DoubleJayAlum wrote:I'm not sure it would help and it could even end up hurting financially. Right now the tourney money is split 10 ways. Adding two more teams would just reduce the amount that each school receives.
Unless the additions would lead to a better TV contract or guarantee more NCAA tourney births, I don't see much value in making additions right now.
Ding ding ding. If the MVC is going to expand, it has to be with schools that could help the Valley in terms of profile and putting more teams in the Dance. Adding the Dakota States or a program like UW-M just makes for more mouths to feed. Unfortunately, just about every program fitting that description is in a league one could consider superior to the MVC (Marquette & DePaul already mentioned). If the Big East crumbles and there isn't some sort of new basketball-focussed conference that comes from its former members, I'm sure those two would look at the MVC.
If Elgin is looking shorter term, the two schools are going to need to be strong programs from "peer" conferences. Xavier and Dayton are sitting happy in the A-10 and enjoy their east coast exposure.
The two that have always made sense to me are St. Louis and Butler. St. Louis seems like such a natural fit; it always seemed crazy to me that they are in the A-10. Does a significant portion of their student body come from the east coast or something? You'd think they could do more with much less if they weren't wasting so much money on travel expenses for all of their varsity sports. Butler's a no-brainer if you can pry them out of the Horizon. 5 years ago the Valley probably wouldn't have wanted them, but now they look foolish for not taking them in 94-95 when the MCC started falling apart. Problem is now they are pretty much stuck. The league cut them a sweet deal (maybe to keep them from bolting?), giving them 30% of the teams' NCAA tournament revenue from the past two years and splitting the remaining 70% between the other 9. Those 12 NCAAT games mean
quite a bit of cash for the university. That money stays with the league, not the program, so if they leave the Horizon they forfeit that income.
As a Butler fan I'd love to see it happen, though. Even if the HL breifly caught up to the MVC in terms of on-court performance, it still doesn't have the fan support or the broad appeal that the Valley does. The argument is constantly made that Butler is the tide raising every boat in the league. Problem is, I think all of their proverbial boats have holes in their hulls. Those teams
don't really seem to be getting much better. Last year everyone was saying "This is the best we've ever seen the Horizon". Well, it still wasn't a top 10 RPI or KenPom league and both NIT teams flopped. Not only that, but 8 of the 10 players on the two all-conference teams left the league via graduation, transfer, or the NBA.
If one can apply that logic to the Horizon, can't it be applied to the MVC also? Difference with the MVC is that its member schools are in much better position to take advantage of some positive publicity. They have significantly better fanbases and facilities than most Horizon schools do. I think adding Butler would make a pretty big splash for the MVC and would also help Butler put fans in the seats. Whether athletic administrators will admit it or not, the Horizon League doesn't sell. No one wants to watch a bunch of essentially low-major programs on a nightly basis. 7 (SEVEN!!!!) of the current teams in the HL were once in the old MidCon (Summit). It's a joke of a league speaking from a sales standpoint.
My fear is that if Butler happens to have a down year or two and isn't constatntly nationally relevant, the fans are going to disappear and Butler could sink back down to mediocrity. The $25M in Hinkle renovations starting in 2012 should help that, but it's going to be an interesting year. We barely had 4k at the UIC game last year after the loss to Youngstown. Granted, it was a Monday night game, but that sends a pretty bad message about the fanbase, IMO. There needs to be a reason to pay attention to the program after December 31st and I think the MVC would help do that for us.
I remember watching the Drake / Northern Iowa game back on Feb. 5, 2011 and was absolutely stunned at the crowd involvement, the passion, and the enthusiasm from the fans and students. This was a mid-pack MVC team with no postseason hopes and they packed the place. It wasn't quite a reported sellout, but if there were any empty seats in the upper corners of the arena I couldn't see them. The next game on ESPNU that afternoon was UW-Green Bay @ UW-Milwaukee. This was a weekend game between two supposed conference rivals and the arena was dead quiet. Reported attendance was 4,073, but the entire lower bowl was all but completely empty. If there were much more than 2,000 people actually in the stands I'd eat my socks. The contrast between the two atmospheres was downright depressing. Every time I watch a road Butler basketball game the arenas are packed. Everyone comes out to "Beat Butler" (they even make shirts!!!), but seeing the Cell as empty as it was kind of opened my eyes to what the rest of the Horizon looks like. I kept watching MVC games the rest of the year, too. Bradley @ Illinois State was NUTS. These were two teams fighting to stay out of the Valley basement, but students showed up in droves and the atmosphere was crazy. WSU at MSU to end the year was fantastic. WSU
always gets a ridiculous crowd at home. You just don't get that in the HL.
Anyway, that's my little pipe dream - St. Louis and Butler to the MVC for 2012-13.
