hardw0od said

The Burrow? Your Baseball field? Better?


Your football is great, but it is the only example where one of your stadiums in vastly superior.

Disclaimer should have been offered on my post…apologies.

Baseball, no.

Your facility is far superior….

Football, and basketball - again drawing on the revenue sports only - believe FAU has the upper hand.

But baseball, soccer, and swimming is not going to even be considered in a high level decision.

Let's also remember that while football is the driving force - C USA will improve sports all around. C USA basketball is vastly superior to the Belt. And the academic standing of the universities is also just better, plain and simple. And more national exposure (the Belt has virtually none) is just a benefit to a university as a whole. I don't necessarily buy the Miami TV argument too much, being we are essentially in the same market being in South Florida (albeit not in the heart of Dade).

It is not a humungous step up. But for a fledgling program that wants to position itself for the future (something we have gone on and on about on this forum for years), this was a move that we shouldn't have messed up. FAU has "caught a L(oss)" on this one. We have to move on and try to correct what went wrong these past few years that put us in this situation, but changes in direction have to be made immediately.  There is also the (slight) possibility that we could move down to FCS in a few years if the situation does not improve, and that will be wholly unacceptable.  

hardw0od said

Rick said

hardw0od said

I'd just like to clear a few things up here…


The reason that we are moving on to C-USA has a lot to do with our AD

The reason you are moving to CUSA is solely due to one thing:

TV Market.

That's it.

It has nothing to do with AD, ours was talking with them just as much initially. What caught the eye is TV Market, and the dollars they would be able to get back.

All the other stuff is great, but they obviously were not interested in facilities, as FAU's are better across the board.

It has nothing to do with wins, we have the advantage in football hands down, and men's basketball as well - the only two true revenue sports.

Scheduling is mute, because, again, your records in the two sports that count are not equal.

Not trying to rain on the parade, congrats that you reside in Miami, and could get the deal done by pulling from that factor!

The Burrow? Your Baseball field? Better?


Your football is great, but it is the only example where one of your stadiums in vastly superior.



Yeah the TV market thing had a lot to do with it, but Palm Beach/Broward is nothing to scoff at. Not to mention that C-USA has taken many teams in the past decade with crappy TV markets. In any case good luck in the 'Belt and we will see you in Boca later this year.

Both make good points.  I have to imagine that the Conf USA decision makers think of Broward as part of your market, not realizing its truly ours (we even have a campus or two down there).  Point is, they dont realize the target audience for FAU is Broward up through the Treasure Coast if they got to a large enough conference that the games matter to the average fan.

There is no way FIU will EVER capture the Broward market.  People in Fort Lauderdale consider FAU their local college, not FIU.  You guys are competing with UM and all the professional sports teams.  Without being sour (because I really dont think its that big a deal, getting to a BCS conf is the real game changer) I believe they made a huge mistake not taking FAU and will realize it shortly.

Old Dominion was missing from making the commitment to CUSA leaving them at 13 programs (12 currently until Charlotte gets going). So they need one more but can wait a few years before deciding and adding.
Besides, chances that ECU and S. Miss and even Tulsa are still there in two years is actually fairly small. And at that point does it really matter much? All the good programs in CUSA will have made their jump up by then so at that point what will be the difference between CUSA and the Belt?

Very valued points. Forty million for a eight thousand seat arena next to our stadium would be nice. Aint going to happen till we get an AD in who knows what the hell he/she is doing. We all know the football team needs to win to bring money into the department for anything to happen to the rest of our facilities though.

GeorgiaOwl said

 All the good programs in CUSA will have made their jump up by then so at that point what will be the difference between CUSA and the Belt?

While there might not be, C USA is simply a better organized conference (not even taking the schools into consideration). A school that plays in Conf USA will have a better opportunity to succeed than one in the Belt (there are more 'tools' to utilize being in a Conf that has more recognition, better infrastructure/organization etc). Hopefully what you are saying comes to pass, but when these mega conferences start being created in a few years (if it does happen), we have to position ourselves to be as marketable as possible. We would be more marketable in C USA - imho.

D-owl, you should put in for AD. lol. Could we get everyone the board together in one place and maybe hold our own fundraising campaign and maybe present it to the department? or is that in violation of the "ethic" rules the NCAA has.

walty12 said

hardw0od said

Rick said

hardw0od said

I'd just like to clear a few things up here…


The reason that we are moving on to C-USA has a lot to do with our AD

The reason you are moving to CUSA is solely due to one thing:

TV Market.

That's it.

It has nothing to do with AD, ours was talking with them just as much initially. What caught the eye is TV Market, and the dollars they would be able to get back.

All the other stuff is great, but they obviously were not interested in facilities, as FAU's are better across the board.

It has nothing to do with wins, we have the advantage in football hands down, and men's basketball as well - the only two true revenue sports.

Scheduling is mute, because, again, your records in the two sports that count are not equal.

Not trying to rain on the parade, congrats that you reside in Miami, and could get the deal done by pulling from that factor!

The Burrow? Your Baseball field? Better?


Your football is great, but it is the only example where one of your stadiums in vastly superior.



Yeah the TV market thing had a lot to do with it, but Palm Beach/Broward is nothing to scoff at. Not to mention that C-USA has taken many teams in the past decade with crappy TV markets. In any case good luck in the 'Belt and we will see you in Boca later this year.

Both make good points.  I have to imagine that the Conf USA decision makers think of Broward as part of your market, not realizing its truly ours (we even have a campus or two down there).  Point is, they dont realize the target audience for FAU is Broward up through the Treasure Coast if they got to a large enough conference that the games matter to the average fan.

There is no way FIU will EVER capture the Broward market.  People in Fort Lauderdale consider FAU their local college, not FIU.  You guys are competing with UM and all the professional sports teams.  Without being sour (because I really dont think its that big a deal, getting to a BCS conf is the real game changer) I believe they made a huge mistake not taking FAU and will realize it shortly.

^^^ Exactly (with respect to the Broward market). FAU (in my opinion) has the ability to capture the entire South Florida market more than FIU. Palm Beach/Treasure Coast etc coupled with Broward and what we could get in Dade would be virtually untapped. Being kind of in the Miami area but being in Palm Beach/Broward would have been something that should have been sold to C USA. I honestly can't believe that was not brought up in talks.

USMCOWL said

D-owl, you should put in for AD. lol. Could we get everyone the board together in one place and maybe hold our own fundraising campaign and maybe present it to the department? or is that in violation of the "ethic" rules the NCAA has.

LOL! One thing I can tell you - alum fundraising is very difficult at fau. That might change in the near future given the growth of the university in the past decade, and the subsequent creation of an alumni base who may have more 'school spirit'. We should hope.

I would love to see businesses around the campus say to the university we want you to move up to another conference, so our business will go up. Or the alumni say we are tired for paying for the programs to be stuck in the belt, change the way or no more money. That is why we as fans on the board here, have to take action on our own.