[quote="Drakey"]The high-major, mid-major, lpw-major labels have always been based on conference affiliation, not by specific teams. They are not based on your record. If Indiana goes on a five year streak of being just horrible, and not as good as most teams in the Valley, they will not be considered a mid-major or low-major. If elon goes undefeated for the next 3 years they will not be considered a high major.[/quote]
This is the correct answer. The thread could be closed after this post.
That being said, there's no reason why a program in a mid-major conference cannot outperform, outspend, and "out media" schools from the major conferences. When that occurs, a school's fanbase can promote the narrative that their program is a major trapped in a mid-major conference a la Wichita State, Gonzaga, Memphis (back in CUSA).
Low/mid-major labels were created by sports television execs in order to allow them to package their product more effectively. They've spent billions on the rights to broadcast a product, the last thing they want is their customers becoming confused as to what they should be watching. ESPN says you should be watching Duke, not Dayton. That's the beauty of the NCAA tournament, it offers an opportunity for the truly great programs to shine... although that can be stifled as well via the seeding process which I believe is still influenced by the broadcasters even though it's not supposed to be. I suspect the metrics by which "NCAA caliber" teams are measured were created in cooperation with the networks for the sole purpose of discriminating against teams that aren't in their broadcasting package. RPI was very effective for this purpose until it was hacked.
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