Which of these team would you be okay with joining the MVC?

[Drakey]

does it really matter if the 4 Dakota teams make up 4 of the 24? You're just picking now. I mean, if you want UMKC and Green Bay we can switch them out but then we cant field the best FCS football conference and the teams we replace them with suck even harder. SEMO. Central Arkansas. Call up Augustana to D1. These are our replacements for the Dakotas. Ill take the Dakotas over any realistic choice

I don't think anybody really has any interest in a league like this, Dakotas or not. I would certainly want Drake in that diluted league. Essentially you would be taking a league with most of the teams committed to winning basketball programs, and add a bunch that are not. If there were teams in the mid-west that actually would improve the level of competition it might make sense, but past mismanagement by the conference has caused all of those teams to leave or never join. The valley is a very confusing conference right now. Somehow allowed east coast basketball conferences to take over the mid-west.

[TBS_20]

I get what youre saying but its time to come to reality. I know nobody whats drastic change but its what is needed to truly stay relevant. There is no Wichita, Dayton, St. Louis coming. Football schools are not moving up. We can either watch expansion pass us again or do it right this time. Don't get me wrong. I don't think this will happen but something drastic like this should happen. Adding UTA, Murray, and possibly two more absolute s*** schools like UMKC isnt going to cut it. They need to take ahold of their own destiny instead of dropping some more like they did teams started exiting and not taking Butler, etc.

[BCPanther]

I get what youre saying but its time to come to reality. I know nobody whats drastic change but its what is needed to truly stay relevant. There is no Wichita, Dayton, St. Louis coming. Football schools are not moving up. We can either watch expansion pass us again or do it right this time. Don't get me wrong. I don't think this will happen but something drastic like this should happen. Adding UTA, Murray, and possibly two more absolute s*** schools like UMKC isnt going to cut it. They need to take ahold of their own destiny instead of dropping some more like they did teams started exiting and not taking Butler, etc.

The problem is that the places that you want to add don't have any people. It makes zero sense for our league, athletically or academically, to expand in to places where there aren't students or athletes to bring to our campuses.

We can sit here and worry about basketball all we want but when our universities that sponsor said basketball can't pay their bills, basketball doesn't matter. There are two giant cliffs in high school enrollment coming with drastically smaller classes, especially in our part of the country. The kids of the Great Recession are in middle school right now and that's going to show a 12-15% reduction in the number of HS students available to recruit between 2025-2028. We're also looking at a dip at least that size if not bigger on the horizon with the record low birth rates during the pandemic. That cliff comes in 2037-2040.

The Dallas Metroplex and Nashville are two of the six areas (Austin, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Washington DC/NoVA suburbs) that will see increasing class sizes of more than 5% over the next decade. The choice to add Belmont had way more to do with recruiting and population than it did basketball, we were just too excited about basketball to think about that logically.

It's also why Missouri State is so attractive to other leagues. They should be at net zero in that time and the only school in our current league that isn't well negative.

[RacerJoeD]

I am not endorsing any candidates (except my own) but I have to ask the question-

Is it more valuable for a school to play a game in an empty gym in a big city with no media coverage?
OR
Is it more valuable for a school to play on national television in a full gym in the middle of nowhere?

[BCPanther]

I am not endorsing any candidates (except my own) but I have to ask the question-

Is it more valuable for a school to play a game in an empty gym in a big city with no media coverage?
OR
Is it more valuable for a school to play on national television in a full gym in the middle of nowhere?

10 years ago, the answer was undoubtedly the latter.

In 2021, I'm not sure it's so easy. ESPN ratings for everything outside the NFL and Blue Bloods are way down and with streaming, you don't get the 'happens to land on it while bored' crowd anymore.

That empty gym sitting in the middle of a major metro where you can have large alumni and fundraising events might be more valuable at this point.

[RacerJoeD]

If you don't win, nothing else matters.

Winning turns out the alums
winning puts butts in seats
winning puts eyes on your school


Turning out alums
Putting Butts in seats
putting eyes on your school
Thats what helps enrollment.


If you don't win, your games might as well be in Antartica.

Perhaps what we are seeing is presidents who don't want to invest in giving their programs what they need to win and instead are trying to find a shortcut.

[BCPanther]

If you don't win, nothing else matters.

Winning turns out the alums
winning puts butts in seats
winning puts eyes on your school


Turning out alums
Putting Butts in seats
putting eyes on your school
Thats what helps enrollment.


If you don't win, your games might as well be in Antartica.

Perhaps what we are seeing is presidents who don't want to invest in giving their programs what they need to win and instead are trying to find a shortcut.

People at that level of academia definitely live in their own bubble. I'm absolutely with you on pumping money into athletics as another arm of your marketing efforts but, unfortunately, those folks don't see it the same way that those of us here do.

If it were me and this is the first time I've really shared my personal opinion on this rather than what I've been told and what seems to be the prevailing wisdom, I'd add Murray (basketball tradition), Arlington (will thrive getting away from the football misfits and location), Grand Canyon ($$$$$, location, easy/cheap to get in and out of).

I'd then pause at 13 for 3 years (unless other things necessitated a move obviously) and then ask for applications from Bellarmine and St Thomas to see which one has handled DI transition the best and could bring the most to the league. Also in that time, if you had a defection, you could live with the 12 you've got or add both.

[IllinoisState]

If you don't win, nothing else matters.

Winning turns out the alums
winning puts butts in seats
winning puts eyes on your school


Turning out alums
Putting Butts in seats
putting eyes on your school
Thats what helps enrollment.


If you don't win, your games might as well be in Antartica.

Perhaps what we are seeing is presidents who don't want to invest in giving their programs what they need to win and instead are trying to find a shortcut.

Tell that to the MVC commissioner, the ADS, and school presidents.

[siudawgs]

If you don't win, nothing else matters.

Winning turns out the alums
winning puts butts in seats
winning puts eyes on your school


Turning out alums
Putting Butts in seats
putting eyes on your school
Thats what helps enrollment.


If you don't win, your games might as well be in Antartica.

Perhaps what we are seeing is presidents who don't want to invest in giving their programs what they need to win and instead are trying to find a shortcut.

There is quite a bit of truth to this, particularly your comment about looking for shortcuts. The big-city fundraising events BC Panther referenced will be very lightly attended if the conference sinks deeper into mediocrity. I know I'd be more inclined to attend road games, the conference tournament, etc. (and the related alumni events) if there is a worthwhile basketball product that brings me out.

[Drakey]

These huge expansion proposals would be similar to what the Midwest Cities Conference/Horizon did in the mid 90s when they started losing their best teams. They added a bunch of no name schools with no tradition and it left them where they are now. The remaining teams that were in the league before the expansion all got out as soon as they could. Evansville, Butler and Loyola did not want to be in a league with Wright State and Green Bay. If we add a bunch of crap teams it will just result in more and faster defections. We ate not going to get students from Texas by adding a low level basketball program.