I've got friends in low places.

[Redbird Recon]

I would probably be more positive regarding the MVC if we were an Illinois school and had the benefit of easy travel.

Missouri State (4:15 hours) & Drake (5:30 hours) are manageable drives from Wichita.

A standard by which 8 other Valley teams are manageable drives from Normal, and six are closer than Missouri State is to Wichita. Not quite the same, is it?

You're absolutely right.
I was looking for a silver lining.
Wichita is a terrible location.
It's too bad the Big XII won't take you.

[Wufan]

MSU, the other outlier, has Wichita, Des Moines, Normal, Carbondale, Peoria, Terre Haute, Evansville, all within 5 hours and 54 minutes.

We really are out on an island in Wichita. That being the case, the geographical considerations of joining the A-10, new Big East, or MWC are all nil from a Shocker perspective.

What would be nice is if we were able to schedule home and home games with KU, KSU, Tulsa, Oral Roberts, UMKC, OU, and OSU. Even Baylor and Missouri are only 5 hours away.

[Wufan]

The proximity: All games, other than Wichita, are a reasonable Saturday drive from Central Illinois. (I'm aware that the eastern shift of the new member is a stick in the craw of some Shockers.)

I addressed this above. Proximity is not a draw for WSU.

The access: The Valley TV package allows me to watch most game I can't get to and lets me watch marquee match-ups from around the conference. When you add those in, I probably watch 30-35 MVC games a season.

As a Wichita State fan that does not live in Wichita, I can still watch 30 WSU games on TV (NOT internet) without the Valley TV package. The Valley TV package is fine, but certainly not a selling point for me to like the MVC.

The affordability: I had some sad conversations with Creighton fans this season. The move to the Big Priest allows for more exposure, $$$, etc., but a conference tourney in NYC prices out some upper-middle class families from Omaha.

It's kind of expensive for us in Wichita to travel to St Louis for the weekend, maybe not as expensive as the east coast, but not cheap. That's three days vacation for the whole tournament and you have to have a hotel Sunday night some where. For the regular season, if you can get a ticket in Wichita and want to sit in row 35, it costs $25.00. That's the cheap seat. WSU already has a product that demands high ticket prices regardless of who we play. Not sure how the MVC is helpful in this regard.

[Redbird Recon]

Who watches Valley games not involving their team with regularity?

[Wufan]

Who watches Valley games not involving their team with regularity?

I do! I don't always watch the whole game (but at least 10 minutes of game action), but I will generally watch 10-15 non-con games not involving my team and about the same number of conference games if you include Arch Madness. I will also watch 15-20 Big XII games, mostly involving KU or KSU.

[Drakey]

I don't think very many people attend road games regardless of the distance. The only schools that bring anybody to Drake are UNI and Creighton, and I'm guessing a lot of those people actually live in the Des Moines area and are not driving 2-3 hours. I don' think the geographic limits are any great advantage except for reduced travel costs.

It would be nice to plug in a team or two to the west and south, but there just don't seem to be any that are even as suitable as Loyola.

[musiccitybulldog]

Who watches Valley games not involving their team with regularity?

I do. I end up subscribing to several teams video service. It's amazing how many games are on DirecTV through the ESPN package and of course MVC TV. Besides watching on TV I also use the Logitech internet radio, so it's easy to skip between games and get caught up on scores.

Plus, we go to quite a few Bulldog away games.
With some planning most schools are quite accommodating with seats. Biggest issue with attending games is the weather.

I wish the MVC had a depository of all the video of games played and you could subscribe and watch them when you wanted.

All the MVC radio broadcasters are pretty unique. We always enjoy listening to the Wichita pre-game call in show. "I will get off and listen". Mike Kennedy is one of the best.

[glm38]

Who watches Valley games not involving their team with regularity?

I do too. Although I'm more prone to watch those teams that are doing well and / or those that have a star player that I 've seen in person at JQH. players like Carmichael, Colt, etc.

[sixth ace]

Who watches Valley games not involving their team with regularity?

I usually will dvd most any MVC game and watch at least parts of it. fast forward is a friend of mine and you can watch a 40 minute game in 40-42 minutes by cutting out the commercials

[rlh04d]

We really are out on an island in Wichita. That being the case, the geographical considerations of joining the A-10, new Big East, or MWC are all nil from a Shocker perspective.

Yep. Really, being in the MVC (and in Kansas in general) just means that geographical issues don't matter to us at all. We're already used to being nowhere near the teams we play. If we were in the MWC or the A-10, there wouldn't be any real impact outside of losing Arch Madness.

If an Illinois team leaves the MVC, they lose the closeness of the small conference environment. WSU doesn't.