DoubleJayAlum wrote:I am almost certain that there was an article in the Wichita paper, linked here once upon a time, that discussed the baseball decision and the fact that schools without baseball were allowed to vote. I suspect the age of the article has caused it to move beyond the Wichita Eagle's pay wall, so linking now may not be a possibility, but perhaps somebody has a good link?
My recollection however was a little different than what GoShockers89 said though. I thought that one Iowa school voted "no" while the other, which was allowed to vote, chose to abstain (I don't think the story identified which Iowa school was which). I do think that even having the right to vote on an issue when you don't even field the sport is a bit strange and defies common sense. To not field a sport and then vote "no" on expanding that sport can give the appearance of horse trading (I'll vote for your issue X, if you vote a certain way on this issue), even if that isn't the reason for the vote.
You can be certain about it all you want. But the fact is you are wrong. It simply did not happen.
(1) One other baseball related criticism was the awarding of this year's tourney to IlSU, when several of the western schools (CU, WSU and MSU) have much better facilities and have invested great sums of money in expanding their programs. I know that Ed Servais and Gene, two people that generally don't agree on anything and don't even like each other very much, were lockstep in their frustration over this issue (Gene was even quoted in the Wichita Eagle as thanking CU's AD for verbalizing the frustration on this issue). To award the tourney to IlSU, with their present baseball facilities in comparison to the western schools is a smack in the face and does absolutely nothing to encourage investment. It essentially says, you don't need to spend money to upgrade facilities and if you do, you won't even get a better chance of hosting conference tourneys. The message: why frickin bother.
(2) The awarding of the soccer conf. tourney to anyone else when Creighton has one of the finest facilities in the entire nation, as well as one of the top 10 programs nationally, was ridiculous. It actually took Creighton threatening to pull its soccer team out of the MVC all together, just to be awarded a chance to host the event once. Truly unbelievable.
These are non-revenue, low interest sports. There is no money being made, and there is very little to gain by having these tournaments at one place or another. Without looking it up, I would guess that 95% of the baseball tournaments have been held at WSU, CU, and MSU over the years. I don't know how anyone could have a problem having the tournament at one of the other schools once per decade.
(3) Failure to even reasonably consider Kansas City or another closer venue for the conference bball tourney.
1) not true, and 2) Why in God's name would the MVC be super eager to move the tournament away from STL when it has been one of the best/most successful conference tournaments in the country for the last 20 years. Seriously, how frickin dumb would that be?
(4) Bracketbuster. Creighton's disgust of this event dates back to the second or thirg year it was implemented. The timing, in the middle of a conference race, was always silly and it rarely helped MVC schools get into the dance (and with a loss often could have been the reason MVC schools did NOT make the dance). More importantly, several of our peer conferences refused to participate (A10, MWC, CUSA) while others let schools opt out (WCC, Horizon, WAC). THE MVC on the other hand, made every single member participate. I'd also add that the timing of the event, inconjunction with the league tourney starting a week early, causes the MVC to play a really tight schedule wherein three games in one week usually has to be absorbed somewhere.
Saying the bracketbuster rarely helped MVC teams is again, just not factually correct. It has helped many teams on many occasions. The bracketbuster was a unique and forward thinking concept developed in part by our conference. The event gradually deteriorated, but It had benefits for everyone at its inception. It didn't anymore, and now its gone.
(5) The Tv Deal. The remarkably weak TV deal, which consisted primarily of the MVC buying time on regional FSN/Comcast, for games that were not even seen in large parts of the country. To make matters worse, the conference did not give the limited TV spots to its best teams each year, but instead made sure that everybody got a chance to be on TV. While this may have given everybody a nice warm fuzzy feeling, it proves to be a waste of limited resources as a casual fan is not going to tune into a televised game between two MVC play-in teams going at it on a Sunday afternoon. As a result, your best programs miss out on a chance of increased exposure and the conference as a whole gets nothing for the game as nobody tunes in to see two programs with losing records.
What exactly are you implying here? That the conference conspired to get a worse TV deal than they were capable? I mean, really? The market dictates this stuff. I guarantee you that they did everything in their power to get the conference on TV as much as possible.
(6) Unwillingness to help move conference games so that member schools can ink home and home deals with BCS schools or schools with national reputations. On at least two occasions in the last decade, Creighton had a chance to schedule a home and home with a national power (one time it was Georgetown, the other time was Gonzaga). In both instances, the games would have had to have been played on December dates where conference games were already locked in. Creighton asked the fellow conference schools to move the games, but they both refused (I remember one school was MSU when Barry was still there, but do not recall the other school involved). CU then appealed to the league office, but the league refused to do anything about it. As a result, Creighton lost out on home and home series with these two schools, which would have helped bolster SOS/RPI numbers, plus result in additional revenues (ticket sales) than a typical opponent would have garnered. I suspect other MVC schools probably experienced the same thing. If the league was really interested in increasing its profile, it should have stepped in and made the other schools move the games for the overall benefit of the conference as a whole. The Horizon league, CUSA and A10 have been known to do such things in the past, but not the MVC.
This, to me, is one of the most laughable things you have said on here. Do you know how complicated it is to make schedules like this (for the conference and the schools)? And why,
WHY would any other team move their games to accommodate Creighton's schedule??? Do you not understand how silly that is?
This is absolutely hilarious to me because if it were the other way around and, say, Indiana State asked Creighton to move their game so ISU could schedule some other game, I
guarantee you and Creighton would laugh right in their face. You would likely come on here posting about how low rent this conference is because Indiana State had the audacity Creighton to move a game for their benefit.
