UCONN's football financial situation

Collegiate Sports
21

I know for a fact that when we started football we discussed a glide path into what was then the BE, so those schools were interested at that time. We also know that at least one other BCS league at the time was looking at us. This was publicly discussed by the Mac Everett group.

I would be shocked if Hill isn’t in touch with them. I’d be shocked if Mike didn’t make some of these phone calls well ahead of even taking the Charlotte job. I would imagine in his due diligence on the role he wanted to know what our conference options are and as connected as he is probably was able to make some inquiries under the radar. I also wouldn’t discount the influence of ESPN being here.

If stadium size is the only roadblock, that is easily fixable. We have relationships with many of those schools and while ECU might have issues with us, their current budget issues would welcome an instate in conference rival.

Y’all might think the AAC is a reach for us right now. I actually think then opposite, I think the AAC is pretty reachable, I and I am betting Mike, have eyes on bigger fish.

2 Likes
22

At this point, this window absolutely must be top of mind for Hill.

23

clt would settle for the aac, but the long term destination is SEC

24

Houston wants to join the Big 12 in the worst way. If the Big 12 decides to re-expand to 12 they could take 2 AAC schools or take Houston and BYU. That opens 2 slots in the AAC if Connecticut drops to 1-AA football. (3 if they take 2 AAC schools and UConn drops to 1-AA.)

If a school had a football team for 20 years and had a 15,000 seat stadium, that would be a deterrent to inviting that school to join a better conference. If the school’s program was still in its startup phase and had access to a 73,000 seat stadium, that would alleviate the concerns.

25

I have heard if we decided to expand our stadium that if work started as soon as the season was over it would be complete by start of the next season with all the prework done while building the existing footprint.

1 Like
26

clt says we can practice for the access bowl next fall while construction is under way

27

That’s true. 1st level expansion requires zero demo.

28

They could add the missing concession pod before this fall, I’d think.

29

Do they need to expand bathroom capacity before they add seats?

30

We never had much detail provided, but I don’t recall there being any other ground level pods in the plans that would be bathrooms. I think bathrooms on the expanded level were expected.

Renderings http://gmine.blogspot.com/2010/09/trustees-see-new-stadium-renderings.html?m=1

31

I see Houston getting a PAC 12 invite before a Big XII invite. The PAC likely wants to get into the central time zone. The Big XII does what Texas wants and they likely don’t want Houston in the same conference.