TrueBlue1989 said:

UConn’s athletic department is bleeding cash due to football. It will jump to join any of the 4 football conferences. The risk it runs is that football moves away from current structure soon after it joins. If it wants football, not an obvious decision, it can’t stay in the BE. In addition to large deficits, its facilities and football brand fall farther behind P4 schools.

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No sport at Connecticut is in the black, although men's basketball may have a shot this year given that its season tickets are already sold out. Keep in mind, though that we have to pay Hurley more than the big east media distribution, in the new contract. It's fine, he's worth it.

The actual deficit is pretty much the same number as the full media distribution for the big 12. So theoretically, we could be at roughly breakeven in the Big 12.

As I noted above in this thread, Connecticut actually has great football facilities, with the exception of a new stadium on campus. That's probably a half billion dollar investment, but it's one that I think the legislature will make.

We're still ways away from Connecticut getting an invite. We know from last summer at the big 12 presidents don't want to invite anyone to the conference who isn't already in the P4 club. Can that be overcome this time? Who knows?

My attitude at this point is pretty much a shrug. It's becoming extraordinarily expensive to put on high major athletics. The P4 conferences provide a better opportunity to be able to compete in that world, the big 12 only distributes about half of what the SEC and Big Ten do. I think the move is necessary to maintain the ability of Connecticut to be able to compete at the highest levels, but as I've said before, I enjoy being back in the big east. So my attitude right now is a resigned "wait and see."

HallB said:

They may support them “better” whatever that means but bottom line is the taxpayers will NEED to spend likely over a half billion dollars on facility upgrades and new stadium to support a crappy football program with little to no history to just keep up with the rest of the conference. That doesn’t even consider the NIL budget to sign players.

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The football facilities on campus at Connecticut are outstanding:

Burton Family Football Complex

Mark R. Shenkman Football Training Center

The only thing that would need to be built would be an on-campus stadium. Our existing stadium is 20 + years old and 30 minutes away from campus. It needs right around $175 million in upgrades. I could see the legislature deciding that that money is better spent as part of an on-campus stadium build.

Connecticut already has two major NIL organizations and had a great portal season. NIL is something that is already established for football.

Starting up football is enormously expensive, but most of those investments have already been made.

Piratz said:

But the BE did benefit from having them back. Both sides made gains.

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Short term gains to a point for sure but it will not be a good look if they leave and even if they stay you have to look at them sideways from now on. If you look at them at all.

Hall Berry said:

VCU, who beat Villanova in the NIT last year and returns their top three scorers, including Max Shulga, will likely be favored against us at this point. And if we do beat them, I wouldn't sleep on Vanderbilt, if they beat Nevada. They revamped their roster with AJ Hoggard (Big NIL Payday) and Chris Manon. It's not an easy draw but if we ultimately view ourselves as a Tournament team, these are teams we have to beat. I feel like Miami would eventually become the only team in this tournament viewed at season's end as a "good" loss.

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This. These are going to be critical chances for quality wins. I think Seton Hall can be the best team in the field but will things be running smooth by Nov 21?

UConn’s athletic department is bleeding cash due to football. It will jump to join any of the 4 football conferences. The risk it runs is that football moves away from current structure soon after it joins. If it wants football, not an obvious decision, it can’t stay in the BE. In addition to large deficits, its facilities and football brand fall farther behind P4 schools.

Halldan1 said:

Or his dining table.

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But the table cloth is apparently missing.

UConn looking to land in one of the power 5 conferences comes as no surprise and I hope the BE holds theto the terms of their buyout with the Conference . Football is king in the P-5 and UConn wanted to swim in those waters and how this all plays out will be interesting to follow. Now the question becomes how does the BE respond and is there a target for them to replace UConn .
.

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garyshu71 said:

If Uconn had been left to rot in the AAC, there would be no NC’ s and no talks with the Big 12 . And probably a few recruits go our way. Let’s hope the powers learn from this. Meanwhile I don’t see why anyone gives these guys coming on our board from UConn the time of day. All they do is tell us.

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But the BE did benefit from having them back. Both sides made gains.

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cernjSHU said:

RFK Jr continues to prove that he is a wack job as he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump. Although I think this is absolutely meaningless in this election, his uncle and brother must be spinning in their graves.

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Mr Kennedy said he had launched his campaign in April 2023 "as a Democrat, the party of my father, my uncle... the champions of the Constitution".

But he left because "it had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money".

He blamed his decision to suspend his campaign on "media control" and his former party's efforts to thwart his run, adding: "In my heart I no longer believe I have a realistic path to victory in the face of relentless and systematic censorship."

Sounds like a wack job but those are the same reasons I left as well. Guy suffers from an ailment causing his voice issues. Hard to listen too doesn’t make him a wack job. His father and uncle would be republicans if they were alive today. He’s giving folks a strong message if you care enough to listen. Party of hate stays in their lane, while thousands die in wars.

If Uconn had been left to rot in the AAC, there would be no NC’ s and no talks with the Big 12 . And probably a few recruits go our way. Let’s hope the powers learn from this, although I think FOX insisted that a deal be made. Meanwhile I don’t see why anyone gives these guys coming on our board from UConn the time of day. All they do is tell us.

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I feel ya, Rob. Same here, but those days are long gone. The money is too great and even paying the BE exit fee is worth it. At least the BE cashes in.

Yormark has been going after larger expansion geographically for a long time. Despite the activity and his pushing, it still doesn’t seem like he can get this through but chiseling away.

This football stuff, whew. I thought it was the right move for the BE to enter this dance again by bringing Connecticut home, but this is life with programs that want to play football.

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SHUSA said:

its why donors stopped funding. but trump has tuned into the EXACT same thing as biden right now. old, senile, but also dangerous. i dont think people realize how hopped up trump also is. they weren't used to looking inward. people are done with him. and he's showing us exactly why.

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Dangerous? No wars with Trump, only wars right now. Senile guy talks in front of 100,000 people without a telepromter. I cannot do that can you? We already know Kamala cannot. Dems should have embraced RFK jr. but party is so far left and controlled by big money. Kamala is a puppet reading a speech. Look not happy with either candidate, we should have done better as a country but Trump is far from being dangerous and senile. That’s brainwashing you are getting from main stream media. We just spent 3 days listening to who hates Trump more speeches so you get a pass.

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CL82 said:

Nah you underestimate Rutgers ability the Rutgers everything. They're easily making double what we would make if we got in the big 12 and they're in a bigger hole than we are now.

Keep in mind that Rutgers had absolutely no facilities to speak of so they were playing catch up. Also, I have to say State to Connecticut supports. UConn better then RU get support from the Jersey legislature?

(Oh, and please "dump us" so that we don't have to pay any exit fee. That's galaxy brain stuff. 😆)

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They may support them “better” whatever that means but bottom line is the taxpayers will NEED to spend likely over a half billion dollars on facility upgrades and new stadium to support a crappy football program with little to no history to just keep up with the rest of the conference. That doesn’t even consider the NIL budget to sign players.

Robot_Man said:

I don't think there was any way Biden would have won. His poll numbers were so bad in the weeks leading up to his dropping out he was starting to turn typically reliably blue states purple. Minnesota and New Mexico, for example.

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its why donors stopped funding. but trump has tuned into the EXACT same thing as biden right now. old, senile, but also dangerous. i dont think people realize how hopped up trump also is. they weren't used to looking inward. people are done with him. and he's showing us exactly why.

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SOBO1 said:

In all honesty, outside of tradition this is a crappy conference for them. We don’t sponsor the most important sport at the school.

The BigEast is great for nostalgia and saved them from the American but this was never a viable long term solution as long as they were committed to football.

In my mind it was a pretty clear motive from day one - our athletics are going to die in the American so let’s join BigEast as a short term solution to ensure that side of the house is attractive in the next round of realignment. Mission accomplished.

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Sort of. The big thing that pushed us out of the American was that games were moving to ESPN +. we felt like the lack of visibility from that was bad for the program. Also, we were losing the ability to get every woman's game broadcast on linear TV. The Big East and Fox allow us to do that by subrogating the rates to SNY. (Even on the new deal, Val says that none of the Connecticut women's basketball games will be on Peacock).

As I've said here a bunch of times, being in the American just sucked. Every minute of it, (except for 2014 because we won a national championship then.)

SPK145 said:

But you can’t leave after the 2025 season without further buying yourself out.

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Yeah, and that's 15 million, I think.

In all honesty, outside of tradition this is a crappy conference for them. We don’t sponsor the most important sport at the school.

The BigEast is great for nostalgia and saved them from the American but this was never a viable long term solution as long as they were committed to football.

In my mind it was a pretty clear motive from day one - our athletics are going to die in the American so let’s join BigEast as a short term solution to ensure that side of the house is attractive in the next round of realignment. Mission accomplished.

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