There are so many variables that it's so hard to decide....

The MAC is perfect for our budget with all the Ohio based schools.  While travel for FB isn't that big of a deal, it would kill us in Olympic sports.. how do you get Soccer to Southern Miss on a Tuesday cheaply?

However, if we joined C-USA we'd probably end up with a significant bump in $$ from TV deals etc... 

Also, it's hard to say if going up a conference would help us or not.  Marshall football doesn't seem to have benefited 1 bit from leaving... meanwhile Central Florida left the MAC as a horrible team, and is now jumping to the Big East.... 

Truthfully I kind of like the MAC minus a few of the bottom feeders like EMU.  The travel is nice and you tend to actually know people that go to quite of few of the schools you play.  And truthfully I don't know how any conference that would take us that would really give us any real kind of bump.  Yeah we might get some extra money, but at what cost?  Maybe I'm in the minority but I don't see it, I mean someone put together a great conference in a hypothetical scenario in another thread.  But then you realize that in the major sports OHIO would end up in the bottom third of the standings unless our teams really upped the recruiting and quality of play.  I would rather be winning or in contention in the MAC every year than barely contending in a new conference like Marshall after they left.

The MAC has always been and always will be a good fit for us. I do not always agree with the MAC management but they run it, not me. All of this positioning by schools jumping conferences and speculating of super conferences is delusional behavior. Those that think they are something and want to jump to a better conference but haven't even beat any in-conference foe having a .500 or better record are purely psychotic.

Serious answer: No. Unless it's a package deal with several of our MAC neighbors.

Without AQ status, there is no reason to leave a lousy conference with a regional tradition in favor of a lousy conference that's tailored to a smorgasboard of TV markets.

To be honest, I'm surprised Temple hasn't worked to get a CUSA invite for all sports.

My thoughts exactly. 

Ohio69 wrote:expand_more

TUVideo Guy wrote:expand_more

with all of the conference shuffling going on... would you guys be willing to join CUSA if offered a spot to replace Houston, CFU and SMU?

Ohio University does not have the funds to do this.  I'm guessing it would be $5 million more annually to be in CUSA.  But, the money just isn't there.

I think it would be great.  Especially in hoops.

$5 million?  Not really.  With the departure of UCF ($39.2  mil) and Houston ($33.0 mil) here are a number of the remaining schools: UTEP - $26.6; UAB - $23.8; ECU - $30.4; Marshall $25.6; Memphis - $39.5; Southern Miss - $19.6; Tulsa - $18.0  Rice and Tulane are private and do not report.  Memphis throws the conference number off.

Ohio is at $22.8

The average athletic budget for a MAC school is $21,089,093.54,

Miami $25,604,474.00
EMU $24,635,531.00
Akron $24,498,336.00
CMU $24,104,699.00
WMU $23,233,399.00
Ohio $22,875,238.00
NIU $21,899,024.00
Toledo $20,021,956.00
Kent $19,446,680.00
BGSU $17,850,240.00
Ball State $17,347,944.00
Buffalo $16,973,585.00

Revenues are also available

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/

There has to be a guy at EMU siphoning off all that money somewhere, doesn't there? He has a $3,000 umbrella stand and a coat made of Dodo bird feathers, right? That's the only explanation I can find for where all that money is going.

It's those $16 muffins.  And, oh yes, the investments in Solyndra.