UConn Rejoining Big East
- Thread starter KhalidShockedTheWorld
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Let’s face it, travel in the AAC sucks and home attendance goes way up when we start playing PC, Villanova, Georgetown and St. John’s once again.
The AAC has improved, but the Big East is where UConn needs to be. As far as football, the program is a joke in the AAC. They can maybe stay there or play indy, or just pull the plug and disband it. I believe that putting too much investment in football hurt basketball.
The AAC has improved, but the Big East is where UConn needs to be. As far as football, the program is a joke in the AAC. They can maybe stay there or play indy, or just pull the plug and disband it. I believe that putting too much investment in football hurt basketball.
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If the women run the table in the AAC this year they will finish 118-0 all time regular season and 21-0 postseason. The Big East should provide stronger women’s hoop competition. It’s what we want.
Unfortunately the way this is being put out in the media makes it sound like UConn cut and ran on the AAC as soon as recruiting dipped and the NCAA bids dried up for men’s basketball. Fans on SU’s website are posting comments like, “pick a conference and stick with it already!!!!” It’s being seen as disloyal opportunism.
The football economics no longer made any sense. Football is the biggest money loser on campus. You disband the program and you wipe a $9 million loss off the books while increasing revenue for all other sports. Sounds like a financial no brainer. You cannot carry sports that are sucking wind out of the sails financially and causing the school to flat out lie about attendance and overstate it by 100%. It just did not work out. Bad coaching hires, tough ability to recruit. I do not think UConn would have ever found a good young coach they could have kept. Northern schools just are not seen as moneymakers in football. This is why teams like UCF and USF have risen up from nowhere in the south to become football powers. You can't ignore these realities.
The USA Today has posted this RIP on the football program:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1536302001
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1536302001
This is a positive all the way around.
Football was a failure that created a misguided jump to a horrible conference which had a residual effect of slowly destroying the basketball program.
I give the administration credit for realizing this and attempting to salvage and restore the basketball program.
We tried with football. We were left out of a Big 5 invite which guaranteed football will forever be irrelevant.
Time to cut bait and get back to UCONN's proud basketball tradition.
Bye Bye Football and good riddance
Football was a failure that created a misguided jump to a horrible conference which had a residual effect of slowly destroying the basketball program.
I give the administration credit for realizing this and attempting to salvage and restore the basketball program.
We tried with football. We were left out of a Big 5 invite which guaranteed football will forever be irrelevant.
Time to cut bait and get back to UCONN's proud basketball tradition.
Bye Bye Football and good riddance
CFP,
I agree with your post, but reports I read are that UConn is remaining committed to football. You can’t keep losing $9 million a year, however, and unless they can figure out a profitable business model, the plug has to be pulled. The various scenarios of playing Indy or in mid major conferences mean weak opponents, low attendance and no meaningful revenue. I don’t see how they can viably continue the program. I think they will eventually have to disband it. It’s unfortunate because they tried but it just didn’t work out and I am not sure, even without the bad coaching hires, that it would have worked out.
I agree with your post, but reports I read are that UConn is remaining committed to football. You can’t keep losing $9 million a year, however, and unless they can figure out a profitable business model, the plug has to be pulled. The various scenarios of playing Indy or in mid major conferences mean weak opponents, low attendance and no meaningful revenue. I don’t see how they can viably continue the program. I think they will eventually have to disband it. It’s unfortunate because they tried but it just didn’t work out and I am not sure, even without the bad coaching hires, that it would have worked out.
UConn coach Randy Edsall posted on his twitter a video of iconic 1960s TV character Sgt. Schultz of “Hogan’s Heroes” to make a statement about his knowledge about the future of UConn football:
Hey Fella's! I was boarding a flight to Connecticut from Dallas as the news broke.......now here in Glastonbury a couple streets from DH's house and I have to say I LOVE the vibe around town!
As for Football hear me out. I love the independent road. It wONT lose money and we get plenty of teams to play that fill the seats at the Rent and we get more options than you think with H/H's with big programs.
I think you will see more teams go indy.......puts the power in the school's hands. With SIGNIFICANTLY lower travel costs, better B-Ball rev, better direct access to buy games, etc...... I think you will see a boost to UConn as a whole. I actually think UConn football goes up from here......I really do.
As for BBALL................DAMN HERE WE GO. I expect monster recruiting starting right away with the NYC and North East schedule.....this will blow this back up and make the BE a better conference as well.
Anyone see that the American is now C-USA again?
As for Football hear me out. I love the independent road. It wONT lose money and we get plenty of teams to play that fill the seats at the Rent and we get more options than you think with H/H's with big programs.
I think you will see more teams go indy.......puts the power in the school's hands. With SIGNIFICANTLY lower travel costs, better B-Ball rev, better direct access to buy games, etc...... I think you will see a boost to UConn as a whole. I actually think UConn football goes up from here......I really do.
As for BBALL................DAMN HERE WE GO. I expect monster recruiting starting right away with the NYC and North East schedule.....this will blow this back up and make the BE a better conference as well.
Anyone see that the American is now C-USA again?
Dom I think you nailed it and here's why. Uconn FB sucks blah.... blah..... blah. True it's been a terrible time behind 2 massive HC'ing fails. But you know what Uconn has that most schools won't have if the AD plays their cards right ???? An exclusive TV contract in the largest media market in the country....Schools who want another chance to market their brand in the Northeast can play in linear format in front of " more than 11 million households across the country".......... (Some so- called P-5's .... Duke, NC St., Boston College, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois have already signed on for FB home and homes) If Uconn FB can get respectable again the scheduling opportunities are endless when you add in the NYC/ Tri-state TV exposure you can to sell to opponents for their OOC games.
No ESPN+ paywall viewing, with a bunch of over bloated content with endless mid-majors or worse. No more terrible time slots for FB and BB games controlled by ESPN...... If Uconn works this right they can brand the hell out of theirself on the new Uconn FB & (sometimes) BB network.....SNY.....Then regarding the payout road games ( the Huskies already signed a $1.2 Million deal with Clemson and $1.8 mil deal with TENN) the $$$ on these one off FB games continue to go up.
Remember this below from the AAC TV deal thread? Why not score big on BB & FB ? Think big, go independent and control your own schedule, time slots and destiny !
UConn Basketball Scores Big on SNY
NEW YORK - For seven seasons, UConn Basketball has scored on SNY, television home of the Huskies. For the 2018-2019 season, SNY televised more than 300 hours of exclusive UConn basketball programming including 15 women's games and seven men's games - bringing the Huskies into more than 11 million households across the country.
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I saw Matt just put this out, I guess great minds think alike.... Dom....
:
" But what about football? The answer needs to be independence. The AAC has already leaked that UConn would not be welcomed as a football-only member. The MAC, Conference USA or Sun Belt should be non-starters. Nothing against #MACtion, but we’ve had enough of cheesy hashtags with zero substance like #P6. Independence is the right path forward. I’ve seen the reaction from fans, national media and other pundits on social media proclaiming this move ‘kills the football program’ or ‘sets them back.’ The reality couldn’t be further from the truth......Scheduling will be paramount and it can be done. As Andy Katz mentioned, there will be buy-games, big ones. Think Clemson in 2021 big and that will become a norm. UConn will continue to be able to generate home-and-home series with mid-to-lower tier Power-5 programs like Indiana, Duke, Syracuse and Illinois. Utilize connections with New York for a yearly game with a national brand to pull an upper-echelon P5 closer to this region and drive further interest and publicity........ For television, SNY will likely control all home games at The Rent.....This move puts UConn in control of their own destiny "
Link to full read:
:" But what about football? The answer needs to be independence. The AAC has already leaked that UConn would not be welcomed as a football-only member. The MAC, Conference USA or Sun Belt should be non-starters. Nothing against #MACtion, but we’ve had enough of cheesy hashtags with zero substance like #P6. Independence is the right path forward. I’ve seen the reaction from fans, national media and other pundits on social media proclaiming this move ‘kills the football program’ or ‘sets them back.’ The reality couldn’t be further from the truth......Scheduling will be paramount and it can be done. As Andy Katz mentioned, there will be buy-games, big ones. Think Clemson in 2021 big and that will become a norm. UConn will continue to be able to generate home-and-home series with mid-to-lower tier Power-5 programs like Indiana, Duke, Syracuse and Illinois. Utilize connections with New York for a yearly game with a national brand to pull an upper-echelon P5 closer to this region and drive further interest and publicity........ For television, SNY will likely control all home games at The Rent.....This move puts UConn in control of their own destiny "
Link to full read:
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I saw Matt just put this out, I guess great minds think alike.... Dom....
" The answer needs to be independence. . As Andy Katz mentioned, there will be buy-games, big ones. Think Clemson in 2021 big and that will become a norm. UConn will continue to be able to generate home-and-home series with mid-to-lower tier Power-5 programs like Indiana, Duke, Syracuse and Illinois.
I like the thinking on football being independent but sometimes this stuff sounds better in theory than it works in reality. I do think SNY could be a huge wildcard in this if UConn can continue the relationship with it under the Big East TV package. We haven’t heard anything about that yet.....
Football wasnt winning anything $$ or reputation wise inside the American. Why not try this.......no better option other than PRAYING for a P5 invite which we all know was a crap shoot at best.
I guess the one downfall is FB won't be able to play for the national championship if they go undefeated.......then again they couldn't in the American either .............( just ask UCF... )
)
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It took a few days and the possibilties are trickling out but as I said above, leverage you own TV deals (SNY ?) for your home games and create your own reality, don't let the Tulane's, Tulsa's etc....dictate the TV contracts you can and can not have. Here's the story :
" Bamford said UMass can receive payouts of up to $1.7 million to play road football games with no return game. The going rate for FCS schools is $350,000 to $450,000. UConn already has a buy game scheduled with Clemson for 2021 worth $1.2 million. (and is getting $1.8 mil deal w/ TENN) UConn probably won’t need to overexpose its team to buy games. The Huskies already have locked in home-and-home series through 2025 against Illinois, Indiana, Duke, Purdue, Boston College and North Carolina State. "
"Dave Brown, the former ESPN executive whose Gridiron software is used by most Division I schools to find future non-conference opponents, said UConn is likely to remain an attractive opponent for some Power Five schools. The Huskies play at Rentschler Field, a 15-year-old, $91 million stadium in East Hartford that seats 40,000 and is easily accessible to an airport. There are also teams in the region such as UMass, Army, Temple, Navy, Rutgers and Syracuse that could view UConn as a sensible road trip. "
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The BE has no TV rights to football, so Uconn can package home FB games anyway they see fit...(would SNY offer Uconn a FB TV package depending on the opponent ?)
But also from the article:
" And the thing we all care most about, TV stuff. The contract says UConn will abide by the same rules as the current members, giving the Big East the sole rights to sell UConn’s TV rights (radio is the Huskies’ to do with as they please, so the local ESPN radio deal is safe). However! There’s this handy little clause in there:
The Conference will exclusively represent each of the Members with respect to the sale, licensing, distribution and other exploitation of the Media Rights and all matters related thereto, except, in each case, to the extent that the rules of the Conference expressly permit the Member to retain for itself or to the extent the Board votes to return other rights to the Members or to grant any other person or entity a license to exploit certain specified Media Rights; (emphasis mine) "
" So this leaves room for two things: the Big East giving UConn back the rights to content not picked up by FOX Sports, which currently owns the Big East TV package (essentially Tier 3 rights) OR the right for the conference to make a deal with another entity (SNY, for example, wink wink) to show content that isn’t picked up by FOX Sports. We know that cutting out SNY was a huge sticking point for UConn with the AAC TV deal, so it makes sense that UConn would make sure that all the basketball games (not a ton of Big East women’s hoops games make it to air on the FOX Sports channels) would be shown on actual TV sets in Connecticut."
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Point being SNY, even last year carried FB, MBB and WBB games. Moving to the Big East no longer forces Uconn to stick the content not picked up by TV, behind an ESPN paywall. According to the above it now seems to be game on for Uconn's FB home games (as an Independent ?) to be packaged with WBB & MBB
( there were a bunch of OOC games on SNY last year) to make a deal with SNY on it's tier 3 content. "the Big East giving UConn back the rights to content not picked up by FOX Sports "
( there were a bunch of OOC games on SNY last year) to make a deal with SNY on it's tier 3 content. "the Big East giving UConn back the rights to content not picked up by FOX Sports "
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Obviously alot of questions to be answered on the FB side...from Jacobs:
" With Fox Sports contracted with the Big East, how much can it use its ties with the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 to line up some lucrative games with UConn football? Can UConn leverage its basketball programs to help with independent scheduling? Is there anything to this talk of a MAC East division? Freed of the AAC-ESPN squabble, how much can SNY bring to the table with football and basketball? Was that SNY feud the last straw with the AAC or was the move already seriously afoot with the Big East? ......................."
" With Fox Sports contracted with the Big East, how much can it use its ties with the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 to line up some lucrative games with UConn football? Can UConn leverage its basketball programs to help with independent scheduling? Is there anything to this talk of a MAC East division? Freed of the AAC-ESPN squabble, how much can SNY bring to the table with football and basketball? Was that SNY feud the last straw with the AAC or was the move already seriously afoot with the Big East? ......................."
from the Courant- SNY president optimistic about UConn BB relationship, open to broadcasting Huskies football
Raab said SNY would also be willing to consider broadcasting UConn football, if that program went independent and needed a partner to air its games.
“Some of it is: It’s still UConn in the state of Connecticut, and it’s still football at the highest level, and they have a coach that we believe in and a program we believe in,” Raab said. “Yeah, the recent years haven’t been great, but it’s still meaningful and relevant to this region and to the state of Connecticut....“We’re interested in it because of what it is and we’re also interested in it because UConn is a great partnership for us," he continued. “And when you truly look at partnerships, it’s not always about this sport or that sport, it’s about the larger relationship.”
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More from the Hartford Courant on Edsall and FB Independence:
"There is an uncertain future of (likely) conference independence and a complicated state of existence for UConn football. I believe Edsall, David Benedict and those they work closely with can actually keep UConn football as something to embrace, something with an interesting niche on the regional or even national landscape. Leaving the American Athletic Conference was not the death of the program, though unique challenges are ahead..............Independent football might be a blast. Make it fun, UConn. Keep us interested..........Have you seen the product and the interest in recent years as a member of the AAC? It can't get much worse than it's been, and it's on UConn to make it something better with a patchwork effort of their own design instead of reliance on affiliation ....."
Mike Anthony: How Randy Edsall’s legacy could be cemented or simplified by UConn’s move to the Big East
Also remember it wasn't to long ago Uconn played as an Indy and was 9-3 with Orlovsky at QB...here's a look at Uconn schedules when they finally competed as a full FBS program. I'd say the schedules were just as good as the current ones with AAC games:
2002 Connecticut Huskies football team- 6-6 last year at Memorial Stadium with five P-5 & two current AAC opponents
2003 Connecticut Huskies football - 9-3 first year at the Rent with six P-5 opponents
"There is an uncertain future of (likely) conference independence and a complicated state of existence for UConn football. I believe Edsall, David Benedict and those they work closely with can actually keep UConn football as something to embrace, something with an interesting niche on the regional or even national landscape. Leaving the American Athletic Conference was not the death of the program, though unique challenges are ahead..............Independent football might be a blast. Make it fun, UConn. Keep us interested..........Have you seen the product and the interest in recent years as a member of the AAC? It can't get much worse than it's been, and it's on UConn to make it something better with a patchwork effort of their own design instead of reliance on affiliation ....."
Mike Anthony: How Randy Edsall’s legacy could be cemented or simplified by UConn’s move to the Big East
Also remember it wasn't to long ago Uconn played as an Indy and was 9-3 with Orlovsky at QB...here's a look at Uconn schedules when they finally competed as a full FBS program. I'd say the schedules were just as good as the current ones with AAC games:
2002 Connecticut Huskies football team- 6-6 last year at Memorial Stadium with five P-5 & two current AAC opponents
2003 Connecticut Huskies football - 9-3 first year at the Rent with six P-5 opponents
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A couple of views from the AAC:
Penny Hardaway: AAC losing UConn 'would be tough'
‘We hate to see them go’: Wichita St athletic director
" For starters, UConn was the largest national brand in the conference and gave the American a huge presence in the northeast. Wichita State athletic director Darron Boatright said there’s no denying it is a blow to the conference. “To say it isn’t...... is complete garbage,” Boatright said. “They are a fantastic national brand and operate some great programs, and their men’s basketball program is in a resurgence, which would have led to financial gain for the entire conference. “We hate to see them go, but I don’t blame them if they believe that’s what is best for them,” Boatright said. “They were a fantastic partner of ours and an ally of ours when we were going through the process of trying to get an invitation into the American. I’ll never forget that and our institution will never forget that either. Connecticut will always have a friend in the Shockers.”
Penny Hardaway: AAC losing UConn 'would be tough'
‘We hate to see them go’: Wichita St athletic director
" For starters, UConn was the largest national brand in the conference and gave the American a huge presence in the northeast. Wichita State athletic director Darron Boatright said there’s no denying it is a blow to the conference. “To say it isn’t...... is complete garbage,” Boatright said. “They are a fantastic national brand and operate some great programs, and their men’s basketball program is in a resurgence, which would have led to financial gain for the entire conference. “We hate to see them go, but I don’t blame them if they believe that’s what is best for them,” Boatright said. “They were a fantastic partner of ours and an ally of ours when we were going through the process of trying to get an invitation into the American. I’ll never forget that and our institution will never forget that either. Connecticut will always have a friend in the Shockers.”
Is Darron Boatright a cousin of Ryan Boatright?
Those guys are only talking about UConn basketball. Aresco envisions the AAC as a rising football power. That is my read on all of this. Aresco sees UConn football as garbage at the bottom of the conference, hence his good riddance comments. It was Aresco who coined the Power 6 moniker- but he was talking football, not basketball.
Those guys are only talking about UConn basketball. Aresco envisions the AAC as a rising football power. That is my read on all of this. Aresco sees UConn football as garbage at the bottom of the conference, hence his good riddance comments. It was Aresco who coined the Power 6 moniker- but he was talking football, not basketball.
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