Some posters off track

Clearing up some issues on conference expansion:

1) You can't say UTEP will look better to other conferences when it gets Tier 1 status. At best that's more than 10 years off. At best! Tier 1 requires attracting multi-millions of dollars in grants yearly, and they have to be grants for research. It would mean almost a new staff of profs. It would mean adding many doctorial programs and granting way more doctorial degrees than UTEP grants now. Those are the rules. Don't talk about Tier 1 in the same breath as UTEP sports.

2) The Pac-10 would not take both Utah and BYU unless, for some reason, it HAD to take BYU. It would likely be Utah and Colorado, giving the Pac-10 the Salt Lake City and Denver markets for TV revenue purposes. Utah and BYU are the same market. No, Fresno is a Las Cruces, and Fresno State doesn't have near the academics as Pac-10 institutions.

3) I've never heard that other Mountain-area schools look down on UTEP because it's on the border. In the past, though, it was not wrong to say UTEP/El Paso was poor and UTEP wasn't as good an academic institution as some members of the Mountain West. UTEP's academic picture is improving and now its athletic facilities are as good as most, and better than a lot of same-size schools.

4) Don't throw around UTEP attendance figures like they are in stone. UTEP releases numbers at games, but those are not the audited numbers. There were NOT 37,000 people, on average, at UTEP football games last season. And basketball attendance was dismal until late in the season.

5) No, UTEP can't call a big conference and ask to be admitted. C'mon, already. It doesn't work that way. The gist of my previous post was that if the big conferences go to 14 or more members, they will pick and choose from the lessers, and they will look at a school's money (city's economy), it's academics and its geography. They will look for schools that fit into their conference. The leftovers, as UTEP was when the Mountain West bolted the WAC, have to scramble. As big conferences have expanded over the past 20 years, the leftovers have been relegated to lesser and lesser status. UTEP has scrambled from Border Conference to the purgatory of Independent, to the old WAC, to the leftover WAC and then on to Conference USA, which was gutted at the time because basketball powers Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul ... left for the Big East.

Remember, too, travel doesn't just mean getting a football team and two basketball teams to a different city. It also means getting your soccer, track, tennis, volleyball, softball ... teams to other cities.

There is a magic elixir for UTEP. It's YOU. If El Pasoans were like Cubs, Red Sox and Lobo basketball fans, and came out to the games no matter the team's record, then UTEP would be a jewel for bigger conferences. When Phoenix boomed, the Pac-10 came and got Arizona State and, for balance in scheduling, added Arizona, too. El Paso in the 1950s was bigger and better than either Phoenix or Tucson.

You want big-time college athletics? Be big time.

Comments

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

Joe those are the points I've been trying to push to everyone I know. Go to the games. Buy season tickets. Show up whether the team is winning or losing. Go to the Union Dinner Theater. Go to track meets. Go see Tony Dungy speak. Support the University and it will prosper.

[Joe Muench]

Re: [Joe on utepia] CLEOFITZWITZ submitted a comment to Some posters off track

Good one, Marc

[OZ]

Ah, seems Joe is a bit inspired today. I do believe UTEP's athletics (soccer/softball/track) are on the right track (but many of our fans aren't)...our city will expand significantly over the next 10 years and UTEP will still be the only gig in town; maybe even with Tier 1 status. Perhaps we will then get a call from a bigger and better conference. In the mean time, I think we are stuck with what we have. What didn’t help UTEP was when our city, many years ago, aligned themselves with Texas Tech in offering medical services at Thomason Hospital…leading them to open a medical school.

[John C]

Mr Meunch:

I lived in the Denver area for some time. They are very explicit in that they do not respect anybody from Texas. The general populus in the Denver area told me that my school was "The Harvard on the Border." This was said to humiliate me. These people are arrogant period.

I also perform some of my professional work in the Albuquerque area and they belittle me because of being from El Paso and graduating from UTEP.

You do not know unless you have experienced this discrimination. These people are arrogant period!!!

[Pugapalooza]

Joe is firing on all cylinders today, you will have to tell us where you went on vacation. I am pretty new to the blog and don't always agree with Joe, but he is dead on here and unfortunately there aren't enough fans like OZ, Cleo and the regulars out there. Bless your heart Cleo, I haven't lived in el paso for almost 15 years now, but I am constantly trying to get my family and friends back home to get to the games and events to support UTEP. I don't visit as often as I like to, but I try and catch any game or event I can. I am hoping that with the Floyd hiring and a return to some bowl games under Coach Price that they
can light a fire under the city of El Paso.

[John C]

Again Mr Meunch:

If you would do your homework before you make off the wall comments such as The PAC 10 not taking UTAH and BYU I would suggest that you look up the issues that were present when the MWC was formed.

The UTAH legislature controls the movement of UofU and BYU to a new conference. If UTAH receives an invite to the PAC 10---the UTAH state legislature must approve. It just happens that many members of the legislature are also alums of BYU and a move of UTAH without BYU to a different conference is viewed as a move that would hurt BYU monitarily and academicaly.

It has been rumored and that is all--- about U of Colorado being invited to the PAC 10 because of the TV and recruiting market in Colorado. It just happens that the alums in Denver do not support UofC athletics as well as they could due to it also being a pro sports town with many other entertainment venues.

The very same thing happened when the old Southwest Conference disbaned and the Texas legislature would not allow UT to join then Big 8 without taking TExas Tech, Baylor, and Texas A&M. Too many of their alums in the state legislature back then. The same thing holds true today. Any move by UT must be approved by the Texas State Legislature.

Do your homework and be involved with economics and what happens in other parts of the world. Do not live in your back yard---travel out of ELP area and see and experience what is happpening in other parts of our country!!

[Not an idiot]

Good call OZ, womans soccer, softball, and track will get us into a bigger conference!

[Adrian Mac]

Joe, over the last 5 years UTEP has averaged 38,843 fans per home game. Amazingly, there are "official" stats kept by the NCAA. You just have to look for them.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/NCAA/Sports+and+Championship/General+Information/Stats/Football/Attendance/index.html

In basketball, UTEP has averaged 9,125 fans per game over 5 years. Of likely MWC candidates, only Fresno State is close. By the way, Fresno has about a half a million people and is the nation's 55th largest media market. I think it might be a little bigger than Cruces.

Compared to Houston, Nevada, SMU, Rice, and even Boise State, UTEP dominates when it comes to attendance. Obviously, attendance is not the only factor a conference will consider when looking at expansion candidates.

I agree with most of your points. The MWC won't care about future academic potential. They will care, however, about the number of TV sets in the nations 22nd largest city. That will be a factor. Attendance won't be the main factor, but it will be considered.

I think you are omitting an essential component to any MWC talk; you don't mention how many spots might be available. UTEP doesn't have to be at the top of the pecking order to be invited because odds are that the MWC will be seeking more than 1 team (with the Big 12 poaching to the East and the PAC 10 looking at Utah to the West).

UTEP is a geographic fit and has history with many of the MWC holdovers from the old WAC days. El Paso is a big city. Unlike Houston and SMU, there aren't pro teams taking up all the TV time. I think UTEP will be in good position to jump into the MWC. Of course, we don't know how good that league will be anyway (considering TCU, BYU, and Utah are all expansion candidates for other leagues). Even without them, UTEP would be better off playing in a MWC that will at least resemble the old WAC. And, New Mexico should still be around there too.

I don't foresee any league, other than the Big 10, going to 14 or 16 schools. The Big 10 is doing it because of their own TV network. The SEC just signed a 15 year deal with ESPN. They aren't about to slice up the pie with 4 more teams. The Pac 10 will only add school's that meet certain academic requirements. That's why only CU and Utah make sense right now. Remember, that the Pac 10 requires a unanimous vote for an expansion team to get in. Stanford will block anybody that doesn't have a good academic resume.

Anyway, if you guys want a discussion on expansion that includes actual numbers and statistical comparisons, try reading this:

http://www.minerrush.com/2010/4/16/1419432/conference-realignment-why-utep

[John C]

Update on current basketball miners:

ESPN reports that Moultrie has declared for the upcoming NBA draft; however will not hire and agenet to save his NCAA eligibility.

Does anyone know if he is attending classes to keep his eligibility?

[Pugapalooza]

Not that I want to see Moultrie leave, but writing was on the wall with the recruits Floyd has been chasing. Hope AM realizes he needs to come back to improve draft status, but all it takes is one team to tell him they might draft him. He definitely has the potential to play in the NBA, but he could use at least one more year to help his stock.

[Stahala]

Slightly off topic but why is it that women have more athletic programs than men at UTEP? I mean let's be honest, who really wants to pay money to watch Women's softball or soccer? Nobody. But how many of you would pay money to watch a UTEP Baseball game or Men's soccer game? I know I would. I would rather watch one of those games than a Diablo or Patriot game. CUSA is a pretty good baseball conference, and it would be awesome if UTEP had a team of its own.

[Adrian Mac]

Sta, it's because of Title IX. Athletic departments must provide an equal opportunity for males and females to be collegiate athletes. So, since there are 85 football scholarship, athletic programs need to have more female teams to make up the difference.

[OZ]

Reply to idiot :)...maybe womens sports won't directly get us in but a solid Athletics Dept. with Tier 1 status will...

[John C]

To keep the blog topic interesting:

I also subscribe to the aspect that a fan/alumni/booster should support the athletic programs. I have season tickets to all football and basketball games.

UTEP's football and men's baketball programs are the best entertainment venue in El Paso and I feel that this is why UTEP has good attendance at these games and looks very favorably in comparison to other schools in our conference. The only other school that has attendance that is comparable (possible higher) is Memphis.

However, alot of conferences are setting up their own TV networks to broadcast the conference games; both men's and weomen's. The TV broadcasters will pay these conferences big bucks for the rights. The money for the conference schools is sometimes larger than earned from actual attendance. The Big TEn is a real money machine because of their TV earnings. No other conference comes close to the money that the Big Ten earns becasuse of this factor.

More emphasis is being placed by the Big Conferences on the viewing area and the number of viewers in an area of a potential new conference school. PAC 10 is interested in the UTAH and Colorado areas with UofU and UofC respectively to add to their existing viewing areas. This is coupled with an expanded recruiting base for all conference schools.

I suspect this will be a factor in the BCS standings, appearances in BCS bowl games, and the number of conference schools that are invited to the NCAA basketball tournament.

UTEP considered the increase in TV appearances that CUSA could provide when we bolted from the WAC a few years ago.

Therefore, attendance is only one dimension that will be considered in future reallingment of Division 1 conferences.

[Braden]

In the 2009 season, UTEP's average attendance for football was a shade over 29,000. For basketball, it was probably under 9,000. Not too good for a city that has a population north of 800,000. By comparison, our neighbors to the north in Albuquerque have about 500,000 and Las Cruces, 110,000 population when the students are in town.

It appears that when teams like Texas and NMSU show up, the stadium fills. Otherwise, at best, we see 36-37,000 with about 20,000ish empty seats. At worst, 19,000 in the stands and 27,000 empty seats. Don't know how many conferences are impressed with that, unless we are talking about CUSA, WAC, or the the Sun Belt.

MWC passed on UTEP more than 10 years ago. Don't see anything changing there. If the MWC gets cherrypicked, look for Boise and/or Fresno to head to the MWC. These two schools are routinely in the top 25 in football, with Boise making top 10 noise for a while now. Personally, If I were the PAC 10, I'd take Boise over either of the Utah schools. Very good geographic fit and no nonsense about playing on Sundays. Plus Utah 1 and Utah 2 are a pain in the pituti to deal with.

I don't know what the talk of Tier 1 status is all about. It's been a number of years since I looked, but Harvard, Stanford, Yale...UCONN, down to Iowa, Syracuse, etc., are Tier 1 through 2. Tier 3 includes Kansas State, Oklahoma State, UNM, NMSU, Oregon State, Pacific. UTEP is firmly planted in Tier 4. A few years ago, UTEP was 4th or 5th from the bottom. That is, close to being so low in its academic ranking that it was almost in with the unranked academic institutions. No surprise there, with the lax entrance requirements and a student population that, for the most part, probably shouldn't be in college. It's a commuter school and it is what it is.

So, stop with the talk of Tier 1. It will never, ever, ever happen.

[John C]

The PAC 10 has a conference TV network contract that is set to expire in 2011. The TV sports net work is the money maker for the PAC 10.

The Big 10 has the most lucrative TV sports contract in the land and are looking to expand the conference to other schools to help them make more money. They are courting with the idea of picking off schools in the Big East (Syracuse, Pitt, and possibly Rutgers) to get into the NY telvision viewing area to pick up more TV viewers along with an expanded recruiting area for all conference members.

The PAC 10 is considering the same type of move in order to achieve more viewers. The problem is that several current members (Oregon, Oregon ST., and Washington State are not in an area with many TV viewers. Therfore they are looking to the Salt Lake and Colorado areas to pick up another 4-5 Million TV viewers and recruiting base for all conference members. High school kids want to attend school at a university that televises athletic games in their home towns even if the conference member is in another state far from home.

Boise State is a power house in football only, not basketball. It does not have an academic standing such as UTAH, BYU, or Colorado. Neither does FResno STate.

However, the MWC is considering to expand the MWC to include Boise ST and Fresno ST due the strength of their football success before PAC 10 picks off UTAH and possibly BYU to achieve AQ status for the BCS status of the league. They feel that getting a power house in football such as Boise ST and FResno ST the league would be on par with the PAC 10 to become a BCS conference which would make a move by the UTAH schools to the PAC 10 meaningless.

The PAC 10 also has to have unaminous consent from all conference members before a new school is invited to join. Standford would nix any proposal for a school that does not have comparable academic standing that is simialar to the current PAC 10 schools. The only schools that fit the bill are the UTAH schools.

[Joe Muench]

Re: [Joe on utepia] Adrian Mac submitted a comment to Some posters off track

Good stuff. Joe

[Joe Muench]

Re: [Joe on utepia] Stahala submitted a comment to Some posters off track

Whereve you been? Glad youre back. Title IX is why there are more womens teams than mens teams. Women dont have a sport that takes up 85 scholarships, as does football. So they have more sports. Recall that UTEP cut mens tennis. The rifle team used to be men, then co-ed, now all women.

Joe

[Joe Muench]

Re: [Joe on utepia] John C submitted a comment to Some posters off track

UTEP should/must get a TV package. Advertisers in El Paso are the holdup. The last time there was a semblance of package it was the EP Times that worked with Time Warner to offer dual spots for advertisers. UTEP should be working hard on its own TV package.

[just a thought]

Good post Joe. Adrian Mac also had an excellent write-up on this situation.

I agree with Joe on the TV package. If you want to be a big boy at any point in college athletics you've got to fight to get every single game shown on TV and/or satellite somehow.

Yes, it will keep a few lazy "fans" at home but would also get many more channel surfers interested in the home team that would never go to a game anyway. Over time, these same people want to experience games in person.

Finally, CLEO and others touched on this point but what we think about UTEP must show in attendance and support all season. Yes, even if we're 1-7 at the time. Our confidence in UTEP must never waver because if you've ever lived in big markets like me, you'll know that UTEP needs no help being looked down upon.

[Braden]

To Joe's point, if the big conferences get bigger, there is a ripple effect. Remember CUSA was pretty good until it lost teams like Cincinnati, then the conference was pretty much middle of the road after that. What happens if CUSA gets picked of its two or three top football schools? Same with the WAC. What happens to the WAC if Boise and Fresno take a powder? What happens if the Big 12 loses a team or two? Who will they look to fill the gap? (TCU, Boise, Houston, the Utah Schools?) The reality is for the UTEPs and NMSUs of the world, they aren't good enough to get an invite up the food chain. At best, they remain where they are as their conferences get weaker.

Maybe that isn't such a bad thing for them. Better opportunity to be at the top of a middling conference than at the middle of a decent one.

[Miner Mike]

Braden, you're so "confidently misguided" I don't even know where to begin with your blatherings...UTEP "a commuter school"; "The reality is for the UTEPs and NMSUs of the world, they aren't good enough to get an invite up the food chain. At best, they remain where they are as their conferences get weaker."; "Maybe that isn't such a bad thing for them. Better opportunity to be at the top of a middling conference than at the middle of a decent one."

Spoken with true arrogance...Obviously not a UTEP alum!

[miner fan]

braden is right utep is stuck were they're at because El Paso is full of fair weather fan and illegal immigrants who cant afford it. no body goes out to the game unless their winning and guess what utep hasn't been known for winning. well in football which is the main grab for big conferences.Also no alums help pay out the big bucks like other big school. utep is stuck were its at and el paso has to see that! no matter how much they want to be part of a big conference its never going to happen. just like how the city wants to try to be Austin or san Antonio its never going to happen so just get use to being middle of the road and never the top dog. but what i dont get is how people dont know that showing up to the games help out the team and helps give the coaches bigger salaries? i mean i can understand why were a tier 4. people in el paso are so stupid GO TO THE DANG GAME!!!!!! and we might get looked at idiots!!!!! god its not that hard to understand.

[Pugapalooza]

It's not going to be very popular or not what UTEP fans want to hear, but Braden said it best, "it is what it is". Unless there is a collective effort from everyone associated with UTEP. This includes the University,alumni (local and out of state), boosters, city officials, and so on and so on. But, most importantly and it sounds like a broken record is about the people of El Paso
supporting thier university. When Tier 1 status gets thrown around I think of IVY league schools and big time universities with great academic
standings. No disrespect to my hometown, but if you ask most educated folks in El Paso where they want their kids to go to school, I am pretty sure those that will admit it, UTEP isn't the first choice they want their kids to have. Now financially I know there might not be much choice for some families, but think about how
much more tuition would be if UTEP garnered Tier 3 or Tier 2 status. Now I want UTEP athletics to succeed as much as the next person, but at the end of the day "it is what it is".

[StevenG]

Hate to say it, but gotta agree with Braden. The best CUSA team is better than 4th or 5th best MWC team. The best team in CUSA gets to the big dance and gets to a bowl game. I like that.

UTEP will NEVER be better than a Tier 3 educational institution, if it can move itself there. Not because UTEP doesn't want to be, but because of simple economics. To become a higher level school, you have to hire and pay for better educators. You have to raise your academic standards. You have to invest in infrastructure. UTEP doesn't have access to the funding necessary to do these things. We have to live with the reality that El Paso gets the short end of the education monies from the state. El Paso doesn't have the oil assets as do other schools. El Paso doesn't have deep pocket alumni who can write five and six figure checks to the school. El Paso doesn't have the tax base that you see in Austin and Dallas. El Paso carries the burden of being on the border, and Austin does very little to help out.

This can't be more evident than what we've seen this week when the students were asked fork over an extra $200 a semester to support its athletic teams. Does any other school on the planet do that? You know something is amiss in the funding stream.

I say be happy where we are. Make the most of CUSA. Dominate the conference and the rest of the conferences be daamned.