UConn - Nightmare article from NY Times

[billyjack]

Boston University and Northeastern both made I think wise decisions in dropping football around 10 years ago.
I know it doesn't compare exactly because BU and NU were Div-1AA, but still, here in New England there's not a huge college football fanbase.

[GoldenWarrior11]

How many tournament units have UCF, Tulane, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Temple, Tulsa and SMU brought to the table? Those eight schools have a combined five NCAA appearances in the AAC's first three years. UConn/UC have five appearances in the past three years by themselves.

AAC TV Contract with ESPN = 7-years for $126 million. That's $18 million per year for the conference (11 full-members, 1 football-only) = that's around $1.5 million total per year via TV deal (for a football conference). There's nothing inaccurate about that at all.

The Big East was 12-years for $500 million. That's over $40 million per year for the conference (10 full-members) = that's around $4 million total per year via TV deal (for a non-football conference). That means the Big East schools, which do not sponsor basketball are getting nearly four times the total amount of TV revenue than a football-sponsoring conference.

The imbalance is very real - and it will only grow more substantial over the coming years. UConn/UC are fighting off the leaches that are members of the AAC. They are being used to prop up the substantially weaker athletic programs (Tulane, UCF, East Carolina, SMU) for the "better" of the league - a league where all 11 full-members would gladly sell the others out in order to get into the P5. What a joke...

[NJRedman]

I'm not saying it's in the black, but that MAJOR inaccuracy in the money is a major red flag about the article.

Just in tv and basketball money the AAC gets 38 million dollars. Then add in 20 million plus for football and you're up to around 60 million dollars. So instead of 1.5 million dollars, it's a lot closer to at least 5.5 or 6 million dollars.

20 million plus for FB? From where? I know each G5 conference gets 1 mil a team up to 12 teams in payoff...i mean playoff money. Where is the rest coming from? Bowls? Those are money LOSERS and all go back into paying for schools to GO to those games. Even if and I take your math with a HUGE grain of salt, even if it's accurate that still doesn't cover enough of how much they are spending. It's still mostly financed by tax payers, and right now that is a huge problem you continue to fail to address. Even if it's not 100% accurate the people of that state read the New York Times and the Boston Globe who are both saying it's situation is unattainable. You could easily see it become part of a local government campaign issue. Why cut from schools, roads, police and other infrastructure when you can just cut UConn FB and have them go back to being a self sufficient BBall school?

[stever20]

How many tournament units have UCF, Tulane, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Temple, Tulsa and SMU brought to the table? Those eight schools have a combined five NCAA appearances in the AAC's first three years. UConn/UC have five appearances in the past three years by themselves.

AAC TV Contract with ESPN = 7-years for $126 million. That's $18 million per year for the conference (11 full-members, 1 football-only) = that's around $1.5 million total per year via TV deal (for a football conference). There's nothing inaccurate about that at all.

The Big East was 12-years for $500 million. That's over $40 million per year for the conference (10 full-members) = that's around $4 million total per year via TV deal (for a non-football conference). That means the Big East schools, which do not sponsor basketball are getting nearly four times the total amount of TV revenue than a football-sponsoring conference.

The imbalance is very real - and it will only grow more substantial over the coming years. UConn/UC are fighting off the leaches that are members of the AAC. They are being used to prop up the substantially weaker athletic programs (Tulane, UCF, East Carolina, SMU) for the "better" of the league - a league where all 11 full-members would gladly sell the others out in order to get into the P5. What a joke...

Memphis has 2 units already. SMU has 1. Temple and Tulsa will have 1 each bare minimum if they lose 1st game.

The article said that the league distributes 1.5 million dollars while the SEC distributes 31 million. The SEC distro is for EVERYTHING, not just TV. So it's 100% apples to oranges...

Also not sure where you learned math but 500 million/12 years is 41.7 million, while 126/7 years is 18 million. 41.7 million isn't even 2.5 times as much as 18 million.

[stever20]

I'm not saying it's in the black, but that MAJOR inaccuracy in the money is a major red flag about the article.

Just in tv and basketball money the AAC gets 38 million dollars. Then add in 20 million plus for football and you're up to around 60 million dollars. So instead of 1.5 million dollars, it's a lot closer to at least 5.5 or 6 million dollars.

20 million plus for FB? From where? I know each G5 conference gets 1 mil a team up to 12 teams in payoff...i mean playoff money. Where is the rest coming from? Bowls? Those are money LOSERS and all go back into paying for schools to GO to those games. Even if and I take your math with a HUGE grain of salt, even if it's accurate that still doesn't cover enough of how much they are spending. It's still mostly financed by tax payers, and right now that is a huge problem you continue to fail to address. Even if it's not 100% accurate the people of that state read the New York Times and the Boston Globe who are both saying it's situation is unattainable. You could easily see it become part of a local government campaign issue. Why cut from schools, roads, police and other infrastructure when you can just cut UConn FB and have them go back to being a self sufficient BBall school?

last year when they were like the 8th or 9th best G5 conference they got 15 million. The MWC which got the access bowl and was the #1 conference 2 years ago got 23 million. So this year it's up to 23 million.

[GoldenWarrior11]

500/126=3.97. I said total TV deal money.

[stever20]

500/126=3.97. I said total TV deal money.

But that's only because the BE deal was for 5 years longer. You can't just assume the AAC isn't going to get anything 4 years from now. Heck, if the AAC has another 2 years like this past one, they're going to improve their deal quite a bit.

[GumbyDamnit!]

I think for the short term schools like UCONN are pot committed to FB. To continue the analogy, 10 years ago UCONN tried to play at a big $ Poker table. They looked at their cards and saw: Queen-10 off-suit, felt mildly optimistic, and hoped they'd get a few cards on the flop. Instead they got a 3, 5 and 8. So they're sitting with nothing, hoping desperately for a couple runner cards on the turn and river (a Big 12 invite) and bleeding money. They don't have the bankroll nor the cards to make much noise and that's becoming painfully obvious.

They are also looking across the room at the Craps table where all their old buddies (Prov, Nova, SHU, G'town) are hooting and hollering, making money and having fun. They miss having fun. They miss the BET at MSG. They miss the rivalries. They hate trying to sell tickets with games vs ECU and Tulane. They know they should just pick up their chips and their dignity and go back to the craps table but they can't walk away until the official death knell (a 2 on the river). It's coming. Everyone sees it, but it's a rough pill to swallow. They'll have to eventually though and UCONN will be our 11th member. When? Not sure. But it will happen IMO.

[Burrito]

I don't care what happens to UConn. Tulane and UCF just fired their basketball coaches. It'll be interesting to see who they hire. Maybe they'll hire coaches with past issues with the NCAA (like Houston, Tulsa and SMU did).

[GoldenWarrior11]

500/126=3.97. I said total TV deal money.

But that's only because the BE deal was for 5 years longer. You can't just assume the AAC isn't going to get anything 4 years from now. Heck, if the AAC has another 2 years like this past one, they're going to improve their deal quite a bit.

And that's the same mistake in logic that so many AAC fans made when it came time to negotiate a few years ago. No network is just going to toss hundreds of millions of dollars at the AAC because they "deserve" it. The only leagues that will earn that amount are the SEC, B1G, PAC-12, ACC and Big 12. Why? Because they have the history of success, the support, and the fans that warrant that. People want to see them. Anyone that turns on ESPN2/ESPNews and watches an American game will see a severe drop-off in product compared to the other stronger conferences. You see it with the number of fans, you see it with the teams, you see it with the announcers, heck, you even see it in the highlights broadcast. ESPN didn't even update it's own AAC semifinal between Tulane and Memphis on its website this past weekend (but the SEC, B1G, ACC, PAC-12, Big 12, BE, A-10 all had updated scores).

Look no further than the number of fans at AAC games (football or basketball) on ESPN telecasts. If you don't think network executives notice that, then I don't know what to say. A high-number of AAC football games have had noticeable waves of empty seats on telecasts - Tulane, SMU, Cincinnati (at Paul Brown), Tulsa, UCF, UConn and Temple (when at the Linc and not playing PSU). Plenty of schools have also had waves of empty seats at basketball games too - Tulane, Houston, UCF, USF, East Carolina, Memphis, and Temple. Those empty seats don't just add up - they are very reflective of the conference as a whole.

The AAC is clearly a step above the MAC, C-USA, Sun Belt and MWC - but to think that they are worthy of being getting a huge media deal is laughable. The conference will never be considered a power conference, in TV deal or otherwise. Some schools (UConn/UC/Houston/Memphis) may get the eventual call-up - but that won't warrant ESPN throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at them.