Is Homogeneity Of Membership Good Or Bad?

[NJRedman]

Sorry, but when I read the reference to "Pomona College", I thought it was about the college by that name which is one of the elite Claremont colleges in California. Cal Poly Pomona is a whole different kettle of fish.

Complete agree with your take on the perception of the Big East from the left coast. To me, the Wichita State thing is completely out in left field. VCU makes some sense because it's a geographic fit and can be seen as the 21st century equivalent of what UConn was back in 1979.

The thing I like about Sactown Dog's posts is that he challenges the conventional thinking of fans within the conference. It's valuable for any of us to question our own assumptions IMO. It doesn't mean that any of us would come around to agree with him, but the process of questioning may lead to some better ideas than we would have come up with otherwise. If we all just agree with each other, then what's the point of posting? We'll all become just a group of ditto heads.

I do think that he has a valid point with regard to TV ratings. The conference has to do something to address the issue or there will be a whole lot less money funding the conference in 8 years. The marriage of ESPN and the Big East in 1979 filled an empty niche, meeting a pent up demand. We now have the opposite situation where the market is saturated and ESPN is bleeding red ink. I think that most people who don't have time on their hands are pretty much watching their own alma mater and some of their own conference as opposed to the game-of-the-week mentality of the 1970's.

The other factor that helped the Big East back in the early '80's was the arrival of Patrick Ewing at Georgetown, paired with the presence of Chris Mullin at St John's and to a lesser extent John Pinone at Villanova. Ewing was must-see-TV, a generational player whose like hadn't been seen since Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. That broadened the BE audience. It certainly would help to have a marquee player like him. Problem is that those guys don't stay around any more. Lebron was that kind of player, but he never even saw the inside of a college classroom. Now we maybe get one year of that kind of kid.

So, can a relatively small conference (by today's standards), comprised of mostly relatively small schools build a big enough audience to justify a big enough contract to enable them to compete with the mega-universities of the Big Ten and the rest of the F5? So far, so good. Inspiration is the child of preparation. I hope the leadership is preparing for the next level of challenge.

I'm fine with looking at ourselves for a way to get better and improve the product, but not this idea that we need to expand to up to 14 teams and that the fact we are private is whats hurting us. If we just added a few public schools we would be so much better. Like the country has this giant Catholic bias. F him, i'm sick of this same stupid argument after every season.

No one cares that his kid went to Butler. I bet he was on campus maybe twice a year and possibly twice ever.

I agree. So forget about him and his love for WSU.

OTOH, the ratings are a serious problem. After 4 years it doesn't seem like ignoring them and figuring that they will improve with time is the answer. Any ideas on how to make them better? We had the defending national champs in the conference tournament finals and the ratings for that game were lower than last year.

We'll see after this next season how our #'s do. Next year the B1G comes to Fox and with our natural overlap we will see how many more casual viewers who are familiar with our schools stick around for BE games after the B1G game is over. If we make a nice jump next year and continue a steady increase then I think we will be fine. Heck it might be after the following season until B1G fans start naturally flipping to FS1 along with the ESPN channels when looking for sports.

We do still have 8-9 more years of our deal left so no time to go into complete panic mode yet.

[Jet915]

Our ratings have gone up every year since realignment so I'm not sure what the beef is.....

[EMT]

Have there been any leaks from Fox or media critics (not associated with the WWL) that there is unhappiness with the BE deal?

[Dwon]

Have there been any leaks from Fox or media critics (not associated with the WWL) that there is unhappiness with the BE deal?

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be Fox Sports is warming up a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to be offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting ppl slightly familiar about vcu through fox sports. That's just my opinion.What do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean?

[Jet915]

Have there been any leaks from Fox or media critics (not associated with the WWL) that there is unhappiness with the BE deal?

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be FoX is warming warming a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to before offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting vcu fans familiar with fox sports now to easily make the transition to Fox Sports TV an easy one later on. That's just my opinion, what do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean means?

Wow, that's a reach....

[NJRedman]

Have there been any leaks from Fox or media critics (not associated with the WWL) that there is unhappiness with the BE deal?

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be FoX is warming warming a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to before offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting vcu fans familiar with fox sports now to easily make the transition to Fox Sports TV an easy one later on. That's just my opinion, what do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean means?

Wow, that's a reach....

While his logic is definitely a stretch I do see Fox having VCU high on the list of candidates for a possible Big East invite. If Fox wanted us to expand they would be one of the teams pushed by our TV partner. I would imagine Dayton would also be on the short list.

[butlerguy03]

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be Fox Sports is warming up a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to be offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting ppl slightly familiar about vcu through fox sports. That's just my opinion.What do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean?

You obviously don't know how radio networks work. That station is owned by iHeart and has NOTHING to do with FOX. iHeart has a contract to carry FOX, my guess is there was already a ESPN radio affiliate in Richmond at the time of the right-to-carry deal. Basically, iHeart just buys the branding with fill-time shows when they are not broadcasting live sports or a local show. iHeart owns FOX outlets across the country.

VCU signing a deal with the individual radio cluster is a good thing for the program - However, dig deeper. Many of these mid-major and low-major teams buy access to radio stations. Butler did this for a time, primarily before signing with Learfield, who now distributes the Dawgs. The easiest way to tell is if FOX 910 is running ads promoting the programming, the local shows are doing regular coaches interviews, and if they are co-branding (radio term: imaging) with VCU. If you hear those three things, likely 910 paid for the rights. If you don't hear those, VCU used paid-programming to get on the air.

Again, NOTHING to do with FOX, and especially FS1.

[Gopher+RamFan]

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be Fox Sports is warming up a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to be offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting ppl slightly familiar about vcu through fox sports. That's just my opinion.What do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean?

You obviously don't know how radio networks work. That station is owned by iHeart and has NOTHING to do with FOX. iHeart has a contract to carry FOX, my guess is there was already a ESPN radio affiliate in Richmond at the time of the right-to-carry deal. Basically, iHeart just buys the branding with fill-time shows when they are not broadcasting live sports or a local show. iHeart owns FOX outlets across the country.

VCU signing a deal with the individual radio cluster is a good thing for the program - However, dig deeper. Many of these mid-major and low-major teams buy access to radio stations. Butler did this for a time, primarily before signing with Learfield, who now distributes the Dawgs. The easiest way to tell is if FOX 910 is running ads promoting the programming, the local shows are doing regular coaches interviews, and if they are co-branding (radio term: imaging) with VCU. If you hear those three things, likely 910 paid for the rights. If you don't hear those, VCU used paid-programming to get on the air.

Again, NOTHING to do with FOX, and especially FS1.

Down doesn't seem to know much about radio networks.

VCU has a $2 million/yr contract with Learfield too. They setup the partnership with FS 910.

[Dwon]

Not that I heard of but as of may 26th VCU basketball anannound Fox Sports radio 910 their new radio home.Could it be Fox Sports is warming up a marriage between VCU n BE? .I dont know the answer to that but I would assume Fox would first be very fond of VCU to be offering coverage of their sports.Seems like their getting ppl slightly familiar about vcu through fox sports. That's just my opinion.What do you guys think the move to Fox sports radio mean?

You obviously don't know how radio networks work. That station is owned by iHeart and has NOTHING to do with FOX. iHeart has a contract to carry FOX, my guess is there was already a ESPN radio affiliate in Richmond at the time of the right-to-carry deal. Basically, iHeart just buys the branding with fill-time shows when they are not broadcasting live sports or a local show. iHeart owns FOX outlets across the country.

VCU signing a deal with the individual radio cluster is a good thing for the program - However, dig deeper. Many of these mid-major and low-major teams buy access to radio stations. Butler did this for a time, primarily before signing with Learfield, who now distributes the Dawgs. The easiest way to tell is if FOX 910 is running ads promoting the programming, the local shows are doing regular coaches interviews, and if they are co-branding (radio term: imaging) with VCU. If you hear those three things, likely 910 paid for the rights. If you don't hear those, VCU used paid-programming to get on the air.

Again, NOTHING to do with FOX, and especially FS1.

Down doesn't seem to know much about radio networks.

VCU has a $2 million/yr contract with Learfield too. They setup the partnership with FS 910.

Oh i got it now. With a little more help from google.Though there is no connection between the learfield/fox sports deal and a future BE invite.We did just get Marcus Evans commitment! We beat out Miami and Arizona, just to name a few.Heck we even beat out UVA according to an article of his on 247 sports.That VA DMA is still continuing to come thru for us even with Mike Rhoades as the new coach. Good sign..Now i understand that Will Wade quote when he said," Once a team is good like VCU has been,its always gonna be good."

Cheers

[milksteak]

We did just get Marcus Evans commitment! We beat out Miami and Arizona, just to name a few.Heck we even beat out UVA according to an article of his on 247 sports.

I don't want to completely crap on his commitment - because it is definitely a huge coup for VCU - but I would imagine Rhoades' previous tenure at Rice was 90% of the reason Evans chose VCU.