A quick Television Market reminder....

[Fold FB Invest in BB]

Great! Only problem is that the market dominated by Gator fans.

****, I knew the Gators would take our spot in the Big 12...  :

Point being that you can't claim the 13th largest media market as an accurate represnetation of USF's fan base to make a case for our inclusion in conference expansion. Sure there's potential, but USF hasn't built its program to a level that would garner that many viewers.

This is more accurate:

Great! Only problem is that the market dominated by Gator fans.

Good for them, they're a top 10 team in popularity. We're no slouch at about the ~50th most popular team.

What's more, apparently, we have almost 2x as many fans as Louisville.

Per NY Times article: http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

and good reason why this TV market argument is stupid.

[DontPushMe]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

[USFreak]

Great! Only problem is that the market dominated by Gator fans.

****, I knew the Gators would take our spot in the Big 12...  :

Point being that you can't claim the 13th largest media market as an accurate represnetation of USF's fan base to make a case for our inclusion in conference expansion. Sure there's potential, but USF hasn't built its program to a level that would garner that many viewers.

This is more accurate:

Great! Only problem is that the market dominated by Gator fans.

Good for them, they're a top 10 team in popularity. We're no slouch at about the ~50th most popular team.

What's more, apparently, we have almost 2x as many fans as Louisville.

Per NY Times article: http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

and good reason why this TV market argument is stupid.

I actually read it differently than you.  Tampa is the 13th largest market, but truly the 8th largest in terms of college football eyeballs.

"Stupid" got the school in the Big East last go-round.  Don't underestimate stupid.

[USFreak]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

Far ahead of us in terms of what?

1.  Basketball - yes, agreed [check]

2.  Free Papa John's one-topping pizzas at home games - yes, agreed [check]

I'm not sure they are the Millineum Falcon and Chewie just beat on the dashboard enough to put them light years ahead of us.  They're nuts are sweating right now every bit as much as yours.

[Held_AccountaBull]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

Far ahead of us in terms of what?

1.  Basketball - yes, agreed [check]

2.  Free Papa John's one-topping pizzas at home games - yes, agreed [check]

I'm not sure they are the Millineum Falcon and Chewie just beat on the dashboard enough to put them light years ahead of us.  They're nuts are sweating right now every bit as much as yours.

They have 40 Big East championships since joining the league. We have like 5 or 6. They're definitely far ahead of us in athletics.

[macphisto]

Great! Only problem is that the market dominated by Gator fans.

Yes, now.  Access into a market plays a part.  The Gators provide big access now, but what is their growth potential in the area of ratings?  I'd guess it's a fairly straight line that could be on decline as other programs in the state grow in success.

I remember the early-to-mid 90s and FSU was just as dominant, if not more so, in the area.  

This also plays into any TV contract.  Big East expansion, for instance, can sell based on market exposure to networks looking to gain a foothold.  That large built-in audience is incredibly expensive.  We saw what the PAC-12 brought in.  The SEC is counting on more.  

12 years and $3 BILLION is what the PAC-12 got.  They also will start their own network to make even more.  The SEC will be aiming for more than the $22-25 million a year per school the PAC-12 will get once they get their network up and running.  Betcha the SEC will be looking for at least $3.5 BILLION when they negotiate a new deal, something they can do by adding A&M.

So you might not be able to get that kind of money, but as the price for the top end is pushed up, the lower end becomes a good deal at a higher price.  If you're the Big East and you're set up for urban market access with potential for growth (which the SEC and PAC-12 cannot offer as much) then you can sell yourself to someone like a NBC, a network that wants to expand coverage and doesn't have a lot of options, for a pretty penny when you factor in the main network and their cable ancillaries (which probably would include NBC Sports Network (Versus) and possibly USA (they've wanted to carry football on USA in the past).  You also would sell varying packages - tier 1 and tier 2 coupled with a network that can be run by Fox, ESPN, or NBC as well.  In this circumstance you probably separate the football and basketball packages instead of putting them together.  I think this has gotten the Big East less money in the past by just basically giving ESPN everything.

[USFreak]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

Far ahead of us in terms of what?

1.  Basketball - yes, agreed [check]

2.  Free Papa John's one-topping pizzas at home games - yes, agreed [check]

I'm not sure they are the Millineum Falcon and Chewie just beat on the dashboard enough to put them light years ahead of us.  They're nuts are sweating right now every bit as much as yours.

They have 40 Big East championships since joining the league. We have like 5 or 6. They're definitely far ahead of us in athletics.

Totally sweet.  I love me some women's soccer and track and field.  I can't wait until they come on campus so I can.......yawn.

Football and TV are going to run this ship.  Big East championships are nice, but I'm fairly certain Texas and Oklahoma aren't huddled up in a corner somewhere looking at dirty pictures of all Louisville's all-sports Big East championships.

[Held_AccountaBull]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

Far ahead of us in terms of what?

1.  Basketball - yes, agreed [check]

2.  Free Papa John's one-topping pizzas at home games - yes, agreed [check]

I'm not sure they are the Millineum Falcon and Chewie just beat on the dashboard enough to put them light years ahead of us.  They're nuts are sweating right now every bit as much as yours.

They have 40 Big East championships since joining the league. We have like 5 or 6. They're definitely far ahead of us in athletics.

Totally sweet.  I love me some women's soccer and track and field.  I can't wait until they come on campus so I can.......yawn.

Football and TV are going to run this ship.  Big East championships are nice, but I'm fairly certain Texas and Oklahoma aren't huddled up in a corner somewhere looking at dirty pictures of all Louisville's all-sports Big East championships.

Well if that's the case then they have us beat there too as they actually have a big east championship in football.

PS - lets continue this conversation again when you hit puberty.

[USFreak]

Doesnt matter. Louisville is a class program all around. They are far ahead of us, thats reality. Luckily they like us, and if they can they'll bring us along (so long as Cincy is safe too)

1. BYU (not interested for some reason)

2. UL

3. WU

4. Cincy

5. USF

Thats the reality of where we stand. Just pray/wish that Mizzou or WVU end up in the SEC, BYU doesnt get an offer or doesnt accept one and we should be ok.

Far ahead of us in terms of what?

1.  Basketball - yes, agreed [check]

2.  Free Papa John's one-topping pizzas at home games - yes, agreed [check]

I'm not sure they are the Millineum Falcon and Chewie just beat on the dashboard enough to put them light years ahead of us.  They're nuts are sweating right now every bit as much as yours.

They have 40 Big East championships since joining the league. We have like 5 or 6. They're definitely far ahead of us in athletics.

Totally sweet.  I love me some women's soccer and track and field.  I can't wait until they come on campus so I can.......yawn.

Football and TV are going to run this ship.  Big East championships are nice, but I'm fairly certain Texas and Oklahoma aren't huddled up in a corner somewhere looking at dirty pictures of all Louisville's all-sports Big East championships.

Well if that's the case then they have us beat there too as they actually have a big east championship in football.

PS - lets continue this conversation again when you hit puberty.

I just felt a short hair pop in.

I guess my point is that Louisville hangs their hat on bball.  Football has never set the world on fire.   Yes, they have a Big East championship, but they were CUSAers just like us.  They had a great run at the beginning of their Big East tenure, but bad luck (a few coaching departures) combined with a bad hire (Kragthorpe) set them back a few years.  Clearly Charlie Strong is a great choice.  And yes, it is unfortunate that Jim Leavitt could never get us in that position when it happened for the CUSA brethren and the Northeast "startup" -- Cincy, Louisville, UConn.

I do think Louisville benefits highly from our Florida footprint.  I have to think they'd be pulling for us.  Although, you never know....all those Liberty Bowl appearances may have gone to their head.  I think they got a free plate of hot wings with their Beef O' Brady bowl win last year. 

[MikeG]

never a bad thing to have access to lots of tv sets in your general area -- that is the main point

I would guess UL is well ahead of us in some respects-- but it is somewhat just because of a different set of circumstances. Sure-- they have a very nice OCS but the one we use-- while not directly on campus or owned by us-- is bigger, nicer, and doesn't hamstring us financially. They didn't have that option available to them-- so we were fortunate and it really empowered us to move forward much quicker than others-- one of the reasons I find those who "hate" RJS so much take it for granted and completely ignore it's importance to our program. OCS are awesome-- when you have that kind of cash laying around. Anyway-- this kind of skews a lot of the financials since there aren't many programs that use a similar model. Regardless-- we are moving in the right direction on this front, so it is more about internet goofballs having something to razz us for-- like calling us a commuter school-- than an actual problem area. We have not done badly with attendance (contrary to some of the posts here lately) since we started the program. We get a decent average, have a fairly stable season ticket fan base, and the budget has grown along with our program.

I don't think you can really compare us and say Texas or Oklahoma and find anything worthwhile there. It's not what we are bringing to the table-- "look at that impressive budget" -- nope-- we bring a team that will compete on the field for football and offer good games in the long run. I think people can see that. They can also see a school that is doing all the right things but just about 50 years after most of them have. And anyone who thinks having a foothold in Florida for recruiting because you have "plenty of talent in Texas" just baffles me. That defies how many 1-A recruits come out of this state every year -- which is similar to Texas and California. Who wouldn't want to be able to have a trip into this territory once a season for a game?

anyway-- let's not get ahead of ourselves. If they come calling-- it will be justified.