To SactownDog

[DudeAnon]

I responded as I appreciate your factual and response to the issue of ratings. I am not sure your are consistent in your reasons of who is acceptable and not based on size but I don't think market size if the real reason so it doesn't really matter. Like institution is the overwhelming criteria of who gets in and why your ratings are poor and, I would happily bet, stay poor.

Just a reminder. If you are a Butler fan its not "your" but rather "our".

[DudeAnon]

Also dog. You keep on referencing poor ratings without paying any lip service to how much of that may be attributable to FS1. Me personally, I enjoy playing schools with similar institutional identities. That used to be what conferences were supposed to be, not just TV bait. Xavier's rivals have always been because we shared something in common. UC we share the city, UD we had the conference & short distance. Wichita St. might be the opposite of Xavier but I could care less about playing them.

[Hall2012]

I don't know how you're defining their market, but state schools normally have the entire state as their market unless they only draw students from a limited segment of the state. VCU is not a commuter school. Virginia has a population of 8 million. That's a big market.

What markets The BE has or doesn't have is open for debate. Being physically located in a market doesn't mean that a school brings that market as we have seen time after time. Comparing a smaller, private, sectarian school in a big city with a school of 30,000 that has a statewide profile is comparing apples and oranges.

There's no way that VCU would rank 10th in market size in the BE. It's market is not restricted to Richmond.

I'm using DMA, and I accept your point that the reach of some schools, large public schools in particular, can exceed their DMA. After all, the Richmond DMA has 7.5x the number of TVs that Charlottesville does, and VCU obviously doesn't draw 7.5x the number of viewers as UVA. So if we consider the whole state of Virginia as one DMA, it would rank a solid 6th in the Big East.

Anyway, debating the best way to measure market size for colleges strays from my point that neither VCU nor WSU would be able to make a dent in the Big East's TV ratings. There are only a handful of blue bloods in the country that are single handedly capable of boosting a league's TV ratings and none of them are coming to the Big East.

[Make Your Bones]

These discussions amaze me as one thing always gets left behind and it's the most important factor by far! How much would Fox have to pay by the contract if we add 2 schools? The answer is that in this climate of shrinking revenues of cable, it's not happening, no way no how.

There is one other thing that is equally as relevant. Decisions on conference members are made by university presidents, not athletic directors. The presidents of the schools in the Big East take academics extremely seriously. There is no way on God's green earth that the presidents of the current Big East schools are going to vote to admit a school with the academic ratings of Wichita St. UConn is always a possibility because, despite being public, it has strong academic ratings. SLU has strong academic bonafides as well. Wichita State is essentially a community college by comparison.

I think this should be emphasized again. Honestly, even Nova only does basketball because it (1) generates $ to cover the cost of the athletic dept, (2) generates free national media and (3) generates alumni engagement/donations, all of which ultimately serve to try to improve the academic situation of the university. That's the goal, not winning for the sake of winning. In fact, I've heard our President talk about how much the free advertising from last year's run was estimated to be worth. With that lens, the academic quality of peer institutions matters... a lot.

My head hurts after reading the nonsense in this thread. Remember, we're talking about schools, not NBA franchises.

[Hall2012]

Another thing we need to remember before freaking out about TV ratings is what the actual strategy in the Big East-Fox contract is - and it is NOT to maximize ratings averages. It's to maximize television exposure for our league and content for their channel. If the goal was to maximize our ratings numbers, we'd only air the top 15-20 games. Instead, we broadcast almost every game. From Southeast Missouri State @ DePaul to Villanova @ Xavier. Average the ratings of those two games together and it's not going to be impressive. We need to realize just how much the Big East dilutes its own ratings by doing this.

Back in the old Big East, for me, when Seton Hall was on national TV, it was must see. I'd make a point of scheduling out time to watch that game, because there's only a few of them a year. I imagine it was the same for a lot of people here (except maybe Nova/Gtown/MU fans who had their teams televised more frequently). It's still like that for the mid-low tier teams in other major conferences and basically all teams in mid/low major conferences. For us? Not anymore. We get the luxury of seeing almost every game on TV regardless of where we live. If I'm too busy to watch Seton Hall play FDU, I'm not gonna worry about it because there'll be 30 more games.

Without seeing any numbers, I'd bet most of our games rate reasonably well locally, but that's not the focus because we're on a national network. There's only a handful of teams that you can broadcast nationally 30+ times a year without seeing much of a viewership drop-off. Nobody in our league (or that we could add) has the national following of a Duke or a Kentucky and it makes sense that the casual viewer would prefer some variety to seeing the same teams play every time they turn on the TV. As the BIG EAST plays well and gains more respect (The Villanova NC helps, but we need to show strength consistently) the national ratings will rise, but we can't expect to match other leagues that only broadcast their top games.

[hortle]

so what's his argument? FS1's ratings suck because its a catholic league? lol please

[Savannah Jay]

These discussions amaze me as one thing always gets left behind and it's the most important factor by far! How much would Fox have to pay by the contract if we add 2 schools? The answer is that in this climate of shrinking revenues of cable, it's not happening, no way no how.

There is one other thing that is equally as relevant. Decisions on conference members are made by university presidents, not athletic directors. The presidents of the schools in the Big East take academics extremely seriously. There is no way on God's green earth that the presidents of the current Big East schools are going to vote to admit a school with the academic ratings of Wichita St. UConn is always a possibility because, despite being public, it has strong academic ratings. SLU has strong academic bonafides as well. Wichita State is essentially a community college by comparison.

I think this should be emphasized again. Honestly, even Nova only does basketball because it (1) generates $ to cover the cost of the athletic dept, (2) generates free national media and (3) generates alumni engagement/donations, all of which ultimately serve to try to improve the academic situation of the university. That's the goal, not winning for the sake of winning. In fact, I've heard our President talk about how much the free advertising from last year's run was estimated to be worth. With that lens, the academic quality of peer institutions matters... a lot.

My head hurts after reading the nonsense in this thread. Remember, we're talking about schools, not NBA franchises.

I think the acceptance rate at WCC is 95.8%, which makes it the easiest school in Kansas, and perhaps on planet earth, to get into. I think there would be permanent indigestion in DC if someone like that were a "colleague" of Georgetown (not to mention other Big East schools).

[Edrick]

More valuable degree:



OR

[Sactowndog]

I responded as I appreciate your factual and response to the issue of ratings. I am not sure your are consistent in your reasons of who is acceptable and not based on size but I don't think market size if the real reason so it doesn't really matter. Like institution is the overwhelming criteria of who gets in and why your ratings are poor and, I would happily bet, stay poor.

Just a reminder. If you are a Butler fan its not "your" but rather "our".

I agree but this place is hardly a welcoming place to debate with facts dissenting opinions so it feels way more your than our. Virtually every other post is a personal attack.

[Sactowndog]

Also dog. You keep on referencing poor ratings without paying any lip service to how much of that may be attributable to FS1. Me personally, I enjoy playing schools with similar institutional identities. That used to be what conferences were supposed to be, not just TV bait. Xavier's rivals have always been because we shared something in common. UC we share the city, UD we had the conference & short distance. Wichita St. might be the opposite of Xavier but I could care less about playing them.

No I am not ignoring FS1. I didn't make my point at all until I saw the FOX conference final rating on OTA TV. I haven't made any comparison of the .2 rating on FOX versus a 1.2 rating on ESPN because I agree its an Apple and Oranges comparison. As for Pac-12 basketball, if anyone cared about it on the west coast I would consider it a valid comparison but no one does. Has anyone here looked at what UCLA draws these days?

The Pac-12 has managed to make themselves irrelevant to much of the state via the same exclusionary vision of like minded universities many on here espouse. I can see SEC and Big 10 channels here in California. Can anyone get Pac-12 network in your area? I guarantee you can't because I spent hours trying to find it in any bar in Indianapolis and it doesn't exist.

In terms of rivals in conference, for you it's Butler. I don't know how you feel but the Butler alums I'm close to would rather the Big East get no teams in Sweet Sixteen than have Xavier get there. Those are the kind of rivalies this league needs with all our teams. It is also how Creighton fans feel about Wichita State. Most of them would love to see that program rot and die.