Updated 1/6/18: MVC Expansion Poll

[MOST]

If football is any indicator, the answer to all of your questions is a resounding No

Not talking football--talking basketball--MM D1 and D1AA. You want to preserve the the status so we can watch 16 seeds beat other 16 seed to even get in the real tournament. Oh, the suspense, the excitement!
What is the crowd size at those games? How many fans travel to see a 16 vs a 16?

[RacerJoeD]

And I’m saying that football tried this exact thing and it has been an abject failure

[Mikovio]

Um Bradley was never D2. Until the 70s Bradley was one of the top programs in the nation. Oscar Robertson/Cincy and Chet Walker/Bradley were legit top 5 battles.

The Valley going I-AA in basketball is asinine. Anybody who wants that should be kept as far from the levers of power as possible.

The problem is the CBS contract got so big that every D2 school wanted to jump to get a piece of the pie, and it was too easy to do so. You needed a conference of minimum 8 teams, and to add a few sports and scholarships. Well, getting a slice of that NCAAT TV pie made it worth it, and now we've got 360 teams in D1, and several conferences and schools that just like to send their teams on the road like the Washington Generals and collect paychecks there and then at the end of the season collect their CBS paycheck. See Chicago State. I'd support a minimum attendance standard like they have in FBS, although in practice that hasn't been enforced. Schools like Eastern Michigan end up selling blocks of tickets for $1 each to a corporation and say they averaged 15k.

[racerlover]

We're way off in the weeds here compared to the original topic, but even FBS football is a failure for every non P5 school. Take WKU. They spent $6.9 million on football alone this year. I would bet anything that they didn't turn a profit. Now keep in mind that they will never compete for a football championship title. Hell, they won't even get close. And them moving to FBS football basically killed their basketball program, but that's another story.

Back to the topic...Murray vs Marquette. It was watched by 2.4 million people. That's just the TV viewers, no online viewers added. And it was on an obscure cable network, not CBS. And for the real point maker of all this? Now read this carefully...

Northwest Missouri State just wrapped up an undefeated season and won the Division II national championship game. They played the game at the Ford Center in Evansville. Attendance for the championship game? 4,269. Attendance for the OVC championship game? 10,525

Very few care about Division II basketball. Very few would care about IAA basketball either. That's it. Bottom line.

[BEED]

And the TOPS had FB games with 1.4M viewers in a 3-9 season where the coach got fired. You’d trade places in a minute. You’d trade banners in a minute. 15 minutes of fame for the Furray State Mules are up. Get back in line in the tomato can conference.

[VUGrad1314]

You're seriously happier playing meaningless games in CUSA when you once had a Final 4 team and probably could have built that again?

[racerlover]

You're seriously happier playing meaningless games in CUSA when you once had a Final 4 team and probably could have built that again?

*Vacated Final Four*

wku is a football school now. I actually wish middle and wku had stayed in the OVC. The conference would be ranked as high or higher than the MVC because we wouldn't have brought in schools like SIUE and UTM and SEMO. Oh well. They're in big time football now. In an even more meaningless football conference. Also a conference that's spread geographically from here to hell and gone. Basketball is DOA in Bowling Green. Even whispers of changing conferences arise in their circles, even some wishing they hadn't left their home all those years ago. I wonder where the toppers would have finished this year in the lowly OVC. I'm guessing 4th or 5th. It actually sickens me to see a school rich with basketball history relegated to being as relevant as Akron and Grand Canyon and South Dakota State.

[MOST]

Northwest Missouri State just wrapped up an undefeated season and won the Division II national championship game. They played the game at the Ford Center in Evansville. Attendance for the championship game? 4,269. Attendance for the OVC championship game? 10,525

Very few care about Division II basketball. Very few would care about IAA basketball either. That's it. Bottom line.

Point: NWMO played a small D2 private school team from San Diego in the Championship game. Would not have expected much of a fan crowd to travel 2000 miles from SD to Evansville. But, what would have been the attendance if Southern IN had been the opponent (which I think it was in the semifinals). Southern Ind home is Evansville--or 5 miles to the west. Probably a standing room only.

[racerlover]

Northwest Missouri State just wrapped up an undefeated season and won the Division II national championship game. They played the game at the Ford Center in Evansville. Attendance for the championship game? 4,269. Attendance for the OVC championship game? 10,525

Very few care about Division II basketball. Very few would care about IAA basketball either. That's it. Bottom line.

Point: NWMO played a small D2 private school team from San Diego in the Championship game. Would not have expected much of a fan crowd to travel 2000 miles from SD to Evansville. But, what would have been the attendance if Southern IN had been the opponent (which I think it was in the semifinals). Southern Ind home is Evansville--or 5 miles to the west. Probably a standing room only.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a wonderful Christmas.

It's like talking to a tree.

[Mikovio]

And the TOPS had FB games with 1.4M viewers in a 3-9 season where the coach got fired.

1 football game with 1.4M viewers. Against Wisconsin, which was ranked in the top 5 at the time. And that was the only game on national TV for WKU. Also looks like a few years before WKU will face a top 5 team to draw eyeballs like that (Auburn in 2022 maybe).

CUSA actually has a godawful TV situation. Almost all of their games are streamed over the internet. This is because the MAC and Sun Belt sold their soul to ESPN (and CBSSN via sublicense) so they could get games on ESPN2/CBSSN by playing on weekdays. CUSA said no, we'll keep our Saturday games, even if it means playing in obscurity.