Upgrading the Ice Hockey Team to Varsity Status Makes More Sense

In some recent posts on the www.cyclonefanatic.com message board, people are talking about bringing back the baseball program to ISU, as the ISU Athletic Dept., probably, is getting up to ten more million dollars per year with the new TV deal through the reformed Big 12 conference. I'm doubtful that baseball will be brought back -- why? Here are my reasons:

• The collegiate baseball season starts in February when there still is a strong possibility of below zero temperatures in Ames. Yes, February is still the dead of Winter here in Iowa. Not practical to play baseball here during Winter weather. The NCAA isn't about to change when the season starts so long as the southern teams have their way.
• ISU does not have the facilities to be competitive in baseball and would have to massively spend money in upgrading them.
• The ISU baseball team never had the attendance it needed to be a viable varsity sport. Most crowds at Cap Timm Field were, at most, two or three dozen rarely breaking a hundred. The Ames High baseball team frequently draws larger crowds at Brookside Park. BTW, ISU attendance for baseball games was free of charge.

Here are my reasons why upgrading the Cyclone ice hockey team to varsity status makes more sense:

• Iowa is a cold weather state and the October through March season coincides with our cold weather time.
• ISU has facilities in place to be a competitive hockey program. Hilton Coliseum is a fantastic place to see a hockey game. I know this from personal experience as I watched hockey games at Hilton when the ACHA championships were held there some years back. The Ames/ISU Ice Arena offers a ready made practice facility. All there needs to be added is a dedicated weight room at the ice arena, and offices in the Athletic Dept. office space in the Jacobsen Building.
• For a club program, the ISU hockey team has fantastic attendance almost always exceeding 1,000 and often filling the ice arena to capacity of about 2,100. If the games are held at Hilton, I'm sure attendance will only go up as other marquee programs play ISU such as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The likely association (conference) the Cyclone hockey team will end up in will be the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) if upgraded. This league's current membership comprises of:

• University of Minnesota
• University of Wisconsin
• U of Minn, Duluth
• Minnesota State University
• University of North Dakota
• St. Cloud State University
• Denver University
• University of Alaska at Anchorage
• Colorado College
• Michigan Technical University (who dat?)

For most of these teams, the ice hockey program is their pride and joy, so they will bring fairly large followings to Ames for home games. ISU owns a wonderful reputation in ice hockey thanks to Dr. Alan Murdoch, AKA "Dr. Hockey", the hockey team coaching staff, and the cooperation of the Ames Convention and Visitors Bureau. Yeah, the team would have to travel to Anchorage, Alaska once a year, otherwise, with so many teams in neighboring states, travel should not be a problem. With all these positives vis-a-vis baseball, I really believe ice hockey is the sport to add if the ISU Athletic Dept. should choose to expand.

Still, the hockey team will need help in reaching varsity status from sources other than the Athletic Dept. Large donors will be needed in order to show there is viable support for a varsity hockey program. Instead of trying to field a professional hockey team in Central Iowa, why not take advantage of Iowans' love of college sports and fund the upgrade of the Cyclone hockey program? I would have no problem trading some games with Wells Fargo Arena as home ice instead of Hilton if that is what would be needed in order for this upgrade to happen. There is an already established passionate following for Cyclone hockey and, if they are successful, that following can only expand. Otherwise, the hockey association in Des Moines could just donate the money and take the tax break. The ice hockey team is one the few championship traditions at ISU. Why not feature this tradition?

ISU's Crisis is Over

Old news is Dan Beebe, if you haven't heard by now, that at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth second, he came up with a TV package deal worth and estimated 179 million dollars per year for the Big 12 conference, minus the Universities of Nebraska and Colorado. Those two schools transferred to different conferences -- Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac10. The universities of Texas and Oklahoma, and Texas A&M University will pull an estimated twenty million dollars per year, per school from this new deal, the remaining seven will pull and estimated seventeen million dollars per year per school. Truthfully, the U of Texas won't benefit that much from the extra revenue as they have all they want in facilities, coaches and players. How this extra money will improve the athletic dept. is anyone's guess; are they bringing back wrestling as a varsity sport? Will UT field an ice hockey team? Who knows?

Being Nebraska and Colorado are no longer part of the Big 12, people's scheduling concerns are not well founded. Tough conference play has always been the norm for ISU. Think back to the days of the Big 8 conference. ISU had to play Oklahoma and Nebraska every year with Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma State, and later on, Kansas State frequently fielding excellent teams. Now ISU will play Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State. Not a whole lot of difference from my perspective. ISU teams and players will do do what they always have done, buck up and play their opponents to the best of their collective abilities; it's their only choice, and one they've made willingly.

Aside from the scheduling, ISU comes out of this deal way ahead where they are now. I look forward to the day in the near future where Jack Trice Stadium's south end zone is bowled in and its capacity is competitive with the rest of the conference along with the football team. Smile, better days are definitely ahead.

Is Men's Collegiate Basketball Maxed Out Revenue-wise?

Let's assume the Big12 blows up and ISU, Kansas, K-State, and Mizzou receive and accept invitations to join the Big East conference. Football-wise, the conference at twelve teams will probably be lucrative as the BE is looking forming their own network a la the BTN. With twenty MBB teams, the BE becomes a mini-NBA. With all the potential marquee match-ups in MBB, KU-Louisville, KU-Pitt, KSU-WVU, MU-Louisville, etc., what TV sports network is going to overlook the revenue potential this expanded basketball conference could bring in?

I dare to say having this many great MBB programs in one conference is too good an opportunity for any network to pass up and a Big East Network most likely would happen if the conference expanded. I can imagine ESPN/ABC being the agent setting up this network with the marquee games televised on ESPN with the premier match-up being televised nationally on ABC as "The Big East Game of the Week." This arrangement would create NBA-like exposure for the conference and not only BB revenue increases, but recruiting becomes a whole lot easier for all schools including DePaul. Believe it, or not, an expanded Big East has considerable upside to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year for every school with MBB leading the way instead of football. Football would still be a solid contributor, but its potential is limited compared to MBB in this conference.

Remember now, this is all purely speculation. If Beebe's new deal goes through, then this, and all other conference realignment discussions are dead. Even so, if the B12 flies apart, I like what the Big East potentially could bring with the "Big12's forgotten four" added in. I expect Baylor to go to another conference more geographically suitable for them such as the SEC, or MWC. We'll see on Tuesday, most likely, if the B12 survives. Until later, TTFN.

A Scene from "ISU Twist"

The Headmaster of the Big Ten Orphanage hears a faint knock coming the large, oaken front doors. He walks over, opens the one on his left, looks around, but does not see anyone.

A very small voice from below says, "Please, sir, may I come in?"

The Headmaster looks down, sees a small boy child and booms, "WHO ARE YOU, CHILD?"

Wincing, the boy child replies, "My name is Iowa State and I need a home. The Big Twelve Academy just closed down and I no longer have a place to live. May I stay here?"

The Headmaster looks disdainfully upon the boy, rubs his chin, then lets out an audible grunt.

The child asks, "If it may please your lordship, sir, may I come in?"

"IN, YOU WANT IN?" booms the Headmaster. "I SAY NAY, NAY TO YOU, CHILD! GO AWAY AND NEVER DARKEN OUR DOORS EVER AGAIN, EVER!"

The Headmaster slams the door shut in the child's face. The child walks slowly away, whimpering.

"Oh, woe is me. Who will take me in now?" utters Iowa State. "I think I will never have a home ever again!"

The whimpering boy shuffles slowly into the foggy night, never to be heard from again.

* * *

Is this the way ISU athletics ends up, or do we take control of own fate and do something positive? I'm with Paul Clark of CycloneReport.com, be aggressive and dominate any future conference ISU ends up in. I, for one, do not want ISU athletics ending up in irrelevancy for all time. What will probably be done to us ISU fans is nothing short of unconscionable. Anger and betrayal are perfectly suitable emotions in this case. Let's use these emotions as motivations to aggressively "poach" good schools from other conferences and rebuild the Big 12 conference with those schools who were left out along with ISU. I believe reforming the conference is our best option at this time. Let's go for it!

My Yahoo!

Conference Re-alignment and Where ISU May End Up.

Conference realignment and the reported future demise of the Big 12 conference is the hot topic today and has been for the past two or three weeks. Most of the likely realignment scenarios don't look good for the Cyclones as they'll end up somewhere other than a BCS conference per these scenarios. That's too bad; for a century, ISU has been a loyal member of good standing to the Big 8/Big 12 conference and deserve much better than what most prognosticators predict. ISU's academic and research qualifications alone say they deserve better. Alas, this whole peeing match is about TV network revenue since the Big Ten Network has become so successful. ISU doesn't bring enough "eyes" to the TV sets to be regarded as a valuable enough TV commodity to be included in all these TV network scenarios being talked about.

I really wonder about those claims though; has anyone done research on what the Nielsen Ratings were for televised ISU Football and Mens Basketball games? I bet they're significantly higher than what may be expected. If ISU didn't bring eyes to TVs, why then did TNT and Versus broadcast so many of our football games, and why did ESPN do the same for football and basketball? I know the Big 12 TV contract had a lot to do with that, but what were the actual ratings when those games were telecast? I believe ISU has a bigger following than most people think.

Now recently, the Big 12 Conference Commissioner issued an ultimatum to both the Universities of Nebraska and Missouri to declare whether they're loyal Big 12 members, or not, and to make that declaration by the coming Friday, June 11, 2010. As reported by some, the University of Notre Dame is much closer to joining the Big Ten Conference than what was originally thought when this mess started. If UND joins the Big Ten, then they have their school that will bring in a national TV audience and won't need to poach Nebraska and Missouri from the Big 12 to expand their TV network. So, Nebraska and Mizzou better have their invitations to join the Big Ten in hand by Friday. Because if they don't, and declare they're going elsewhere outside of the Big 12, then Texas will probably bolt to the Pac 10 Conference, taking the Big 12 South Division with it, and orphan the Big 12 North. Therefore, more than likely as things are forming up, Nebraska and Mizzou will probably declare their conference allegiance to the Big 12 and the conference will be preserved for the time being. Thus allowing Dan Beebe to negotiate a new TV contract with Fox in 2011, and maybe a new one with ESPN in 2014. I say maybe because there is another possible scenario no one's talking about -- yet.

Let's say Nebraska and Mizzou say they're staying with the Big 12, but the Pac 10 somehow ups the ante and offers a deal to Texas, and Oklahoma they can't refuse. Of course, these two schools abandon the Big 12, join the Pac 10, and bring their affiliate schools with them -- the remainder of the Big 12 South. This leaves the Big 12 North orphans looking for other partner schools to reform the Big 12. In this scenario, Nebraska, Kansas, K-State, ISU, Mizzou, and Colorado, hopefully, unite together to form the core of a new Big 12. With Nebraska football and Kansas basketball, this group will hopefully have considerable value and be attractive for other schools to improve their TV revenue situation. Using the extra TV money from the Big 12 South schools (the Big 12 heavily penalizes any schools for leaving the conference), the remaining schools could look to expand in the east where there is more TV presence.

I would think the remaining Big East schools would be looking to join up with some other schools to form a power conference, and having NU, KU, et al, offering big money for other BCS schools to join with them would be the ticket to reform the Big 12 in the east. Specifically, I'm talking about Louisville University, the University of Cincinnati, and perhaps the University of Pittsburgh and maybe Syracuse University. I've heard rumors the University of Maryland is shopping around for a better TV deal. Perhaps a reformed Big 12 in the east may be attractive to them. Also, the service academies automatically have a national following, particularly Army and Navy. Would a reforming Big 12 conference be attractive them to join? These two academies will need to join a conference in the up coming age of conferences networks. Let's say all but Maryland join up, then the new Big 12 would have NU, KU, KSU, ISU, MU, CU, Pitt, Cinci, Louisville, Syracuse, Army, and Navy.

If I may say so myself, this new Big 12 has strong possibilities to form its own TV network. Nebraska, Army and Navy have the national following; particularly Army and Navy have a strong following in the NYC and Baltimore/DC regions, along with the Norfolk/SE VA region -- lots and lots of TV sets in those areas. Kansas, Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse are quite strong in mens basketball, so that sport will have a strong following as well. Actually, this conference would be stronger as a basketball conference than football which plays right into the ISU's most passionate following, and its strength. I can't see any reason why a TV network with this new, reformed Big 12 Conference couldn't be as successful as the Big Ten network. Put another way, I can always dream, can't I?