of the athletic department is the best measure of profitability. In addition, many athletic departments inflate their revenue numbers by including direct contributions from the school, so it is important to know how highly subsidized the department is. Luckily there is a USA Today database that keeps track of both of these stats. Let's see how a non-football school like WSU compares to the football schools you mention:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sport...ase/54955804/1

	WSU	Memphis	Cincinnati	UCONN	USF	ECU	Houston	UCF
Net Revenue	$1.183m	$0.077m	-$0.963m	$0.095m	-$1.546m	$1.828m	$1.163m	-$0.043m
Subsidy %	30.5%	37.6%	34.4%	28.3%	39.5%	39.7%	58.2%	50.9%

1. Only one school (ECU) had higher net revenue that WSU, but was also more subsidized than WSU ($6.4m in subsidies vs $13.5m in subsidies).
2. Only one school (UCONN) had a lower subsidy percentage than WSU, but still had both lower net revenue and higher total subsidies ($6.4m in subsidies vs $15m in subsidies).

The bigger budgets did not result in more net revenue, but did result in both higher subsidy percentages and much higher total subsidies from the school. This database shows that the top BCS programs make a lot of net revenue and have little to no subsidies, but that is simply not true for schools outside of the Big 5. I stand by my statement of non-productive.

[UofMemphis]

Edit: oh, and bs on the smartphone and easy crap. 90% of my posts come from an iphone. not easier to hit periods three times.

It is for me.................................

[UofMemphis]

Let's put the idea that football is more profitable to the test. Certainly, gross revenue will be higher, but if you spend more on football, that doesn't matter. Therefore, net revenue of the athletic department is the best measure of profitability. In addition, many athletic departments inflate their revenue numbers by including direct contributions from the school, so it is important to know how highly subsidized the department is. Luckily there is a USA Today database that keeps track of both of these stats. Let's see how a non-football school like WSU compares to the football schools you mention:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sport...ase/54955804/1

	WSU	Memphis	Cincinnati	UCONN	USF	ECU	Houston	UCF
Net Revenue	$1.183m	$0.077m	-$0.963m	$0.095m	-$1.546m	$1.828m	$1.163m	-$0.043m
Subsidy %	30.5%	37.6%	34.4%	28.3%	39.5%	39.7%	58.2%	50.9%

1. Only one school (ECU) had higher net revenue that WSU, but was also more subsidized than WSU ($6.4m in subsidies vs $13.5m in subsidies).
2. Only one school (UCONN) had a lower subsidy percentage than WSU, but still had both lower net revenue and higher total subsidies ($6.4m in subsidies vs $15m in subsidies).

The bigger budgets did not result in more net revenue, but did result in both higher subsidy percentages and much higher total subsidies from the school. This database shows that the top BCS programs make a lot of net revenue and have little to no subsidies, but that is simply not true for schools outside of the Big 5. I stand by my statement of non-productive.

That's silly, if you go by the "official" numbers only 7% of schools actually make money...you really believe that?

we always make sure our "official" Expense/Revenue come out almost exactly the same for some accounting reason...we had a long drawn out thread on our board going over why...most schools do

"How many Division I athletics departments operate in the black?
Less than 7 percent of Division I athletics programs had positive net revenue between 2004 and 2010."

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Resources/Behind+the+Blue+Disk/Behind+the+Blue+Disk+-+FBS+Athletic+Revenues+and+Expenses

[The Mad Hatter]

That's silly, if you go by the "official" numbers only 7% of schools actually make money...you really believe that?

we always make sure our "official" Expense/Revenue come out almost exactly the same for some accounting reason...we had a long drawn out thread on our board going over why...most schools do

"How many Division I athletics departments operate in the black?
Less than 7 percent of Division I athletics programs had positive net revenue between 2004 and 2010."

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/...s+and+Expenses

Let's see, all the statistics support my argument, including the one's you cite, so I'm going to go with, yes I do believe these numbers. If you really believe that the official numbers are inaccurate, how do you account for school like Texas reporting $17m per year net revenue with no subsidy? If there is an advantage to hiding your profits in your accounting, why aren't the most profitable programs doing it?

Here is the biggie, some of the expenses are scholarships, which work to offset some of the subsidies since that is money that is paid by the athletic department to the school. Football schools generally have more athletes on scholarship so part of their extra expenses goes there. Nonetheless, even with differences here, it doesn't necessarily change the net revenue picture when you factor both tuition on the expense side and subsidies on the revenue side. Let's compare WSU and Memphis:

	Scholarships	Subsidies	Net Difference
Memphis	$7.6m	$15.1m	-$7.5m
WSU	$2.6m	$6.4m	-$3.8m

As for why schools generally have equal revenue/expenses most years, the answer is that is how subsidies work. The schools contribute whatever it takes to make expenses equal to revenue (expect at the few schools that really do make money, where they don't need to subsidize). This proves my point, the only schools with a big disparity between revenue and expense are the one's that don't need to provide subsidies.

Keep in mind that I am not saying that revenue is the only benefit a school gets from athletics. It impacts enrollment numbers and general visibility of the school. Good sports performance tends to encourage donations to academic programs as well as athletics. Therefore schools can net come out ahead from successful athletics even if the athletic departments are in the red. All schools have the opportunity to accrue these benefits from athletics. It is only a very few schools at the top of the system that are directly profitable aside from the ancillary benefits to the larger institution.

If you are outside the top of the BCS, the main benefit that athletics gives your school is not direct revenue, but exposure. Because of this, however, the important thing is to be successful at what you do, not how many sports you have. A non-football athletic department that is regularly ranked and in the NCAAs (such as Gonzaga) is going to be more beneficial for their school and conference than a larger athletic department that does not have national visibility in anything they compete in. Because national money and attention is disproportionately distributed to the big 5 conferences in football, I believe that non-BCS conferences better serve the needs of their schools by becoming highly competitive in basketball, which has high national visibility and much more opportunity for non-BCS programs to succeed.

[UofMemphis]

If you honestly think only 7% of schools make money then I know everything I need to know about you.

You seem to be on some "foosball is the DEVIL!" kick

[Dave Stalwart]

If you honestly think only 7% of schools make money then I know everything I need to know about you.

You seem to be on some "foosball is the DEVIL!" kick

Now this is funny