No Miami Next Year?

[NY-BG-FAN]

Television exposore and its attendant role in getting games on TV requires an actual audience to begin with. How many people are sitting in front of their TV sets Saturday afternoon watching UMass football in the Boston Market (the region, not the restaurant)? We don't have our own TV network. We don't get revenue from subscription fees by forcing the content into largely uninterested regions like the Big 10 is trying to do with Rutgers (NYC) and Maryland (Washington DC).

As soon as these interlopers expereince the slightest taste of success the talk begins about outgrowing the MAC and moving on. If they do succeed they will and if they don't we're stuck with a bad program. It's lose/lose either way.

Exactly. This whole idea of "more TV sets, MAJOR MARKETS!" is such a canard. As you said, because of cable fees for BTN, the Big 10 has a reason to water down its product with Maryland and Rutgers. The MAC doesn't. ESPN wants football on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the MAC fills that void. Having UMass in the league or Temple prior isn't galvanizing people who don't care at all about the league in Boston or Philadelphia to watch those games to make them more lucrative. People in Western New York BARELY care about UB (including many UB alums), let alone even more apathetic college football places like major metropolitan markets in the Northeast. ALBANY??? Unless the New York Giants are joining our league, ZERO people in Albany will be caring about the MAC.

People in Maryland and New Jersey will now demand BTN to see their teams. The MAC doesn't have that kind of power/leverage, whatever you want to call it. UMass, Maine, Stony Brook, ALBANY??? which barely has scholarship football???? GAG ME.

Even if UCF, Temple and now UMass were/are the least bit beneficial to the MAC in the short term, it's been proven there's not much interest in these carpetbaggers staying in the league if they find success. So the options are these teams stink, drag the league down, or they're good, and bolt. Either way we lose.

[jpfalcon09]

Ohio and Kent will open on August 28th and it looks like BG/Toledo might be going back to November for a weeknight slot.

I'm not being a smartass by asking this, but is this a prediction or inside info? I couldn't tell by reading it if you were guessing or telling.

Zac Jackson from FS Ohio had a post about it yesterday. The Kent/Ohio game is pretty much a done deal and from his article it seemed like ESPN will be talking to the MAC about the November games, but he indicated that BG/Toledo would likely be selected since NIU and Ball State both won't be as sexy next year.

[BGSU33]

Ohio and Kent will open on August 28th and it looks like BG/Toledo might be going back to November for a weeknight slot.

I'm not being a smartass by asking this, but is this a prediction or inside info? I couldn't tell by reading it if you were guessing or telling.

Zac Jackson from FS Ohio had a post about it yesterday. The Kent/Ohio game is pretty much a done deal and from his article it seemed like ESPN will be talking to the MAC about the November games, but he indicated that BG/Toledo would likely be selected since NIU and Ball State both won't be as sexy next year.

http://msn.foxsports.com/ohio/story/mac ... ash-011414" target="_blank

[ChicagoFalcon98]

The MAC bones UT in favor of OU during the bowl process and they refuse to force OU to take on an extra crossover game...what kind of embarrassing photos of MAC officials do the kitties have?

This is pure speculation, but as someone who grew up a Nebraska football fan, and has a lot of friends who follow Husker football, I can tell you that ever since Solich took over the OU program, a LOT of the Nebraska fan base tunes in to watch OU games when they are on TV. That's a fan base that keeps a team in a non-populous state in the top 10-15 in terms of TV ratings every year (list of top 15 from 2013 is below), so even a % of them watching OU games could provide the Bobcats with a ratings boost in comparison to Turdledo. A bowl committee looking at viewership of OU vs. UT games might be swayed if they see larger numbers due in part to an influx of Husker fans tuning in for OU regular season games.

Just one possibility anyway.

Rank Team Avg Viewers Avg Rating # of Rated Gms
1 Alabama 6,465,000 3.9 10
2 Texas A&M 5,263,900 3.3 10
3 Michigan 5,257,381 3.3 7
4 Georgia 4,832,300 3.0 10
5 LSU 4,531,818 2.7 11
6 Ohio State 4,374,500 2.7 10
7 Auburn 4,201,667 2.5 9
8 Notre Dame 3,906,364 2.5 11
9 South Carolina 3,499,875 2.2 8
10 Florida 3,369,583 2.1 8
11 Nebraska 3,240,833 2.1 6
12 Tennessee 3,082,630 2.0 9
13 FSU 3,011,727 1.9 11
14 Clemson 2,970,417 1.8 10
15 Stanford 2,885,056 1.8 9

[Schadenfreude]

Television exposore and its attendant role in getting games on TV requires an actual audience to begin with. How many people are sitting in front of their TV sets Saturday afternoon watching UMass football in the Boston Market (the region, not the restaurant)? We don't have our own TV network. We don't get revenue from subscription fees by forcing the content into largely uninterested regions like the Big 10 is trying to do with Rutgers (NYC) and Maryland (Washington DC).

As soon as these interlopers expereince the slightest taste of success the talk begins about outgrowing the MAC and moving on. If they do succeed they will and if they don't we're stuck with a bad program. It's lose/lose either way.

Exactly. This whole idea of "more TV sets, MAJOR MARKETS!" is such a canard. As you said, because of cable fees for BTN, the Big 10 has a reason to water down its product with Maryland and Rutgers. The MAC doesn't. ESPN wants football on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the MAC fills that void. Having UMass in the league or Temple prior isn't galvanizing people who don't care at all about the league in Boston or Philadelphia to watch those games to make them more lucrative. People in Western New York BARELY care about UB (including many UB alums), let alone even more apathetic college football places like major metropolitan markets in the Northeast. ALBANY??? Unless the New York Giants are joining our league, ZERO people in Albany will be caring about the MAC.

People in Maryland and New Jersey will now demand BTN to see their teams. The MAC doesn't have that kind of power/leverage, whatever you want to call it. UMass, Maine, Stony Brook, ALBANY??? which barely has scholarship football???? GAG ME.

Even if UCF, Temple and now UMass were/are the least bit beneficial to the MAC in the short term, it's been proven there's not much interest in these carpetbaggers staying in the league if they find success. So the options are these teams stink, drag the league down, or they're good, and bolt. Either way we lose.

Respectfully, this strikes as defeatist thinking -- a bit like being too afraid to ask a girl out because you've been dumped a couple of times.

Expansion has strengthened the MAC before. Northern Illinois and Buffalo were very good additions 15 years ago. Both grew our footprint from what was basically a two-state league to something a bit more substantial.

Growth, done right, can continue to strengthen our league. While our conference doesn't have its own TV network, the right addition would strengthen our Tuesday and Wednesday night offerings (I'm sure the Sun Belt would like to poach more of those games from us) and also strengthen our other TV offerings, including the regional (ESPN-plus) broadcasts.

I like having UMass in our league in large part because I like keeping that kind of company. UMass is the flagship public university in Massachusetts. It's a pretty good school. That matters to me. And if they put a decent product on the field, that state will start paying attention.

Much of the same arguments are true for Stony Brook or Albany, should they ever decide FBS is the route they want to go. These are good public universities -- flagships of the SUNY system, and company we should want to keep. Plus, they would give Buffalo an in-state rival in a different TV market and shore up UMass. (Albany is about 90 minutes from Amherst, Mass. and two-and-a-half hours from Foxboro).

Who knows? Maybe UMass will give up the FBS dream. Things haven't been going so well so far. But, if they remain committed to FBS, I'd like to give them a reason to strengthen their commitment to the MAC. Adding a school out that way would help with that.

Would they eventually find a greener pasture? No idea. I will say that Temple left less because of anything they accomplished in the MAC and more because the American was desperate to grab someone. That could have continued to grow into something for us had the landscape not gone crazy.

I think UMass is a worthy experiment. Let's see where this goes. I like playing Miami every year, but this inconvenience is not worth kicking UMass out of the league.