Missouri Valley - Mountain West Challenge to end?

[Chuck]

Conference USA has more visibility and a better reputation because they have more schools in larger metro (TV) viewing and media coverage areas. Tulsa, Memphis, Houston, Birmingham, Dallas, New Orleans are bigger media draws than Cedar Falls, Carbondale, Terre Haute, even Des Moines, which I think is actually the MVC's largest media market. The CUSA schools may not be number 1 in their cities, but there is enough interest and accessibility for the media to pay attention to them.

The only chance we have to lure a CUSA school is if the Big East poaches them for football only. Then they are in a situation where the NCAA does not allow schools to have all of their sports in a conference that offers FBS football if their football is not in an FBS conference. It's why Air Force has been looking at the MVC with the Big East courting them.

Actually Wichita is the largest TV market in the Valley, but your point is well taken. All of our media markets are smaller than most of the markets in CUSA (although many of their schools arent that big in their own markets including UH in Houston -#10 market).

There are 210 TV markets in the USA. These are the Valley markets: Wichita #69, Des Moines #71, Springfield- #74, Omaha- #76, Paducah-Harrisburg-Carbondale #78, Cedar Rapids-Quad Cities- #88, Evansville #102, Peoria-Normal-Bloomington- #116 and Terre Haute #152.

While the top 5 Valley TV markets are very close together (69 to 78), Terre Haute is by far the smallest.

Source: http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets

I think actually a key to all Indiana Markets (UE and ISUB) is the indy Metro area, you will find the largest population of Tree fans (outside of Terre Haute) and Aces fans (outside of Evansville)...

[shocker3]

Just to do a comparison, I looked up the C-USA Tv markets and I was surprised at how small some of them are:

Dallas (SMU)-#5, Houston (Rice and UH)- #10, Orlando (UCF)- #19, Birmingham- (UAB)- #40, Memphis- #48, New Orleans (Tulane)-#53, Tulsa- #61, Charleston-Huntington, WV (Marshall)- #65, El Paso (UTEP)- #98, Greenvile, NC (East Carolina)- #103, Hattisburg, MS (So. Miss)- #167.

I always thought that El Paso and New Orleans were much bigger TV markets than they actually are. I remember when El Paso was a Valley market (New Mexico State in Las Cruces, NM gets their TV from El Paso). Losing that TV market wasn't nearly as big of a loss as I thought at the time.

[shocker3]

Conference USA has more visibility and a better reputation because they have more schools in larger metro (TV) viewing and media coverage areas. Tulsa, Memphis, Houston, Birmingham, Dallas, New Orleans are bigger media draws than Cedar Falls, Carbondale, Terre Haute, even Des Moines, which I think is actually the MVC's largest media market. The CUSA schools may not be number 1 in their cities, but there is enough interest and accessibility for the media to pay attention to them.

The only chance we have to lure a CUSA school is if the Big East poaches them for football only. Then they are in a situation where the NCAA does not allow schools to have all of their sports in a conference that offers FBS football if their football is not in an FBS conference. It's why Air Force has been looking at the MVC with the Big East courting them.

Actually Wichita is the largest TV market in the Valley, but your point is well taken. All of our media markets are smaller than most of the markets in CUSA (although many of their schools arent that big in their own markets including UH in Houston -#10 market).

There are 210 TV markets in the USA. These are the Valley markets: Wichita #69, Des Moines #71, Springfield- #74, Omaha- #76, Paducah-Harrisburg-Carbondale #78, Cedar Rapids-Quad Cities- #88, Evansville #102, Peoria-Normal-Bloomington- #116 and Terre Haute #152.

While the top 5 Valley TV markets are very close together (69 to 78), Terre Haute is by far the smallest.

Source: http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets

I think actually a key to all Indiana Markets (UE and ISUB) is the indy Metro area, you will find the largest population of Tree fans (outside of Terre Haute) and Aces fans (outside of Evansville)...

Actually to the extent that the Valley has fans in the Indianapolis #25, St. Louis #21 and Chicago #3 TV markets is probably very important to Elgin as he tries to get Valley games on national TV. Our 9 direct markets alone I am sure don't help a lot.

[shocker3]

With Creighton's big win at San Diego St., the Valley takes early lead 1-0 in this years challenge.

It would really be a big shame if the MWC-MVC challenge were to end. It is so hard to get good non-con opponents at home.

[Redbird Ray]

If the MVC/MWC does have to end, then we really should look into setting something up with the A-10. If we can get back to a multi-bid status this year, it should sweeten the deal a little. Even with the MVC's recent struggles to get multiple tournament bids, the MVC, A-10, CUSA and MWC are typically grouped together as "High Major" conferences and we should be playing each other more often.

I would think an A-10/MVC challenge could get some air time on CBSCS, as I believe both conferences have basketball partnerships with that particular network. It wouldn't be as glamorous as being on ESPN's networks, but it would probably be fitting coverage, given the national demand to see A-10/MVC basketball.

[BirdmanBB]

If the MVC/MWC does have to end, then we really should look into setting something up with the A-10. If we can get back to a multi-bid status this year, it should sweeten the deal a little. Even with the MVC's recent struggles to get multiple tournament bids, the MVC, A-10, CUSA and MWC are typically grouped together as "High Major" conferences and we should be playing each other more often.

I would think an A-10/MVC challenge could get some air time on CBSCS, as I believe both conferences have basketball partnerships with that particular network. It wouldn't be as glamorous as being on ESPN's networks, but it would probably be fitting coverage, given the national demand to see A-10/MVC basketball.

I thought Elgin was quoted as saying he was working on trying to get another challenge going? Give us a challenge against both the MWC and CUSA and thats 2 quality games on the schedule every year. Add another potential quality game with the bracketbuster and 2-3 from a MTE in the beginning of the season and that gives every school in our conference a quality chance at building an at-large resume. If we can consistantly win challenges against peer conferences like that, we will definitely earn our respectability back.

[Ali]

It would be cool if some of the games like CU-SDSU and WSU-UNLV could turn into home and home series.

[DoubleJayAlum]

We have to do whatever it takes to keep this thing going.

Having schools like UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego St and BYU come to our arenas is a huge deal. BYU is now a goner, replaced by Nevada who is usually solid, but not at the same level.

I really hope WSU can pull it all together and take care of UNLV.

[MoValley John]

Will the Big East go coast to coast? If the newest rumors are true, the MWC and C-USA will do basically a complete merger as the Big East will be cherry picking members from both conferences. Not only could this end the MVC-MWC Challenge, it could muck up a lot of things.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college_ucf/2011/12/utep-athletic-director-bob-stull-says-c-usa-mountain-west-moving-toward-alliance-in-all-sports.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed

[MVCfans]

Whether they (UNLV) will be making a similar trip to the Midwest in coming seasons remains to be seen. The MV-MWC deal expires after next season and at this point, Butterly said, there haven’t been any specific discussions about future series. It will be re-evaluated in the offseason.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/de ... rence-cha/