r/sunbelt • u/Sneku_69 • 5d ago
The conference is dying
JMU leaves for the American, Both Louisiana schools are being moved down to FCS, Texas State already left for PAC-12, and SBC leadership are looking to raise the exit fee to $25 million.
Whats stopping Coastal, App, Ga State, or Marshall from leaving before the exit fee is raised? App has already told boosters that the SBC is bring choked by its awful media deal. Where's the future of this conference headed? Will we survive another restructuring?
In other news: Fire Clay Helton.
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u/WolfieMcWolferson 5d ago
Good grief, stop catastrophizing.
The Louisiana schools aren’t dropping down, and nobody else has the invitation elsewhere- or the money- to leave.
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u/Various_Job_6400 5d ago
La Tech, UL, and ULM are not stepping down. The one regent dumbass does not make any actual decisions regarding that. Wait til end of year to see how Louisiana state legislature decides.
JMU still here for another season, move finalizes by 2028. All that does is open the door for WKU, ECU, and other attractive schools in our regional footprint.
Sun Belt has never been better 🤷♂️
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u/DaPunisher83 1d ago
Hate to break it to you, but WKU has already rejected the Sun Belt….TWICE. They aren’t coming.
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u/Sneku_69 5d ago edited 5d ago
The Louisiana state legislature will take one look at ULM and ULL and move them down. No way in hell they will justify the millions of dollars they lose every year just for the sake of state pride.
If any of them stay, it will be ULL. ULM and La Tech cant afford FBS ball, and thats okay.
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u/Harbison63 4d ago
Only ULM is in any real danger of dropping down. Even though their losses are lower, they're just not very competitive and their fan base may be the most apathetic in the conference.
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u/Disregardskarma 4d ago
Adding another Louisiana school was definitely a very bad move that put us in a bad spot.
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u/Sneku_69 4d ago
I'd be down to replace ULM with LA Tech tbh. I dont think bringing on LA Tech was all that bad, its just up to Louisiana to decide if the, stay or not.
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u/Do-Noubt3754 5d ago
The Louisiana SBC schools SHOULD go back to FCS,
(as, I wager, should most of those that made the jump since we called it 1A & 1AA),
but none are, as of this typing.
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u/gramcraka92 4d ago
A conference with Charlotte, temple, fau, and rice that also stretches from New York to texas is bound to fall apart when that media deal ends. CUSA+ isnt long for this world
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u/818sfv 5d ago
Where would Coastal go?
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u/damutecebu 5d ago
Where would any of them go? Maybe the American could take one additional member, but it's a pretty large conference already. CUSA is a worse option. MAC likely is as well.
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u/Megalomanizac 5d ago
Anything short of the American is a downgrade.
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u/Sneku_69 5d ago
The American is a lateral, at best. Only thing they compete with us in is Football. For most other sports its a downgrade.
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u/Harbison63 4d ago
The American is "perceived" as a better conference, but those schools only have a one real advantage and that's the TV revenue. They have a bunch of schools in big markets that the networks are paying for, but none of those schools are the dominant athletic program in those markets. It's insane how the TV networks fell for that. The money those teams get for that contract has now, in the age of NIL and revenue sharing, allowed them to pay for better players. The SBC has a couple of big TV markets, but somehow we didn't leverage those for our TV contract.
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u/alkyfl 3d ago
That has literally been the American's existence since it started football back when it was the original Big Eaat. As other conferences have stripped the Big East/American for anything of value, the conference has gone from having schools like Pittsburgh and Miami to schools like Charlotte and UTSA.
If the Catholic 7, ACC and Big Ten could have held their water one more year, they could have likely killed Big East football. Instead they let the football side reload and basically let Conference USA replace the original Big East, while turning Conference USA into what it is today.
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u/Sneku_69 5d ago
Unsure tbf. Coastal is a large enough program to fare well elsewhere, it all depends on who wanted to take y'all. Probably the American, because of ECU and Charlotte. Would make for good baseball and football rivalries.
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u/FlicMeetwood 5d ago
The very clear answer for this era of college football is to create 2 FBS leagues. League 1 puts the top 48 schools into 4 geographically aligned conferences. These 48 schools can only play within their league, no FCS or league 2 “tune-up game.” League 2 takes the other 90 schools and divides them out into whatever makes sense, but also geographically built. These 90 schools are allowed the 1 FCS opponent each year. Both leagues compete for a separate national championship. The lowest ranked 8-12 schools from league 1 are relegated down to league 2 and viceversa with the top 8-12 league 2 schools up to league 1.
In a perfect world you could just cap the amount of money EVERY SCHOOL is allowed to spend on football, then you see who can build the best team on a level playing field. I’m talking total amount of spending each year: practice/training facilities, coaching staff, NIL roster money cap, recruiting. Right now, everyone is just going to put enough cash under their table leg to have things roll their way, so to speak.
If you think the answer is anything other than separate leagues or a league-wide budget cap, you live in a fantasy world. JMU won’t win a national championship in this system, ever. There’s not a team in the G6 that could hope to put up 5-7 back to back to back to back to back to back miracle games at the end of the season. Even if they did, everyone would jump ship for more money; no repeats, only rebuilds. The G6 is playing for recognition in a system that, at best, will subsume their success or, at worst, could care less. Not enough tickets could be sold to justify JMU v Alabama in Arizona (just an example, unwad your panties pls).
It’s more than just the NCAA. The insurance companies and the tech companies that put their names on these events, and the networks that pay for exclusivity rights to broadcast them, demand enough eyeballs on the product to justify their expense. No amount of “tradition” or “scrappiness” will reimburse them. Money is in the game, and it cannot be removed, it can only be regulated. This is the fault of the market, and it will not correct itself. It will only continue to engorge itself on the misery of the fans that made it great in the first place, because you’re going to watch no matter what.
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u/Harbison63 4d ago
You had me going until the stupid relegation comment. There is no way in hell that relegation will work in college athletics.
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u/FlicMeetwood 12h ago
That’s often the knee jerk comment I get about it, but never followed up by anything meaningful. Relegation would be the only way to work back toward some sort of parity
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u/Harbison63 6h ago
So think this through. Teams are in conferences for a reason (money now) mostly to compete against schools of their same type/size/region etc. Schedules are planned years in advance, fans grow to love the rivalries vs their instate schools or cross state schools, road trips are planned ahead of time.....then all of the sudden, a team is thrown into a different conference with programs that are considered "beneath" the school. Schedules have to eb reconstructed across two conferences, fans travel plans are busted, fans decide they don't want to watch their team, who clearly was already bad, play teams they don't care about. Ticket sales suffer, recruiting certainly suffers and the program can easily stagnate even further. Of course if it's a P4 team getting regulated down, then their NIL will probably allow them to outman the competition, but then what's the point? The program relegated down would have to reduce its NIL to be on par with the new conference.
Now on the flip side, everything stays except, the fans are excited to play the so called "big boys" and ticket sales increase. However, the up relegated program doesn't have the NIL/rev share resources to compete effectively, so it would be a short stay.
This isn't parity. Relegation will never work in college sports.
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u/FlicMeetwood 6h ago
You’re right, thus the further regulation of money ALLOWED to be spent on athletic programs is justified. Also, in the current transfer portal/NIL era, continuity is pretty much extinct. The rivalry stuff will also go by the wayside in favor of competition for the sports betting industry. Money has always held sway, but now it is firmly in control of the direction of the activity as a whole.
In its current trajectory, without any type of specific regulation, it will officially become the “semi-professional” league that it’s always been and relegation will be considered. Expansion to 24 teams is placation. They’re trying to figure out how it keeps it “competitive” without losing large chunks of money.
Football, as an activity, will have to evolve soon or it will lose relevance. Interest is beginning to wane in the wider zeitgeist, and the risks are outweighing the rewards. I truly only have a pedestrian interest in it now anyway and don’t really care what happens.
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u/jharden10 2d ago
Georgia State isn't leaving. We suck and have no fanbase.
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u/Sneku_69 2d ago
Not to mention an awful stadium. Not really sure what y'all admin was thinking with that one, and im honestly surprised USG let it happen.
I don't think yall suck though tbf. Better than some other programs out there.
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u/ShenValleyUnitedFan 3d ago
You're overreacting. The Louisiana schools aren't going anywhere, and Texas State wasn't that much of a loss.
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u/regassert6 3d ago
I don't believe that anyone will ever drop down from I-A to I-AA. I think your options are figure it out in I-A or drop the program.
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u/Eagle1FoxTWO 5d ago
Southern to the ACC
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u/Sneku_69 5d ago
Fire clay helton first, and ill be on board. Last year he said it was the QB and the offensive coordinator. The year before that he said it was the defense. Maybe, just maybe, all these years it's just been him.
Were already a middle weight in this conference, may as well be a lightweight elsewhere and get all the money.
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u/FakeAccount_Verified 5d ago
Max is the issue this year (thanks to Helton)
He isn’t mobile at all and can hit the deep ball to off set the defense.
Other schools at stacking the box to stop our stupid up the middle running game and putting pressure on him. They know he can’t scramble away and he can’t hit a receiver on the run past 15 yards. Look at the “big plays” over the past few weeks and on them the receivers had to come back to the ball.
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u/mufflefuffle 5d ago
The Louisiana schools (well ULL at least) aren’t being moved down. That was just one state official saying that for PR. ULL has a massive spending problem, but they’re not Monroe (who should drop).
None of the schools mentioned have the funds to reach the new exit fee, nor the interest from the other conferences. App might have the most interest as a “brand”, but we won’t be able to find the 25/30million JMU did by Thursday. Hell, if we did I’d ask why not put that money to good use and shit can the coach and buy a real roster?