East Carolina? Tulsa? No thanks.
South Florida? Temple? Why? So The Daz can feel closer to home?
Don’t do it, CSU.
Take a pass, Joe Parker. Move on, Joyce McConnell. Whatever ails the Rams — stadium debt, brand depreciation and a football program with a Kansas-esque 9-23 record (.281) since August 2018 — won’t be solved by joining the American Athletic Conference. Not all of it, anyway.
We warned you, didn’t we? Texas and Oklahoma? Only the beginning. Once big dominoes start toppling, it all trickles down eventually. The AAC has reportedly targeted at least two schools along the Front Range — CSU and Air Force — as candidates to replace Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. The Big 12 poached the latter trio from the AAC, along with BYU, to replace the Longhorns and Sooners after the SEC poached those two gold-diggers.
Look, we get it. Canvas Stadium is too good for the Mountain West. But the Rams’ football program, post-Jim McElwain, isn’t good enough for the Power 5. CSU is one of a handful of schools stuck in Football Bowl Subdivision limbo, scratching and clawing for higher ground before the next flood rolls in.
The Big 12 dream is toast. McConnell, the university president since 2019, and Parker, the Rams’ athletic director since 2015, want to show the donors something for their patronage. Something beyond a sumptuous view of terrible football.
Don’t do it, CSU.
Oh, we know. On one hand, it’s almost flattering. By virtue of television payouts, the AAC is a step up from the MW, a circuit that CSU helped found in May 1998 after a clandestine meeting at DIA.
The AAC wants Denver TV eyeballs, given that the markets in Houston (2.5 million television homes, according to the Nielsen Company), Orlando (UCF, 1.79 million) and Cincinnati (0.926 million) will soon be part of the Big 12’s mangled, gerrymandered footprint.
Only here’s the thing: While you can’t throw a breakfast burrito in our fair burgh without hitting a Rammie alum, CSU football under coach Steve Addazio and predecessor Mike Bobo don’t move the broadcast needle a whit.
Four of the Rams’ games in 2019 on the ESPN family of networks reportedly averaged 644,500 viewers per tilt, according to SportsMediaWatch.com. In 2017, the site listed the average audience of Rams appearances on ESPN at 920,000 per game, including streaming.
But the money, you say. Yeah? Read the fine print. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reported earlier this month that ESPN has a clause in its contract with the AAC over “membership composition” that could reduce future payments if the league lost its biggest television markets.
The MW’s deal with FOX and CBS Sports is reportedly worth roughly $4.1 million annually to the Rams. ESPN pays AAC members around $7 million a year — but that was before Houston (No. 8 TV market) Orlando (No. 17) and Cincinnati (No. 36) left the room.
AAC commish Mike Aresco is going to make the argument to the Disney suits that Broncos Country is AAC Country. But when your replacement plan includes Colorado Springs/Pueblo (No. 82 market, 0.38 million TV households) and Fort Collins, you better believe Mickey Mouse is going to want some of that cheese back in his pockets.
Canvas Stadium is 1,748 miles from Temple, a 26-hour drive if you take I-80 straight through. It’s 1,909 miles to the USF campus in Tampa. Follow I-70 for 13 hours to St. Louis, wave “Hi” to Nolan Arenado, make a slight right, then chug another 15 hours south.
Don’t do it, CSU.
Don’t turn your back on the rivalries. On the history. On the trophy games. Not when they might actually start to get interesting again.
CSU holds The Bronze Boot for the first time in forever. So now you’re going to celebrate by taking a tire iron to the Wyoming series, a blood feud that dates back to 1899?
Yes, the MW is a hot mess. Yes, the American — even without UCF, Cincy or Houston — could open up potential pipelines for recruits to see you, up close, in Florida (USF), Texas (SMU), Tennessee (Memphis) and Louisiana (Tulane). Assuming, of course, that those schools are still in it for the long haul, too.
Daz is an East Coast lifer. The man makes all kinds of sense in the AAC. The Rams, even at their most beggared and abject, do not. And never will.
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