MWC Expansion Rumors - BCS Autobid

mormonrasta wrote:

I immediately discredit this source when he begins to talk about a TV deal with ESPN in the works. I doubt ESPN is going to be buying out CBS's 12 year or so contract, much less all the ancillary agreements they would need to cut through to become the media partner for an expanded Mountain West.



Expansion---coming soon.

New TV deal----not until this one expires

I wouldn't be surprised if the conference could opt out of their current tv deal if the membership changed.

Or maybe a new conference could be incorporated. What if instead of adding teams to the Mountain West, a new conference (the "Mountain 12") was incorporated with 12 teams? Are there any lawyers here that would know if this would get us out of the contract? I imagine it wouldn't work, or else corporations would constantly just reincorporate to get out of bad deals they made in the past. But with new member teams, it might work?

EM_Puma wrote:

EM_Puma wrote:

...They hate the Big East and would rather drop them than add us, in my opinion.

Greg Wrubell noted a few months ago when he printed the laws and conditions of admission to the BCS and it detailed that the process would not be expelling a current conference. Unless he copied that info wrong guys, that should end that statement that keeps coming up as it is incorrect.



"They" - is comprised of the Big East as well as the SEC, Big Ten, etc, so I don't know how someone can say "they" hate, when the Big East is a part of "they".



At this point, focus on the MWC and opportunities to join the cartel and not worry about the Big East.

I don't know if what you say Wrubell said is right. My point was not that they would drop the Big East instead of adding us, but that that is what they would rather do. The "they" is the balance of power in the BCS (meaning a majority, or everyone but the Big East conference).

Besides the media, I'd love someone to show me where one of the conference commissioners stated publically that "they" wanted to drop the Big East. Up until 2 or so years ago the commissioner of the BCS was the Big East commissioner.



It is true that the media and fans have said as much, but when individuals claim that the commissioners from the other BCS conferences have stated that they would like to drop the Big East, then we would be talking something, but I haven't seen anything and I really don't expect to from them and they sadly are the ones that actually vote on such items.



As far as what Wrubell said, he was copying the text from either the website or some other document and it did say that the current bylaws did not currently include the possibility of dropping a current BCS conference.

Its completely speculation on my part. Sorry, I thought that was obvious. I think it is true, though, that the other BCS conferences are embarrassed by the Big East. It undermines their argument that the non-cartel conferences are left out because they are not good enough. Just my opinion about what they probably think, though. You are probably exactly right about their inability to cut them out. I was just trying to explain why I think there is a lot of resistance within the BCS to letting the MWC join.

Adding Boise State (and just Boise State) is the only expansion that makes sense. The revenue generated by a championship game wouldn't make up for having to split an already small financial pie three more ways. Additionally, I see no way to equitably and conveniently construct the divisions. BYU and Utah MUST be in the same division...which means that Boise and TCU would have to be in the same division to maintain balance...this would make very little sense geographically. Moreover, I hate how the "Big WAC" (the 16 team behemoth that imploded due to its own mass) took away the rivalries that used to exist in the "Old WAC". The preservation of these historical rivalries is one of the main reasons sited for the formation of the MWC.



Add Boise State, and only Boise State. Call it good @ ten members. We don't need anyone else. And we don't need a championship game.

Mithrandir wrote:
Adding Boise State (and just Boise State) is the only expansion that makes sense. The revenue generated by a championship game wouldn't make up for having to split an already small financial pie three more ways. Additionally, I see no way to equitably and conveniently construct the divisions. BYU and Utah MUST be in the same division...which means that Boise and TCU would have to be in the same division to maintain balance...this would make very little sense geographically. Moreover, I hate how the "Big WAC" (the 16 team behemoth that imploded due to its own mass) took away the rivalries that used to exist in the "Old WAC". The preservation of these historical rivalries is one of the main reasons sited for the formation of the MWC.



Add Boise State, and only Boise State. Call it good @ ten members. We don't need anyone else. And we don't need a championship game.

I agree that it is the only thing that makes sense for BYU and even for the Mountain West. Does it make sense for the BCS though? We are going to have to make some concessions to get the autobid. I don't like expansion to 12, but I don't think it is something the MWC and its member teams would reject if it meant inclusion.

10 team is the best but if it takes 12 to get the Autobid, it is worth the extra money split more ways. The AQ will have other long term benefits to make it worth it.

UVACoug wrote:

snoscythe wrote:
I immediately discredit this source when he begins to talk about a TV deal with ESPN in the works. I doubt ESPN is going to be buying out CBS's 12 year or so contract, much less all the ancillary agreements they would need to cut through to become the media partner for an expanded Mountain West.



Expansion---coming soon.

New TV deal----not until this one expires

I wouldn't be surprised if the conference could opt out of their current tv deal if the membership changed.

Or maybe a new conference could be incorporated. What if instead of adding teams to the Mountain West, a new conference (the "Mountain 12") was incorporated with 12 teams? Are there any lawyers here that would know if this would get us out of the contract? I imagine it wouldn't work, or else corporations would constantly just reincorporate to get out of bad deals they made in the past. But with new member teams, it might work?

The problem is that each school individually signed contracts, for that very reason. Even if the Mountain West Conference goes under, the 9 schools are still bound by individual contracts.

UVACoug wrote:

snoscythe wrote:
I immediately discredit this source when he begins to talk about a TV deal with ESPN in the works. I doubt ESPN is going to be buying out CBS's 12 year or so contract, much less all the ancillary agreements they would need to cut through to become the media partner for an expanded Mountain West.



Expansion---coming soon.

New TV deal----not until this one expires

I wouldn't be surprised if the conference could opt out of their current tv deal if the membership changed.

Or maybe a new conference could be incorporated. What if instead of adding teams to the Mountain West, a new conference (the "Mountain 12") was incorporated with 12 teams? Are there any lawyers here that would know if this would get us out of the contract? I imagine it wouldn't work, or else corporations would constantly just reincorporate to get out of bad deals they made in the past. But with new member teams, it might work?

The problem with a new confernce is that we lose the auto NCAA bids in all sports for IIRC five years. You can get a waiver as the MWC did and I believe they only had to wait 2 or 3 years. You also lose in football all of your bowl agreements. That solution is one of those kinds that requires you to sacrifice the immediate future for increased benefits later. Because of that, I don't see BYU joining anyone in taking that option though we can dream.

The problem with just adding Boise State is that it gives you a 10 team conference, like the PAC10. That means you have 9 conf games each year, and only 3 OOC games. Adding BSU to the schedule every year under that scenario sounds good, but what happens if they become team #4 in the MWC and drop off? Or what if Patterson leaves TCU and they drop off? No guarantees, so I like adding 3 teams, going to divisions and adding a conference title match. In the old WAC, that title match was great, even if it was in Vegas.



I would add Houston(great market for recruiting/TV), BSU and Fresno. Fresno has cleaned itself up, so the reasons they got left behind in the MWC are gone now. Nevada adds nothing. It would be like bringing in a Wyoming or CSU. Houston is WAY better for so many reasons, but especially if TCU gets picked off. Need a Texas school.

Lawboy wrote:
The problem with just adding Boise State is that it gives you a 10 team conference, like the PAC10. That means you have 9 conf games each year, and only 3 OOC games. Adding BSU to the schedule every year under that scenario sounds good, but what happens if they become team #4 in the MWC and drop off? Or what if Patterson leaves TCU and they drop off? No guarantees, so I like adding 3 teams, going to divisions and adding a conference title match. In the old WAC, that title match was great, even if it was in Vegas.



I would add Houston(great market for recruiting/TV), BSU and Fresno. Fresno has cleaned itself up, so the reasons they got left behind in the MWC are gone now. Nevada adds nothing. It would be like bringing in a Wyoming or CSU. Houston is WAY better for so many reasons, but especially if TCU gets picked off. Need a Texas school.

Not to mention that 10 teams creates an imbalance in the road-home conference schedule.

I am not in favor of making a 12 team conference. I hated the old WAC and was thrilled when the MWC was created.



One thing to remember if the MWC is EVER added to the BCS without dropping another BCS conference out then there wouldn't be enough bowl spots available to keep the existing money and conferences happy, so if the MWC was added to make 7 auto bids than there would need to be 1 more BCS bowl added. Don't know if that would, could or should happen. If it did which bowl would it be?

1-Cotton Bowl--new stadium and good location.Great tradition.

2- Holiday Bowl--good location and tradition.

3- Citrus Bowl--good location and tradition.

snoscythe wrote:

mormonrasta wrote:

I immediately discredit this source when he begins to talk about a TV deal with ESPN in the works. I doubt ESPN is going to be buying out CBS's 12 year or so contract, much less all the ancillary agreements they would need to cut through to become the media partner for an expanded Mountain West.



Expansion---coming soon.

New TV deal----not until this one expires

I wouldn't be surprised if the conference could opt out of their current tv deal if the membership changed.

Or maybe a new conference could be incorporated. What if instead of adding teams to the Mountain West, a new conference (the "Mountain 12") was incorporated with 12 teams? Are there any lawyers here that would know if this would get us out of the contract? I imagine it wouldn't work, or else corporations would constantly just reincorporate to get out of bad deals they made in the past. But with new member teams, it might work?

The problem is that each school individually signed contracts, for that very reason. Even if the Mountain West Conference goes under, the 9 schools are still bound by individual contracts.

That's understood. However, I'm willing to bet there's an opt out clause for each of the schools under certain conditions. For example, if BYU and Utah were invited to join the Pac-10 then they would certainly be able to opt out of their MTN. contract without much difficulty. I wouldn't be surprised if expansion could trigger an opt out as well.

Lawboy wrote:
1-Cotton Bowl--new stadium and good location.Great tradition.

2- Holiday Bowl--good location and tradition.

3- Citrus Bowl--good location and tradition.

I like the addition of the Cotton Bowl, that seems to have more of the national tradition in it's favor which would fit in with the other BCS bowls.

Mithrandir wrote:
Additionally, I see no way to equitably and conveniently construct the divisions. BYU and Utah MUST be in the same division...which means that Boise and TCU would have to be in the same division to maintain balance...this would make very little sense geographically. Moreover, I hate how the "Big WAC" (the 16 team behemoth that imploded due to its own mass) took away the rivalries that used to exist in the "Old WAC". The preservation of these historical rivalries is one of the main reasons sited for the formation of the MWC.

The real problem with the old WAC 16 was that 16 was way too much. I think 12 is manageable, especially if the MWC is adding teams that would be create value by being better than the current conference average.



Also, I don't know if you have to have BYU and Utah in the same division. The expanded conference could do something similar to the ACC:



Pair the teams up into sets of permanent rivals, each team is in the opposite division as their rival. Each year you play your permanent rival, the 5 other teams in your division, and two (or three if a BCS bid is guaranteed) other teams in the other division. After a few years, mix up the divisions by having one or two sets of rivals swap divisions.



Assuming the addition of Boise St, Fresno St, and Houston, here's what the sets of permanent rivals would look like:



BYU - Utah

TCU - Houston

Boise St - Fresno St

Colorado St - Wyoming

Air Force - New Mexico

SDSU - UNLV



Initially, the divisions could look like this:



Mountain: BYU, Houston, BSU, CSU, New Mexico, SDSU

West: Utah, TCU, Fresno, Wyoming, Air Force, UNLV



BYU's initial conference schedule could be:



@ Houston

BSU

@CSU

New Mexico

@SDSU

Wyoming

@ Air Force

Utah

if a 12 team two divisions conference where created I wouldn't want Utah and BYU in separate divisions because that means we could potentially play them twice each year and on consectutive weekends, once during rivalry week and then the next week in the championship game. I can barely stand their fans once during the season, I couldn't handle them twice.

blue42 wrote:
if a 12 team two divisions conference where created I wouldn't want Utah and BYU in separate divisions because that means we could potentially play them twice each year and on consectutive weekends, once during rivalry week and then the next week in the championship game. I can barely stand their fans once during the season, I couldn't handle them twice.

Wow that's very true and I completely agree. You just never know what you're going to get out of this rivalry, and 2 play your rival twice in a row, ouch and you take the chance of maybe beating them in the regular season but then falling to them when it matters most, yeah I definitely don't like that.

I'd love to pick up Boise since it would mean one more big game a year, but I don't like the idea of breaking up the conference into two divisions, even if it doesn't get us into the BCS (though of course I would want it to). I'd want to play Utah, TCU, Boise every year.

EM_Puma wrote:
Why we're talking rumors here, I was surprised in watching my Buckeyes demolish Penn State in College Station that the announcers quoted Joe Pa in saying that he was very much behind the Big Ten adding that twelfth team so the Big Ten could have a championship game.



The announcers said someting about Paterno wanting an eastern team, meaning Pennsylvania or I think he was referring to something even further east to bring that market more into the Big Ten. I have no idea who they would add that would fit that scenario other than one of the Big East teams. I think the long going rumor was though that the Big Ten, if they were to expand, would want Missouri, but I never understood what would ever propel Missouri to wanting to join the Big Ten. Does Missouri have a natural rival anywhere? I guess being in a conference with Iowa and Illinois could be natural rivals, but not any more than Iowa State, KU, KSU, OU or Oklahoma State, so I never understood why they would even desire to leave.



So I don't know, but the bottom line is my hope that the MWC can qualify for the BCS and then who cares about other conference expansion?

I believe the reason that the Big televen has not expanded to 12 yet is that they are holding out hope that Notre Dame will join their conference one day. It may happen now that Notre Dame's TV money is not better than what conferences are getting now a days. I believe the SEC and Big 12 TV deals pay each team more than what Notre Dame gets and the current Big 10 deal is pretty close.



In regards to the rumored teams to expand the MWC. I am in favor of droping Nevada and adding Hawaii. I would love to have 13 games in years that we play in Hawaii. Also, what better excuse do you need to take a vacation to Hawaii than going to watch BYU play?

blue buddha wrote:
I'd love to pick up Boise since it would mean one more big game a year, but I don't like the idea of breaking up the conference into two divisions, even if it doesn't get us into the BCS (though of course I would want it to). I'd want to play Utah, TCU, Boise every year.

Utah and Boise would probably end up in the same division as us so we would play them every year. More than likely we would end up playing TCU in the conference championship game every year...

blue42 wrote:
if a 12 team two divisions conference where created I wouldn't want Utah and BYU in separate divisions because that means we could potentially play them twice each year and on consectutive weekends, once during rivalry week and then the next week in the championship game. I can barely stand their fans once during the season, I couldn't handle them twice.

This is precisely why BYU and Utah must be in the same division. I have no interest whatsoever in playing the Utes twice in one season. It's quite bad enough having to play them once.



Truth be told, I hope that all this expansion talk (beyond BSU) is just that. I don't want our program to have anything to do with Fresno State or Nevada. They're mediocre (at best) programs with trashy fanbases. Houston and Tulsa are only mariginally better (though decidedly less trashy).



Breaking the conference into two divisions seems to defeat the purpose of inviting Boise in the first place. Aren't we adding them to give us another quality program to play each year? Why would we (as a conference) work so hard to acquire TCU and BSU, then shuffle them off into another division so that we don't even play them every year?



Where does this notion that a twelve team league would have a better shot at an AQ than a ten team league come from? I've never heard anything from any official source state anything of the kind. It sounds like alot of crap to me. I think a conference with BYU, Utah, TCU, Boise State and Airforce would merit an autobid with or without a conference championship game.