It's not pointless when you have an idiot commissioner who doesn't understand the term "one true champion". If I have to choose between a championship game and a true round robin, I'm going the latter when you're talking about the schools are being rumor.
Major donors have been in the loop and the word has been that two conferences (in addition to Big 12) have requested Houston financials and provided a list of requirements, which is why major investments in all major sports, as well as academics, are happening. Why would Big 12 consider Houston? Houston and Texas in general is very fertile land for recruiting. Now imagine, Houston being accepted into Pac 12 (one of the conferences interested) or potentially ACC inviting UH to join their conference. That brings UCLA, USC, Oregon, Clemson, Louisville, etc etc to this city of Houston to begin stealing 4-5 star athletes from Texas, OU and the likes. These conferences benefit from TV sets in Houston as well as recruiting the region. How does Houston joining Big 12 help UT or OU? They assume that we will be competing for talent against Baylor, TCU, TT, or OSU so all that does is dilute the talent in those schools. From what I understand, Houston is very close to getting into a major conference. The message that is sent when you fire a 21-17 coach that has to use true freshman and then a true sophomore QB is that Dr. Khator has very high expectations for this school.
Is it safe to assume that you are a major donor? Your points are well-taken, but you will have to forgive me for still being skeptical.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Houston has plenty of history. Do you even know who Bill Yeoman is? Its just unfortunate that the Academics needed so much investment help in the 90's and early 2000's that Athletics were basically ignored. ~20 years of dormancy will kill any school athletics program. I had more friends that were bigger UH fans in the late 80's, early 90's than UT. Houston football had to start from scratch the day Art Briles walk through the doors and basketball is going through that same process with Kelvin Sampson.
It's hard to attract new (diehard) fans when you are playing teams that people in Houston cannot relate to. If we started playing TT, Baylor, UT, or OU on a weekly basis, that stadium would be sold out without fail whether Houston is winning or losing.
15K. With the schedule we play now, hitting 20K will be tough, but not impossible. The coach we hire will set the stage for the future. From all angles, it appears Herman is the man for the job.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>They just showed the Big 12 "One True Champion" hoops commercial here in Baylor's Ferrell Center -- to resounding boos (especially for TCU).</p>— Brent Zwerneman (@BrentZwerneman) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentZwerneman/status/542496904475459586">December 10, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Everything works so much better when the conferences are regional. I know every conference would like to have a presence all over the country, but it's so much more fun for the fans when their schools are playing other regional schools (office bragging rights, etc.). Makes me miss the ol' SWC. All the Texas schools plus Arkansas. Sigh...
It's 0. These are meaningless statistics. The fact of the matter is that no other conference has more teams in a state than Texas and the Big 12. These are especially meaningless when California has significantly more people than Texas and they only have 4 teams in the Pac 12. 5 teams would mean that the Big 12 is looked more like a regional conference and the only people that are interested in that are Texans. Post sources please. The last time you said basketball doesn't matter with a conference is when Notre Dame left the Big East. You thought that would be meaningless when in reality it was a giant factor for the Catholic 7 along with the huge slap in the face of adding Tulane and other irrelevant basketball schools. Losing the name big east eliminated any advantage Houston or any other team had with that move. The AAC is the something as Conference USA or the Mountain West. Spoiler The point of your post is essentially while the big 12 has a draw in Houston and Texas, the SEC might be bigger. This assumes that a higher draw in a state and city that the big 12 already does really well in is better than the value of expanding to new markets and a bigger part of the country. I don't understand how you can look at that list and say the big 12 doesn't do well when they are littered all over the place. Not only to I disagree with this notion but I feel like adding UH will do nothing to counter the appeal of LSU-Alabama and other SEC match ups. I'm only anti UH because I think it will make the big 12 worse like its addition to the Big East along with all those other schools made the Big East worse. The fact is that the numbers for this year in attendance is WAY less than what the program expected with a new stadium. 23,000 people attending a game with a school that has 40,000 people enrolled is not appealing. I get that you love the program because you went there but it is what it is.
Someone on the radio said he was just enforcing the policy that everyone agreed to in the off-season including Briles. Can anyone confirm or deny?
LOL. I'd be interested to see what you said about TCU's possible inclusion in the mid 2000s. Far more meaningful than yours. Says the guy who doesn't post sources. Er, whut? This is nonsensical, irrelevant, pee-pee game babble. Basketball isn't driving this decision process. The point is that the Big 12 has room to improve, and will see an increasing need to protect its territories from the SEC. As another poster pointed out, *another* major conference entering Houston would cause the Big 12 to have to react in a hurry. Provided no other influencing factors strike first, UH will get in the Big 12 the moment another P5 conference starts sniffing them over. You're not just anti-UH, you're notoriously salty on this particular subject. It's very strange to me. The lady doth protest too much. I'm realistic on the matter, not some hardliner idealist. Nobody in the G5 is going to improve the Big 12, and there's honestly very little difference between the top candidate programs left. Are you high on the Cincinatti program? Well guess what, they had 8 wins (6 in a row), and were playing at home for a conference title and only pulled in 24K too. This is why I don't get why it rustles your jimmies so much. The outcome will pretty much be the same for the Big 12 regardless. :\
Why bother typing if you aren't going to address the issue. If California has a higher population than Texas but only 4 teams in the Pac 12 then why would everyone feel 5 teams in the big 12 is reasonable. Why would the college football audience not look as the big 12 as a regional conference? I've ALWAYS called people out when they reference "What the've heard". Again, please don't waste a post and actually answer the question. It's not driving the process but it's always a factor in value for the conference. Again, see how extremely wrong you were about the basketball factor in the Big East when basketball was THE issue that changed the name of the big east to the AAC. Houston doesn't help the big 12 do that. The big 12 will always have a presence in Texas and expanding to new markets is a focus for all conferences. The pac 12 went to Utah and Colorado. The Big 10 went east in their expansion to Jersey, Maryland and south to Nebraska. The SEC went west and north west to Texas and Missouri. The ACC went west to Kentucky and Ohio. The issue is you and I differ in what is "realistic" and that is the root of being "anti" anything. I think it is more valuable to expand to Ohio and balancing out the big 12 geographical than adding another Texas team. The attendance issue is 1 of many reasons why no one wants Houston in the big 12. I'm also generally curios as to your sources as who at OU and those other schools want Houston.
I gave you similar state-college-conference population distributions for 10 states across 4 major conferences. Do you think everyone else views those conferences as "regional" because of those relationships? So call yourself out, then. You made the same assertion with no basis. I assume your sources are, like everyone else, interwebz chatter and anecdotes. Mine is no different. However, have you noticed that OU, TTU, and KU have all scheduled UH in football in the past year? Have you seen the KSU/OSU/OU/TCU billboards in the Houston area recently? Clearly these programs want Houston market exposure. Apples and atom bombs. (p.s. plz post sources lol) All of those conferences have a network that they need to sell. That changes things, as far as I know. The SEC and Pac 10, specifically, were just benefactors of time and place. A&M, CU, and Mizzou basically fell in their laps. The ACC needed new teams after a raid. The Big 10 is the only true example in that whole bunch of a conference expanding outside of its comfort zone specifically for "new markets". Expanding to Ohio doesn't preclude Houston. I'd respect your opinion a lot more if you were just outright honest with your contempt for UH instead of painting as some kind of business decision on your part. This whole new markets, manifest destiny crap... no one is buying it. You just don't want icky Houston in your club (even though we're no more icky as any other G5). Just like you didn't want TCU. It's ok to feel that way, you have every right to, just own it. If I want opinions on what is most valuable for the Big 12, I'll ask an ESPN network executive, not Brando2101. You may think it will never happen, but everything has fallen into place as it needed to... Deloss retired? Check Patterson hired? Check UH Politically Strongest College in TX? Check Build new stadiums? Check Big 12 excluded from playoff? Check. Renu Khator lookin fine as hell in dat red dress? Check Big name coaching hires? Checkish (fak u levine)
40,000? U of H will never be what you want it to be. Nobody knew it then but late '80s probation and Pardee leaving was it; too much changed in the ensuing years, particularly UT getting their crap back together athletically by the end of the '90s.
I don't think you and I are getting anywhere here. The only thing I'll say is in terms of quality posting. Everyone can have their own opinions. You have them and so do I. When I say that people need sources it is in to regards to "what they are hearing" not what they think about the world. Saying that I think x is a major factor in y is an opinion. You saying that officials from x school said z is a fact that should be cited. A lot of the time when people say, "I've heard..." what they mean is they read it on an internet message board. You can see the UT thread and all the Nick Saban posts about that.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>On returning to Dallas from NY, Bob Bowlsby confirms that if Big 12 is to add a FB title game, it will come through NCAA legislation.</p>— Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChuckCarltonDMN/status/543197896049717248">December 12, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Bowlsby on expansion talk: "I don’t think our position has changed one iota. ... We're going to stay at the 10 for the foreseeable future."</p>— Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChuckCarltonDMN/status/543198777641668608">December 12, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
