Here's an article casting some doubt on this move on the part of UT. It's a few weeks old, but I think it's still relevant.

https://www.toledoblade.com/sports/ut/2024/09/27/mountain...

Key Quote:
“Who’s going to be left in the Mountain West?” [Austin] Karp said. “Because the Pac-12 has that lawsuit against the Mountain West, and if they succeed, that might allow some of those schools out of having to pay something. So maybe UNLV and Air Force change their mind. Maybe the Mountain West just folds. I wouldn’t be confident putting my cards with the Mountain West right now.” [Austin Karp is the managing editor of Sports Business Journal]

It would be suicide for either to join the MW. The value of that conference is going to plummet once Boise, SDSU and the rest leave for the PAC. The package they're going to approach the market with won't be worth much more than what the MAC could potentially get then add in the travel expenses on top of that.

If NIU leaves, so be it. The MAC should expand if it wants to survive. I think Western Kentucky is the best fit. That way the MAC can have two teams in Bowling Green, to keep people confused. They could replace NIU with either Illinois State or Southern Illinois (or both), both of which have bigger enrollments and bigger endowments than NIU. Other schools on the west side of the conference to consider would be Indiana State and Northern Iowa, but expanding to the East might be wiser, as they might be able to attract the likes of U.Conn and New Hampshire, and become the dominant conference in New England.

Speaking my language and dreams here LC, but I think it should be a way of keeping NIU not replacing them. Expand westward and go after WKU, Northern Iowa, then North and South Dakota State. Still keeps bussing in play for a lot of the conference and makes the conference a whole hell of a lot more interesting football and basketball wise. I know the Dakotas are far and the MAC wants to keep it somewhat central, but if you're going as far as UMass, you may as well get a better product in the opposite direction.

I hear what you're saying, but who is left East of the Mississippi? Maybe you somewhow entice Temple to come back as a full member now that they have a travel buddy in UMass, but the American looks pretty strong now keeping Memphis and Tulane plus adding Army. Or you somehow get Delaware out of the C-USA contract?

Outside of the American or C-USA blowing up because of defections to other leagues, who else is even available? The Sun Belt's Grant of Rights doesn't expire until 2031, so you're not going to be able to get Marshall or anyone else out of that.

FCS Schools

Rhode Island - would be a great travel partner for UMass and great for basketball, but they need to make a massive investment in their football stadium: it only seats 6,500 people.

Villanova - I'd love to have them, but the MAC was pretty adamant about adding for all sports when they got UMass. Hard to believe they'd make an exception just for Villanova football.

Albany - again, another small stadium that would need renovated and how much is U-Albany really going to move the needle for this conference? You give Buffalo a partner close by. Yippee.

Holy Cross - probably the one viable option I could see on the East Coast. Private school dollars, a big enough stadium and located in MA for a travel buddy for UMass. Looks like they're going heavy on fundraising recently, but I have no ideas about their desires to transition up to FBS.

Who else is left if you want to go East? I find it hard to believe that North Dakota State wouldn't attract more TV revenue than any of these programs.

Was curious about FCS attendance numbers and pulled some data. Here's the 2023 attendance averages for schools people have been interested in/mention on this board compared to the MAC. Attendance obviously isn't the be-all, end-all but there are some that stick out here.

MAC (source: https://www.d1ticker.com/2023-fbs-attendance-trends /)

Toledo: 19,675
Ohio: 19,005
Western Michigan: 17,619
Eastern Michigan: 16,882
Central Michigan: 16,350
Bowling Green: 13,462
Miami: 13,395
Buffalo: 13,142
Ball State 10,771
Kent State: 9,551
Northern Illinois: 9,456 (hilarious if true)
Akron: 7,237
UMass: 10,958

FCS (source: https://herosports.com/fcs-football-2023-attendance-leade... /)

South Dakota State: 18,208
Delaware: 15,564
North Dakota State: 15,121
Eastern Kentucky: 11,655
Youngstown State: 10,065
Murray State: 9,645
Northern Iowa: 9,379
Holy Cross: 8,344
Austin Peay: 8,309
Southern Illinois: 7,544
Illinois State: 7,194

Others
UConn: 24,659
Western Kentucky: 15,710
Temple: 13,446
Middle Tennessee: 13,219

One thing I've failed to remember about UConn is that after UMass joins the MAC and Army joins the AAC, they'll be the only Independent school left not named Notre Dame. ND will be fine because they're ND, but these conferences are going to have A LOT of leverage in trying to entice UConn to get in their league. Reason: for all intents and purposes there is no way in hell UConn would ever make a college football playoff if they're an Independent. They have to join somebody, anybody really.

And they'll have to be football-only because they'd never leave the Big East, and they can't now that the league signed a new media rights agreement through 2031. A conference could pressure them to joining as a football member, but then negotiate a deal that includes home/homes or some type of scheduling for basketball games too. The MAC has stated they wanted all sports only members, but you may have to think about other avenues as well.

They may be cooked but they’re all you got to go by. They give some kind of relative idea of attendance. Obviously they include paid not actual attendance and includes high school members on band day, students and free tickets given by local grocery stores, etc. so do you disagree with the ranking in general of the attendance numbers?

What’s your point? You make no sense with that statement .

I’ve heard all that stuff before, just saying.

Tom Boeh got that one started with plans in the Ohio Today to add a deck to Peden. The NCAA at that time required 30,000 seat stadium or average 17,000 every other year in actual attendance. Most of the MAC opted to increase capacity rather than roll the dice with attendance. Then that rule was changed to 15,000 attendance and that was allowed to be tickets sold instead of in person.

Then at the time Boeh was prposing a deck Ohio was sitting in the USWNR as a Top 40 public school (Miami was Top 20). The feeling was amoung alums that we could do better than the MAC at that time academically. Since that time Ohio and Miami have slipped 100 spots respectively in the USWNR and behind Buffalo & UMass who are now both in the conference. Meanwhile other MAC schools have made significant improvements. If one is looking at this as a president right now the MAC makes more sense today than what it ever did and if NIU and Toledo go replace by Delaware its all the more ideal academically. The 4 corner Ohio schools, 3 corner Michigan schools, Buffalo, UMass, Delaware I don't see a MAC president wanting to leave that.

That's the first time I've heard about this one. What other conference did they think Ohio/Miami could join?

According to Brett McMurphy, NIU's interest in joining the Mountain West as a football only member is waning at the moment. Must not be as attractive of an option as they originally thought after going through the details.