Catholic Basketball League

[Aargh]

Travel costs will not be much of a factor. There don't seem to be any restrictions against leaving the non-revenue sports in a regional conference and the revenue-producing sports in a separate conference.

[DoubleJayAlum]

There don't seem to be any restrictions against leaving the non-revenue sports in a regional conference and the revenue-producing sports in a separate conference.

The problem is finding a conference to house the non-revenue sports. Who wants the non-revenue sports when you don't get any of the revenue sports?

[TheAsianSensation]

I can't remember if I posted it here before but one idea is a national cluster**** of a conference that would completely ovewhelm every mid-major conference:

Northeast:
Providence, Seton Hall, St John's, St Bonaventure, Villanova, St Joseph's

Mideast:
Georgetown, George Mason, VCU, Richmond, Xavier, Dayton

Midwest:
Drake, St Louis, Marquette, DePaul, Butler, Detroit

Mountain:
BYU, Denver, Texas-Arlington, Creighton, Wichita St, Oral Roberts

West:
Gonzaga, Seattle, St Mary's, San Francisco, San Diego, Pepperdine

30 teams, 6x5 format. Obviously the actual teams involved at the fringes can be debated forever. But a league like that would completely swallow up every conference that isn't the Big 12, Pac 12, Big 10, SEC, and ACC.

Maybe it won't be 30 teams, maybe it's just 20, but I have to imagine everyone is at least looking at this kind of model and wondering what the feasibility could be.

[DoubleJayAlum]

I can't remember if I posted it here before but one idea is a national cluster**** of a conference that would completely ovewhelm every mid-major conference:

Northeast:
Providence, Seton Hall, St John's, St Bonaventure, Villanova, St Joseph's

Mideast:
Georgetown, George Mason, VCU, Richmond, Xavier, Dayton

Midwest:
Drake, St Louis, Marquette, DePaul, Butler, Detroit

Mountain:
BYU, Denver, Texas-Arlington, Creighton, Wichita St, Oral Roberts

West:
Gonzaga, Seattle, St Mary's, San Francisco, San Diego, Pepperdine

30 teams, 6x5 format. Obviously the actual teams involved at the fringes can be debated forever. But a league like that would completely swallow up every conference that isn't the Big 12, Pac 12, Big 10, SEC, and ACC.

Maybe it won't be 30 teams, maybe it's just 20, but I have to imagine everyone is at least looking at this kind of model and wondering what the feasibility could be.

No Bradley?

[TheAsianSensation]

I can't remember if I posted it here before but one idea is a national cluster**** of a conference that would completely ovewhelm every mid-major conference:

Northeast:
Providence, Seton Hall, St John's, St Bonaventure, Villanova, St Joseph's

Mideast:
Georgetown, George Mason, VCU, Richmond, Xavier, Dayton

Midwest:
Drake, St Louis, Marquette, DePaul, Butler, Detroit

Mountain:
BYU, Denver, Texas-Arlington, Creighton, Wichita St, Oral Roberts

West:
Gonzaga, Seattle, St Mary's, San Francisco, San Diego, Pepperdine

30 teams, 6x5 format. Obviously the actual teams involved at the fringes can be debated forever. But a league like that would completely swallow up every conference that isn't the Big 12, Pac 12, Big 10, SEC, and ACC.

Maybe it won't be 30 teams, maybe it's just 20, but I have to imagine everyone is at least looking at this kind of model and wondering what the feasibility could be.

No Bradley?

Whoops, oversight. Can happen with 30 teams crammed together like this.

But that's actually a source of debate. Drake v Bradley v Detroit as expansion candidates. If markets matter a lot (and the Catholic schools need as much as possible to make these moves feasible), I could see TV say the pecking order should go Detroit/Des Moines/Peoria.

[Aargh]

There's a problem that's being ignored when discussing these markets. Does anybody in those markets follow those teams? Just because Butler is in Indianapolis doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have more than a few thousand TV's in Indy tuned to a Butler game. In the big markets, you're competing with pro sports nd other colleges. The University of Detroit is in a huge market that is mostly unaware of their existence.

On the other end of the scale, Gonzaga's geographical TV market is miniscule, but they will deliver a lot of national viewers.

[Jet915]

Getting very interesting. I think if the Big East Catholics decide to go to 12 schools, there is a small chance Creighton would be added, but if they go to 14-16, Creighton's chances go way up especially if Gonzaga is in the fold to help balance east and west.

[TheAsianSensation]

There's a problem that's being ignored when discussing these markets. Does anybody in those markets follow those teams? Just because Butler is in Indianapolis doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have more than a few thousand TV's in Indy tuned to a Butler game. In the big markets, you're competing with pro sports nd other colleges. The University of Detroit is in a huge market that is mostly unaware of their existence.

On the other end of the scale, Gonzaga's geographical TV market is miniscule, but they will deliver a lot of national viewers.

This is kind of the same argument people had about Rutgers and NYC, only obviously on a different scale.

For the B1G, getting the games on TV, getting the subscribers was their big thing. Now, with a basketball-only conference, that is mitigated a bit. But if you're a TV station like the new NBC Sports channel, or the CBS college one, you need inventory to provide on your cable channel, and you want your channel going to as many homes as possible. So Butler becomes an advantage because you can have a better chance on getting on in Indiana than if you had no schools there.

I think the Catholic League is probably looking at a combination of a big big television package on one of NBC/CBS, then a feature package on ESPN probably similar to what a combined A-10 and WCC package currently looks like on ESPN.

Obviously this is all on a smaller scale than the big boys. But every single dollar counts. Can't be emphasized enough - everyone would need to squeeze every single penny out of this in order to make the moves worthwhile. If you're going to be in upper Illinois (DePaul) and lower Illinois (St Louis) and make inroads to central Illinois from there, do you really need Bradley? If you have no foot in Iowa or Michigan, and could only choose 1, wouldn't you choose Detroit over Drake? The differences aren't big, but they are differences, and a mole turns into a mountain quickly.

Gonzaga is a beast upon itself that has no peer situation, obviously.

[SpiritedDrake]

Something that just occured to me while looking at the the A-10 membership

There is A LOT of crap in the A-10. The top is VERY GOOD, but the rest of the conference? Not so much. So what I'm thinking is, what if the Big East Bball schools split off, then invite the top of the A-10. Xavier, Dayton, VCU, Ect. This is also predicated on the fact that the new Big East follows the money and does not form a Catholic League (something I find very likely)

this potentially leaves the Valley in great shape, as Butler and SLU might available then, and Creighton and WSU are not going to want to bolt for a league whose membership is limited to the crap in the A-10. Anyone else see this as a sort of possibility?

[Jet915]

A article from the Gonzaga perspective and his theoretical conference:

East:
Villanova
Providence
Georgetown
St. John's
Seton Hall
Xavier
Depaul

West:
Gonzaga
BYU
Creighton
St. Mary's
Butler
Marquette
St. Louis

http://www.slipperstillfits.com/2012/12 ... th-the-wcc