I like their reasoning for staying at 10 teams, it allows you to play everyone twice on a 18 game conf schedule. I wouldn't mind a 10 team MAC.

I would to but it's never going to happen for the same reason we are hindered in going for the next level in basketball.  Football drives the bus.  It frustrates me but I'm guessing the majority of our fans are perfectly fine with it.

Unlike you and OU_Country, I'm fine with it. Primarily because as much as I like watching/listening to OHIO basketball games (I think I caught all but 3 this year), I like football MUCH MUCH more. Also, I daresay we get more exposure via football in the average year than we do via basketball, and I believe that were we to drop football [or drop it down a level] we'd lose a great deal of net exposure, regardless how much more success we saw in basketball. I have four lines of reasoning backing this up

(1) The public at large really only pays any attention to college basketball come March. What attention is paid to it November-February is focused on traditional powers (Kentucky, UNC, Duke) and the "it" team of the preceeding year's tournament (this year it was us; next year it'll probably FGCU or La Salle). Heck, I'm sports crazy and I don't really see any non-OHIO college basketball games until the conference tourneys start up. That means that if we miss the tournament (as we're likely do to ~50% of the time under reasonably ideal circumstances) we get greatly reduced exposure. Contrast that to football, where you have broad viewership (especially for weeknight games) and good post-season opportunities to get at least a bit of extra exposure.

(2, and somewhat related to #1) There are 124 teams that play Division 1A football. There are 347 teams that play Division 1 basketball. Thats a lot more competitors for exposure, especially among casual sports fans.

(3) Football is kind of a big deal in the State of Ohio specifically, and in the Midwest generally. The costs of cutting football (both in terms of exposure/publicity and in terms of prospective students saying "I don't want to go to a school that doesn't have real football") seem to be outweighed by the potential benefits of improved basketball success.

(4) A beautiful fall day in the open air of Pedan (plus tailgating) is a wonderful thing not to be casually tossed away.

Why can't we do both?  Why do these discussions always have to evolve into emphasizing one to the detriment of the other.  I like Borna's posit that if we can just dominate the MAC, making the NCAA's regularly should be a walk.  How much additional investment would it take to dominate the 17th RPI conference?  So much that we need to divest in FB?  My personal opinion is no.

Long been a proponent for attendance and RPI/Sagarin minimums. Maybe if BG knew it wasn't going to get a cut of the basketball revenue if their RPI was over 250, it would have given them the business case to fire Louie Orr. Same with CMU letting Jay Smith coach out the lame-duck year of his contract. Maybe Ohio would have pulled the plug on Knorr sooner?

As for attendance, it's simple. This conference will go nowhere unless its communities and students support its teams. Attendance needs to be butts in seats. That needs to be the starting point. You have to build the attachment first and monetize it later. Figure out a way to average 15,000 butts in seats for football and 3,000 for basketball and let's go from there.

Butts in seats is very easy to track. Have someone walk around with a digital camera and take a shot of each section at an agreed upon time in the game. Send them in and have Jeremy Guy count them. Add 10-15% for those in concessions.

These factors would also help determine TV and scheduling. If no one ever goes to an EMU game, why should they get more home weekend basketball dates than Ohio or Toledo? 

10 teams is good for a bball conference, but we need 12 for football to have a championship game. Solution- Have 10 full members and 2 football only. Boot EMU all sports and boot all but football for NIU. No divisions for bball, keep divisions for football, move BG to West.

It's a zero sum game. Every program can't be a winning one. You need a base level of support that's behind you no matter what. As for resources, many programs in this conference support more sports than is required. Some that are not even sponsored by the MAC.

I would argue that Miami won pretty well in football and basketball for a decade and it didn't turn into anything sustainable. Same thing for Kent St. basketball. So there's more to it than just winning games.

I'm not sure how hard they're trying. Are they studying Ohio and Toledo? Are they trying to understand the success of the O Zone? Are they looking at best practices for ticket pricing? Are they doing Caravans? Are they looking at the results of Ohio bringing in a ticket team? I'm not sure they are. 

Either that or Northern (or whoever is next) needs to win that game.  Boise is taken seriously because they win those games. (there are some out there that still don't believe, sure)

FSU was a terrible matchup... they have top-5 level talent, but they are always good for crapping the bed once or twice a year.

These reasons Brian points out are among the best examples of why I hold the belief that moving the focus to basketball is where it's at.  The money grubbing powers that be in football aren't soon going to let the MAC be part of their party again soon.  And while I don't know details on how much is spent on football vs basketball, I have to believe simply based on the numbers of coaches and scholarships it a drastically higher.  So if I do the math, and we ask MAC football programs to make due with $1.5mil less a year from their budget, and we move that to hoops, then hoops could benefit much more than football might with that same money. 

The other argument is simple:  no one, and I mean NO ONE that isn't totally football obsesses gives a crap about 90% of the bowl games that don't involve teams they're interested in personally.  I watch OU's game online from work.  Conversely, I have take vacation days to watch basketball games.  Why?  Because the MAC Tournament is an EVENT.  MAC bowl games are not.  As Ted said on here, the Friday/Saturday portions of the MAC Basketball Tournament is the best thing the MAC does.  If we agree that's the case, then why not emphasize it more?

Who has gotten more positive attention for the MAc?  Ohio Basketball for advancing in the tournament, or NIU for participating in a BCS bowl game (that they may never see again)?

I admit, I'm anti college football as a whole, because I believe the big BCS TV Money grab is slowly ruining college sports because of all this realignment. Since Ohio football isn't part of the big money grab, it seems to me that a better ROI for Ohio Athletics is to try to push more on basketball than football.  I'm not anti-Ohio Bobcat football, and went to all the weekend home games last year.  But to me the simple facts are that all MAC schools stand a greater chance at success and getting their names out there over a long haul with basketball than they do with football.

And let's not forget the little two year run that Drake had not too long ago before their coach left for Providence (?).

Right: as with teams in the MAC (i.e. us, last year), if you make they made the tournament and found success they got attention. If they didn't make the tournament, no body gave a hoot about them. This idea that basketball SHOULD drive the bus, rather than football--or vice a versa-- is really about whether the person making the statement likes football or basketball more.

Its a bus, not a racecar, there's room for everyone.  But as most college basketball fans would tell you, making decisions on a conference level based only on football money, ruins some of the traditions and history of some of these storied programs.

In the case of the MAC, they have continuously focused on building up football and have neglected any serious focus on basketball.  They had a huge opportunity to build off of Kent & Fiami success and the conference floundered.  Just look at the advancement of football in "bowl" game appearances as opposed to at-large bids, while you also compare the growth and success of other  conferences like MVC, CAA, & even the MAAC.

MAC Basketball is to B1G/ACC/BigEast Basketball as AAA baseball is to MLB  (Good value! See the future stars!)
MAC Football is to BCS Football as Summer Wooden Bat leagues are to MLB (Awwww that's quaint)


Living in Columbus, no one asked me about OU football and their recent successes, because frankly anything that is not BCS is crap in the college football landscape ("Oh you won the Potatoe Bowl, that's cute" *Snickers*).

Many however have asked about OU basketball because of the Sweet 16 last year.  "You guys are pretty good right?  Weren't you ranked earlier this season?"