Originally Posted by Chris R
Not convinced UD wants to fund their basketball program in a league with football money. Two reasons:
1. They have to compete with football money
2. They have to compete knowing nobody playing football in the AAC even wants to be there, which means by default all of their sports dont want to be there.
Tough to be committed to a new league when half the league already card-carrying league members would rather be elsewhere. If you play football and are in the AAC, you are in the AAC only because nobody of significance wanted you. It's a humbling reality.
UConn would have been better to join the Big East and play independent football, or just drop football entirely and chalk it up to a bad set of decisions. At least then the money pit stops getting deeper. When UConn made the Fiesta Bowl, they sold 2,800 tickets and had to eat the other 15,000 to a tune of $3M. All the other UConn sports which have been far more successful and got sidelined to let football steer the bus. No program mens or womens have won more Nattys in the last 25yrs.
Right now the AAC looks intriguing, but what about 5-10-15yrs from now. Just a couple years ago the AAC didnt have jack diddly on the A10. Things ebb and flow. Leagues go up and down. In February the A10 was Juan Bid. When the smoke cleared we punched 3 teams which is precisely the same as the AAC. Yep the AAC's cellar was better than the A10 cellar and that's where they parlayed better math, but how many people really care about the cellar. Its how many teams you send to the Dance -- whether hook or by crook.
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The A10 might learn a few things from the AAC. Why is it that most/many AAC schools would rather be elsewhere? It's not because they don't like the company they keep. The schools don't want to be just any "elsewhere". They want to be a Power 5 conference. Why? Because schools in Power5s pull in $20-$30 million a year from TV revenue. The AAC's take on that is, "We're Power 6". The AAC even has a Power 6 logo.
The reason the Power 5s have those TV contracts is because the TV people feel the level of play is high and that's what people pay to watch on TV. The AAc's strategy is, "We've got to prove we are just as good as Power 5 schools." And they are in the process of doing just that. When FB season ended there were three AAC schools in the Top 25. Not bad. The AAC wants more than three...and they want the same performance in BB. That's why they added WSU. If the improvement continues the AAC will earn a Power 5-like TV deal. I'm not so sure AAC schools will be eager to leave if that happens.
Meanwhile, the A10 could also adopt a "get better" strategy as the best course of action. Why not?
The AAC schools may envy the Power 5s now. But the schools are realistic. There aren't a half dozen or so potential Power 5 slots likely to open up. The realists in the AAC know their efforts are best spent focusing on making the conference they are in as good as it can be.
I don't sense that the A10 has a similar strategy. The conference seems content with the status quo....just opinion.
