ESPN: Butler chatting it up with Atlantic Ten

[getreal4]

I think the small minded Valley School Presidents missed the opportunity to add Butler by rejecting them years ago. Its too bad, because Butler would be a great, great fit given their commitment and success, geographic location, big city market, football status, etc

Atlantic 10 has more appeal than MVC, wonder how their TV revenues compare to the MVC

[valleychamp]

The Atlantic 10 is not a "better" conference than the MVC. It may be a better basketball conference at this very moment, but that does not mean it is the superior athletic conference.

The A10 is unstable, is a very hodge-podge mix of schools, and does not have great TV deals.

The MVC offers great stability, a great mix of schools, tradition, great commitment to athletics namely MBB, and pretty good TV deals with ESPN/Fox/CBS.

Butler would be an absolutely perfect fit for the MVC, and it would be foolish of them to go A10, before the Valley. And you can scoff at the MVC voting them down 20 years ago, but they had absolutely ZERO basketball tradition or success before the late 90's-early 2000's when they starting making the tournament. Heck, even a couple years go before they made two straight final fours, they were only averaging something somewhere around 4K fans per game. Lets not pretend like they are some powerhouse, they are a very small school, with outdated and sometimes crappy facilities that pale in comparison to what many Valley schools have right now. They have simply just made some fantastic tournament runs in the last several years.

[MSUDuo]

If you add an 11th you have to add a 12th as well. Who else do you add?

ORU?

Moot point. Butler isn't heading west

[getreal4]

Butler would be an absolutely perfect fit for the MVC, and it would be foolish of them to go A10, before the Valley. And you can scoff at the MVC voting them down 20 years ago, but they had absolutely ZERO basketball tradition or success before the late 90's-early 2000's when they starting making the tournament. Heck, even a couple years go before they made two straight final fours, they were only averaging something somewhere around 4K fans per game. Lets not pretend like they are some powerhouse, they are a very small school, with outdated and sometimes crappy facilities that pale in comparison to what many Valley schools have right now. They have simply just made some fantastic tournament runs in the last several years.

Even without Butler's success, they would have been a huge addition to the Valley. Adding TVs in Indianapolis vs TVs in Cedar Falls? No contest.

[getreal4]

If you add an 11th you have to add a 12th as well. Who else do you add?

I would be happy with 11 until the right 12th team was available. play a full round robin, helps scheduling woes for many valley teams by eliminating 2 weak sister nonconference opps. My tourney solution is the last place team stays home.

[rally]

The Atlantic 10 is not a "better" conference than the MVC. It may be a better basketball conference at this very moment, but that does not mean it is the superior athletic conference.

The A10 is unstable, is a very hodge-podge mix of schools, and does not have great TV deals.

The MVC offers great stability, a great mix of schools, tradition, great commitment to athletics namely MBB, and pretty good TV deals with ESPN/Fox/CBS.

TV contracts for basketball-only conferences are really only small peanuts in comparison. With that being said, the A10 still has much better TV contracts than the Valley. Let's not kid ourselves, there is a reason that Butler reached out to the A10 instead of the Valley.

Wouldn't be suprised to see the A10 a few other teams as well (VCU and George Mason would be likely targets) to offset the eventual losses of UMass and Charlotte as they try move their football programs up.

[UNIFanSince1983]

I don't know about all sports, but UMass will be in the MAC in football starting next year.

[GrandpaBear]

Makes sense for both parties but it's too bad because they are a perfect fit for the valley.

[purple&orange]

For years in the old MCC (Midwestern Collegiate Conference), Butler was in the same league as Xavier, Dayton, St. Louis, all current A-10 members, along with Evansville. I'm 28 so about all I remember from those days was to hate Xavier and Pete Gillan because he hated us, but I do know some of the older fanbase here in Evansville still recall those games and rivalries. I know a number of A-10 games are on CBS Sports Network, formerly CBS College Sports/CSTV.

Playing musical chairs with some of these leagues can be dangerous. Temple is one of the reasons why the A-10 has been such a good league over the years, Xavier to some extent as well but year after year Temple has been a tourney team. With the ever shifting nature and football to a large extend making the decisions, as someone pointed out that leaves UMASS and Charlotte in some sort of limbo.

I'd love to add Butler if they are looking to leave the Horizon and upgrade. Not sure who I'd like to see be the 12th team, but Butler at this point in time has great name recognition, Indianapolis is a great city/media market, and they already have an established rivalry with Evansville. They've been quite a story the last couple seasons and would bring quite a bit of positive media attention to the league that program is a feel good story with Stevens at the helm, both on and off the floor.

[MSUBear42]

Hat tip to Agrinut on this one... Butler to A10, Evansville to Horizon, Murray State to MVC.

Evansville wants out but they want to do it on their own terms it seems