I hate the idea of independence

I just think its sucks. I would way rather be a part of a conference. the only problem with staying in the mwc is money. other than they it has de facto aq status because there is no other conference that is goign to get the nonaq bid above the mwc anymore. rarely. if you win the conference in the mwc you are probably bcs bowling.



money is a big issue there i understand but national attention and hype will always be there as the one nonaq conference. top 25 is easy given teh schedule and if we schedule one good team out of conference and then beat tcu and bsu we are defienitely in. you have to like that.



there is only one draw back as mentioned and taht is money. also byu needs the mwc to allow them to broadcast the games on byu tv. people around the world should be able toe watch the games again at their stake center instead of having to go to some sports bar to watch them.

I like the idea of having a conference title to play for a swell. Independence is almost BCS or bust. Seems that way for Notre Dame, anyway.



Having said that, if you cam align all other sports in a conference, as Notre dame has done, then it could work. Just need to schedule some games from conference opponents. I am sure Hawaii would love to play us annually, as would several of the MWC teams. Could then try to add some Big 12 games, ACC, etc. I mean, really, it couldn't be worse than the homes schedule BYU has this year, right? UW, and 5 dog games.

yes, our home schedule pretty much stinks. i worry about becoming irrelevant if we go independent. unless we have GOOD bowl tie ins i would think that idea really is no good. i also worry about having an even crappier schedule each year. why would acc teams or big 12 teams want to play us during their conference play? I understand why nd has an easier time with that but i don't see us having as much success in that department as notre dame.



the mwc is not that bad, especially if we got aq status and were allowed to broadcast our games.

jonnylingo wrote:
yes, our home schedule pretty much stinks. i worry about becoming irrelevant if we go independent. unless we have GOOD bowl tie ins i would think that idea really is no good. i also worry about having an even crappier schedule each year. why would acc teams or big 12 teams want to play us during their conference play? I understand why nd has an easier time with that but i don't see us having as much success in that department as notre dame.

Our home schedule this year doesn't just stink....it is embarrassing. If it wasn't for Washington it may be the worst home schedule EVER! The losers of the MWC have only gotten worse over the years. Going independent will only make our schedule better - it sure couldn't get worse. I have know doubt that if we didn't HAVE to play the losers of the MWC then we could easily get good quality teams to play us during the year. You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season? Throw in a couple of teams from BCS conferences and a few MWC teams (Air Force, BSU, TCU) every year and then we all of a sudden have a great schedule. When we played Tulsa in a home-and-home a few years back it made for exciting games. And with our own TV network they would make a decent chunk of change when they play us - remember, it's all about the money. Teams will play us if they can make good money.



It's time for us to go independent. We can always get back into a loser conference if we want to. With Utah getting suckered into going to the PAC 10 we can now go on to bigger and better things. We no longer have to feel guilty about moving on and leaving Utah behind - we have finally cut the apron strings.



But...I'll be in the stands this year for every game watching BYU destroy the high school teams of the MWC. And I'll be loving every minute because above all I'm a BYU fan. There is nothing better then being a BYU fan.

allcoug wrote:
You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season?

If all these teams are so excited to play us, how come none of them are jumping at the chance to play us in our non-conference games now?

hawkwing wrote:

You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season?

If all these teams are so excited to play us, how come none of them are jumping at the chance to play us in our non-conference games now?

Exactly. Especially during the conference part of these team's schedules.

hawkwing wrote:

You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season?

If all these teams are so excited to play us, how come none of them are jumping at the chance to play us in our non-conference games now?

Because:



1. After we get a couple of BCS team on our schedule (i.e. Washington and FSU this year) we don't have room to play such teams because we're stuck playing the loser of the MWC (Wyoming, New Mexico, San Diego St, UNLV).



2. We can't offer them more money now. But once we go independent and have our own HD network we'll be able to pay them a nice payout - one few universities will have a hard time refusing. We'll be able to buy our way to a great schedule (the same way the PAC 10 just bought themselves a championship game by sharing revenue with Colorado and Utah every year).



BYU is a great non-conference game for most universities. Besides the money, a win against us is a good mark for most programs. We have national recognition. Let's start benefiting from what has been built.

jonnylingo wrote:
there is only one draw back as mentioned and taht is money.

That is a HUGE drawback. Imagine BYU making 2, 3, 4, 5+ times as much money then they do in the MWC. Scheduling is a huge problem but allcoug is right if you can promise teams like Louisville, Rutgers, or anyone that the game will be nationally broadcast in HD and give them a huge paycheck then it would be hard to pass up.



The compromise could be that BYU stays in the MWC but is given the right to create it's own network and broadcast all of it's games.



And just a thought, BYU could use this new broadcast facility as leverage into the Big 12. Texas owns the Big 12 and wants it's own network. BYU could say "Hey Texas, you get us into the Big 12 and we will show you how to create your own network and let you use our facilities until that network is up and running."

Just a thought...

I think that if we go indy, ESPN would gladly broadcast every home game we play on its network. That gives us at least 6 games a year on ESPN, and no other teams to share that money with. We can offer a huge amount for visiting teams to come play, and that would be enticing as well. Consider that BYU sells 64,000 tickets a game, for an average of $28/ticket, not including premiums paid for Legacy chairs, and that is a minimum gate of $1.8M per home game. If BYU sold its 6 home game package to ESPN for $700k per, which is way low, that is $4.2M, which blows away the MWC TV deal, not to mention the $$$ they could negotiate now for away games, where with the MWC deal. I would assume they could get more from ESPN. And with that kind of money, why even bother with your own network, unless you just want rebroadcast rights for it, which BYU could negotiate for as well, especially if not using to sell ad space.



Financially, it could work and work really well.. The issue is are the trade offs worth it. The main one being having no conference to compete in annually.

jonnylingo wrote:

allcoug wrote:
You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season?

If all these teams are so excited to play us, how come none of them are jumping at the chance to play us in our non-conference games now?

Exactly. Especially during the conference part of these team's schedules.

Happens quite often. Here's just some of the non-conference games we've had over the year that were played after the traditional start of the conference season (and I didn't include some of the smaller schools we played). If we weren't force to play loser MWC teams we could easily schedule more.



1992

OCT 24 Notre Dame

OCT 31 Penn St.



1993

OCT 9 UCLA

OCT 16 Notre Dame

OCT 23 Fresno State.



1994

OCT 15 Notre Dame

OCT 29 Arizona St.

NOV 5 N.E. Louisiana



1995

OCT 14 Arizona St.

NOV 4 Tulsa

NOV 25 Fresno St.



1996

SEP 28 Southern Methodist

OCT 19 Tulsa



1998

OCT 24 San Jose State



1999

OCT 9 California



2000

SEP 30 Syracuse



2003

OCT 30 Boise State

NOV 15 Notre Dame



2005

OCT 22 Notre Dame

When would ESPN want to broadcast these games? Tuesday night? Friday night? Or do you think BYU all of a sudden, they'll give BYU prime 2pm ET kickoffs on Saturday instead of a Big 10 or ACC game?



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allcoug wrote:

yes, our home schedule pretty much stinks. i worry about becoming irrelevant if we go independent. unless we have GOOD bowl tie ins i would think that idea really is no good. i also worry about having an even crappier schedule each year. why would acc teams or big 12 teams want to play us during their conference play? I understand why nd has an easier time with that but i don't see us having as much success in that department as notre dame.

Our home schedule this year doesn't just stink....it is embarrassing. If it wasn't for Washington it may be the worst home schedule EVER! The losers of the MWC have only gotten worse over the years. Going independent will only make our schedule better - it sure couldn't get worse. I have know doubt that if we didn't HAVE to play the losers of the MWC then we could easily get good quality teams to play us during the year. You don't think Louisville, Rutgers, Houston, Fresno St., Hawaii, South Florida, Ol' Miss, Cincinnati, Villanova, Memphis, SMU, Tulsa, (should I go on) wouldn't love to play us during the season? Throw in a couple of teams from BCS conferences and a few MWC teams (Air Force, BSU, TCU) every year and then we all of a sudden have a great schedule. When we played Tulsa in a home-and-home a few years back it made for exciting games. And with our own TV network they would make a decent chunk of change when they play us - remember, it's all about the money. Teams will play us if they can make good money.



It's time for us to go independent. We can always get back into a loser conference if we want to. With Utah getting suckered into going to the PAC 10 we can now go on to bigger and better things. We no longer have to feel guilty about moving on and leaving Utah behind - we have finally cut the apron strings.



But...I'll be in the stands this year for every game watching BYU destroy the high school teams of the MWC. And I'll be loving every minute because above all I'm a BYU fan. There is nothing better then being a BYU fan.

You guys are dilluding yourselves if you think these teams would fall all over themselves to come play us at LES. BYU does not have the scheduling power that ND has. BYU TV would not give BYU football more money then a conference currently does. Going independant would be the death of BYU sports as we know it. The MWC is a better option then independant. Notre Dame is the only school in history that has made a success out of independance and that is only because they have so much scheduling power and because NBC is willing to broadcast all their home games. BYU has neither.

frdbtr wrote:
You guys are dilluding yourselves if you think these teams would fall all over themselves to come play us at LES. BYU does not have the scheduling power that ND has. BYU TV would not give BYU football more money then a conference currently does. Going independant would be the death of BYU sports as we know it. The MWC is a better option then independant. Notre Dame is the only school in history that has made a success out of independance and that is only because they have so much scheduling power and because NBC is willing to broadcast all their home games. BYU has neither.

Explain to me how BYU would not make more money with a BYU Network/ESPN deal?



Keep in mind that BYU made more money off of the Oklahoma game last year then the rest of the year combined.

frdbtr wrote:

You guys are dilluding yourselves if you think these teams would fall all over themselves to come play us at LES. BYU does not have the scheduling power that ND has. BYU TV would not give BYU football more money then a conference currently does. Going independant would be the death of BYU sports as we know it. The MWC is a better option then independant. Notre Dame is the only school in history that has made a success out of independance and that is only because they have so much scheduling power and because NBC is willing to broadcast all their home games. BYU has neither.

BYU has done it in the past. I've already posted proof. Maybe you should back up your opinion with some fact. And if you really don't think we would make more money as an independent team, you might want to consider taking an accounting class or two - it would help with your analysis rather then simply throwing out a smack down that I may be delusional.



We don't need to be a Notre Dame. We just need to keep all the money we earn for the other teams in the MWC. And having your own HD media facility probably can't hurt. I know it's sounds crazy, but I hear that not all universities have such facilities or their own TV station. Weird.



But maybe you're right - we should just keep playing New Mexico, San Diego State, Wyoming and UNLV every single year, over and over, time and time again, season after season because one day football fans all over the nation will realize what great games these are.

kitic77 wrote:
When would ESPN want to broadcast these games? Tuesday night? Friday night? Or do you think BYU all of a sudden, they'll give BYU prime 2pm ET kickoffs on Saturday instead of a Big 10 or ACC game?

I would expect that ESPN would want 1 Thursday game a year out of us, but the rest could be Saturday, with the exception of the USU game which will be Friday night before conference in perpetuity. ESPN brokered the OU game, remember, so I surmise from that that they enjoy having BYU on their network. And if we continue winning 10+ games, might land an ABC game or 2 a year. The upside could be great, but gotta kep winning or it will be really bad really fast.

CannonCougar85 wrote:

You guys are dilluding yourselves if you think these teams would fall all over themselves to come play us at LES. BYU does not have the scheduling power that ND has. BYU TV would not give BYU football more money then a conference currently does. Going independant would be the death of BYU sports as we know it. The MWC is a better option then independant. Notre Dame is the only school in history that has made a success out of independance and that is only because they have so much scheduling power and because NBC is willing to broadcast all their home games. BYU has neither.

Explain to me how BYU would not make more money with a BYU Network/ESPN deal?



Keep in mind that BYU made more money off of the Oklahoma game last year then the rest of the year combined.

How bout you show me the ESPN salesmen beating down BYU's door and then we will talk. I know that ESPN likes BYU but where is the proof that they would be willing to give BYU an exclusive contract if we went independant.

allcoug wrote:

You guys are dilluding yourselves if you think these teams would fall all over themselves to come play us at LES. BYU does not have the scheduling power that ND has. BYU TV would not give BYU football more money then a conference currently does. Going independant would be the death of BYU sports as we know it. The MWC is a better option then independant. Notre Dame is the only school in history that has made a success out of independance and that is only because they have so much scheduling power and because NBC is willing to broadcast all their home games. BYU has neither.

BYU has done it in the past. I've already posted proof. Maybe you should back up your opinion with some fact. And if you really don't think we would make more money as an independent team, you might want to consider taking an accounting class or two - it would help with your analysis rather then simply throwing out a smack down that I may be delusional.



We don't need to be a Notre Dame. We just need to keep all the money we earn for the other teams in the MWC. And having your own HD media facility probably can't hurt. I know it's sounds crazy, but I hear that not all universities have such facilities or their own TV station. Weird.



But maybe you're right - we should just keep playing New Mexico, San Diego State, Wyoming and UNLV every single year, over and over, time and time again, season after season because one day football fans all over the nation will realize what great games these are.

Done what in the past, been independant? When? I don't need to post actual statistical fact, but a little common sense in watching BYU's scheduling problems leads me to believe that BYU would have trouble scheduling if we didn't have a conference to give us guaranteed games. Haven't you been watching the media? Washington just cancelled 2 games with us with no make up games in the future. Other BCS conferences having their lower level teams wanting 2 for 1's to schedule us to the point that Bronco said it was "insulting". You seem to think that all BYU has to do is sever ties with the MWC and all of a sudden they would make all the money for themselves that the entire conference makes combined. Believe me if that were the case, BYU would have been independant a long time ago.

frdbtr wrote:
How bout you show me the ESPN salesmen beating down BYU's door and then we will talk. I know that ESPN likes BYU but where is the proof that they would be willing to give BYU an exclusive contract if we went independant.

Let me tell you a true story to enlighten you on the subject. I have told this story before on other threads.



A good friend of mine works at BYU. He works in the Athletic Department. He is very much in the know with BYU athletics. So much in fact that nothing happens in BYU athletics without him knowing about it first.



A few years back the MWC was at the negotiating table with ESPN. My friend was in person at that very table. ESPN presents a contract to the MWC for X amount of dollars. The MWC looks at the contract and says that X amount of dollars is too small and demands more money. ESPN then tells the MWC essentially this, "You don't understand, this contract is to get BYU. We want BYU."



The MWC declined and thus the MTN was born.



It is my opinion that BYU could have right then and there gone independent. The only reason they didn't is because of the agreement BYU had with Utah that they would stick together, a fact also confirmed by my friend. That agreement is now gone and it is exactly what Holmoe was referring to when he made his "doors opening" comments earlier this summer.



If BYU went independent they would be on ESPN 4, 5, 6+ times per year.

It could work if BYU could partner with ABC and ESPN to pickup their games (at least a majority). Are there networks who are looking? ESPN has a few channels now instead of the original one. The first month they could get BCS teams (with the better network they might be interested). Once conference games starts it will be harder. I would bet (if they have an open date) they could schedule games against Utah, BSU, TCU, Houston, Air Force, Hawaii, Fresno, Nevada, SMU, Navy. Then we have a game against Utah St. Then for the dates that don't work out we have other MWC/WAC/Conf USA that we could use to fill it out.



True the AD would have to work much harder but that is his job. This schdule would be harder than what we have now. There could be several top 25 teams out of the 12 games.



The bowl would be tricky. I think Las Vegas would like to make it BYU instead of MWC. We are there every year anyways. Plus the BCS would have to change to include us.

frdbtr wrote:



Done what in the past, been independant?

Scheduled great non conference games during the season:



1992

OCT 24 Notre Dame

OCT 31 Penn St.



1993

OCT 9 UCLA

OCT 16 Notre Dame

OCT 23 Fresno State.



1994

OCT 15 Notre Dame

OCT 29 Arizona St.

NOV 5 N.E. Louisiana



1995

OCT 14 Arizona St.

NOV 4 Tulsa

NOV 25 Fresno St.



1996

SEP 28 Southern Methodist

OCT 19 Tulsa



1998

OCT 24 San Jose State



1999

OCT 9 California



2000

SEP 30 Syracuse



2003

OCT 30 Boise State

NOV 15 Notre Dame



2005

OCT 22 Notre Dame