city sayeth: in life there are no pure plays; everything is a balance sheet. so: we have two tasks before us.
first: make up a balance sheet--assets and liabilities. how much would we gain by moving up? how much would it cost?
second: determine who has the right numbers. big discrepancy already between the numbers scottsdalegriz has posted--listing most wac budgets in the eight to 15 million range--and those of gb1's source, claiming $21 million to be THE AVERAGE BUDGET IN THE WAC!!!! it's important we get the right numbers and not those fudged to support one side's point of view.
on the asset side:
1. the wac facilities for both bb and fb are much much better than the big sky. the smallest football stadium is idaho's 16,000, but every other stadium seats at least 30,000, with hawaii the biggest at 50,000, and fresno next at 41000. in bb, san jose state's arena is modern but small at 5000, while louisiana tech checks in at 8000. except for those two, every wac arena seats more than 10,000, with fresno topping out at 16,600. (i couldn't get the seating capacity for new mexico state.) seems to me that all those seats translate into far bigger crowds than in the big sky, with bigger guarantees for each school, and--except for hawaii and louisiana tech--no greater travel expense. so a number to be filled in: the bigger guarantees in both major revenue sports as a result of better facilities.
2. there is some tv revenue--$5 million to be divvied up among the wac members (if i'm to believe the one source i found) versus zilch in the big sky. if boise state had qualified for a b.c.s. bowl (against louisville, as many felt they should have) that would have yielded a $13 million bonanza for the wac. i simply don't know what it means to a conference to have one or two teams make the sweet 16--more numbers to stick into our balance sheet.
3. with more scholarships and i-a status we'd be able to upgrade our non-conference schedule to include another payday or two like iowa.
4. while montana's market may be small, it's both a growing market and a pure market in that there's no competition from local pro teams.
now, on the liability side:
1. few corporate sponsors, as gb 1 notes;
2. the need to add another three minor sports;
3. the added costs of scholarships and recruiting budgets;
4. small market;
5. less state funding than is probably available from other states.
6. the cats.
so our task here is to add to either the asset or liability side, and then attach credible numbers to all entries.
finally, i'd like to shock gb1 by partially agreeing with him--the big sky has been good to montana's athletic program, and i am all for staying with it FOR THE TIME BEING.
reason is, i think conference alignments are still in a state of flux, and while the big eastern powers have already decided that 12 is the ideal conference size, neither the wac nor the mountain west is there yet. i look for the mwc to raid the wac for boise state, fresno state and nevada, leaving one more slot to fill, and in my dream scenario, montana would be that 12th team, re-aligning us with our rivals from the old skyline conference (utah, byu, new mexico, wyoming and colorado state) and the big sky (nevada and boise state.) our competition for that twelth slot would be utah state (the victim of an intra-state feud in utah), idaho (poor facilities), new mexico state (no way), davis (no glamour or tradition), hawaii (real competition.) that would leave the wac to raid the big sky, with sac state and portland state already itching to move up, and weber state, eastern washington, montana state likely candidates as well.
in the future, there will be no i-aa, and no big sky, unless the wac were smart enough to adopt its name.
as for the cats, maybe the less i know about montana politics, the better. it is the case that as we get less and less money from the state for either education or athletics, we virtually become a private school--the fate of almost all schools in america. it may transpire that the board of regents can pass all the resolutions they want to little effect if they don't control the purse strings.
and then there is the precedent: the schools were in separate conferences once, and it did little to diminish the rivalry.
