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Post by cs17 on Sept 23, 2024 14:18:10 GMT -5
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Post by boothlion on Sept 23, 2024 14:39:10 GMT -5
If those reports are true and Gonzaga is going to get full revenue sharing without a football team; I don’t blame them at all. On the low end that’s an additional $5 million per year to do nothing. The Big 12 was never going to give that to them.
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Post by cs17 on Sept 23, 2024 14:41:58 GMT -5
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Post by ALioninWinter on Sept 23, 2024 15:52:32 GMT -5
The PAC-“x” makes little sense for Gonzaga. Their brand is football. I know they’re scraping a bit to find schools but a school that doesn’t even play football? I see no advantage to the “new” conference adding the Zags.
Growing up in LA I was naturally a PAC-“x” fan. But after reading the sordid history of the Pacific coast teams and their holier-than-thou attitudes and avaricious pursuit of the almighty dollar, I don’t care what happens to those schools. I know all the power schools put money above all else, but at least they only make a light pretense of hiding it.
The Cal/Stanford move to the ACC struck me as a panic-induced move. Given the multiple issues with the ACC, I can see that conference imploding. Then what do Cal and Stanford do?
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Post by LIONS90045 on Sept 23, 2024 18:31:21 GMT -5
Winter - geographically, you have to admit that Cal and Stanford are a natural fit to the Atlantic Coast Conference, no? Low transportation costs, etc.
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Post by LIONS90045 on Sept 23, 2024 18:33:53 GMT -5
Elsewhere, in the general topic of money in college athletics, I read that Tennessee is adding 10% to ticket costs to cover pay for the NIL athletes. The university claims it will be a trend.
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Post by ALioninWinter on Sept 23, 2024 21:31:59 GMT -5
Winter - geographically, you have to admit that Cal and Stanford are a natural fit to the Atlantic Coast Conference, no? Low transportation costs, etc. All the ACC needs to do is add Cleveland State and they can change the conference name to “All Coast Conference.” They already have the Atlantic, the Gulf Coast with FSU, and now the Pacific. |
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Post by ALioninWinter on Sept 23, 2024 21:33:55 GMT -5
Elsewhere, in the general topic of money in college athletics, I read that Tennessee is adding 10% to ticket costs to cover pay for the NIL athletes. The university claims it will be a trend. I saw that. They may well be right. |
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Post by mmlion2014 on Sept 24, 2024 16:43:39 GMT -5
If true, I do think this is a sad consequence of the conference realignment that has been going on the past couple of years. I don’t blame Gonzaga or St. Mary’s if they decide to depart, but I am concerned where that leaves the WCC and by extension, LMU. As a fan of the PAC-12 (I grew up a UCLA fan and still root for them when it’s not LMU playing) it’s nice to see them trying to stay alive, but it’s also at our expense. Ideally, I would love to see a WCC-PAC-12 merger, but I doubt that is going to happen. Where this goes from here, I don’t know, but we need to continue to build this program up, so that the bigger conferences would want to add us in the future. (Or the WCC can pick up the remaining MWC members…)
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Post by slblions08 on Sept 24, 2024 23:38:11 GMT -5
Gonzaga has done exceptionally well for 25 years now. Time has really flown by, but 25 years is a seriously significant time. During that time Gonzaga has for the most part been alone at the top. While Saint Mary’s has had a couple of runs (along with San Diego) they haven’t been challenged. I never really felt BYU was a real member of our conference due to the size difference. Honestly, I thought adding more power teams would improve the basketball profile but it really hasnt. We’re still playing in a high school gym and not taking basketball seriously in a huge market. UCLA and USC have had down moments and we never got took the step to be relevant in the city either through lack of facility, coaching or what have you.
I was thinking what’s the best chance for LMU to be relevant… it’s to make the NCAA tournament. Once Gonzaga is out, the WCC automatically becomes a one bid conference. So it comes down to the conference tourney. We become the MEAC or MAC or Big Sky etc. would Saint Mary’s simply run away with the conference? I’m not sure. I can’t see the Gaels bolting to another conference.. they don’t have the other sports. So now instead of trying to build a squad that can win 20+ games, and a non-conference schedule to get a bid, you just build a roster that can get hot for 4 days. Different POV I guess..
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Post by lambdachi1988lion on Sept 25, 2024 9:35:50 GMT -5
I'm going to be on the other end of my friend cstaub - In a time where college sports keeps consolidating to a handful of top leagues, I think we'd be in a much much weaker position in the new era of college sports broadly and college basketball specifically without Gonzaga. |
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Post by cs17 on Sept 25, 2024 13:35:31 GMT -5
We all have our opinions on the Zags, and frankly I’m 1000% over them. I know I may be in the minority but I don’t care.
I firmly believe Gonzaga is good for Gonzaga alone.
Sure, “more revenue”. But it’s the NIL age. Paying players is how we get good players. Thats just the nature of it.
But the truth is until Mark Few retires or passes away, we will see the same old WCC; St. Mary’s with an outside chance, and then all of us also-rans.
In the last 25 years of the Zags being dominant, only five teams not named St. Mary’s or BYU have made the tournament out of the WCC. (USF 2022, USD 03/08, Pepp 2000/02). Realistically the only”modern” team was 22’ USF.
Santa Clara has had some great squads in that stretch and yet hasn’t made the tournament since 1996, before the Zags dominance.
So as long as the Zags are in the WCC, there is next to no hope for ever making a tournament outside of Randy Bennett.
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Post by lmu2015 on Oct 1, 2024 10:09:55 GMT -5
It is official - hopefully this is good for the league and it gets more competitive. Curious to see if Saint Marys follows.
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Post by julia6 on Oct 1, 2024 10:50:23 GMT -5
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Post by cs17 on Oct 1, 2024 11:16:07 GMT -5
That author appears to actually state they had preliminary discussions with St. Marys and GCU as a backup plan, but since they got the Zags they will now focus again on football. |
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