AlumniFan Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 I guess you haven't read the latest study of religion in by Pew and others. It has already changed and the northeast is being passed. The Catholics that tend to ramain there older overall than Catholics in the rest of the country. Growth rates are fine, but the base is critical from a mathematical perspective. If you take out California which none of us (I hope) are advocating as a potential area of conference focus, 36% of U.S. Catholics live in the states that contain A10 schools. The other 64% are spread around about 40 other states! Besides, as pointed out by some of your links, a large percentage of the growth in Catholics in the south is by hispanic immigrants. This demographic A) makes up a very small portion of SLU's student base (and many of those are from outside of the U.S.) and a large percentage are not going to be able to afford SLU anyway based on income demographics. Just because an area like New Mexico has a fast growing Catholic population, that does not mean that they are going to have more Catholics than New York which has almost 4 times more Catholics than New Mexico has TOTAL population! Now, you could string these states together - Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Louisiana, and Minnesota - to form a conference and have have a very heavily Catholic conference. Clearly, this is ridiculous, but that is the entire point. There is NOWHERE in the US where Catholics are more concentrated than the Northeast and, more specifically, albeit less concentrated, the states that make up the A10. Maybe in 25 or 30 years something else will make sense, but for now, growth rates notwithstanding, the Northeast is a concentrated target for a school seeking a Catholic audience and the A10 serves that focus. We will just have to disagree, but think of it this way - if you were opening a store appealing to a certain demographic, would you open that store in an area where there is a relatively small population of your target market despite how fast it is growing, or would you simply go where your target market is? Then someone will say, "Yeah, but there are too many Catholic schools in the Northeast - shouldn't SLU go focus on an area with less competition?" This reminds me of the guy from Minnesota who sells snowmobiles, but complains there is too much competition so he decides to open a store in Texas because there is no one down there to compete with. You know how the story ends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MB73 Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 Growth rates are fine, but the base is critical from a mathematical perspective. If you take out California which none of us (I hope) are advocating as a potential area of conference focus, 36% of U.S. Catholics live in the states that contain A10 schools. The other 64% are spread around about 40 other states! Besides, as pointed out by some of your links, a large percentage of the growth in Catholics in the south is by hispanic immigrants. This demographic A) makes up a very small portion of SLU's student base (and many of those are from outside of the U.S.) and a large percentage are not going to be able to afford SLU anyway based on income demographics. Just because an area like New Mexico has a fast growing Catholic population, that does not mean that they are going to have more Catholics than New York which has almost 4 times more Catholics than New Mexico has TOTAL population! Now, you could string these states together - Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Louisiana, and Minnesota - to form a conference and have have a very heavily Catholic conference. Clearly, this is ridiculous, but that is the entire point. There is NOWHERE in the US where Catholics are more concentrated than the Northeast and, more specifically, albeit less concentrated, the states that make up the A10. Maybe in 25 or 30 years something else will make sense, but for now, growth rates notwithstanding, the Northeast is a concentrated target for a school seeking a Catholic audience and the A10 serves that focus. We will just have to disagree, but think of it this way - if you were opening a store appealing to a certain demographic, would you open that store in an area where there is a relatively small population of your target market despite how fast it is growing, or would you simply go where your target market is? Then someone will say, "Yeah, but there are too many Catholic schools in the Northeast - shouldn't SLU go focus on an area with less competition?" This reminds me of the guy from Minnesota who sells snowmobiles, but complains there is too much competition so he decides to open a store in Texas because there is no one down there to compete with. You know how the story ends. So SLU should drag their teams to bumbf**k NY, PA, CT, etc, and theoretically we will get more students from the prestigious northeast. Makes a ton of sense to do that. Only a few of you loonies who post 10,000 a year think that, the majority knows that it makes no sense to put our team in that position, missing more school days to go there, long road trips = more losses, getting hosed by NE refs-umps, having much fewer fan support because of distance, etc, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 So SLU should drag their teams to bumbf**k NY, PA, CT, etc, and theoretically we will get more students from the prestigious northeast. Makes a ton of sense to do that. Only a few of you loonies who post 10,000 a year think that, the majority knows that it makes no sense to put our team in that position, missing more school days to go there, long road trips = more losses, getting hosed by NE refs-umps, having much fewer fan support because of distance, etc, etc. From my perspective, the conference choice is fairly simple: the A-10 is the superior basketball conference, and nearly all of the exposure from sports stems from basketball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bay Area Billiken Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 From my perspective, the conference choice is fairly simple: the A-10 is the superior basketball conference, and nearly all of the exposure from sports stems from basketball. What happened today provides more strong evidence that SLU should stay put in the A-10 and make the best of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJHawk Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 What happened today provides more strong evidence that SLU should stay put in the A-10 and make the best of it. The Big East break up is not a pipe dream. It will happen in the next 5-10 years. How long before some of the football schools in the Big East pass up the non-football schools in basketball. For the most part its already happened. The A-10 is the best way to position yourself to get into that new conf. Even if this never happens the A-10 is the best fit. The MVC has hit its ceiling because of great leadership at the top. The A-10 is at the same level and its a mess at the top. It's leadership has failed to get the entire conference on board with a true vision. The TV deal is just embarrasing, why not go to Versus to get a TV deal. With the right leadership the A-10 could be a good conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicCityBilliken Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 The TV deal is just embarrasing, why not go to Versus to get a TV deal. With the right leadership the A-10 could be a good conference. Good suggestion. The Mountain West did that before they got a network going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MB73 Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 What happened today provides more strong evidence that SLU should stay put in the A-10 and make the best of it. A few yrs ago MVC had superior NCAA credentials; but I would give slight lean to A-10 over last 20 yrs. BUT other factors are almost all on side of "shoulda gone to MVC" for sports. Major blunder. Too late, hope and pray some hybrid breaks away and we get Xav, ND, Marq, Dayton, DePaul dream conference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 A few yrs ago MVC had superior NCAA credentials; but I would give slight lean to A-10 over last 20 yrs. BUT other factors are almost all on side of "shoulda gone to MVC" for sports. Major blunder. Too late, hope and pray some hybrid breaks away and we get Xav, ND, Marq, Dayton, DePaul dream conference A slight lean? I believe the A-10 has had over twice as many bids over the period, and has placed multiple teams in the elite 8. It isn't even close. Other factors are almost all on the MVC side? How about the quality of basketball? The A-10 is objectively a better basketball conference, and the decision is and should be about basketball, not whether northern iowa is more drivable than new york. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurking Dog Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 Looks like there are a few Catholics in the upper Midwest. But maybe they're all moving to Jersey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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