By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter
The Southwestern Athletic Conference is changing and on the verge of change.
Economic reality is driving the future. In short, schools need more dollars to finance their football programs as well as their overall athletic programs.
The question is in how tweaking the schedules, for TV and for payday games against larger schools, will affect a conference which has traditionally been a leader in attendance in what was Division I-AA.
A partnership with the ESPN family started in 2005, and part of that is playing on Thursdays.
The other factor, starting next season, is revamping the conference schedule so most teams don’t start playing SWAC games until late September and schools have to play seven conference games and not nine, thereby freeing up two game dates. The thinking there is to allow more schools to play championship subdivision schools to get a substantial payday.
Already this season, Grambling will play at Pittsburgh and Louisiana-Monroe, Texas Southern will play at Texas-El Paso and Houston, Alcorn State will play at Alabama-Birmingham and Arkansas-Pine Bluff will play at New Mexico State.
Southern, which played Tulane twice earlier this decade, plays at the University of Houston to start next season. And members of the SU Board of Supervisors have repeatedly called for playing national power LSU.
“You have to do that from a financial point,” SWAC interim Commissioner Duer Sharp said. “All those Division I-A teams want to play, but they can only play you in September. And for us, we play each other in September. Our schools were missing out on big paydays. It gives them some relief in September, and it gives them a chance to get tuned up.”
There’s a novelty there. But the danger is, will repeated blowouts erode the oomph of playing a school from the higher classification?
“When I was (interim athletic director) at Grambling (in 1995, while still working in the SWAC office), I used to get calls all the time,” Sharp said. “Do you want to come to Gainesville for ‘X’ amount of dollars? The opportunities are there. But if you want those paydays, you have to go out and play those teams.”
Grambling’s name has much more cache than any other in the conference. Jackson State and Southern also have some pull. The rest of the schools don’t.
Playing at a powerhouse like Florida or LSU could provide a huge payday, but teams on the level of Houston and New Mexico State can’t. The reality is, more SWAC schools will be playing those programs than the biggest of the big boys. Accordingly, the checks for the scheduled losses will be smaller.
Southern got blasted 41-7 and 37-19 by Tulane. Grambling got beat 42-22 at Houston last season.
“You talk about paydays. It sounds good, $200,000, but part of that is on the condition on how many tickets you sell,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “If you don’t sell that, then you don’t get the $200,000.
“You take a physical beating, depth-wise. That’s the biggest difference I see in (the bowl subdivision) and the (championship subdivision). Then you still have a conference to play.”
Playing on national television is a must, but doesn’t necessarily give the SWAC a big boost. Really, this is meeting the bar, not setting it.
Of the 11 televised games this season, seven are on the ESPN family: five regular-season games on ESPNU and the season-opening MEAC/SWAC Challenge and the season-ending SWAC Championship Game on ESPN Classic.
The downside is, three of the ESPNU games are on Thursdays. (Plus, seven of the 11 are played by Sept. 22.)
“(Playing Thursday) helps as far as exposure, but economically if you’re going to be able to compensate from what’s lost (in attendance) from that Saturday, then it’s OK,” Richardson said. “But if you can’t, there’s no way to get it back.”
The thought is, developing a relationship with ESPNU will pay off in the long run. The conference’s contract lasts through 2011, Sharp said.
“This time last year, you couldn’t get ESPNU in Birmingham (Ala.),” Sharp said.
“I get it now. The hope is, in a couple years, ESPNU is what ESPN2 was and we’re in 90 million homes. That’s when it will be a great win for the SWAC. Right now, we’re in on the ground floor.”
The risk from these moves is playing on Thursdays to empty stadiums and playing on Saturdays to get blown out for the money. Is this turning the back on traditional fans who have made the SWAC what it is? Is this necessary to lure a new audience? But is there even a new audience to be found?
Onward to the future.
On the rise
UAPB was an afterthought before last season and started 1-3. But nobody was better during a seven-game winning streak to the title game, where UAPB fell 22-13 to Alabama A&M. UAPB has to firm up its offensive line but has the tools to make another run.
On the decline
Southern has gone 4-5 and 5-6 the last two seasons — 9-13 since taking an 8-2 record into the 2005 Bayou Classic.
Usually a lock to be a contender under Richardson, for the first time since the conference began playing in two divisions (in 1999), SU was picked to finish third. The mystique is certainly gone.
Say hello to&hellip
Grambling, the SWAC and black college national champion in 2000-02 and again in ’05, and Alabama State, which won the SWAC title in ’04 and got to the championship game in ’03, have new coaches.
Grambling went outside of the family to hire Rod Broadway, who made a winner of Division II North Carolina Central and was the national black college coach of the year, in January. A defensive lineman at North Carolina and with 28 years of coaching experience, Broadway is the ninth head coach in the program’s history.
Alabama State elevated Reggie Barlow, the quarterbacks coach the last two seasons, in early May. Barlow was a star receiver at Alabama State, graduating in 1995.
On the hot seat
Richardson has to produce in the final season of his three-year contract. This is an awkward situation and an unfortunate one for a man who made the program relevant again.
After taking SU to back-to-back SWAC title games in 2003 and ’04, Richardson got a raise, getting paid $200,000 each of the last two seasons, setting a standard for pay in the championship subdivision. But the school’s legendary coach instead has suffered the only two losing seasons of his career, now entering 15 years at SU.
Attendance and fan enthusiasm have sagged. That’s partly from the losing, and a good bit from the administration’s raising of ticket prices combined with a failure to build a much-needed north end zone expansion.
At the finish
UAPB came on strong last season, and its success was no fluke. Quarterback Chris Wallace, the SWAC Offensive Player of the Year, gives the Golden Lions balance.
Jackson State, meanwhile, will continue to make strides in year two under Rick Comegy. The Tigers last made the SWAC Championship Game in 1999, the first year, and last won the conference in 1996.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference is changing and on the verge of change.
Economic reality is driving the future. In short, schools need more dollars to finance their football programs as well as their overall athletic programs.
The question is in how tweaking the schedules, for TV and for payday games against larger schools, will affect a conference which has traditionally been a leader in attendance in what was Division I-AA.
A partnership with the ESPN family started in 2005, and part of that is playing on Thursdays.
The other factor, starting next season, is revamping the conference schedule so most teams don’t start playing SWAC games until late September and schools have to play seven conference games and not nine, thereby freeing up two game dates. The thinking there is to allow more schools to play championship subdivision schools to get a substantial payday.
Already this season, Grambling will play at Pittsburgh and Louisiana-Monroe, Texas Southern will play at Texas-El Paso and Houston, Alcorn State will play at Alabama-Birmingham and Arkansas-Pine Bluff will play at New Mexico State.
Southern, which played Tulane twice earlier this decade, plays at the University of Houston to start next season. And members of the SU Board of Supervisors have repeatedly called for playing national power LSU.
“You have to do that from a financial point,” SWAC interim Commissioner Duer Sharp said. “All those Division I-A teams want to play, but they can only play you in September. And for us, we play each other in September. Our schools were missing out on big paydays. It gives them some relief in September, and it gives them a chance to get tuned up.”
There’s a novelty there. But the danger is, will repeated blowouts erode the oomph of playing a school from the higher classification?
“When I was (interim athletic director) at Grambling (in 1995, while still working in the SWAC office), I used to get calls all the time,” Sharp said. “Do you want to come to Gainesville for ‘X’ amount of dollars? The opportunities are there. But if you want those paydays, you have to go out and play those teams.”
Grambling’s name has much more cache than any other in the conference. Jackson State and Southern also have some pull. The rest of the schools don’t.
Playing at a powerhouse like Florida or LSU could provide a huge payday, but teams on the level of Houston and New Mexico State can’t. The reality is, more SWAC schools will be playing those programs than the biggest of the big boys. Accordingly, the checks for the scheduled losses will be smaller.
Southern got blasted 41-7 and 37-19 by Tulane. Grambling got beat 42-22 at Houston last season.
“You talk about paydays. It sounds good, $200,000, but part of that is on the condition on how many tickets you sell,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “If you don’t sell that, then you don’t get the $200,000.
“You take a physical beating, depth-wise. That’s the biggest difference I see in (the bowl subdivision) and the (championship subdivision). Then you still have a conference to play.”
Playing on national television is a must, but doesn’t necessarily give the SWAC a big boost. Really, this is meeting the bar, not setting it.
Of the 11 televised games this season, seven are on the ESPN family: five regular-season games on ESPNU and the season-opening MEAC/SWAC Challenge and the season-ending SWAC Championship Game on ESPN Classic.
The downside is, three of the ESPNU games are on Thursdays. (Plus, seven of the 11 are played by Sept. 22.)
“(Playing Thursday) helps as far as exposure, but economically if you’re going to be able to compensate from what’s lost (in attendance) from that Saturday, then it’s OK,” Richardson said. “But if you can’t, there’s no way to get it back.”
The thought is, developing a relationship with ESPNU will pay off in the long run. The conference’s contract lasts through 2011, Sharp said.
“This time last year, you couldn’t get ESPNU in Birmingham (Ala.),” Sharp said.
“I get it now. The hope is, in a couple years, ESPNU is what ESPN2 was and we’re in 90 million homes. That’s when it will be a great win for the SWAC. Right now, we’re in on the ground floor.”
The risk from these moves is playing on Thursdays to empty stadiums and playing on Saturdays to get blown out for the money. Is this turning the back on traditional fans who have made the SWAC what it is? Is this necessary to lure a new audience? But is there even a new audience to be found?
Onward to the future.
On the rise
UAPB was an afterthought before last season and started 1-3. But nobody was better during a seven-game winning streak to the title game, where UAPB fell 22-13 to Alabama A&M. UAPB has to firm up its offensive line but has the tools to make another run.
On the decline
Southern has gone 4-5 and 5-6 the last two seasons — 9-13 since taking an 8-2 record into the 2005 Bayou Classic.
Usually a lock to be a contender under Richardson, for the first time since the conference began playing in two divisions (in 1999), SU was picked to finish third. The mystique is certainly gone.
Say hello to&hellip
Grambling, the SWAC and black college national champion in 2000-02 and again in ’05, and Alabama State, which won the SWAC title in ’04 and got to the championship game in ’03, have new coaches.
Grambling went outside of the family to hire Rod Broadway, who made a winner of Division II North Carolina Central and was the national black college coach of the year, in January. A defensive lineman at North Carolina and with 28 years of coaching experience, Broadway is the ninth head coach in the program’s history.
Alabama State elevated Reggie Barlow, the quarterbacks coach the last two seasons, in early May. Barlow was a star receiver at Alabama State, graduating in 1995.
On the hot seat
Richardson has to produce in the final season of his three-year contract. This is an awkward situation and an unfortunate one for a man who made the program relevant again.
After taking SU to back-to-back SWAC title games in 2003 and ’04, Richardson got a raise, getting paid $200,000 each of the last two seasons, setting a standard for pay in the championship subdivision. But the school’s legendary coach instead has suffered the only two losing seasons of his career, now entering 15 years at SU.
Attendance and fan enthusiasm have sagged. That’s partly from the losing, and a good bit from the administration’s raising of ticket prices combined with a failure to build a much-needed north end zone expansion.
At the finish
UAPB came on strong last season, and its success was no fluke. Quarterback Chris Wallace, the SWAC Offensive Player of the Year, gives the Golden Lions balance.
Jackson State, meanwhile, will continue to make strides in year two under Rick Comegy. The Tigers last made the SWAC Championship Game in 1999, the first year, and last won the conference in 1996.
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