Merging Conferences?

[niufan99]

If the product is competition, improve the product by improving the competition. The MAC should begin to look at contraction and not expansion. "Growth" has not been good for the MAC. The more it grows, the worse it gets. I think the idea of adding more bad teams to an already bad conference would not help in the least. Generating a highly competitive atmosphere within the conference should be the goal of the next MAC president, not resume "building" "growth". Super conferences just generate more games against more teams, but not necessarily more/better competition. I'm talking about the kind of competition where the participants are very familiar with each other and FIERCE competition takes place between the participants each time they play.Keep the conference isolated to the teams in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Temple, Buffalo and NIU would be out. No football only. I'd hate to see Buffalo go, but tough business decisions have to be made all the time. I don't know what value Temple and NIU bring to the MAC at this point. This would leave the conference with 10 teams. Every team would have to play nine conference games meaning everyone plays everyone. Alternate home and away games yearly. At the end of the year, the team with the best MAC record is the champion. Tie breakers would have to be established, but that is normal. The Big Ten and PAC10 crown their champions in a similar way. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for us.The MAC should require for the remaining three games:1. One BCS school. Everyone needs a pay day.2. One non-BCS, D-1A school.3. Each school gets to select their own team. I would recommend a 1-AA team like the BCS schools do so we can get to 6 wins faster. I used to hate this idea, but it seems to be the thing to do to get to six wins for a lot of teams. In basketball, an 18 game MAC schedule would be played (we play 16 MAC games right now) with every team playing a home and away game against everyone else. At the end of the year they could still have the tournament in Cleveland. The familiarity generated by this type of schedule would make for some great competition in the tournament.Remember, competition is at the core of what the MAC is selling. Improve the competition and improve the product. Improve the product and you generate interest. Improve the product and you have something more people will be willing to pay to go see because there is interest. An improved product will keep them coming back.

[tbozeglav]

post of the year. congratulations.

[lance99]

Ohio is still in the top 10 in state population (I believe they are 7th). So I don't really know if 6 teams from Ohio is an issue. Bringing in Navy & Army would be huge in that it would continue to push the MAC into the East. Mixing Ohio with Eastern population would continue to give exposure to the league in that region of the country. Not to mention the prestige of bringing these 2 schools in. And, it would give us more leverage in battling BE schools for players.C-USA is so spread out it has no brand identity. If & when the BE blows it up, you will see a lot of adjustments in BE, C-USA and MAC (along with A-10 from the basketball/other sports side). And for those that think the BE will not break up, look at a program like Depaul= they have too proud of a basketball tradition to go 1-15 or whatever they finished in the BE. It is tough for a program like theirs to compete (though Marquette has done it).

Army and Navy? Other than they have built in fans everywhere due to people that served in the armed services, they bring nothing to the table. From that stand point, I rather have Air Force, but their too far away

[GP1]

I really like the idea of bringing in Army and Navy. They are tradition-rich programs and would extend our reach further into the east - along with Buffalo and Temple.

OK, we bring in two teams from the east coast and more people get to see the MAC. So what does that do? Has the conference been improved by adding them? NO. If so, how? All it does is allow more of the country to get a look at a bad conference and realize they really don't like what they see. Adding more bad teams like Army only reinforces the fact that it is a bad conference.In addition to what I have already posted, the MAC should also:A) Stop the week night games. The MAC playing on national TV is like Dollar General sending out video tours of their stores and then expecting people to come in and shop after seeing, for free, the crap they are selling. TV games are fine, but play all games on Saturday in the afternoon.

[xu9697]

When BE pairs itself down for various reasons, you could easily see something like this:MAC EastCan't StateBuffaloOhio UniversityTemple (football only)Army (football only)Navy (football only)WestEastern MichiganCentral MichiganWestern MichiganBall StateNorthern IllinoisToledoBIG EASTNorthConnecticutSyracuseMarshallWest VirginiaPittsburghRutgersSouthUCFSouth FloridaSouthern MissCincinnatiLouisvilleMemphisConference USAEastEast CarolinaUABAkronMiamiBowling GreenTulsaWestRiceHoustonUTEPTulane SMUNorth TexasYou could debate a few teams, but the point is that the BE will take teams from CUSA MOST LIKELY, thus leaving them scrambling. CUSA and MAC can reorganize.Akron would play 8 conference games. 5 in the East, 3 in the West.I think we would keep our rivalry with Can't, BG would keep theirs with Toledo and Miami would keep theirs with Ohio.So, we would still play 3 Ohio teams (non-con vs. Can't). And, IMHO, games against Houston, Tulane, SMU and Tulsa would be more interesting than vs. WMU, CMU, EMU and Northern Illinois.This also would open us up to more easily AVOID FCS team most years and play other MAC teams to go along with our 2 BCS conference games. Playing it out, our schedule in, say 2013, could look like this:at MichiganCincinnatiat ArmyTulsaat UABat BGHoustonMiamiat SMUEast Carolinaat TulaneCan't

[ksu sucks]

Conference USAEastEast CarolinaUABAkronMiamiBowling GreenTulsaWestRiceHoustonUTEPTulane SMUNorth Texasat MichiganCincinnatiat ArmyTulsaat UABat BGHoustonMiamiat SMUEast Carolinaat TulaneCan't

For the most part, I'd say that your list is pretty probable. The only thing that bothers me enough to mention would be to swap Buffalo with BG. As of now, there is an evident line forming between MAC schools willing to spend on athletics, and those not willing. In any case, I see Akron and Buffalo as two MAC teams who are willing, and should be grouped in the same conference. Not to mention, that gives the CUSA a NY school rather than another Ohio school. The academics at UB are also superior to BG.

[xu9697]

Conference USAEastEast CarolinaUABAkronMiamiBowling GreenTulsaWestRiceHoustonUTEPTulane SMUNorth Texasat MichiganCincinnatiat ArmyTulsaat UABat BGHoustonMiamiat SMUEast Carolinaat TulaneCan't

For the most part, I'd say that your list is pretty probable. The only thing that bothers me enough to mention would be to swap Buffalo with BG. As of now, there is an evident line forming between MAC schools willing to spend on athletics, and those not willing. In any case, I see Akron and Buffalo as two MAC teams who are willing, and should be grouped in the same conference. Not to mention, that gives the CUSA a NY school rather than another Ohio school. The academics at UB are also superior to BG.

I'd be totally cool with Buffalo, and yes that would capture a different market. BG is building a new b-ball arena, so I have to give credit where it is due. And they have put some funds into football stadium. However, right now Buffalo is building both b-ball and football programs pretty well.

[Zipmeister]

Conference USAEastEast CarolinaUABAkronMiamiBowling GreenTulsaWestRiceHoustonUTEPTulane SMUNorth Texasat MichiganCincinnatiat ArmyTulsaat UABat BGHoustonMiamiat SMUEast Carolinaat TulaneCan't

For the most part, I'd say that your list is pretty probable. The only thing that bothers me enough to mention would be to swap Buffalo with BG. As of now, there is an evident line forming between MAC schools willing to spend on athletics, and those not willing. In any case, I see Akron and Buffalo as two MAC teams who are willing, and should be grouped in the same conference. Not to mention, that gives the CUSA a NY school rather than another Ohio school. The academics at UB are also superior to BG.

Could you share the most recent years athletic budgets for all teams in the MAC with the rest of us so we can see what you see?

[zipboy]

Budgets for all schools are at www.ope.ed.gov/athletics. I looked up the MAC schools. For men's BB, Akron spent a little over 1.5M last year. It was second in the league just behind Can't at 1.6M. The lowest was EMU and Buffalo at 1.1M. Akron spent about roughly 200K or almost 15% more than the average MAC school. I would guess this is partly due to buying some games. On a side note, Temple's men's BB budget was 3.1M last year about double ours.For football, we spent 4.7M. We were ranked 7th out of 13 schools. Temple spent 9.2M then Ball State was at 5.4M in 2nd. The bottom team was BG at 3.8MFor total budget, hard to get a true read since the number of sports range from 16 to 20. But, we were at 17.9M which ranked 10th. Combination of not spending as much on non revenue sports and having less sports to begin with. Also, about 1/3 of the expenses look to be in scholarships. By Akron having lower tutition, it looks like we spend less as well. The other thing is I don't know how this takes into account facilities. Obviously from a facility standpoint, Akron has led the way the last 5 years. I look at the numbers above more as operating expenses. In terms of committment with the facility improvements, it seems like at least compared to the rest of the league, Akron is at or near the top. Even things like sending the Rowdies to away games vs OU not paying to have their band come to the Q shows a difference in attitude between schools. Just my 2 cents.