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Utah Utes, BYU football: MWC may begin bowling in Boise
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Anyone reading this excited about the image adding another "glitzy" bowl such as the Roady's Humanitarian? BTW, what is Roady? The ONLY thing I remember from the Humanitarian bowl is the smurf turf.
Unfortunately, even with the proliferation of "everyone and anyone has a bowl game" the MWC is stuck with the dribblings and even the championship game is at a horrible bowl game.
Can anyone say that perhaps the MWC officials need to be replaced?
Again, this is what is wrong with the whole college bowl system. These games are starting to look like NFL preseason games minus the talent.
Adding an extra bowl means more revenue for the conference, provided they can sell some tickets. Boise is close enough that people could drive. From many of the MWC schools ... so selling those tickets shouldn't be that hard.
Also, with the mtn on directv i think the conference future is bright. They're talking with CBS about getting some national games ... these are good things.
The two years with only cable distribution have been a disaster, but moving forward things do look pretty good.
Playing in ANY bowl is better than staying home watching games on TV. The payout may only be enough to cover travel expenses, but it gives one more conference team an extra month to practice. In the long run, that will be good for the conference.
Besides, playing in Boise, or pretty much anywhere in the West, is much better than playing in Memphis. It's much closer and easier to get to and the weather is not that much different than Memphis.
When you're a small market, non-BCS conference, you take what you can get from the bowl feast, even if it's table scraps.
Anyone know who UNLV's lone MWC victim was?
5 Years in a row.
7 Bowls in the last 9 years.
All wins.
this from the man who brought us the mnt "network"
And the "maybe some games some day will be on CBS" talk is still just talk. Did you notice the fine print? The games would have to kick off at 10am. Didn't Thompson walk away from ESPN because of bad kick off times (among other things)?
And who in their right mind would think that a bowl game against a WAC team in Idaho is a positive for the conference? Seriously.
More small minded ideas from Thompson just like pretty much everything else he's ever done. They should fire him and bring in someone with executive experience at one of the BCS conferences who has some vision about what could be done to actually IMPROVE the conference. Not just try to keep it alive.
Watch that decimal place. Wyoming played in the Las Vegas Bowl in 2004, and beat UCLA in a more convincing fashion than BYU.
Adding another guaranteed bowl slot for the MWC is a good thing. It gives us a little more exposure to the national media, provides an extra month of practice, and offers a little experience in "pressure" situations.
However...
Don't we already HAVE a post-season match-up with the WAC in New Mexico? And even that match-up is an "also-ran" unheralded MWC vs. "also-ran" unheralded WAC team. The Humanitarian Bowl is being set up to be the 2 teams that couldn't cut it in Albuquerque!
It's time to reorganize the leadership currently in existence within our conference. Our representatives have demonstrated a propensity to, in football terms, "play not to lose" rather than "play to win". Craig Thompson, et al, have not directed us forward, but rather left us stagnated. Remaining in place is falling behind. The vision for the future of the MWC had been lost. New leadership is thus being called for.
I think you mean it will guarantee a bowl win for BYU. But let's not push it.
Right now, the PAC-10 is guaranteed one BCS spot and could get a second team in as well.
The PAC-10 has arrangements with the following bowls:
Rose: $14 million to $17 million (Big Ten vs PAC-10)
Holiday: $2.2 million (Big 12 vs PAC-10)
Sun: $1.9 million (Big East vs PAC-10)
Las Vegas: $1 million (MWC vs PAC-10)
Emerald: $750,000 (ACC vs PAC-10)
Armed Forces: $750,000 (C-USA vs PAC-10)
The ONLY way the PAC-10 will send a team higher than their 4th- or 5th-place team to Las Vegas is if the Las Vegas Bowl pays significantly more than the Holiday and Sun bowls.
That will not happen until UNLV expands their standium to around 60,000 AND ESPN (which owns the Las Vegas Bowl) feels that the bowl is a bigger draw (that is, it will make more money) than the Holiday and Sun bowls.
In its third year, the Mountain should reach the conference's geographic footprint and will be available nationally to anyone who wants it via the DirectTV deal. The CBS option, though early kickoffs, will give the MWC some national coverage that everyone has been whining about.
The MWC has increased annual shared-revenue from $9million to $20 million.
The TV coverage (Mountain, CSTV, Versus, and now CBS) plus the new Humanitarian Bowl possibility will only increase the MWC's exposure and revenues. How is that a bad thing?
What's the other option? OK, let's play the Big East Champ at the Las Vegas Bowl...OK, we accept. Oh, the hard part is getting the other conference's attention.....
Also, realize that besides Utah in '04 and BYU last year, there hasn't been a ton of MWC football action to get the nation excited about....
...also, could the Humanitarian Bowl lead to a Boise State invite?
Why do you want to leave us for Boise? I thought we agreed that you were going to come to us every year?
The mtn network was HORRIBLY executed. THREE YEARS later it's finally on ONE satellite system and the local cable systems in most of the MWC footprint.
How is that forward thinking?
Let's go back to the mid-90s and the early 2000s and look at the situation then. I live on the east coast and I saw virtually every single BYU game during all of that time. Since the debut of the mtn, I've seen very few BYU football games on TV. I have been able to watch a shaky internet version of most BYU homes games over the past 2 years with the help of my brother who lives in Utah. BYU can't even show its home games on ITS OWN TV CHANNEL.
I get the money side, but the TV deal was not thought through and has significantly hurt national visibility and by extension recruiting.
So now Thompson promises "some" national coverage with CBS "someday"...that's VERY small thinking.
Tell the folks in Idaho, that Snow and/or Dixie can put up a better game, and draw more fans. and they could use the money
It really is too bad that no one outside of Utah knows that BYU had such a good season last year. What a waste.
bowl. Their record against the MWC is impecable. 4 GOOD teams in the MWC?
No, that wasn't it misprint. The No 8 team out of 12 from the ACC had the tie in to the Humanitarian Bowl.
Neither Snow nor Dixie State would be eligible for the bowl and with luck could put up 20% of the numbers.
The MWC commissioner doesn't decide TV coverage for bowl games.
BTW, even before the mtn was available, nobody outside of Utah knew about or cared about BYU football, unless they were LDS, and the LDS population outside of Utah still follows BYU football a much as they ever did.
I'll take it one step forward. I would like to the WAC and MWC conference champions play in the Las Vegas bowl during the week of Big-12, SEC, and ACC championships, with an automatic bid to the BCS for the winner. Certainly, with 18 schools, 3 of whom have busted into the BCS and one with a national championship, there would be enough to justify the autobid for the winner of a game between two conference champions.
I like your thinking, in terms of two undefeated teams meeting at RES in November, winner in the BCS. I would just go with the other team to finish undefeated with a second BCS bowl win under the belt. BYU could still win in Vegas.
Maybe if we play in Elko the faithful can at least catch some cowboy poetry, or speculate on how many locals are employed in the worlds oldest profession.
Maybe the commish can also agree to have the game played at midnight, on the opening of the deer hunt, or general conference.
The Sandiego State's and Wyomings of the conference better start scheduling more DII and Utah State games so they can have the necessary 6 wins to qualify.
Obviously you don't understand sarcasm. Yes, I know that the commish doesn't pick the bowl tv coverage. It was a underhanded shot at Mr. Thompson. I'm embarassed that I have to explain this.
Second of all, I'm sure all of us would love a WAC vs. MWC champion bowl game, but the MWC is always trying to pretend they are on the fringe of becoming a BCS conference and would rather have their champion play the 5th best team in the PAC-10 than Boise. Too bad because it would be a good game each year.
Finally, BYU and Utah have both been on the national scene in the past (BYU's 1984 undefeated season, Utah's Fiesta Bowl victory, BYU's Cotton Bowl, Detmer's Heisman, Alex Smith's selection in the draft). I'm not saying they're Texas or Michigan, but at least most noticed than New Mexico or Rice.
Go Cougars
Drawing people to Vegas *before* Christmas was the entire reason for starting up the bowl game in the first place. Face it, the MWC is stuck with a "C-list" bowl game and will be for a long time.
Did you know that the WAC held their media days in Salt Lake this week? The Karl Benson, the WAC Commissioner, said that the WAC is the second-most recognized conference in the West, behind only the PAC-10. It would be interesting to know if that were really true. If it is the case, the Mountain West has a lot of work to do, as individual teams and as a league. The WAC intentionally chose Salt Lake in order to re-establish the area as a market for the WAC.
I think the MWC as a whole fields better teams than the WAC. How do the top two or three teams of each conference compare?
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