Confusion among the Uninvited

[Townie72]

In all this Conference expansion stuff, nothing is funnier than the sputtering disbelief of the fans of the uninvited schools. Using the school selection criteria that they have established in their minds, there’s no way that their school shouldn’t have been invited to the Big Ten or the ACC in either 2003 or 2011.

Failure of these electing conferences to “act logically” is attributed to just about everything except the idea that the fans might not understand what these Conference are looking for. Sports columnists and bloggers, who are also misinformed --- but feel compelled to say something --- add to the confusion.

When you say “football is driving the bus” and other sports just aren’t important, you are setting yourself up for a huge surprise. How can you look at the ACC’s invitations to SU and Pitt and not understand that basketball was a big deal in their criteria? 33,000 fans in sea of orange in the Dome make a big impression. Georgetown having to resort to all sorts of hi-jinks to keep their SU fans from dominating their arena in DC makes the Washington Post which ACC people read.

When you start at the point that the number of TV sets in close proximity to your campus are a critical factor or the current structure of cable TV pricing is what Conferences are paying attention to, you’ll never be able to get your head around the real selection criteria.

A Big Ten invitation has been guaranteed by the Rutgers board “experts” more times than that guy in the Men’s Warehouse ads has guaranteed satisfaction with his suits. “Done deal”, they have said many, many times. It was a done deal right up until the Big Ten announced Nebraska.

And I believe that SU’s super-successful Men’s Lax program did play a role in this. I have been to lacrosse games at UVA. The stands are packed. Lacrosse is a big deal at ACC schools that play it.

 

[SU2NASA]

Don't dismiss the value of Rutgers football to open the NYC market to the MAC.

 

[Noexcuse]

Rutgers may yet get that bid to the B1G. Who knows? But we probably were not going to and couldn't wait to find out because the football league was going to blow up around us.

 

[SU2NASA]

Rutgers may yet get that bid to the B1G. Who knows? But we probably were not going to and couldn't wait to find out because the footbally league was going to blow up around us.

Why would the Big Ten bother with Rutgers? They have 12 teams that deliver a national brand. They're on local basic cable for a few providers already in the NYC area and they may be able to get everyone without diluting their product with Rutgers and someone else. To add two teams, they'd need to add at least $44M of revenue just to break even.

Delany is a smart man, I can't see him doing something that makes such little logical sense.

 

[Noexcuse]

I said who knows. Was mainly responding to the op and agreeing with what he was saying in relation to "the uninvited" being confused with why SU was invited to join the ACC and added that SU was acting in it's own long term best interests because the Football league was going to blow up anyway. I don't really care about where Rutgers ends up to be honest. I will add that Joe Pa mentioned them last week as an addition he wouldn't mind seeing.

 

[PhatOrange]

In all this Conference expansion stuff, nothing is funnier than the sputtering disbelief of the fans of the uninvited schools. Using the school selection criteria that they have established in their minds, there’s no way that their school shouldn’t have been invited to the Big Ten or the ACC in either 2003 or 2011.

Failure of these electing conferences to “act logically” is attributed to just about everything except the idea that the fans might not understand what these Conference are looking for. Sports columnists and bloggers, who are also misinformed --- but feel compelled to say something --- add to the confusion.

When you say “football is driving the bus” and other sports just aren’t important, you are setting yourself up for a huge surprise. How can you look at the ACC’s invitations to SU and Pitt and not understand that basketball was a big deal in their criteria? 33,000 fans in sea of orange in the Dome make a big impression. Georgetown having to resort to all sorts of hi-jinks to keep their SU fans from dominating their arena in DC makes the Washington Post which ACC people read.

When you start at the point that the number of TV sets in close proximity to your campus are a critical factor or the current structure of cable TV pricing is what Conferences are paying attention to, you’ll never be able to get your head around the real selection criteria.

A Big Ten invitation has been guaranteed by the Rutgers board “experts” more times than that guy in the Men’s Warehouse ads has guaranteed satisfaction with his suits. “Done deal”, they have said many, many times. It was a done deal right up until the Big Ten announced Nebraska.

And I believe that SU’s super-successful Men’s Lax program did play a role in this. I have been to lacrosse games at UVA. The stands are packed. Lacrosse is a big deal at ACC schools that play it.

Two thoughts:

These additions from a hoop perspective will give the ACC a hefty pay raise when discussing basketball television contracts. That can’t be dismissed as being a non-factor.

It’s hard to believe lax would have any influence on an invite, but people where lax matters sure aren’t naïve to fact that lax is the 2nd most attended NCAA final four sporting event behind basketball. Syracuse is the premier program in the nation. The FF in Baltimore (with Syracuse) put nearly 50,000 fans in the stands. That is a huge deal when considering only a fraction of a % of people in the country play lacrosse. Obviously lax is growing at an unprecedented rate and there might be a time when lax is pulling in big bucks. ESPNU games are growing in popularity and there will be a time when networks are paying conferences (The ACC) for the rights to air their lacrosse games.

 

[Rocco]

Rutgers vs Eastern Michigan will be rivoting at Yankee Stadium. The NYC market would be explosive for that game. I am thinking ABC primetime showdown.