Rumor - If Richmond is picked - Dayton/SLU to old big east

[bostonfriar]

Regarding VCU, the Presidents of the 7 BB schools have set forth the criteria for schools they are looking to include. You can disagree with the criteria however VCU is not a match.

The criteria - as I can recall - is small, private colleges with emphasis on BB and who place education and respectful treatment of their athletes above the athletic aspect of those students.

So, VCU is neither private nor small.

Again, you can disagree but to be on"the list" of potential adds it would seem a school must pass this screening first. After that, Fox/TV/marketing are important - which means viewers per cable market and winning histiry and future propects...as far as anyone can tell the future. IMO someone could be added without a long history in BB if the other factors were strong.

[BillEsq]

Regarding VCU, the Presidents of the 7 BB schools have set forth the criteria for schools they are looking to include. You can disagree with the criteria however VCU is not a match.

The criteria - as I can recall - is small, private colleges with emphasis on BB and who place education and respectful treatment of their athletes above the athletic aspect of those students.

So, VCU is neither private nor small.

Again, you can disagree but to be on"the list" of potential adds it would seem a school must pass this screening first. After that, Fox/TV/marketing are important - which means viewers per cable market and winning histiry and future propects...as far as anyone can tell the future. IMO someone could be added without a long history in BB if the other factors were strong.

While i understand that VCU has a larger student body than all the C7... no one would really consider GT, Depaul, St. Johns, Nova, Seton Hall, Providence, St. Louis , Xavier as small schools. As all these schools qualify as the primary (large) catholic school of large cities. Dayton and Creighton also appear to be in the larger category. Lets face it none of these schools are candidates for the MAAC nor NEC. That said VCU still does not fit the profile of the primary large private university of a tier 1 or tier 2 city.

And if you think Fox TV Marketing isn't number one your crazy... the C7 would not have left if they did not have a irrevocable offer from fox. Fox would not have given a irrevocable offer if they did not know the potential line up. They are not still negotiating schools. Fox isn't paying 300 million plus for 0 say. The facts are Fox and the C7 already have a deal. They just can't announce it as fox isn't official with their new sports programming. Fox does not want all eastern time zone schools. Fox also doesn't want all east coast schools. Fox has the PAC so it doesn't need west coast schools. No rational person would seriously believe that the C7 would have left the BE and Fox would have signed on to a deal if the schools to be added on weren't already basically set in stone. This isn't something that happened on a whim. Fox didn't just decide to start a new sports station. They have researched and they know what markets they want to attack. (Hint look for strong Fox regionals). This isn't something they are working on since December... you don't just jump into Billion dollar operations like that. Fox has been working on this for years. While you and i may not have been privy to it most of this stuff has been well locked up months ago. As i said before now we are just waiting until Fox makes its "official" announcement and the BE C7 separation dancing is done.

[pki1998]

Ok, so let's say Ohio State is ranked #1 and their game is on TV in Dayton at the same time a Dayton game is on, and the Flyers are 5-8 in the A-10. Are you telling me that 100% of people who watch basketball there are going to tune into the Dayton game? There is no overlap at all? I'm calling BS if so. And if not, then you need to reduce the percentage of the Dayton market that you are claiming the Flyers will deliver.

My point is that no one can deliver 100% of a market. In Richmond, we have people who went to UVA, Va Tech, UR, VCU, JMU, William and Mary, George Mason, Old Dominion, etc. Just as I would imagine in Dayton you have grads of OSU, Dayton, Wright State, Cincy, Xavier, Ohio U, etc. If you're going to divide our market in half, then you need to do the same for yours and every other market out there, because none are 100% controlled by one school.

I agree that no one can deliver 100% of any market. But honestly in the scenario that you gave, for every one person watching the OSU game you would have 3 watching UD. UD does absolutely own their market in a way that defies belief. Now the funnything is 1/3 of the Flyer fans watching the game would probably be argueing that they are better than OSU. If you want to amuse yourself read some of the post at UDPride. From the post you would never know that UD has never been a regular season conference champion.

[Flyer11]

I agree that no one can deliver 100% of any market. But honestly in the scenario that you gave, for every one person watching the OSU game you would have 3 watching UD. UD does absolutely own their market in a way that defies belief. Now the funnything is 1/3 of the Flyer fans watching the game would probably be argueing that they are better than OSU. If you want to amuse yourself read some of the post at UDPride. From the post you would never know that UD has never been a regular season conference champion.

Bingo. Most are obsessive, some a delusional, all are hopeful.

I really want to see UD invited to the conference, but would completely understand why we would not.

Go Flyers!

Flyer11

[podcast411]

It is hard for people that have not been in Dayton to understand how fanatical the fans are. In 1993/94 season where we finished with 6 wins that year to go with 4 from the previous season we still had an average attendance of over 10,800. The year before with 4 wins we had 11,400 average attendance - that is almost 3,000 fans on average per win.

When you hear broadcasters talk that came and did a game that season or the next when we had 7 wins - they are still amazed we could draw like that in such a down period. There are no more loyal fans in all of college hoops. Now hopefully we will never see a dark time like that again. And we get in to the NBE - as I would like to see the rivalry continue with X and pick back up with Depaul and Marq.

[xu95]

We all know VCU has more fans in Richmond, because we can do math. Our school has 2,800 students, VCU has 32,000. Takes a real genius to figure that one out.

My point is that you cannot arbitrarily cut a "market" in half just because there are two teams in it. Dayton is not the only team in the Dayton market, yet we're supposed to believe 100% of all people who watch basketball there only watch Dayton? I imagine plenty of Ohio State grads live there, along with Ohio U, Xavier, Toledo, etc etc etc. The point is that a market is what it is. You can't try to demean a market the way this guy did.

Meanwhile, VCU is not in the running for the Big East, so it shouldn't matter to you anyway.

well they dont show wright st games on tv here in dayton and just about every dayton game is on and they still sell out

I'm going to call you out on this one. Dayton gets little to no presence on national TV. I don't count WHIO Channel 7 as "Dayton games being on TV".

[yorost]

I believe the discussion was about local markets, not national exposure.

[Flyer11]

I understand that geographically, it makes sense to consider Richmond. However, I think it would be a mistake to take them over Dayton.

Speaking on the topic of national exposure, NBC Sports signed on this year as part of the new TV package for the A-10 (with CBS and ESPN) to show 22-25 games each season. However, it was so close to the beginning of the season when it was announced, that they only had the opportunity to show 6 games this season. Here were the games that they chose:

Date Game Time

Saturday, January 5 Lehigh at VCU 5:00 p.m. ET

Saturday, January 12 Butler at Dayton 2:00 p.m. ET

Saturday, February 2 Dayton at Saint Louis 2:00 p.m. ET

Saturday, February 16 Saint Joseph's at La Salle (Palestra) 1:00 p.m. ET

Thursday, March 7 Butler at Massachusetts 7:00 p.m. ET

Saturday, March 9 La Salle at Saint Louis 1:30 p.m. ET

I think it speaks volumes that they chose Dayton twice. They were picked before the season to finish 8th in the A-10, but NBC Sports still chose to show them twice. I understand that they played Butler and St. Louis in both of those games, but NBC I am sure wanted Dayton as the other half of the match up.

I do not know know what that does or does not say about Richmond, but I think it says a lot about Dayton.

Completely biased,
Flyer11

[Ball Turret Gunner]

Dayton will do well in or out of this conference. I hope it is in for the sake of a more entertaining home schedule.

[Flyer01]

Dayton will do well in or out of this conference. I hope it is in for the sake of a more entertaining home schedule.

I'm not sure I agree with you about that. Without the strength of a conference UD doesn't have the clout to schedule big enough games to make a difference. While the team will still be supported by the local fans the upside would be what they are looking at over the last 20 years. Decent teams with the chance to make a first round NCAA exit every 4 or 5 years if they are lucky. Dayton could be stuck in a pretty tough spot outside the new Big East.

An A10 without Xavier, Butler, SLU, Richmond, Temple, Charlotte, possibly UMass isn't much of a conference. It's a likely one bid conference.