MplsBison

I believe the plan was to require a 30 year agreement.

Throw in the fact that there will no longer be automatic qualifying criteria for the champions of these ridiculous cross country leagues to the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls and it makes it even more ridiculous. In that case, if you're in the FBS and not in a conference that will be able to sign deals with major $$$ bowls, you're screwed. So why not at least stick to a regional conference and save money on travel. Save it up for a mid or lower tier bowl game that will still get 10x the marketing and general public interest than the FCS playoffs.

Can't see how the Big Sky can tell Davis and Poly that it's ok for them to be football only and Big West bball while then denying that same opportunity to Sac St. Also can't see Idaho football in the FCS, too much pride and investment to take a step back to a DII level (in their eyes).

No AQ if not ranked high enough doesn't solve the problem they profess trying to solve. They want to stop conferences from grabbing teams for the sake of preserving the AQ. I do think it makes sense to have the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta sign their own contracts with conferences. Boise won't get any help even if they go to the Big East. None of those bowls are going to sign deals with that conference.

The AQ's being eliminated has to be a huge disappointment for the smaller teams and conferences. There basically is no more such thing as what Boise St has done. Part of their big success was being able to play a weak WAC schedule, be ranked in the top whatever and then go to a BCS bowl because of that ranking. No more. Every bowl will do its own contracts with conferences like the non-BCS bowls do now. Only the big boy conferences are going to have access to the big money bowls. Boise will be back to playing in the Humanitarian Bowl every year, unless somehow, someway they can get a #2 or #1 ranking. I can't see that happening unless they go independent and have a Notre Dame type schedule, then go undefeated.

It sounds like pretty soon there isn't going to be such a thing as a BCS bowl or a BCS conference anymore. It's going back to the way it was before the Bowl Alliance began - the Big 10 and Pac 10 will each have contracts to send teams to the Rose Bowl every year, the Big XII will contract with the Fiesta Bowl, ACC with the Orange and SEC with the Sugar. Plus all the contracts for all the bowls and conferences for the lower bowls. Then all the BCS is going to do is pair the #1 and #2 teams in a game played somewhere each year (not in a bowl) to determine a champion of the FBS division.

It does mean that adding Boise and BYU to the Big East is no longer necessary in the sense of the conference maintaining their auto-bid. Every conference would sign independent contracts with bowls to send teams to play in the bowl games. Then any FBS conference could theoretically produce the #1 or #2 ranked team for the BCS bowl. However in practice, none of your conference's teams can ever really get to #1 or #2 unless the in-conference games are perceived as difficult enough. So in the strength of schedule sense, it still does make sense for the Big East to add Boise and BYU. So then, I wonder what the hold-up is about. Is the MWC trying to make some desperate last minute appeal to Boise and BYU, at least for football only - keeping in mind the possible new BCS configuration? If there is no longer going to be automatic access for Boise and BYU to the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta Bowls via winning the Big East -- then what good does it do to fly their football teams 3/4 the way across the nation every other week? If BYU and Boise played 4 top quality schools in non-conference and went undefeated, I have to think they would get a fair chance at a #1 or #2 ranking even in the MWC conf.

Not directly related to conference realignment, but would be a significant change http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7248953/bcs-proposes-only-handling-national-championship-game-sources-say Basically it means there are no more auto-bids for any conference to the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls. Those bowls would do their own TV contracts and their own tie-in deals with conferences, like the rest of the bowls do now. I like the idea, but you have to think that something with the potential to affect so much money is going to be fought hard. Status quo rules the day when it puts millions in your pocket.

I'd trade NKU to the OVC for EIU (plus a spot for them in the MVFC) any day.

How would you like to be the Mountain West? You go from one day being on the verge of a BCS auto-bid with powerful programs like BYU, Utah, TCU and soon adding Boise to the next day being left with San Diego, Wyoming, Colo St, New Mexico and UNLV (of which the latter two are a couple of the worst programs in FBS) and having to add a bunch of WAC schools just to stay afloat. I suppose it could be worse, they could actually be the WAC. The WAC will take Boise's non-football sports to go along with Idaho, Seattle, Denver and New Mexico St, La Tech with the new Texas schools. I don't see La Tech, NMSU or Idaho having any other options but to stay in the WAC and make the best of it. Obviously they'll try again to add Montana schools, maybe Portland State? Port St - Seattle, Idaho - Boise, NM St - Denver, UTA - LA Tech, UTSA - TX St, Mont - MSU 12 bball, 8 football -- they could do worse.

Providence and Georgetown?

Indiana St is very close and a very similar school and program to EIU. They have a rivalry now with Illinois St and the games with Southern Ill and Western Ill would be no brainers. SIUE does not play football and the Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama schools are the wrong culture for EIU. I for one will be rooting for EIU in the Summit and MVFC.

Technically not oil, but thought this might be an appropriate thread. Don't assume automatically that it's an anti-petrochemical piece just because it's published in the NYT. It's not. It's something I've said before: fracking can be ok as long as appropriate and reasonable regulation is in place. We can't trust the companies to do it the right way on their own, but it shouldn't be banned. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/brooks-the-shale-gas-revolution.html?src=me&ref=general

Figured I'd check in on this thread to read about the Big East, Big XII, etc. But, it's more of the same as the last thread (despite the warning in the OP): garbage fake statistics and false arguments about how UND must focus on western ND and how the Big Sky is the only possible choice. All you need to know is that Star2 has emotionally invested himself into hating the Summit league because he's bitter about the nickname retirement. He'll go to any length to prevent UND from joining that conference. That's apparent, just read the lengths he goes in his posts to pigeonhole UND into the Big Sky - regardless if there are Montana schools there or not. Just look at this picture, does this make any sense to you?!

UND is in Grand Forks, right? As in, a city on the eastern border with Minnesota?

Maybe if UND had been in the Big Sky for the last 20 years, with great established rivalries with Montana and Montana St could you propose tagging along. But you haven't even played a game in the conference yet. It's absurd trying to link yourself to UM/MSU already. You've never been in a conf with them. You're a central time zone, historically midwestern conference school while the Montana's are mountain time zone, historically western US conference schools. UND's roots are still in the Dakotas, not the western US. Maybe it's time for you to pull your head out of the (Big Sky) clouds and return to your roots? The Summit will be waiting when Montana's leave the Big Sky. Hopefully NDSU will back UND for MVFC membership as well.

Obviously then the correct answer is for the city government to disallow greed-lusting apartment owners from agreeing to such ridiculous terms. I know people who worship growth as the end all, be all of capitalist utopia will not agree - but unchecked, unplanned growth is not something to be excited about. It's something to be guarded against.

They can use actual attendance or tickets sold, to meet 15k. However I think that if they use tickets sold then only tickets sold for some minimum fraction of the most expensive ticket count (in other words, can't just give them away for free).

Their record crowd is just over 15k including the grass berm, so certainly the stadium seats less than 15k officially. Other than the press box and the video board, the stadium is 100% high school style construction. CHEAP Alerus is better, hands down.

Those sound like great upgrades for USD. I was surprised to learn how much smaller the two research universities in South Dakota are compared to the two research universities in North Dakota - particularly USD. Looks like the regional colleges in SD have more enrollment and pull than the regional colleges in ND and that makes up the difference. In particular, SD Mines has the other accredited engineering school in SD instead of USD, where as UND has the other accredited engineering school in ND. But I'm sure both a looking for growth opportunities that have come with the DI move.

Great points and you're correct about the need for amenities at bball games in order for UND bball to maximize revenue. But the problem still remains: you already have a perfectly good arena with those amenities. The REA can host bball and hockey in the same weekend. It's hardly the impossible job you're making it out to be. All you do is lay down something on the ice and lay the bball floor on top of it. You're probably talking about a matter of hours to set-up/take-down. Men's and women's bball could play a 12:30 - 2:30 double header and the ice would be ready for a 7:00 night game on a Saturday - I really don't think that would be hard to do.

Clouds?

What does enrollment growth have to do with anything? If you don't have space - why keep cramming in more students? Do you have some sort of misguided assumption that in general growth is good, flat is bad and negative means start firing people? It's not like the higher education needs of ND high school graduates are going unmet. Any enrollment growth is students enrolling from outside of ND. The only enrollment they should be trying to grow is graduate enrollment. Without grad students, the school can not expand research and can not compete for research grants.

What you say makes sense, but at the same time you are going to have a very hard go of it trying to convince most people that UND/Grand Forks needs both the Ralph and a new 6k arena with the same amenities as the Ralph. It just isn't going to look good, no matter how well you explain the need. Not when several arenas host NBA, NHL and more - seems like there should be a way to host both college hockey (full arena) and college basketball (lower arena only) in the same arena. Sans a new bball arena - I think UND next big money item is a bball practice facility. Maybe the "Phil Jackson Center?"

Regardless, you will have to admit that the Alerus site has ample parking and tailgating right at the stadium. No such opportunity exists for the Memorial site.