Redhawk wrote:Cdizzle wrote:The MVC isn't a BIG pond right now. It's a small pond with WSU. It's a puddle if WSU leaves.
That's cute Cdizzle!
Trying to make point that a conference of Larger State Universities and Smaller Privates
is destined to fail because they are not peer institutions grouped together for mutual sucess.
If you are familiar with the famous MidMajority Redline essay about college athletic budgets it was determined that a High Major spent over 40 Mil, Mid-Major 25 Mil and anything under was just a Major.
In the current MVC only WSU, ISUr and MSU exceed 25 mil in athletic revenues. UNI and SIU are both close to that level though. ISUb is around 15 Mil and Privates are all range from 10-13 Mil. Therefore there are 5 public state universities in the Valley that spend almost double what the Privates do and it shows in the MVC All Sports Trophy standings. The XDSU's (both above 22 Mil) are so much more attractive additions because they will lift the boat of all sports programs by making the pond (or puddle if you prefer) bigger.
If we keep adding schools like Valpo (12 Mil) and Belmont (10 Mil) they might as well change the league name to HWC...Horizon West Conference!
Overall athletic budgets and All-Sports Standings mean little to the current makeup of the MVC. It is a basketball, and only basketball driven conference. UNI Wrestling, Loyola Volleyball, Evansville Soccer, etc mean little to the conference, and certainly has no bearing on where it evolves. If you are expecting the conference to expand based on anything besides basketball, it simply won't work. Overall athletic budgets and enrollments of several of the Big East schools would fall short as well. Who cares in terms of basketball?
For the MVC to survive, and possibly flourish in it's current state, you have to add the best you can in basketball period, which at this point, leads to Valpo and Belmont. If you want to blow it up, elevate the MVFC schools to FBS, then that is a completely different story.