No delusional goals like when they left in ‘85 (Big12 or Big 10 membership…forming a basketball alliance with the likes of Marquette and DePaul…marquee games in Chicago)
Basically It comes down to money and eyes on the program. They started losing both when the MAC went to two home MACtion games - 63% overall decrease in ticket sales. Too many MACtion games on ESPNU.
They need to find $4 million for the House settlement.The move will help.
Trading four MAC charter football flights for four MWC flights.
Horizon League for Olympic sports will save money over MAC travel costs, especially with the addition of UMass to the MAC.
I would say that Bob Generalli (sp?) was the assoc commissioner that made that concession to espn. The original games on espn were limited and them he agreed to put all the games on Tues- Wed and gave them the picks 12 days in advamce
The Tuesday night games have been an attendance killer. When the MACtion games were mostly Thursday and a novelty, if the games were meaningful then many times attendance was OK. More fans could justify missing a Friday at work once in awhile and make it a 3 day weekend. No such luck for Tuesday games, many times between MAC also rans with little fan enthusiasm to miss work and freeze their @sses off at a night game in November.
The charts show it was incremental. They lost a certain amount when they started MACtion. It escalated when they added the second game. Part of the decrease in eyes on was the result of who the MACtion opponent was. Akron, Eastern Michigan and Kent did not drive eyes to the platform.
NIU continues their nomad ways, because they don’t fit neatly into any conference. They were geographically a bit of an outlier in the MAC, and will be so in the MWC.
Good luck to them; I am skeptical that this move will improve their lot but you never know.
In my opinion the key is what is the 2026 tv contract for NIU in the mwc (remember they arent sharing equally) vs what is the MAc contract in 2027 worth
If that gap is $2-$3m in favor of the mwc like it is now then it makes sense
I am hoping that the MACs new contract would be much better than the prior one. Inflation alone it needs to go up. But no guarantees- the MAC used to pay to get on tv
So in 2026, the MWC football teams will be Air Force, New Mexico, UTEP, Wyoming, UNLV, Nevada, NIU, San Jose State, and Hawaii. Grand Canyon and UC-Davis will join the conference for all sports, but football (Grand Canyon doesn’t have football, and UC-Davis will remain in the FCS Big Sky conference for football). Outside of Las Vegas, I don’t see a lot a potential eyeballs. I seriously doubt anyone in the Phoenix area gives a rat’s *** about Grand Canyon, same with the Bay area in regards to San Jose State. Hawaii and UTEP have strong local, but relatively small followings.
That said, and maybe I’m wrong here (because I don’t know shit about TV contracts) I don’t see how the upcoming TV contract for the MWC could be much bigger than the upcoming TV contract for the MAC. Just a general feeling here, but it seems that the MAC is trending up relative to the MWC, and the MWC is trending down relative to the MAC.
and keep in mind that AF and UNLV dominate the revenue share, with something like 24% each…newcomer Hawai’i only gets a 5% slice of the (current) pie. And that pie should get smaller with the defections to the Pac-2
RedSea: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t ESPN doing poorly in terms of profitability? If so, not sure they will be bidding up the MAC TV package.
Oh how I wish we could get rid of Tuesday/Wednesday weeknight games in favor of just Thursday, but I know that “ship has sailed” and we are at the mercy of ESPN if we want any TV revenues.
I dont know about ESPNs financials - i do know that “cord- cutting” is real and I wouldnt be surprised if they are in worse shape. But the Big Sky just announced an ESPN extension so I think they are still in the market
I think the gap is closing between the new MWC and the MAC currently but they’re still clearly ahead IMO.
You have Air Force as an obvious brand name, Wyoming/New Mexico/Nevada/Hawaii as state flagships with solid (but not huge) non-alumni support, UTEP/UNLV/San Jose St as universities in decent metros which can get them a good base line of support. NIU is trying to fit in that last category although not super well.
The MAC has UMass as a state flagships but Massachusetts is split between a bunch of schools and doesn’t really care about football. Buffalo/Toledo kinda fall into the metro area type teams. Otherwise you have a bunch of schools in smaller college towns and compacted into primarily two states.
It’s not just the teams in the conference that draws the eyeballs, it’s the timeslots and competition. Right now, on Saturdays, the MAC primarily plays at 12n ET or 3:30p ET. They’re competing with Big Noon Kickoff (usually Ohio State), a majority of the Big Ten, the SEC in the late afternoon window, the ACC and more.
Out west, those kickoffs can be at 6:30p and approx 9p ET, which is 6p PT and they’re not necessarily competing with the Pac 12 because Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA are mostly on a B1G schedule and Stanford and Cal are on an ACC schedule. The MW is going to be valuable for a network because they can fill that late-prime window and probably draw pretty well.
Some may not like to admit it but the value of MAC football is #MACtion on Tuesday and Wednesday nights giving ESPN and CBS valuable programming on nights when there’s not any other football going on. If the MAC said we only want to play on Saturdays, I think that would mean a huge reduction in our TV deal.
NIU is an outlier in the MAC only in the sense that any school on the periphery of any conference is an outlier.
NiU is within 6 hours of driving time from at least 6 conference opponents. By today’s standards that is close.
The MAC’s strength has always been it’s weakness as well. With 9 schools in two states our travel distances are short and our TV marketability is limited.
Losing NIU is most unfortunate. They are close to the conference core and substantially expand our media footprint.