We had 8-9 full members for 16 years in the 90's and 2000's, what's different now? (genuinely asking, I don't see what would be any different in my scenario)
Did we have horrible scheduling problems in the 90's and 2000's for the other sports, and I just forgot about it?
The problem is the regular season is longer in Basketball. Currently it’s 31 games and there’s talks of expanding it to 33 come the 26-27 season. If there’s only 9 teams that means you’d only be able to play 16 conference games meaning you’d have to schedule 15 non-conference games and 18 if they expand the season. That’s an absolute scheduling nightmare for any mid major school, especially out west. Not to mention Tennis will only have 7 teams, Soccer will only have 8, and Softball will only have 5 which is below the NCAA requirement for an auto bid to the tourney. Like it or not, they have to add another team. We don’t have the numbers in other sports. Plus having an odd number of teams isn't optimal for building a conference schedule any way.
Fair enough, sounds like there's nothing we can do to avoid a shitty mess of a football conference.
Football’s not the issue, it’s every other sport. My dream scenario would be for the Big Sky to add a non-Football playing school to fix all the other sports while we dwindle the number down in Football. That’s unfortunately not gonna happen though.
I won’t be surprised if they add Utah Tech. SUU though is in a really tough spot right now as they fired their AD today, they’re wrapped up in a scandal with the NCAA, and their withdrawal from the Big Sky wasn’t very graceful. I think they need to inquire to San Diego. That’d be a great add if they wanna start taking Football seriously.
I would take Utah Tech over SUU any day of the week. It's not just about Football and Basketball, The other sports need to line up as well. Losing Shaq St, leaves us one short in Softball and UT or SD would help in that regard. St George is a growing, thriving comunity with a good airport. San Diego has everything all ready established. I'm sure that there are some other good candidates as well. The BSC is not hurt by Shaq's leaving and may be stronger in the longer run. SUU is a shrinking community and school, probably headed to D11 real soon.
That's a really good question...who are the other good candidates? San Diego sounds ideal, Utah schools?
There really aren't any outside of those 3.
Apparently they have the funding to pay the conference exit fee (maybe there isn't one - I don't recall), but not enough funding to get the proper number of camera's for doing replay when broadcasting football games.
It was recently raised to $1,000,000. One school voted against raising it. It is an anonymous vote, but I have a strong guess on who may have not wanted it to go up.
"Ignore that man behind the curtain!"
Could SUU and Dixie state be basketball only members? I understand it doesn't happen often, but it would be far better for SUU and Dixie State to stay in the WAC / Big West / Whatever in football and would solve the basketball games issue.
No. If they join the Big Sky, they're gonna want in for everything. And if I'm the Big Sky, I'm only taking Utah Tech. SUU can go pound sand.
If I'm the big sky, I'm not taking either team. What about basketball? Wellllllll since every team makes the Big Sky tourney and they don't double-bye the 1 & 2 seeds straight to the semis, the bajillion game conference season doesn't really matter all that much. You don't need to play 20 games (or more?) of conference basketball to determine seeding. They did it before they started playing the number of games they had, they can do it again.
My first call would be San Diego. And trust me, you're gonna want at least 18 conference games in Basketball. They have no choice. They need to add at least one team as much as people may not like it.