CUSA news

[TheMoody1]

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/05/odu-con ... ts-network

For the first time in more than a year, Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig attended conference meetings last week in which realignment and expansion were not the primary focus of discussion.

“There was virtually no discussion on expansion,” Selig said after he returned from three days of Conference USA meetings in Destin, Fla. late last week.

“It was nice to have a meeting not dominated by conference realignment.”

ODU will be among six schools that joins Conference USA on July 1 because of realignment. Shortly after Houston, Central Florida, Memphis and SMU announced more than a year ago that they were leaving for what was then known as the Big East, C-USA responded by inviting ODU, North Carolina-Charlotte, Louisiana Tech, Texas San-Antonio, Florida International and North Texas.

Since then, East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa have announced they are leaving C-USA in 2014 to join the renamed Big East, now the American Athletic Conference. C-USA responded by inviting Florida Atlantic and Middle Tennessee State, which also join in July. Western Kentucky joins in 2014.

James Madison, Georgia State, Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State are often mentioned as potential expansion candidates. ODU would push hard for JMU should the Dukes decide to jump leagues.

But with a 14-member conference set for 2014, Selig said the league is taking it slowly on further expansion.

That’s in part because an agreement among ACC schools to forfeit future television revenue if a school decides to leave has ended any speculation that Clemson, North Carolina, Virginia Tech or Florida State might bolt. Moving to a new conference would cost them tens of millions of dollars.

“I was so glad to see that,” Selig said. “It brought some stability back to college athletics.”

Much of last week’s meetings focused on television contracts.

Conference USA has deals with regional Fox Sports networks and the CBS Sports Network that provide about $14 million in revenue per year. Combined with the NCAA distribution of basketball tournament revenue, each school receives around $1.5 million in conference revenue.

Fox and CBS officials attended the meetings, Selig said. Fox officials told Conference USA that the league will have a high-profile role on that company’s new national network, Fox Sports 1, which is envisioned as a competitor for ESPN. Selig said that network will be a part of local cable TV packages in Hampton Roads.

College football and basketball will be a major part of the network’s lineup, with games being broadcast primarily on Thursday and Saturday. There will be weekend highlights shows featuring the Pac-12, Big 12 and Conference USA.

The network will feature dozens of regular-season Major League Baseball games, some divisional baseball playoffs, NASCAR, soccer and boxing, in addition to college sports. The network will debut on Aug. 17.

“It will be a 24-hour sports network that will go into 90 million homes,” Selig said. “ESPN is in more than 100 million homes, so that gives us quite an opportunity to enhance our visibility.”

The CBS Sports Network is received in about 50 million homes, he said. “That’s not quite ESPN numbers, but it’s still a greatcoverage area for Conference USA,” he said.

The league dealt with several issues related to men’s and women’s basketball:

* East Carolina will be ODU’s “travel partner” for men’s and women’s basketball, meaning ODU will play the Pirates in Greenville and in Norfolk in both sports. Marshall had been designated as ODU’s partner, but that was changed because ODU and ECU are just 2 ½ hours apart. ODU will play all other 14 C-USA teams once.

* C-USA appears likely to divide into two divisions and play a 19-game conference schedule in men’s and women’s basketball in 2014-2015. ODU would play all six East Division teams twice and the 7 West Division opponents once. “We had some conversations and there appears to be some sentiment in the conference to do that,” Selig said.

C-USA will play a 16-game conference schedule in 2013-2014. Selig said he probably would be in favor of the 19-game schedule.

Assuming there’s no more conference realignment, here’s how the conferences would break down in 2014 in football and men's and women's basketball. Charlotte, it should be noted, doesn't begin playing Conference USA football until 2015..

East: ODU, Charlotte, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Florida International, Florida Atlantic.

West: Alabama-Birmingham, Southern Mississippi, Louisiana Tech, Rice, North Texas, Texas-El Paso, Texas-San Antonio.

* Men’s basketball will play conference games on Thursday and Saturday, in part because Thursday is a day when few major conferences play. That will give the conference better TV exposure, help reduced missed class time and travel costs and might also help the league get better officiating, Selig said.

Here’s a scenario that shows how travel partners could work with the new schedule: ODU would travel to Florida International on a Thursday and then nearby Florida Atlantic on Saturday before flying home, A week later, Texas-El Paso would come to play ODU on a Thursday, then bus to East Carolina on Saturday before returning to Norfolk and flying back to Texas.

* Women’s basketball coaches agreed to play conference games on Wednesday and Saturday and will not have travel partners. That will mark a big change for the ODU women, who traditionally played Colonial Athletic Association games on Sunday. The CAA scheduled Sunday games in part to avoid conflicts with men’s basketball and in part to get games on television.

Selig said that the conference will track travel costs and missed class time for both men’s and women’s basketball “at the end of the year to find out if one model is more favorable than the other.”

* ODU will host the2014 C-USA women’s tennis tournament. ODU also unsuccessfully bid to host men’s and women’s soccer.

* All 16 men’s and women’s basketball teams will compete next March in the C-USA tournaments, to be held the same week in El Paso, Texas. Selig said he pushed to have all 16 teams go to the tournament – in previous years, only 12 teams went.

“We felt like in year one, let’s go ahead and take everyone to UTEP,” he said. “We want to do everything we can to help develop rivalries.”

Selig on other subjects:

* He said the ODU women’s basketball non-conference schedule for next season is one game away from being completed and that “it will be a demanding schedule with some very attractive games for our fans.” He said the men’s team has several slots to fill and that it will also “be a very attractive schedule.” The conference schedules won’t be complete until mid to late summer.

* The starting time for ODU home football games probably won’t be announced until late June. ODU is working on televising a couple of home games and until those plans are firmed up, Selig said times won’t be announced. “Once we put a time out there, it’s very difficult to get it back,” he said.

* Selig said ODU might bid to host the 2015 Conference USA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The dates likely would conflict with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament already scheduled for Scope, and that might be problematic since C-USA would need two venues -- one for the men and one for the women.

Selig suggested that ODU’s Ted Constant Convocation Center and the Hampton Coliseum might suffice. ODU would also need help from the VisitNorfolk, the city’s visitors and convention bureau, and would need some corporate sponsorship.

“I want to take a look at it,” he said “We have so many hotels available here, from Virginia Beach to Norfolk to Williamsburg. We have a good airport here. Our staff is very familiar with running NCAA quality events. It would be a great event for the community and for the league.”

Nashville, according to reports in the Tennessee and Kentucky media, appears virtually certain to bid for the tournament. Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky are a short drive from Nashville. Western Kentucky plays a home football game against Kentucky in Nashville this fall.

[kiddbrewer]

It's good to see that CUSA has taken the hint and stopped at 14 for now. Maybe, just maybe, that might give the Sun Belt some stability.

On a side note, I find it interesting that the Sun Belt and CUSA both held their meetings in Destin, FL.

[moehler]

not the news JMU fans want to hear, things change, but at this moment it looks like they will stay in the CAA longer than they hoped.