O.T. Conference Shuffle ( OU and Texas inquire about joining SEC)

[Bay Area Billiken]

https://x.com/brett_mcmurphy/status/1697619768340054166?s=46&t=jikm5nKg-NlIUjy2c9C9zw

[thetorch]

So SMU raised 200M to cover lost revenue for 7 years moving to the ACC.

Chris May raised about 25M for the Champions Center.

Shouldn't we have just raised 50M and bought our way into the Big East?  I think it would have been an easier ask.

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, thetorch said:

So SMU raised 200M to cover lost revenue for 7 years moving to the ACC.

Chris May raised about 25M for the Champions Center.

Shouldn't we have just raised 50M and bought our way into the Big East?  I think it would have been an easier ask.

SMU had to give up years of revenue too, don’t forget that. We will see what happens next time the ACC tv deal is up, they don’t appear to be a very happy conference overall.

[willie]

49 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

SMU had to give up years of revenue too, don’t forget that. We will see what happens next time the ACC tv deal is up, they don’t appear to be a very happy conference overall.

Don’t hold me to this but I thought I read 36. That’s why getting new teams at a reduced rate was important to existing members. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

8 hours ago, thetorch said:

So SMU raised 200M to cover lost revenue for 7 years moving to the ACC.

Chris May raised about 25M for the Champions Center.

Shouldn't we have just raised 50M and bought our way into the Big East?  I think it would have been an easier ask.

Update: Per the Baltimore Sun, SMU is foregoing 9 years of ACC Tier 1 (TV) revenue, at an estimated $25M per year ($225M minimum). The pledges from the SMU alumni cover most of that amount. 

[Taj79]

Haven't their operating costs skyrocketed from this move?  I would think travel to Va Tech, Chapel Hill and the left coast are a lot different than travel to Berkeley, LA and Eugene.  Plus, their non-revenue sports all have the same road to hoe as well.

[Bay Area Billiken]

54 minutes ago, Taj79 said:

Haven't their operating costs skyrocketed from this move?  I would think travel to Va Tech, Chapel Hill and the left coast are a lot different than travel to Berkeley, LA and Eugene.  Plus, their non-revenue sports all have the same road to hoe as well.

Yes, operating costs have to be higher in the ACC, even though the Cal Chancellor is trying to spin that they won’t significantly be, while revealing the ACC plan to have the  volleyball, softball, baseball and soccer teams from each Coast meet in Dallas. As I told AdMan, St. Louis should submit a bid to be an ACC venue host. The ACC says Cal and Stanford will make 3-4 annual football trips to the East. 

[willie]

18 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Yes, operating costs have to be higher in the ACC, even though the Cal Chancellor is trying to spin that they won’t significantly be, while revealing the ACC plan to have the  volleyball, softball, baseball and soccer teams from each Coast meet in Dallas. As I told AdMan, St. Louis should submit a bid to be an ACC venue host. The ACC says Cal and Stanford will make 3-4 annual football trips to the East. 

I think you make a good point. The St. Louis Sports Commission should look in to it. We are in the middle of the country with an airport that has room. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

13 minutes ago, willie said:

I think you make a good point. The St. Louis Sports Commission should look in to it. We are in the middle of the country with an airport that has room. 

Plus, the STL Metro has three nearby airports in Illinois, as well as hotels across the River, in case the CA travel ban remains in effect. There has been advocacy this year to end the travel ban. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-smus-pursuit-of-the-power-five--its-a-couple-hundred-million-dollars-im-not-losing-sleep-over-it-125139541.html
 

 

[Box and Won]

3 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-smus-pursuit-of-the-power-five--its-a-couple-hundred-million-dollars-im-not-losing-sleep-over-it-125139541.html
 

 

I like the swagger.  I wish we had more of it.  And rich alums too.

[Cowboy II]

6 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-smus-pursuit-of-the-power-five--its-a-couple-hundred-million-dollars-im-not-losing-sleep-over-it-125139541.html
 

 

-I would love to see Oliver Luck at a SLU game

-great article

[thetorch]

3 hours ago, Box and Won said:

I like the swagger.  I wish we had more of it.  And rich alums too.

We have more than enough.  A handful of Billionaire donors and many in the 9 figure club.

We should have done something like this with the Big East years ago.  We should have been pursuing a plan like this for years and should be certainly doing it now.  Holding off on the champions center and probably one more big ticket building project would have secured the money to get us in the BE.  SMU needed 200 mil for football.  I'd say 50-75 mil for basketball is being generous.

[Taj79]

Love to see you name names.  How many are  athletically-inclined?  seems every SMU donor was so labeled.

[thetorch]

32 minutes ago, Taj79 said:

Love to see you name names.  How many are  athletically-inclined?  seems every SMU donor was so labeled.

Went to the Joe Buck/Skip Carrey speaker series event at the MAC last week.  10 people to a table.  3 husband/wife couples, 2 father/sons including myself.  Net worth at my table was 60 mil or so.  My father contributed 1 mil to that total and I contributed about $20.  Everyone at the table is a Billikens season ticket holder.  It's a fallacy that SLU doesn't have any or few big donors.  There are many, but they support the school at large more than the athletic program.  Getting into a major all sport conference is bigger than an arena or new locker rooms.  It raises the profile of the whole school.  It should be sold like that to donors who fund our education programs or building projects on campus.

[Taj79]

@thetorch: no issue with your above closing statement.  Still see "M" as in millions, not "B" as in billions.  I still think the question does remain:  how many billionaires does SLU indeed have and are they athletic supporters (no pun intended)?

The argument about raising the profile of the school is a good one.  The question then is "is that the direction our school is taking?"  It would have to be a collective push, much like the SMU effort.

[cgeldmacher]

18 hours ago, thetorch said:

Went to the Joe Buck/Skip Carrey speaker series event at the MAC last week.  10 people to a table.  3 husband/wife couples, 2 father/sons including myself.  Net worth at my table was 60 mil or so.  My father contributed 1 mil to that total and I contributed about $20.  Everyone at the table is a Billikens season ticket holder.  It's a fallacy that SLU doesn't have any or few big donors.  There are many, but they support the school at large more than the athletic program.  Getting into a major all sport conference is bigger than an arena or new locker rooms.  It raises the profile of the whole school.  It should be sold like that to donors who fund our education programs or building projects on campus.

Ten people worth 60 milllion are not in the league as the donors that make a real difference to a school's athletic department.  If the people at that table each donate a $1 million to SLU they've just given away 10% of their wealth.  Don't get me wrong, that table had some money, and I'm sure they give generously to SLU, but the high dollar donors at bigger schools are often on a different level.

[wgstl]

https://x.com/sidelines_sn/status/1699917135873483089?s=46&t=5CWCDUYBWajM7elDhl6lwA
 

vcu joining the aac means what for the A10?

[Taj79]

That's not a bad move for VCU.  It aligns them with Wichita State, Memphis, Charlotte, UAB, Temple, East Carolina, USF, FAU and Tulane .... schools that we have been aligned with in the past albeit at a higher conference level (or so it seems).  It sure beats the hell out of Fordham, Duquesne, Mason, Geedubya, La Salle and a few others in the A10.  It also gives an old dominion school a bigger footprint into the southern region of the USA, if that matters.  

It drastically weakens an already weak A10.  What is left there?  Dayton?  Everybody else is in the throes of suckiness, including us right now.  It further cements the A10 as a Juan Bid league moving forward and brings the whoel conference closer to Division 1AA as speculated in past threads.  VCU is arguably the A10's most marketable and successful team right now.  

[Bay Area Billiken]

The A10 has already reached Juan Bid status.  It would be easier to get that one automatic NCAA bid if VCU was elsewhere.

[thetorch]

1 minute ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

The A10 has already reached Juan Bid status.  It would be easier to get that one automatic NCAA bid if VCU was elsewhere.

Why play in the toughest Juan Bid league?

Save money on travel join the valley or horizon.  Juan Bid is Juan Bid.

[Bay Area Billiken]

33 minutes ago, thetorch said:

Why play in the toughest Juan Bid league?

Save money on travel join the valley or horizon.  Juan Bid is Juan Bid.

My goal is for SLU to get in the Big East.   I don't think dropping down to the MVC or Horizon does anything to aid that cause.  I know the presence of Creighton (from the MVC) and Butler (from the Horizon with 1 intervening year in the A10, in which SLU beat Butler 3 times) in the BE might say otherwise.  But I'd still take the A10 over either the MVC or Horizon.  

I think VCU going to the AAC would be an overall positive for SLU. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

I think VCU to AAC is just conjecture. We’ll see. 

[willie]

56 minutes ago, thetorch said:

Why play in the toughest Juan Bid league?

Save money on travel join the valley or horizon.  Juan Bid is Juan Bid.

You shock me with this. You don’t seem like a give up guy. This would be a huge give up. If the Big East is the ultimate goal it can’t be reached from the valley imo. 

[thetorch]

1 hour ago, willie said:

You shock me with this. You don’t seem like a give up guy. This would be a huge give up. If the Big East is the ultimate goal it can’t be reached from the valley imo. 

I may have given up on the A10.

Why can't the Big East be reached from the MVC vs A10. Do you have reasons? Creighton did it.

Do you think if Butler hadn't played in the A10 for a couple seasons that the BE wouldn't have tapped them from the Horizon? If so why?

We joined the A10 because it was the best conference we could be in and it recieved multiple bids giving us a better chance of getting in the NCAA tournament. It has now failed on one of those fronts. No better time to reevaluate.