Well, BYU held its press conference yesterday to announce that it will be going independent of conference affiliation in football and joining the WCC in most other sports. While I’m excited about some of the prospects of football independence, overall, I’m pretty disappointed in the move.

The main thing that I dislike about the move is that it severs ties with many regional schools. And it doesn’t just cut the bonds that tie those other institutions to BYU, it pretty much chops off the other instutions’ arms to free BYU. Not only will we lose much of the importance of those games with regional foes, but BYU deeply offended those schools, and they have good reason not to want to associate with BYU in the future. That’s especially rough on me because I have some good memories of my dad and I sharing Wyoming sporting events. There will definitely be fewer BYU/Wyo events in the future, and where Cowboy fans used to give me a hard time when they found out I went to BYU, they’ll probably want to murder me now.

Not only does BYU’s move hurt the schools in the MWC; the posturings and power plays leading up to the move effectively killed the WAC. So BYU did some damage to about 20 schools in the western U.S. with its move. Schools like San Jose State will possibly even have to cancel their football programs. Ouch.

The move wouldn’t have been so painful if the timing would have been different. If the move would have happened before the MWC added TCU it wouldn’t have mattered as much, because BCS inclusion wasn’t so near and attainable. Likewise, if the move would have happened two years down the road, the MWC would have known its standing in the BCS and the move could have had less effect.

I am excited about some parts of the move. First of all, I’m excited about BYU’s deal with ESPN. It looks like ESPN brokered BYU’s deal with Notre Dame, and that the Worldwide Leader was also a major force in setting up BYU’s games with Texas. I’m hoping that BYU and the Mothership (ESPN) will really be good business partners; that is, that ESPN will help put together good matchups for BYU, and that BYU will draw good numbers for those matches. This is a pretty big deal in football, but it may be an even bigger deal for basketball, where BYU may be able to get better games to come to the Marriott Center with ESPN’s influence.

I’m also excited that BYU will have some more control over its distribution. While signing a deal with iron-fisted ESPN doesn’t usually mean having more control, ESPN will allow BYU to do same-day rebroadcasts on BYUtv, as well as allowing some other concessions. It’s somewhat ironic that Comcast/CBS/theMTN were willing to give those same concessions to BYU, since ESPN is generally considered to be the evil power monger in college sports.

A couple additional points I’d like to make:
I understand why the MWC schools would be upset with BYU on this move, but Tom Holmoe indicated in the press conference yesterday that the only school BYU has loyalty toward is the University of Utah. I think that’s fair. Although from my standpoint it would have been cool if BYU would have stuck with its situation in order to help teams like Wyoming, I can’t really blame the admins for not considering and bowing toward Wyoming’s best interests in their decision. (obviously, I use Wyoming as a surrogate for all other MWC teams) The move sucks, but I don’t think you can call it evil or hypocritical.

Many MWC fans think that this is a bad money move for BYU. I personally am drinking the kool aid that it is a very good financial move. I can’t imagine that BYU will be earning less money under its new program than it was in the MWC. It was the highest drawing program in the conference, but it had to share TV revenues evenly. It will certainly get more money now from its TV deal. While it could lose out on shared bowl revenues from the conference, it will get to keep all the bowl money it earns, which should mitigate those losses.

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Posted by Cole on September 2nd, 2010 :: Filed under Sports

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