Posts tagged with ‘college football’

BYU goes independent

One of the first football games I went to at the University of Wyoming was against Brigham Young University. The taunts hurled in their direction from the student section are not quite fit for a family publication.

In any case, the Cougars of BYU are leaving the friendly confines of the Mountain West Conference after this season, choosing instead to strike it on their own as an independent, opting instead for the West Coast Conference for all sports besides football.

This move is huge for the fledging WCC, which is made up of private religious schools that are similar in size. Having recently opted not to expand as recently as June, the conference changed its tune quickly when the possibility of BYU joining fell into their lap after the collapse of the Western Athletic Conference.

Most of the fallout seems to be that it doesn’t make any competitive sense for BYU to do this. Except, none of the realignment moves that have happened this year have absolutely anything to do with competitiveness. They have everything to do with money. College sports fans desperately want to believe in the purity of the game, because it makes them feel better when contrasted against the backdrop of holdouts, lockouts and performance enhancing drugs of the pro ranks.

This move makes a ton of sense for BYU in the short term. It’s unlikely the BCS Board of Directors will give BYU much in the way of concessions related to access to BCS bowl games beyond the standard “finish in the Top 14” that they had while in the Mountain West. But the school can schedule whoever it wants. They’ll have help, partnering with ESPN to broadcast their BYU-TV games and that will help tons to create some marquee matchups. Still, the BYU name doesn’t have the same cache as Notre Dame (even if BYU has been a lot better over the past decade) and it’ll be difficult to convert eyeballs west of the Mississippi.

Still, the Mountain West’s horrible TV deal was the sticking point here. It was hampering BYU’s own goals with marketing itself. Worst case scenario, the two parties kiss and make up within a decade in some kind of new conference realignment. Best case? BYU has great success and manages to position itself beyond what it could’ve done as a member of fledging leagues.

I’ve been hypercritical of the Mountain West leadership for being conservative during the quiet period. Boise State should’ve been invited years ago and they would have been smart to position that league well before Utah had a chance to bolt. But their missteps are coming back to haunt them now. The league will be a 10-team league next year, which is still one team more than they’ll have this season. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they found a way to expand to 12 teams before the dust settles.

No matter what, the league they’re inheriting isn’t as good as the one they are leaving behind. Meanwhile, the WAC will need a hail mary to ensure it’s own survival. I suspect UT-San Antonio will join the league and at least one other Texas school to prevent the defection of Louisiana Tech, but if Hawai’i decides it’s easier to be an independent too, they might have a difficult time scrambling to convince half a dozen FCS schools to move up in a few years, since many of them will need to add sports to qualify at that classification.

To really illustrate BYU’s quibble, the MWC television network (The Mtn.) is only available on extended packages via cable and DirectTV sports package. Meanwhile, BYU-TV is available on the basic tier of DirectTV, meaning I could conceivable follow BYU football anywhere, whereas the Mtn. would be an added expense.

I think this move is smart, proactive and low-risk because people aren’t looking at it with the right lenses. It’s all about the dollars and cents and long-term, it makes a lot of sense and cents for BYU to make this move.

We’ll see how it goes, I guess.

Social web forces BCS to change

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the cartel that controls college football’s national championship (in lieu of the NCAA like other sports) has gradually worked to reach skeptical audiences who believe it’s methods are less than fair to all of the teams in college football’s highest division.

One of the ways the BCS tried to stem the tide was to create a Twitter account last year. This (somewhat noble) effort largely failed and the BCS has scrambled in other ways to stem the public opinion away from questioning the system that chooses college football’s national champion.

Thursday, the group announced it would publicly reveal the formula needed for conferences that are not “automatic qualifiers” to the most lucrative bowl games to receive automatic qualifier status.

“By putting out the data, we’re hoping we can uncomplicate it,” BCS executive director Bill Hancock said.

As recently as December, the conference commissioners agreed not to release the formula publicly but less than six months later have reversed course. What gives? Who knows precisely, but it’s a safe bet to believe that the vociferous masses railing against the system — many of them fans, the others sports journalists — using the web as their vehicle certainly couldn’t have helped the organization’s massive PR campaign. Perhaps the recent success of March Madness also helped fuel the decision, as the ESPN article cites:

BCS officials have been criticized by not giving details of how the formula is put together and what exactly needs to be done to qualify. Hancock said the BCS released the formula to try to become more transparent.

At the end of the day, whether this move is damage control or an attempt to make the process more transparent, you can credit the BCS officials for at least listening to the criticism that their process was opaque. To people who have less exposure to the new order of social interactions — from companies and their brands, institutions and their students — it might be difficult for a large organization to understand why it would have a need to pay attention to people who are ultimately going to keep paying for their product anyway.

Perhaps they’ve started to embrace the idea that you can’t control the message anymore, you have to cultivate it.

Who knows, maybe fans can influence the NCAA’s choice of what teams will play in the new play-in games added to the basketball tournament too?

Seeing Red: Eastern Washington to install red turf field

When you’re a non-major college team playing at the second highest level of college football in the country, any sort of positive national attention is a good thing. The decision to install the nation’s first red turf field at Eastern Washington University has given the FCS-level team more mileage than anyone probably could’ve imagined.

It began with a $500,000 donation from alumnus Michael Roos is now plays in the National Football League with the Tennessee Titans. His donation was followed by a $50,000 donation from ESPN broadcaster Colin Cowherd. All of a sudden, the $1 million dollar fundraising campaign to make the field a reality was in full swing.

Not to mention a ton of feedback — much of it negative — about the possibilities of a red field. People love tradition and nothing says tradition like a green field. Boise State University’s football team is the only major college team with a field that’s not green — it’s blue — and their recent ascent to the upper echelons of the sport have made that novelty more prominent.

EWU athletic director said that “the uniqueness of the red field was able to generate an amazing amount of publicity.” He’s not kidding. When you’re a small program raising six figures doesn’t happen every day. There are programs at the FBS level that would be happy to raise half a million dollars in less than a year, so for a program at the FCS level to manage to do it is a mini-coup within itself.

It’s astounding that in 2010, people are asking questions about whether a different colored field might somehow affect the way people play the game. You can look no further than a sport like tennis, where the playing surfaces are still different, yet the ball, equipment and players are all the same. At least in tennis, the questions are well-founded. The ball plays differently on grass and clay than it does on a hard court or carpet.

Even a national championship would have a hard time generating the sort of publicity the red field has for EWU, so they’re smart to capitalize on their fifteen minutes of prominence why they can. Since they plan to install the field in time for the fall of 2010, it’ll just give them an opportunity to show the field off to a nation that will be at least captivated with a passing interest.

Maybe there will be a Facebook contest to name the new field? (My vote: The Red Sea) Perhaps an opportunity for a cross-marketing opportunity or a way to offer up naming rights to make the field pay for itself?

For recruits trying to decide between EWU and another school, this kind of publicity could tip the scales in their favor and I’m not just talking about potential football players or even student-athletes.

In a world where everyone is doing many of the same things; creating new traditions within the confines of your values is a great way to cultivate a brand that alums worldwide can be proud of. People might have no idea where EWU or Cheney, Washington are, but they now have a reason to look it up.

That’s what I call a big win.