Brand Name Games

[zooropa]

Re: Brand Name Games

NCAA regs: only one MTE (multi-team event) per season, and I think the big names prefer going some place warm.......

[rcjacks]

Re: Brand Name Games

OTOH, most of the seat revenue for a basketball school is from season tickets, not walk up sales; which means that a certain amount of revenue is guaranteed regardless of whether the team plays 18 home games during the season or 19.

That means a guarantee must cover: lost walk-up sales and lost concession revenue minus (of course) the costs of using the facility, as well as travel costs and perhaps some additional palm grease.

Some basketball schools will see things that way, other schools will not. The ability to put together a common-sense and financially profitable package is no guarantee that a program's coach & AD will buy into it. OTOH, the fact that a basketball program has a certain amount of prestige is no guarantee that they will balk at such a deal either.

A new arena would make it possible for the Jacks to put a return trip on the table as part of their negotiations with basketball schools.

In any event, I think the Jacks need to seriously reconsider the number of guarantee games that they play, as it really skews perception of the program---both inside and outside of it.

Season ticket prices are based on the number of home games. The more home games the more money a team makes. That means a guarantee game must also cover the lost revenue for the decreased season ticket sales as well. I know first hand as I used to have season tickets to a big time basketball program.

The Star Tribune had an article in today's paper about the U of M's guaranteed games. SDSU got $50,000 for their trip to Minnesota, far less than the other guaranteed games Minnesota had on their schedule.

[zooropa]

Re: Brand Name Games

SDSU got $50,000 for their trip to Minnesota, far less than the other guaranteed games Minnesota had on their schedule.

See, that's got to stop. No wonder Tubby has good words for Nagy after every game.

[Jacks99]

Re: Brand Name Games

What are the major benefits of playing in a MTE? Fun trip for the staff and team? Easy scheduled games? $?

[jack power]

Re: Brand Name Games

What are the major benefits of playing in a MTE? Fun trip for the staff and team? Easy scheduled games? $?

Coach Nagy mentioned one reason they like to play Minny, is because of recruiting.

[joeboo22]

Re: Brand Name Games

What are the major benefits of playing in a MTE? Fun trip for the staff and team? Easy scheduled games? $?

I don't know about money because until 5-7 years ago there was only a few of them... now there is a ton of them...

I think the main reasons are

1. easy way to schedule 2-3 games
2. somewhat of a vacation for players and coaches
3. you learn a lot about your team when you are taking them away for 4-5 days, having them play 2-3 games in 3-4 days and so on...

[hoops_guy]

Re: Brand Name Games

What are the major benefits of playing in a MTE? Fun trip for the staff and team? Easy scheduled games? $?

One huge reason is getting to play 2-3 mid-major or high-major opponents on a neutral floor.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: Brand Name Games

Couldn't we put the screws, so to speak, to some of our MVFC football foes for 1-1's in basketball?
Teams from the Valley that already know us:

Northern Iowa
Illinois State
Indiana State
Missouri State
Southern Illinois

Teams with a strong tie in their athletic department:

Creighton

In theory, that's 6 respectable schools from a decent conference who we could schedule annual 1-1 games with, 3 at home, 3 on the road. At the very least, we should be able to work out 1-1's with at least 4 of the 6 every year.

The Missouri Valley, like the Summit, is constantly trying to raise the profile of their conference, but I'm sure each of these schools has at least one SDSU-type team on their schedule. Might as well be us, and we would probably draw better than schools their fans are less familiar with for their home end of the 1-1's.

I'm sure their are intricacies to scheduling that I don't understand, but it makes sense to me.

[HoboJack]

Re: Brand Name Games

Scheduling games against MVC teams will be much easier when we can consistently get our RPI in the top 200. Teams in the major conferences aren't as concerned about a couple of games agianst sub 200 teams, because their conference RPI/schedule will make up for it. MVC teams are very careful about not scheduling these teams since it hurts the entire conferences RPI & reduces their chance for additional at-large bids, even when they win the games.

I remember reading on the Valleytalk message board after we beat UNI two years ago, and fans from the other MVC teams were irked that 1.) UNI was beaten by SDSU, and 2.) moreso that they even scheduled a road game against a perrenial sub 250 RPI team. The MVC has gained the respect it has in large part by scheduling not necessarily just to win, but to make sure they get quality wins. I think we can get there, but it will take a couple of years of showing improvement on the mens side to make this happen.

[joeboo22]

Re: Brand Name Games

Scheduling games against MVC teams will be much easier when we can consistently get our RPI in the top 200. Teams in the major conferences aren't as concerned about a couple of games agianst sub 200 teams, because their conference RPI/schedule will make up for it. MVC teams are very careful about not scheduling these teams since it hurts the entire conferences RPI & reduces their chance for additional at-large bids, even when they win the games.

I remember reading on the Valleytalk message board after we beat UNI two years ago, and fans from the other MVC teams were irked that 1.) UNI was beaten by SDSU, and 2.) moreso that they even scheduled a road game against a perrenial sub 250 RPI team. The MVC has gained the respect it has in large part by scheduling not necessarily just to win, but to make sure they get quality wins. I think we can get there, but it will take a couple of years of showing improvement on the mens side to make this happen.

yeah the MVC has found a way to manipulate their RPI by only scheduling top 100 RPI teams....

[zooropa]

Re: Brand Name Games

Think it's more like the Valley schedules low level teams from BCS conferences. They're easier to beat, and with 50% of your RPI coming from the your W/L and 25% coming from your opponents' opponents' W/L.....

Say you play UCF and beat them. You get the benefit of the win on your RPI, and you get the benefit of the combined winning percentage of their opponents, which will include the major players in the Big East.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: Brand Name Games

Here's a list of some of the teams Missouri Valley schools played in November with the pomeroy ranking from last season. To be sure, there were a some major/high mid major teams too, but there were also quite a few DII schools they played. All in all, there is no reason based on rankings alone that SDSU shouldn't push some of their football foes in The Valley for home and home basketball series.

Denver--205
SIU Edwardsville--314
Fairleigh Dickinson--333
Florida A&M--331
Georgia State--219
Maryland Eastern Shore--341
North Florida--335
Wofford--233
Eastern Michigan--306
Coastal Carolina--290
Presbyterian--268
Norfolk State--297
Southeast Missouri State--332

This season, the Valley has two games against IUPUI (178), 1 against UMKC (283), 1 against NDSU (65), 2 against UND, 1 against USD, and 1 against Oral Roberts (87).

IMO, we should be able to twist some arms and get some Valley schools to play us on a regular basis.

[HoboJack]

Re: Brand Name Games

Thanks for the research SF Rabbit Fan. I must say I'm a little surprised at some of the names on the list. The official MVC policy on non-conference scheduling is in section 4.1.2 of their mens basketball manual:
http://www.mvc.org/manual/mbb.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=7600

Interesting excerpt:

"Annually at the spring meeting, administrators will identify their contracted games and share their institutional men’s basketball scheduling objectives."

It doesn't specify any oversight, but each team has to be able to defend who they have on their schedule.

Any scheduling that is done must be mutually beneficial to both parties, otherwise it won't happen. I think we will schedule more MVC foes in the future, but I don't see us being in a possition to pressure UNI/SIU/ISU, etc. into annual basketball games, or necessarily into Home & Home contracts. For the most part we are not in recruiting hotbeds for them, they don't have a large alumni bases here, and travel is not exactly easy from there to here. Scheduling them consistently will not likely happen as quickly as most of our fans would like.

[HoboJack]

Re: Brand Name Games

Just because I was curious, I looked at where the games SF Rabbit Fan mentioned were played:

Denver--205 UNI (@Denver)
SIU Edwardsville--314 @ Drake @ Evansville, Illinois St. ( @SIU)
Fairleigh Dickinson--333 @ Witchita St.
Florida A&M--331 @Creighton
Georgia State--219 ?? Georgia Southern @ Evansville?
Maryland Eastern Shore--341 @ Missouri St.
North Florida--335 @ Ill St.
Wofford--233 @Bradley
Eastern Michigan--306 @ Missouri St.
Coastal Carolina--290 VS. In St. (NEUT MVC Tournament)
Presbyterian--268 @Bradley
Norfolk State--297 @ Ill St.
Southeast Missouri State--332 @ Ill. St.

Summary of the 15 games only 2 were played at the non MVC opponents place.

MVC Non-Conference Game locations:
Bradley 5 Home, 4 away, 1 NEUT
Creighton 5 Home, 3 away, 3 NEUT
Drake 7 Home ( Incl IUPUI, UND, USD), 2 away, 3 NEUT
Evansville 6 Home, 4 away
Illinois State 7 Home, 4 away
Indiana State 5 Home ( Incl. IUPUI, ORU), 4 away, 2 NEUT
Missouri State 7 Home, 4 Away
Northern Iowa 5 Home, 3 away, 2 Neut (one away is UND)
Southern Illinois 4 Home, 3 way, 2 NEUT
Wichita State 8 Home (NDSU), 2 away (UMKC), 2 NEUT

MVC played 59 home games, 33 away, & 15 neutral site games so far in non-conference play. This would lead me to believe that most of the lower rated teams are either 2 for 1's, or gaurantee games.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: Brand Name Games

Points well taken. Its probably a good thing for a conference to review schedules and encourage weaker schools to improve. I think The Summit Plan calls for the same type of thing.

It still seems that with current relationships established with 5 MVC schools and a strong athletic department tie in at least 1 other, we could work something out. Even if it were a 1 and 1 over 4 years, we would get a bunch of meaningful games (both for the program and for fans) on the schedule that are relatively close to home and should draw decent crowds.

Something like this:

Year 1- Illinois State, @Indiana State
Year 2- Missouri State, @UNI
Year 3- SIU, @Creighton
Year 4- Indiana State, @Illinois State
Year 5- UNI, @Missouri State
Year 6- Creighton, @ SIU

So each year, MVC teams only have to play us two times, but we get a home non-conference game that would be draw a good crowd. Since all of these schools are playing several teams at/below SDSU already, it could be a win/win for both sides.