thedude15

It is also possible if the MW stayed put the Pac then spends their warchest on paying the buyout fees of 4 AAC schools and then just take whichever schools from the MW can afford to buy their way in. So far USU is the only one that has shown they can do that. So in that case it would be Oregon State, Wash State, Tulane/Memphis/USF/UTSA (with buyouts paid) and then the "we will pay 2.5 mil of the buyout" offer to whichever MW schools agree to it. So in the end the MW was gonna take a hit just a question of how big.

Seems like the MW has a clear picture now. Air Force/UNLV leave (Air Force AAC, UNLV Pac). MW has like 200 mil in buyout monies for the 5 core schools left. Add UTEP/NMSU (still leaves the CUSA with 10 schools so they are still a whole conference). Add as many of the fcs schools that want to make the jump. New member get none of the buyout money. The core 5 each get 40 mil.

Memphis and SDSU is a good top. BSU and CSU have been pretty good lately. Fresno has been horrid for most of the past 20 years but they really don't have any excuse not to be decent and at the very least be a tourney team every 4 years. The basketball side of the conference will be fine.

I would be happy with that. Then the dream (from the Pac-12 conference side) is hoping ACC falls apart, the Pac-12 doesn't lose anybody to the Big-12, and Cal/Stanford come crawling back. I doubt that happens as Cal/Stanford want ZERO to do with Fresno (they were barely gonna tolerate SDSU). But if it does then I would say add 1 Texas school to get to 12 and call it a day. Not an amazing conference but not horrible either. edit- I don't really think Gonzaga would even want to come at this point. The Pac-12 is going to be pretty unstable until the ACC issue is resolved. I could see Gonzaga having interest if it become clear the Pac-12 will be stable/not lose any members long term. But at this time I don't really think it is worth the risk. Cause if they go and the Pac-12 loses a few members then all the sudden they might be trying to crawl back the WCC. Which I am sure the WCC will take them but they might not give them all the favorable deals that Gonzaga is currently getting.

The only way I see any CUSA or MAC team jumping to the MW is if the MW throws a bunch of the buyout war chest money at them. The MW tv deal isn't going to be that much better than what the MAC/CUSA gets and teams generally prefer and eastern conference over a western conference if all else is equal. NMSU and UTEP could make some sense geography wise but to me they would still have to be paid a decent amount to come. It seems more likely the MW just stays at 8 or grabs some fcs schools.

Who cares. Football only. 6 road games Hawaii already has a great place (travel wise) for Olympic sports.

Yea to me air force and hawaii as football only to aac makes a lot of sense. That would probably open up unlv (if the state let's them go without nevada) to the Pac.

Honestly I am kinda surprised Hawaii has done in men's basketball in the Big West. 12 years and they have one BWT crown and one BW regular season co-championship (same season). Sure they have almost always been middle of the pack or slightly better. But when they dropped down to the BW I was kinda expecting like a 4th place finish to be the floor and to make the NCAAT every 3-4 years.

But even if the ACC implodes they will still be the "best of the rest" conference. I mean worse case they lose 10 schools if the Big-12/SEC/Big-10 all go to 20 school by only taking ACC teams. That would still leave them at 8 and they can just become a national conference and cherry pick the MW/AAC to up their numbers again. I also highly doubt they lose 10 schools. Sure they are screwed in the sense they are never catching up the Big-10/SEC but they, even in a worse case, could still be fighting to be the #3 conference.

why? I mean they need some tv money for at least for the 24/25 season and probably 25/26. Guessing they drag this out the full two years as they will make more money being the pac-2 (probably mostly with NCAAT credits) than they will make once they merge with the MW.

I mean the only other actually option is to take enough schools (what 9) from the MW to dissolve itself. BUT that could open up another round of lawsuits from the MW schools that are left behind and forced to join the CUSA. I get my school (Fresno) would make the top 9 cut BUT at this point I am hoping the Pac-2 just adds all 12 MW schools and Gonzaga as a basketball only (evens out having Hawaii as football only). Would still be a slight step up from the current MW in terms of competition and tv money. Plus we can get rid of the terrible BSU deal. I am fine with an "uneven" tv deal but it should be based off performance not name and it should be subject to changed based off future performance.

Yep, just go for the endgame and expand to 32 teams right now. Remove conference champ games, expand league play to 10 games, and reduce regular season to 11 games. Week 1 the Big-4 will play a cross over match up with another Big-4 so (lots of neutral site games) or a body bag game vs a little 5 team. Little 5 teams likely either play a crossover with other little 5 teams or body bag vs fcs. Playoffs -Every conference gets 1 auto bid. So lets call that 10 bids (I know it would only be 9 if the MW/PAC-12 merge) and 22 at large. -Round of 32, 16 are played at the higher seed team. -Round 8, 4, 2 are neutral sites -It is 100% played out. Thus if you make the 32 team playoff you will play 5 games for a total of 16 on the season. Will kind suck for the team that goes 0-5 and finishes #32 but oh well. All the loser bracket games will just be played at the higher seed. This will increase the tv revenue a bit and help make up for the lost games (ie a 11 game season compared to 12 and no conference championships).

I mean is the clear #1 choice for the AAC so they don't have to rush. I highly doubt any Sun Belt teams would jump to the AAC at this point, same goes for the MAC (I mean the AAC probably won't want any MAC teams anyways). MW teams will prefer the Pac-14 (or whatever it ends up being) instead. So that leaves independents in Army (football only), UMASS, UCONN (football only) and the CUSA as the only schools the AAC could actually grab.

Honestly best case is probably doubling our per team tv revenue. Don't get me wrong that would be GREAT but would only allow schools (even if they used 100% of extra money) to increase their budgets by what 10%. There will be a temporary bump in terms of NCAAT credits as we would be combing the Pac-12/MW NCAAT credits but that would go away after a few years. edit- If you really want to increase the per school payout the only way is to cut the bottom 3 MW teams. So OSU/WSU + MW 9 + AAC 3 (idk Memphis, UTSA + one more). Maybe you could bump up the per school payout another 1-2 mil a year going that route. But you would burn bridges with 3 MW teams and would have a bunch of legal issues that could potentially arise. So probably not worth it.

But they will fall off after 1-2 years in the MW and worse recruiting/harder time getting transfers. Don't get me wrong they (especially Oregon State) might stay at or near the top but they won't be the clear cream of the crop for long.