MVC shake up?

[Flutapotamus]

I'd like to stay with Creighton as well but like Subb said I believe his list of schools is a lot more likely than WSU. Can anybody try to give me an input of why the A10 is looking this far west at CU when schools like Detroit, Manhattan, and Drexel just seem like more natural fits? JMO anyway.

If CU moves I look at it kind of on the same level as WVU in the Big 12. To me it just does not fit at all.

A Football program would be nice right about now.....

[rjl]

I posted this in DJA's earlier thread on the topic:

Sounds interesting. A WSU, CU, BU, DU, Dayton, SLU, Xavier, and one additional team for the western division.

Charlotte, Fordham, GW, RI, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Duquesne, and St. Joe for the east.

Xavier and Dayton aren't really that much further than Indiana State is now. Not sure who the 8th team would be in the west. One hitch I see immediately, however, is that the western division looks a little lopsided in terms of the calibre of teams.

That discussion involved both Drake and Bradley going to the A-10 as well. The "Eastern" division I envisioned is pretty much concentrated on the East coast, so it's hard to pick any team from there and make them a part of the "Western" division.

[Rlh04d]

Can anybody try to give me an input of why the A10 is looking this far west at CU when schools like Detroit, Manhattan, and Drexel just seem like more natural fits? JMO anyway.

If CU moves I look at it kind of on the same level as WVU in the Big 12. To me it just does not fit at all.

With St. Louis as a steady member, they might be looking to put more teams closer to them. Creighton's not insanely close, but it's the midwest ... there's only so many schools.

WVU makes perfect sense when you look at the money. The Big 12 just put together an amazing new television deal (seriously, an amazing deal ... I really, really want FSU to join). Not much chance they would have done that without adding credible football programs like TCU and WVU, regardless of where they are, and getting closer to that magic number of 12 that'll give them a conference championship game.

Also, there's an interesting article on MVCFans about adding the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to the MVC. Might be a good addition. Better than most options. Fairly large school, large athletics budget, some history of basketball success (Sweet 16 in 2005). http://www.mvcfans.com/wp/2012/03/26...ge-that-works/

[hizzshock]

We need our new President to come in and lead us into the next generation of Shocker greatness on and off the court/field. He/She needs to be proactive and not sit back and try to jump ship before its too late. If it's either getting with the other University Presidents and figuring out a way to add/subtract, or figuring out if another conference fits our best interests, it needs to happen, and it needs to happen rather quickly.

[MadDog]

I'll suggest the same thing I suggested about two years ago.... Lets form a basketball super conference similar to the coast to coast MW/CUSA "national" league they're working on now. From west to east: Gonzaga, St. Marys, BYU, WSU, Creighton, Bradley, St. Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, VCU, George Mason. There is plenty of dead weight in the WCC, MVC, A10, and Colonial... discard and move on. This is a 4 - 6 bid league every year with tons of both historic and recent basketball tradition. I still believe the big boys are going to eject the have nots from the big dance, and do it pretty soon. We need to be on the right side of the split. Right now we're on the wrong side.

[ShockTalk]

I'll suggest the same thing I suggested about two years ago.... Lets form a basketball super conference similar to the coast to coast MW/CUSA "national" league they're working on now. From west to east: Gonzaga, St. Marys, BYU, WSU, Creighton, Bradley, St. Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, VCU, George Mason. There is plenty of dead weight in the WCC, MVC, A10, and Colonial... discard and move on. This is a 4 - 6 bid league every year with tons of both historic and recent basketball tradition. I still believe the big boys are going to eject the have nots from the big dance, and do it pretty soon. We need to be on the right side of the split. Right now we're on the wrong side.

Add another 2-4 teams and you can have "super divisions" of east and west, particularly handy for other sports.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I'll suggest the same thing I suggested about two years ago.... Lets form a basketball super conference similar to the coast to coast MW/CUSA "national" league they're working on now. From west to east: Gonzaga, St. Marys, BYU, WSU, Creighton, Bradley, St. Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, VCU, George Mason. There is plenty of dead weight in the WCC, MVC, A10, and Colonial... discard and move on. This is a 4 - 6 bid league every year with tons of both historic and recent basketball tradition. I still believe the big boys are going to eject the have nots from the big dance, and do it pretty soon. We need to be on the right side of the split. Right now we're on the wrong side.

Add a WAC school or two in there (Utah State, NM State, whatever), split the conference into east and west divisions and you have yourself a winner. Will never happen, but it would be awesome.

[shox1989]

These are the current members of the A-10 (really 14): Fordham, URI, Duquense, Richmond, St. Joseph, La Salle, St. Bonnaventure, Xavier, St. Louis, Temple, Charlotte, George Washington, UMass and Dayton.

Temple is leaving for sure (which is too bad, they might be worth travelling clear to Philly to play), I am not sure about the others. But I see a lot of long travel to a bunch of small time athletic schools that nobody around here knows anything about. It looks like there are a few Evansvilles to me, except they are even further away.

The travel costs would be bad for basketball but would be totally brutal for baseball, softball, volleyball, and women's basketball. Unless they bring in several more schools that are at least in or near our time zone and divide into divisions, I don't think this would be workable financially at all for WSU.

[vancedave56]

Travel-wise...Wichita State to the Big 12 for all sports (except football of course) makes a lot of sense. :)

[shox1989]

I don't think anyone but Fever thinks that.

I believe that WSU would be interested in this. If the A-10 expanded that much, there would have to be divisions which would help out with travel. For sports like golf and track, would it really be any different than it is now? It seems that WSU rarely competes against other MVC teams until the conference championship tournaments/meets. For basketball it wouldn't matter since the team flies to every game.

Being the southern most school in a conference, as we are now, is a big help in all of the outdoor sports.

No way Cu would be the Evansville of the A-10. They already have several of those.

The travel costs would be brutal for baseball, softball, volleyball and women's basketball. There would have to be divisions for it to even be feasible. I can't imagine Cu being able to afford this either unless they added several teams that are much closer to us.

[shox1989]

Travel-wise...Wichita State to the Big 12 for all sports (except football of course) makes a lot of sense. :)

I would love that.

[shocker2012]

It would be great to lose the sCUm who cares?

Your statement kind of stuns me and I honestly hope you werent being serious. As much as I love to hate CU, I recognize their importance to the MVC and as long as we are in this conference, to us. I agree with other posters that if CU leaves, the MVC very likely becomes a one bid league (maybe very occasionally two, but definitely not as often as it has in the last 20 or so years) CU has been for the most part consistenly decent and that helps when it comes to our conference schedule and respect for the league in general. Like someone said, having a great non conference but then having a weak conference schedule kills things. There is a reason say for example, Long Beach State was a bubble team, a strong one, but still a bubble team even with their spectacular non conference SOS. Im not saying the MVC would become the Big West without CU but it would take a hit. Creighton is one of the few schools in our league (along with us) that has some name recognition outside the conference as well, which would be lost if CU leaves (and destroyed if we left). If CU does get the invite to the A-10, I wouldnt blame them for jumping on that and I would hope we'd go too but I dont think it would happen unfortunately.

[RandomJaysFan]

I decided to (finally) sign up to answer a question: Last I heard, we (CU) paid $80k per game to rent the C-Link, or pretty close to $1.2 million for the season, though that's probably 3-4 years old, so it probably went up some in the meantime. As far as what we get from parking/concessions, I'm not 100% sure but I've just texted an alum who knows that sort of stuff. If/when I hear I'll post it.

You guys have a quality message board BTW. A little over-wrought sometimes, but quality nonetheless.

[Aargh]

I decided to (finally) sign up to answer a question: Last I heard, we (CU) paid $80k per game to rent the C-Link, or pretty close to $1.2 million for the season, though that's probably 3-4 years old, so it probably went up some in the meantime. As far as what we get from parking/concessions, I'm not 100% sure but I've just texted an alum who knows that sort of stuff. If/when I hear I'll post it.

You guys have a quality message board BTW. A little over-wrought sometimes, but quality nonetheless.

This makes it pretty easy to compare net ticket sales with WSU - or at least get a ballpark figure. CU draws bout 6K more than WSU. Those are lower-priced seats, so they're probably in the $15 range. 6,000 x 15 = $90,000. $90,000 - $80,000 = $10K. I believe WSU has more and higher "contributions" for season tickets, so net ticket revenue at WSU and CU is about equal.

In the times I've looked at the budgets of the two schools, CU seems to have some donors who make up any shortage in the athletic department. CU has an amazing ability to exactly break even in the budgets I've seen. WSU probably has a larger donor commitment. WSU consistently ends up in the black and has a decent reserve built up. WSU spends A LOT more on baseball, but baseball seems to more or less pay for itself here. The finances at WSU and CU are amazingly similar.

[pogo]

This makes it pretty easy to compare net ticket sales with WSU - or at least get a ballpark figure. CU draws bout 6K more than WSU. Those are lower-priced seats, so they're probably in the $15 range. 6,000 x 15 = $90,000. $90,000 - $80,000 = $10K. I believe WSU has more and higher "contributions" for season tickets, so net ticket revenue at WSU and CU is about equal.

In the times I've looked at the budgets of the two schools, CU seems to have some donors who make up any shortage in the athletic department. CU has an amazing ability to exactly break even in the budgets I've seen. WSU probably has a larger donor commitment. WSU consistently ends up in the black and has a decent reserve built up. WSU spends A LOT more on baseball, but baseball seems to more or less pay for itself here. The finances at WSU and CU are amazingly similar.

Its the revenue that creighton makes from its soccer team and our bowling squads that keeps both programs moving along.