I’ve seen discussion of the ACC trying to poach PSU. The problem is that the ACC has 14 members now and would rather go to 16 than 15 (odd numbers make scheduling tricky). The ACC could take PSU and UCONN and get to 16, but they’d rather take ND and either PSU or UCONN … and they are waiting to see if/when ND will be interested.

Well, that’s fair. But I don’t know that ECU and UCF are really much better from ND’s perspective. The problem is unless we start picking off BXII teams, there aren’t a whole lot of good options to choose from. I’d say that SMU, Southern Miss, and Houston are about the only schools left in a non-AQ conference that would fit into this model.

First off, Texas is football country. The Cowboys blow yet they always sell out. SMU is awful, yet they still fill their new stadium on a regular basis.

As far as the Rangers and Stars, you also have to take into consideration the bad ownership situations that used to surround them (and still are with the Stars). That creates more apathy than losing. The Mavs started to sell out before they were a contender thanks to Cuban.

Also, you should note the Stars set a sellout streak (think it was 180+ or something) in their season *after* they won the cup and maintained it for quite a while after (went to 238). I believe they also hosted a game recently while the Rangers were playing ALCS game 2, that doesn’t help.

Baseball attendance has always been the lowest and that’s due to a boatload of reasons ranging from the brutal summers to the awful location of the stadium (it’s 30+ minutes from *both* Dallas and Ft Worth).

Despite that, Rangers attendance has been on a steady increase since 2009, before they even sniffed a single playoff win.

Hasn’t the Big 12 already said they would take Notre Dame as a non-football member? Somebody would, that’s for sure.

I think the reason to keep the Big East together is because if it implodes then a raid would begin on the Big 12 as well, presumably, and Jack has said that in the case of super-conferences, the post-season would probably be revamped, and Notre Dame might be forced to join a conference for football to ensure they have a shot at the national championship.

Can’t it be both? Can’t I agree with a crazy person?

Whether I can or not, I agree with offering games to the current Big East football teams. We do this already and I see no reason to stop. I do object to offering games to potential Big East football teams, as I don’t think it will affect their decision to join but will affect (negatively) our schedule.

For the record, what I thought was crazy was your claim that if the 6 remaining Big East football schools leave, the remaining Big East teams will dissolve the conference, leaving no place for ND’s other sports to play and thus forcing ND to reconsider its independence. I just don’t think that will happen. But every time I write it, I get enough thumbs down to make my comment disappear, so maybe I need to reconsider.

Whats the harm in playing as a mid-major? Honestly, I dont see the big difference for NON football schools. You still have the chance to compete and make playoffs and outside of M/WBB, there is no TV contracts to really worry about. Join the A10, Southland, whatever.

The Rangers are getting great attendance the last two years too, but I guarantee you the first year they miss teh playoffs, they’ll be back to averaging 20K/gm as opposed to the 35 or so they got this year.
Im obviously not as in the weeds as you are with the Dallas area sporting scene(I only went to college there for three years) but I do know that fans in that area do NOT support teams that dont win. There are too many other places to go in that city where teams ARE winning that they can spend their time and money. Remember when the Stars had packed houses? That was part of the reason the AA center got built.
I sincerely hope Im wrong on this, because I really do like TCU. Im just saying at the first sign of trouble with on-field success, they’ll be back to where they were with C-USA. Why did they not get invited to the BXII along with the rest of the SWC schools? They have about a million more people in FTW than freaking Waco and BAYLOR got an invite.

So you called my post ‘crazy’ and then you agreed with: “I agree with the approach of offering games to the BE to keep it together”.

So which is it? Am I crazy or do you agree with me?