DG, I agree that moving to another G5 conference would have a minimal impact on TV revenue But, I believe the substitution of two different schools that are contiguous to the conference footprint but outside of it will help revenue and recruiting while having manageble impacts on travel.
Bucknell and Duquesne!
James Franklin’s loser ass still wouldn’t win the conference.
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Come on, New England area. I want that unofficial road game season ticket package.
The value of the MAC tv contracts isn’t related to TV markets basically at all. Its value as filler content for ESPN on weekday nights in the fall.
This isn’t a Big Ten Network situation of 10 years ago where they wanted Rutgers to force all the NYC cable companies to pick up BTN. Not only is that a bit of an antiquated thing these days, but UMass and NIU don’t bring real demand in Boston or Chicago.
Geography only matters for travel (especially non-rev sports) so in that sense, the Ohio concentration is generally good.
As far as I’m concerned, the driver for Miami’s conference future should be aligning with like minded schools who are looking to compete at the tier below the big boys. There are several MAC schools that either due to the inability to find the funds or lack of desire to pay are going to continue to drag the top teams like an anchor. OU, Toledo, Miami, Akron (yes football has been bad but they are investing big in basketball) would benefit from aligning with like minded G5 schools like JMU and App St and Marshall that you can justify as being regional and want to spend to compete.
Ultimately not sure a real move happens, but as NIL matures, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see some MAC members more or less tap out from the spending race. Miami has signaled so far they don’t intend to do that, so that leaves a big decision for the MAC ADs who do want to spend to choose whether they want the anchors or not.
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NIU is not really must-see TV here in the Chicago market. Heck, the biggest football attention getter here is Notre Dame … A winning Northwestern team can generate fan interest for Chicago, UIUC football and Purdue football don’t really generate excitement in Chicagoland.
It was cool when NIU beat ND last season, but it didn’t generate a lot of long lasting interest.
The Big Boys are very likely to form their own super-conference… and not share the $$$ with the Little Guys (aka everyone else). Which means that the also-rans of the B1G, Big XII and SEC lose out on the profit-sharing from the Big Boys.
Probably a good thing. Form a new group of regional conferences, more flexibility in who schools MUST play, and leave the crazy athletics department arms race to the likes ND, Michigan, Bama and Georgia.
Miami in a sports conference with Illinois, WKU, Northwestern, Pitt and MTSU? Dare to dream …
Add in Wake, Syracuse.
I would have picked Eastern Michigan to be exited if we are voting over NIU. For a variety of reasons but one certainly being your school colors are green and white and your field is the dumbest field color of all- gray
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EIU has tried mightily w a somewhat updated stadium, and a relatively newish hoops arena, but it’s just not gonna be able to attract the talent necessary to compete. Rightly or wrongly, it is perceived as a commuter school directly in the shadow of the big M.
No way - way too small and private little schools. The MAC is large state U’s.
NIU is not must see TV in Chicago. Miami is not in Cincinnati and Akron is not in Cleveland. All of those schools will draw more eyeballs from their metro area than a random SBC school.
The difference is NIU has over 9 million in their metro area and Miami and Akron have 2 million. That is a big differential.There is a reason that the Mt. West overlooked their incompetence in basketball and asked them to join.
I think he meant EMU and made a typo.
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NIU/MWC is football-only, their deadweight programs are the Horizon League’s problem.
So Memphis offered to pay 200m and give up media distribution money for a while, but were hit with a strong “no” from the Big XII.
Man, they must be killing themselves to get out of the American…
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