North Carolina
I’ve always felt that college football always ends like the NFL season begins; with a bunch of hyped up, meaningless games that media spins to try and pique fans interest. I have always stayed out of the argument about who is deserving and who isn’t. Fans are disgusted by the BCS system. They are perplexed as to why there needs to be BCS Conferences and why the smaller conferences have virtually no chance of making it to the big show. I’m not talking about a meaningless Rose Bowl game either. I mean the ultimate prize, the National Championship. Fans argue that the Mountain West is a great conference and that they can’t believe Utah, BYU and TCU are jumping ship. Here is the truth. In fact, let’s compare the MWC with the PAC-10. What does the Pac-10 have on the Mountain West? Yes, I’m being serious. I looked over the last 3 years of bowl games and top 25 results and discovered something; The Mountain West was indeed better than the PAC-10. So PAC-10 fan what do you have to say for yourself? If you include future members of both the PAC-10 and MWC, like Colorado and Utah for the PAC-10, and Fresno St, Hawaii, Boise St and Nevada for the MWC, the MWC has won 14 games compared to the PAC-10’s nine. PAC-10 fans might then fall back on teams in the top 25 at the end of the year. But this also favors the Mountain West; MWC has 11 teams in the top 25 in that time frame while the PAC-10 has 10. The PAC-10 has the luxury of including Utah for both conferences. So take that away and it’s even more one sided. So why should we hate the BCS?
As celebrated as BCS bowl games are they really make no sense and have no meaning. Games are played where coaches can’t coach because they are either fired or moved to a better team. Players are ineligible for talking with agents, bad grades or accepting gifts. Mascots are suspending for humping unsuspecting legs. They play these games in Hawaii, Florida and California. I work hard at my job, but if I had to do it in Las Vegas for a week, I probably wouldn’t be working very hard THAT week. Why am I so excited to see a future Rams victory in the 2014 Vagisil Bowl? Does it matter if we win or lose? I don’t care that the Rams just made the university $250,000 to participate. Pay me to watch it.
The Mountain West and other smaller conferences are losing schools and the effects are going to be huge. You might look at a team like TCU leaving and think that with Boise St arriving, that we got an even trade off. These bigger schools aren’t trying to make their conferences more competitive. It’s all about the Benjamins. Boise State can’t get into a big conference for a reason, and it has to do with market size. This is where the PAC-10 has a huge advantage over the MWC. Boise St is a better team and would make the conference stronger competitively. But they wanted to expand their brand and market to a wider audience. Why bring in Boise St and their 585,207 people when they can bring in Salt Lake’s 1.1 million and Denver’s 2.6 million people? The Big East didn’t see TCU the football program; they saw the Dallas-Ft. Worth area’s 6.8 million population as the attraction. These were potential MWC supporters. Even the additions of Fresno St., (1 million), Hawaii (909,000), Nevada (420,000), and Boise St (585,000) combined can’t make up for the loss of TCU.
| Pac-10: USC/UCLA (Los Angeles) = 9.8 million Arizona State (Tempe/Scottsdale/Phoenix) = 4.3 million Arizona (Tucson) - 1 million Oregon/Oregon State = 730,000 Washington (Seattle/Tacoma) = 3.9 million Cal/ Stanford (San Francisco/Oakland) = 1.3 million Washington St. is the only exception, but Pullman is pretty close to Boise, so you see why Boise State isn’t coveted. They have some of that market already | MWC: New Mexico (Albuquerque) = 869,000 Air Force (Colorado Springs) = 626,000 Wyoming (Laramie) = 57,298 UNLV (Las Vegas) =1.9 million, SDSU (San Diego) = 3 million CSU (Ft.Collins/Greeley) = 225,000. |
The population deviances between the 2 conferences are huge and the effects of it are going to mean less revenue and shared income for sports programs, scholarships, facilities, and coaches. The TV contract money is going to the conferences that can reach the most people. This will further widen the gap between the BCS and non BCS, like the MWC. This makes the BYU move to go independent perplexing. BYU was arrogant to leave the MWC. They have a huge national following due to their representation of the Mormon faith, but I don’t see them succeeding as an independent with the current money driven system in place, and I feel that it’s going to hurt their program in the long run.
CSU will always be on the outside looking in. The Denver market belongs to CU and there is not a large enough market for a conference to get excited about. So a scenario can happen where CSU watches teams leave the Mountain West, only to realize that they’re one of the only ones left. If I was looking to add teams, the Mountain West is the first place I would go, but I would want to add SDSU and the surrounding 3 million people, or UNLV and the surrounding 1.9 million there. It doesn’t matter that the Aztecs and Rebels historically aren’t very good. So in the future, let’s go to the 2019 Vagisil Bowl, and see my Rams pummel the UL-Monroe Warhawks, in a game between 7th place conference finishers. Will I curse the BCS system that sucked the money from my pockets or watch with the same indifference I did those many moons ago when Donald Duck landed that double axel?
Mizery
Wilmington,NC
Posts
CSU controls CSU's future. We can talk about BCS, MWC, PAC10, etc as subjects, but in the end if CSU can't win then CSU is irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteI would like to be hopeful that CSU will bounce back to the late 90's and early 00's with a winning program in place... but I think CSU will have to have another coaching change for that to happen.
In the end... winning games is the first step for CSU to move forward on any stage... even if it is poo dunk league champion. Until then... empty seats is the other option.
Anyone who thinks Denver is strictly a CU town is sadly mistaken. Many could care less about CU athletics in the Denver Metro. Throw in the fact that CSU boasts the most alumni in the metro are (40,000+)of any in-state univiersty and the idea that CSU could or would not have an impact on the Denver market is simply misinformed.
ReplyDeleteAgreed
ReplyDeleteI think the article is right on. BCS is trying to boost up large city programs for ratings, etc. It also is trying to phase out low density areas even with good football programs so the larger markets will prevail and College Football will cash in. Wish everyone was on an even playing field and teams no matter where they were located can maintain great programs.
ReplyDelete