3 years ago
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East Carolina? Tulsa? No thanks.
South Florida? Temple? Why? So The Daz tin consciousness person to home?
Don’t bash it, CSU.
Take a pass, Joe Parker. Move on, Joyce McConnell. Whatever ails the Rams — stadium debt, marque depreciation and a shot programme with a Kansas-esque 9-23 grounds (.281) since August 2018 — won’t beryllium solved by joining the American Athletic Conference. Not each of it, anyway.
We warned you, didn’t we? Texas and Oklahoma? Only the beginning. Once large dominoes commencement toppling, it each trickles down eventually. The AAC has reportedly targeted astatine slightest 2 schools on the Front Range — CSU and Air Force — arsenic candidates to regenerate Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. The Big 12 poached the second trio from the AAC, on with BYU, to regenerate the Longhorns and Sooners aft the SEC poached those 2 gold-diggers.
Look, we get it. Canvas Stadium is excessively bully for the Mountain West. But the Rams’ shot program, post-Jim McElwain, isn’t bully capable for the Power 5. CSU is 1 of a fistful of schools stuck successful Football Bowl Subdivision limbo, scratching and clawing for higher crushed earlier the adjacent flood rolls in.
The Big 12 imagination is toast. McConnell, the assemblage president since 2019, and Parker, the Rams’ diversion manager since 2015, privation to amusement the donors something for their patronage. Something beyond a sumptuous presumption of unspeakable football.
Don’t bash it, CSU.
Oh, we know. On 1 hand, it’s astir flattering. By virtuousness of tv payouts, the AAC is simply a measurement up from the MW, a circuit that CSU helped found successful May 1998 aft a clandestine gathering astatine DIA.
The AAC wants Denver TV eyeballs, fixed that the markets successful Houston (2.5 cardinal tv homes, according to the Nielsen Company), Orlando (UCF, 1.79 million) and Cincinnati (0.926 million) volition soon beryllium portion of the Big 12’s mangled, gerrymandered footprint.
Only here’s the thing: While you can’t propulsion a meal burrito successful our just burg without hitting a Rammie alum, CSU shot nether manager Steve Addazio and predecessor Mike Bobo don’t determination the broadcast needle a whit.
Four of the Rams’ games successful 2019 connected the ESPN household of networks reportedly averaged 644,500 viewers per tilt, according to SportsMediaWatch.com. In 2017, the tract listed the mean assemblage of Rams appearances connected ESPN astatine 920,000 per game, including streaming.
But the money, you say. Yeah? Read the good print. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reported earlier this period that ESPN has a clause successful its declaration with the AAC implicit “membership composition” that could trim aboriginal payments if the league mislaid its biggest tv markets.
The MW’s woody with FOX and CBS Sports is reportedly worthy astir $4.1 cardinal annually to the Rams. ESPN pays AAC members astir $7 cardinal a year — but that was earlier Houston (No. 8 TV market, according to the Nielsen Company), Orlando (No. 17) and Cincinnati (No. 36) near the room.
AAC commish Mike Aresco is going to marque the statement to the Disney suits that Broncos Country is AAC Country. But erstwhile your replacement program includes Colorado Springs/Pueblo (No. 82 market, 0.38 cardinal TV households) and Fort Collins, you amended judge Mickey Mouse is going to privation immoderate of that food backmost successful his pockets.
Canvas Stadium is 1,748 miles from Temple, a 26-hour thrust if you instrumentality I-80 consecutive through. It’s 1,909 miles to the USF field successful Tampa. Follow I-70 for 13 hours to St. Louis, question “Hi” to Nolan Arenado, instrumentality a flimsy right, past chug different 15 hours south.
Don’t bash it, CSU.
Don’t crook your backmost connected the rivalries. On the history. On the trophy games. Not erstwhile they mightiness really commencement to get absorbing again.
CSU holds The Bronze Boot for the archetypal clip successful forever. So present you’re going to observe by taking a tyre robust to the Wyoming series, a humor feud that dates backmost to 1899?
Yes, the MW is simply a mess. Yes, the American — adjacent without UCF, Cincy oregon Houston — could unfastened up imaginable pipelines for recruits to spot you, up close, successful Florida (USF), Texas (SMU), Tennessee (Memphis) and Louisiana (Tulane). Assuming, of course, that those schools are inactive successful it for the agelong haul, too.
Daz is an East Coast lifer. The antheral makes all kinds of sense successful the AAC. The Rams, adjacent astatine their astir beggared and abject, bash not. And ne'er will.
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