I certainly noticed this. In the interim I wish they were a sponsor of the MAC
Certainly can’t hurt to have his connection to the conference.
I’d rather stay in a regionally aligned MAC than a nationally dispersed MAC
The American, the C-USA – these are no different than the MAC. The Sun Belt isn’t a fit either. Once Clemson and FSU leave the ACC, that league won’t be any different than the aforementioned. Might as well stay put. The G6 is going to be reclassified as FCS within five years anyway.
This is nonsense. Of course the American is a much better conference. The gap between us and the American is about as large as the gap between the American and the Big Ten/SEC in magnitude (they are 10x bigger than us and then the Big Ten is another 10x bigger than them).
The American has a tv deal worth around $84m per year which equates to about 7 million per school. The MAC deal is about $8m per year which is around 700-800k per school. The Big Ten is about $70m per school.
The top 3 American total athletics revenues are: USF (112m), Temple (71m), Rice (70m).
The top 3 MAC total athletics revenues are: UMass (57m), Buffalo (49m), and WMU (43m). We are at 41m.
Going from the MAC to the American would be a huge step up. Its honestly a question if we can even afford it. We would likely have to double our athletic expenditures to be competitive in the American.
All of that is true. The unasked question, however, is whether spending another $40m per year on athletics to get into that ballpark would double the beneficial effects of sponsoring a full-spectrum D1 athletic program. Put differently, what is USF getting for its marginal $80m of spending over a MAC program that we would want? Because I’m not seeing it.
Joining the American would be one of the best things to ever happen to our athletics. Anyone arguing against it has never seen MAC revenue numbers. It would help recruiting in FL and TX it would also be major for exposure. Legit chance for CFP if they went undefeated and many times a 2 bid league for hoops
I think its a well said point. Definitely big decisions for Miami as far as the new college athletics landscape, and where Miami sees itself in the next decade. Remaining in the no-man’s land that is the MAC is almost certainly the most foolish choice though. Either Miami wants to be relevant in this new world, in which case the only direction is more spending and positioning for the American, which I agree Miami is going to have a hard time making the financials make sense.
OR
Miami only cares about athletics in the more traditional sense of a university, in which case there will need to be some hard conversations about expectations for our programs and moving down a level. Spending what we do now to play in the MAC where we are two levels of magnitude down the competitive totem pole makes little sense.
I just don’t see a world where all of WMU, Toledo, UMass, Miami, and Ohio are still in the MAC 10 years from now. We are going to have to decide if we want to move up or down as staying still won’t really be much of an option once the next shuffling of conferences begins.
Given the basketball arena investment and the roster spend increases, Miami seems to be tipping their hand in a direction so far.
??? So to get into the lower levels of spending in the American we have to spend about about $70 million and we’re currently at about $41 million. Their TV gets us another $7 million. That’s a gap of about $22 million and where does the extra $22 million or so come from? A bunch more $250 checks from hassled basketball fans? Students who are already getting pounded with rec fees (and don’t go to the games anyway).
Miami can’t possibly ask for more (can they?)
I’d love to see the bar raised as much as anyone here but we’re not the feds and can’t print money. This year the current administration (don’t want to name call and get political!) added at least $1,000,000,000,000 (that’s a trillion bucks sports fans) to our national debt!!! Miami University can’t do that.
When you look at how much we get from ticket revenues it’s really doesn’t contribute all that much vs the athletic budget. Doubling ticket prices isn’t going to do much good and will probably drive some folks away. You know…all us old f’s on a budgets that are busy shouting at clouds! Hell, once again. thanks to the current administration, I’ll spend about $45 in gas just to get to/from the game. Used to be $25.
Do you think all our millionaire alumni who haven’t supported us and any grand fashion the last 30 years are suddenly going to step up because we’re now playing The University of North Texas in beautiful Denton, TX (a charming 15 hr drive from Oxford). Well they do have a Buc-ees! How about Wichita State University? 12 hrs) Very charming city. Can’t wait to see their famous corn & wheat museum!
LaRosa’s, Skyline and The Knolls of Oxford aren’t going to step up and make up the difference.
Maybe we just hope for a Field of Dreams outcome. Build it and they will come. (Money that is.)
So where does the money come from?
Not to be too negative, but all my commentary aside, wtf do we do? We can’t go in there with a $50 million budget and not get stomped to ashes can we? And the money won’t appear out of thin air. So what’s the option?
I wonder if there’s a future where the non power 4 schools are completely excluded from whatever the power 4 or Big Ten/SEC semi pro league becomes and spending decreases cutting that $22 million dollar gap down.
As HH points out above by all measurables the AAC is heads and shoulders above the MAC. If Miami gets an invite to the AAC they should jump at the opportunity.
Blues…yea it’s a better league and not even close. No one is disagreeing with that. If ever given the chance to join should we jump on it? Well hell yes from a competitive standpoint. That is if we can figure out the money situation.
I doubt many Miami grads can name five teams in the American Conference. To think it’s going to put 25% more butts in the stands at twice the ticket price and pay for the funding gap is, IMO, a real big stretch. Especially if we wind up being the hind end of the league because we don’t have the resources ($$$money$$$) to compete and wind up getting stomped on by about everyone in the league.
A steady string of 4-8 and 5-9 fb seasons will do wonders for fund raising and fan interest don’t you thing?
We have about a $41,000,000 athletic budget right now. Add about $7,000,000 in American Conference tv money and we’re at $48,000. (which they probably won’t give us full tv shares right away), plus there’s probably a 7 figure buy in (but don’t worry about that for now).
So that’s $48,000,000 in athletic revenue. Rice (an academically comparable school to us) is spending $70,000. If we want to be at/near the top that’s what we should expect to spend.
That’s a $22,000,000 difference. UCF’s spends about $64,000,000 more than us!!!
So I say again, where does the $22,000,000 come from?
-
80,000 of yankee doodles basketball contributing buddies at $250/ea?
-
Double ticket prices and get maybe—maybe another $5,000,000 in ticket revenue?
-
Field of Dreams-switch it and they will contribute?
-
All the big time CEO’s out there, who have never given a dime will suddenly ante up when the see us play North Texas University on espnU? (Who can give us NTU’s nickname?)
-
Pull it out of thin air
-
Our hidden uber secret money printing press in the sub-basement at Millett?
-
Increase Student Activity Fees another 50%? (B-you have a kiddie there…happy to contribute another $1000/yr or so right?) I mean look it it… all the 137 or so students in the pic are happy to be there for “free” paid by their student activity fees. I’ll bet the kids that are taking out student loans and paying back after they graduate are overjoyed to have another $4000 or so added to their tab for events they never attend! Check out all 137 (or so) students & fans overjoyed to be at the game. They all got good seats! (This pic is embarrassing.)
The school’s laying off professors and instructors now because of funding issues. Do you really thing anyone on campus (other than the Athletic Department and a few more die hard fans) are going to want to pay from university funds to switch?
All kidding (and sarcasm) aside, do you really think there’s enough people with money out there to cover and sustain the gigantic funding gap we’ll have?
Fair points Dave but if we can’t afford to compete in the AAC then why is Sayler continuing to push this whole ACC thing. Because that won’t be cheaper.
For those not familiar with the AAC, here is the geographic breakdown of the conference:
Geographic Spread
- Western Boundary: Texas (North Texas, Rice, UTSA) and Oklahoma (Tulsa)
- Northern/Eastern Boundaries: Pennsylvania (Temple) and Maryland (Navy)
- Southern/Coastal Reach: Florida (South Florida, Florida Atlantic) and Louisiana (Tulane)
- Inland & Southeast Core: Alabama (UAB), Tennessee (Memphis), North Carolina (Charlotte, East Carolina), and Kansas (Wichita State)
Going to the American would be detrimental to the program. We can’t afford to damage the fb program like we did the hockey program when we went to the NCHC
How do other schools manage to move up to other conferences and not struggle financially? Marshall hasn’t seemed to have many issues since leaving the MAC. Is it because that was before NIL?
I think it’s just how much a school wants to support the athletic program. Also, geographic location
Two plausible reasons:
-
Saylor may believe that, unlike the American, the ACC is “big-time” enough to get some large donors off the sidelines.
-
Saylor, like numerous of our ADs before him, has a touch of Harold Hill in him. And I don’t mean that disparagingly. Being an AD at a school in Miami’s stratum in college athletics is really hard, and if selling people the “think method” to success helps keep the ship afloat, that’s fine.