If the last 10 years of college athletics has taught us anything, it’s get the increased TV money and figure out the rest later. Take the Ls, take the checks. Probably not what the fans want to hear, but I guarantee that’s what a lot of ADs are thinking.
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Why wouldn’t we aspire? I’d love to see home FB games against Army, Navy, Memphis and Rice. I’m betting attendance would be better than Akron, Kent, EMU. Is even be willing to give up the vaunted Red Bird Rivalry to do home/home every year with Tulane. Hell, I’d rather have a bird trophy with Temple. The neighborhood is changing, we should be looking at every possibility.
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ARMY should be on this list you have as they are in our neighborhood. The AAC has nice academics and diverse TV audience.
A private AAU school with an 8.5B endowment for an 8900 student enrollment, an 8% acceptance rate and average SAT north of 1500 and a reputation just a hair beneath the Ivy+ schools? That school?
Fan goggles off: Is Miami the most important school in the MAC?
Yeah, it’s crazy competitive to get in to Rice but it’s basically like a Vanderbilt insofar as students don’t really pick it for Gameday Saturdays.
Miami focuses on academics more so than Ohio State and UCinci, and joining a conference with Tulane, Rice and Navy would be a nice fit, IMO.
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Probably. You can definitely throw in Toledo and WMU in there from an athletic perspective and UMass and Buffalo from an academic perspective. But I don’t think any other MAC school has it all like Miami
Competition would be an improvement over the AAC
The ACC thing is a total pipe dream. There are 12 schools in the AAC with more revenue than us. There are 6 in the Sun Belt. There are 4 in CUSA. Almost all of those better fit the ACC’s geography (random west coast schools excluded). I think Miami would compete nicely with some of the schools in the Belt and CUSA for membership, but we aren’t jumping AAC schools. Most would be more desirable: better brands, markets, and established athletics.
Honestly, I don’t think we’ll even be likely in line for the American. There are Sun Belt and CUSA schools that will be very competitively also looking to move up with better markets and geography. Even our fellow top MAC brothers will be very competitive with us with more metro campuses. I could easily see a realignment world where the AAC takes a few Sun Belt and CUSA teams and we end up in a conference with the remaining spenders from CUSA, SB, and MAC while the rest more or less drop to FCS or form the new bottom feeder FBS.
Its much more likely we end up in a conference with MTSU and Marshall than NC State and Syracuse.
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Toledo is by far the most desirable school in the MAC - and it’s not close. I’d put us on par with Ohio on the desirability scale coming in second (actually, Ohio is higher than we are but I refuse to admit that on a Miami University message board). Western just lost their stud AD to Michigan State and while they’ve been on a heater since he arrived I’d expect them to regress to their historical mean in short order. Buffalo should be high on the scale but I rarely see them mentioned in realignment talk. If UMass could do better than the MAC they’d already be in that conference so I think they’re stuck. The rest of the MAC isn’t going anywhere - no one is staying up late trying to figure out how to get Ball State or Bowling Green or Eastern Michigan into their conference.
Back to lurking.
@Lurk — not a diss, but would like to know why you would place UToledo as the most desirable school in the MAC? I think of Toledo as a mostly commuter school in the region of Michigan, Michigan State, EMU, Detroit Mercy, and itself.
“A bunch more $250 checks from hassled basketball fans?”
/chef’s kiss
Yeah, no.
I do not believe Miami ever sees the ACC. Great talking point, but AAC is much more realistic. Get the TV money AAC has to offer if they come calling. Miami fits very well in the AAC as it currently stands.
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Because Toledo has some of the best, if not the best, attendance numbers in the MAC. They are also part of a decent sized media market (Toledo metro area) with little competition for eyeballs. While the Dayton-Cincinnati media market is much larger, Miami is competing against the Bungles, the Reds, UC, X, and Dayton for eyeballs and attention. Attendance (and by extension financial support from alumni, fans, and students) and media market size are the only things that count when it comes to being a desirable addition for a conference. Tradition and history (e.g., Cradle of Coaches) mean very little.
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Got it…knew they were good academically but didn’t realize how good they were.
Have to agree w/HH. There are certainly other schools that are better geographic fit that would probably love to join. the ACC or the American. Being in tv no where land like we are in the middle of all the corn and beans we’re probably a negative as a “help” as a tv market goes. Oxford doesn’t fit the description of a mid or small market town. Even the smallest markets in the ACC or American are probably 10-15-20x as big as Oxford.
So yea…probably in the long run we’re dead if we stay in the MAC. The big question is where do we go? Hell does anyone out there that might classify as a step up even want us? Or do we just wait and see where the chips fall (realignment) and hope we’re in a position to improve our lot?
I’d agree with those who say, if/when the biggies go and gobble up the pride of the G6 schools the rest of us all just say f’em and form our own giant group. Consider recalculating leagues based on geography and participation. Come up with our own set of rules and regulations when it comes to athletics. I think there would be plenty of schools from the Sun Belt, American, MAC and Mountain West to make it interesting. Consider making it a semi level field with rules for minimum and maximum funding for athletics. Leave enough room in there so it’s not too narrow but so that USF isn’t 10x more than the smallest team in the group.
No worries, great ask. The Toledo MSA has 650k people and is 6th in Ohio while the city proper has 250k people and is the 4th largest in Ohio. Despite the exodus of companies from the region, there are still major manufacturing plants and a few NYSE corporate headquartered there. The University gets the lions share of attention (i.e. funding) from local businesses at the expense of their arch rival BUGS*. Sure, Akron and Kent could lay claim to “a better market,” but Toledo boasts a huge track record of athletic success across multiple sports over a period of decades which neither Kent nor Akron can lay claim to.
Toledo has deeper pockets than Miami and Ohio and is in a much better position to cover the increase in fees that Davearama has pointed out. So if you’re a conference commissioner, who ya gonna target as your first pick? It’s a no brainer. Toledo is the big dog of the MAC and is first in line at the dinner table.
The only school that comes close to Toledo from a market perspective is Buffalo and I mentioned in my earlier post that I’m baffled they aren’t mentioned more frequently in realignment talk.
Back to lurking.
*As a business owner in the Toledo area you need to be seen supporting the local school and that’s the Rockets, not the Falcons, and this is a major contributor as to why BUGS is at the bottom of the MAC in athletic funding - they have to self fund and the local Bowling Green community and alumni base only has so much cash available, especially when you consider their alumni base is comprised mostly of school teachers. Give 'em credit, they’ve done a heckuva a job up there in Wood county making due with what’s available to them.
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Maybe the actual advantage we offer is being by the biggest airport that would make travel a lot easier logistically for any schools that end up in our new conference. I don’t care who they are as long as they aren’t more cardinal directional names.
Airport geography probably doesn’t matter. Toledo is less than an hour from DTW and the cretins in Athens are less than 90 min from CMH. It’s basically a wash.
Back to lurking.
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