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Post by Gundo on Sept 22, 2021 15:34:35 GMT -8
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Post by panammaniac on Sept 22, 2021 15:59:38 GMT -8
Independence is a horrible option for anyone not named Notre Dame. They would face the same situation that NMSU is in. Their schedule would be an FCS school at home, one or two body bag games at SEC schools (I.e. getting paid $2 million for an ass kicking on national TV), home a d homes with NMSU, Liberty, or Umass, and the rest filled with MWC schools. There’s no long term sustainable path there. They could survive it for a few years until something else came along. At some point, if they get booted out of the MWC, the WAC will be back to being an FBS football conference. That may be a longer term option but it’s probably 10 years off at best.
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Post by mauiwowie on Sept 22, 2021 16:23:25 GMT -8
Spectrum pays UH over $3 million for the rights to those games not picked up by the MW TV partners. Those games are shown locally via PPV at $70 per game. I wonder if the contract can be voided if they are forced to go Independent, or choose that route.
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Post by FULL_MONTY on Sept 22, 2021 16:47:39 GMT -8
I don't think the MW would dump Hawaii, unless Hawaii wanted to put an end to the travel subsidy. I would put the odds of that happening at less than a 1%.
Hawaii does need to get their stadium done quickly, not on Hawaii time, but on mainland time.
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Post by jdaztec on Sept 22, 2021 18:06:20 GMT -8
I really enjoy watching our Aztecs in Hawaii. I have done it twice before and plan (already have plane tickets and purchased game tickets) for this November. I don't really know however if fans will be allowed by November ?
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Post by SD Johnny on Sept 22, 2021 18:15:19 GMT -8
Independence is a horrible option for anyone not named Notre Dame. They would face the same situation that NMSU is in. Their schedule would be an FCS school at home, one or two body bag games at SEC schools (I.e. getting paid $2 million for an ass kicking on national TV), home a d homes with NMSU, Liberty, or Umass, and the rest filled with MWC schools. There’s no long term sustainable path there. They could survive it for a few years until something else came along. At some point, if they get booted out of the MWC, the WAC will be back to being an FBS football conference. That may be a longer term option but it’s probably 10 years off at best. It’s tough to schedule at NMSU because you are NMSU and no wants wants to play you or travel to Las Cruces. Hawaii would get good games..
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Post by jp92grad on Sept 22, 2021 18:25:15 GMT -8
Independence is a horrible option for anyone not named Notre Dame. They would face the same situation that NMSU is in. Their schedule would be an FCS school at home, one or two body bag games at SEC schools (I.e. getting paid $2 million for an ass kicking on national TV), home a d homes with NMSU, Liberty, or Umass, and the rest filled with MWC schools. There’s no long term sustainable path there. They could survive it for a few years until something else came along. At some point, if they get booted out of the MWC, the WAC will be back to being an FBS football conference. That may be a longer term option but it’s probably 10 years off at best. It’s tough to schedule at NMSU because you are NMSU and no wants wants to play you or travel to Las Cruces. Hawaii would get good games.. Early in the OOC period would be easy for them but once teams get into conference play it would be much harder on teams to travel out to the islands without screwing up their schedules.
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Post by goaztecs on Sept 22, 2021 18:57:34 GMT -8
I was actually thinking this week that UH may go independent. I think they can get some decent games.
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Post by goaztecs on Sept 22, 2021 19:05:36 GMT -8
It’s tough to schedule at NMSU because you are NMSU and no wants wants to play you or travel to Las Cruces. Hawaii would get good games.. Early in the OOC period would be easy for them but once teams get into conference play it would be much harder on teams to travel out to the islands without screwing up their schedules. You guys are both right. Hawaii can get some good teams to come but hardly anyone is going to travel there during their conference bye week. They can easily schedule the first five weeks of the season, then get an FCS school to come, then they would have to play independents, and be a schedule filler for some SEC schools.
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Post by panammaniac on Sept 22, 2021 19:37:02 GMT -8
Independence is a horrible option for anyone not named Notre Dame. They would face the same situation that NMSU is in. Their schedule would be an FCS school at home, one or two body bag games at SEC schools (I.e. getting paid $2 million for an ass kicking on national TV), home a d homes with NMSU, Liberty, or Umass, and the rest filled with MWC schools. There’s no long term sustainable path there. They could survive it for a few years until something else came along. At some point, if they get booted out of the MWC, the WAC will be back to being an FBS football conference. That may be a longer term option but it’s probably 10 years off at best. It’s tough to schedule at NMSU because you are NMSU and no wants wants to play you or travel to Las Cruces. Hawaii would get good games.. All of the Indy schools will tell you about their scheduling struggles. BYU struggles with it and they have a huge national following. Travel to Las Cruces is actually pretty easy. Cheap flights into El Paso and cheaper hotel rooms than a lot of places.
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Post by Aztec Since 88 on Sept 22, 2021 19:38:03 GMT -8
The only way the Rainbow Warriors go INDY is if the MW is no longer a viable conference for them. Hawaii already parks it olympic sports in the Big West. If they had to INDY, I do think they could make it work and create a decent schedule that would be front loaded with decent teams mostly against currnet MW and PAC 12 schools, and then back loaded with the likes of Liberty, UCONN, NMST, UMass and FCS schools.
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Post by SD Johnny on Sept 22, 2021 19:54:32 GMT -8
It’s tough to schedule at NMSU because you are NMSU and no wants wants to play you or travel to Las Cruces. Hawaii would get good games.. All of the Indy schools will tell you about their scheduling struggles. BYU struggles with it and they have a huge national following. Travel to Las Cruces is actually pretty easy. Cheap flights into El Paso and cheaper hotel rooms than a lot of places. There are three schools that are independent by choice: Norte Dame Army BYU ND can name their schedule, BYU would like theirs a little tougher and Army sets theirs up to their football skill level. They all have pretty good schedules. The rest of the independents are independent because no one else wants them in a conference. There is the difference. Hawaii would be in the upper echelon of independents.
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Post by darksidereturns on Sept 22, 2021 19:57:16 GMT -8
BYU struggled with being indy right into a B12 offer. That's success struggle or not.
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Post by panammaniac on Sept 23, 2021 6:47:35 GMT -8
BYU struggled with being indy right into a B12 offer. That's success struggle or not. Here's the rub though - revenue. The program has to somehow make money to sustain itself. Nobody is giving an independent Hawaii a big TV contract to broadcast all of their games. Their home games are played after most of the mainland has gone to bed. If they switch to day games they're in a prime TV slot against a bunch of other games that people will watch instead. And right now, and for the foreseeable future, they have virtually no ticket revenue because they have no stadium. If you think they'd have schools lining up to play them, consider this - they are playing NMSU TWICE this year. TWICE. And that's with them being in a conference. NMSU is surviving as an independent and will continue to do so until we can get into a conference. We're doing it by scheduling two body bag games a year against P5 schools (predominantly SEC) at $2 million+ each. Additionally we have our one rivalry home game against either UNM or UTEP that draws a sellout crowd. And we do a pretty darn good job of getting the rest of our games televised...somewhere, usually on syndicated TV with some games only on streaming apps. But we do that 100% on our own, AND we do it with a completely student run organization. It's part of a TV/Broadcast degree program that the University offers. Not a lot of universities have that capability built in. Even with all of that, it still sucks. Most years as an indy we play 5 home games with one built in against UNM/UTEP and one against an FCS school. The rest are against Liberty or UMass (who are equally hurting to schedule opponents) or MWC schools. Hawaii's schedule as an indy would be similar, except that they would have difficulty getting anyone to travel out to the islands during conference play. FCS schools are generally low budget operations. They wouldn't necessarily be lining up to travel out to the islands either. I think they might be able to get some of the new football playing FCS WAC schools out there, but those schools have the intention of moving up to FBS and restoring the WAC to an FBS conference in the not too distant future. BYU survived as an independent and actually did reasonably well because they have a huge national following and literally own their own broadcast network. Even so, their ultimate goal was to get back in a conference. They knew full well that it would take time, but eventually they would be able to play their huge national following into membership in a P5 conference. Even then, while they were waiting, they had their frustrations. They weren't able to put together quite the schedule they wanted, and they went to lower tier bowl games than they could have gone to in even a G5 conference. Army is an independent because they're Army. As a service academy they have few issues putting a schedule together. Even then, independence didn't work out so well for the other two service academies. Navy joined the AAC for football because they needed a conference home. Air Force (years ago) joined the WAC for the same reason. Notre Dame is independent because, at least right now, they don't need to be in a conference. They have such a following that they can control all of their own TV revenue. They could play a game against Our Lady of Stained Glass Windows and it would still be on national tv in a prime time slot. And then there's the bowl considerations. Hawaii does have its own bowl game on the islands that I guess it could tie itself to, but again, right now there is no stadium to play the bowl game in, unless they move it to the old rust bucket stadium on Maui. Everything I've read says they have no intention of doing that - they plan on playing the Hawaii Bowl in their 10k seat on campus stadium. That's probably fine though because they have TV distribution that will bring in some revenue. NMSU has ties to the Arizona Bowl if they should ever be bowl eligible again - we packed the house there when we played in the Arizona Bowl a few years ago and it impressed the hell out of the AZ Bowl officials. But unfortunately (and Hawaii will face the same issues), getting bowl eligible is a near impossibility because you're having to schedule schools who are basically paying you to kick your ass, just so you can balance the budget. Out of your 12 game schedule you already have at least 2 built in losses, and with any luck no injuries resulting from them.
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Post by sandiegopoke on Sept 23, 2021 11:35:51 GMT -8
Being in a conference for football make sense for Hawai'i. They get all the coverage they need locally. A conference is needed for wider exposure.
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