“We believe that it will be in the neighborhood of $3 million,” McClain said. On Tuesday, McClain said his school and others who leave CUSA are contracted over two years to pay the equivalent of what a share of CUSA distribution would be for those two years. It’s a grind.”įor Southern Miss, one potential stumbling block in switching leagues has been the exit fee, long reported to be $5 million. Says McClain, “Sun Belt basketball is under-rated. Only the SEC and Pac 12 had more.īasketball? My take is that the Sun Belt and Conference USA are quite similar as far as competition. Four Sun Belt softball teams earned NCAA Tournament berths last season. Southern Miss will add much to the league. South Alabama, Louisiana-Lafayette and Georgia Southern are all traditionally strong programs. Coastal Carolina baseball, which won the 2016 College World Series, finished last in its own division last season. The Sun Belt is intensely competitive in the spring sports of baseball and softball. Both Louisiana-Lafayette and Coastal finished in the top 15 of the Associated Press’s final 2020 Top 25 poll. All three Sun Belt teams - Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette and Coastal Carolina - collected huge checks for playing on the road. Just last season, on one September Saturday, three Sun Belt teams played three Big 12 teams (two of those ranked) on the road. Despite beating Memphis, Tulane and Houston consistently on the field, the Golden Eagles got passed by during conference re-alignment because of the relatively small amount of TV viewers in south Mississippi.Ĭompetition will be stiff. TV market-size is how Southern Miss got left behind in CUSA in the first place. In Miami, they still turn the dial to watch the Gators, Seminoles and Hurricanes. In Dallas, fans still tune in to watch Texas and Texas A&M. The truth, however: North Texas does not really give you the Dallas-Fort Worth TV market, any more than Florida Atlantic and Florida International give you the south Florida market. When Memphis, Houston, Tulane and others left, CUSA went after other large-market schools in belief they would give the league more TV appeal. Clearly, he prefers the Sun Belt where the leadership, under commissioner Keith Gill, a rising star in college athletics, appears more sharply focused.įor years now, Conference USA, which Southern Miss joined in 1995, has seemed almost like a bicycle without handle bars: unsteady at best, direction-less at worst. He knows what life is like in both leagues. He came back to Southern Miss from Troy where he served as athletic director for nearly four years. Build those rivalries and fans will travel.”Īgain, a game against, say, Louisiana-Lafayette or South Alabama is far more interesting for Southern Miss fans than, say, a game against UTEP or FIU. “Mobile, Lafayette, Monroe and Troy are easy drives from Hattiesburg. “Division games will be drive-able,” Waters said. Again, the Sun Belt gives them a better opportunity to do that. No matter what conference Southern Miss plays in, it must do better at the gate. CUSA’s main TV partners are CBSSports Network - not to be confused with CBS - and Stadium. The Sun Belt is an ESPN league with national exposure. To be sure, TV revenue won’t be that much higher in the Sun Belt than it was in CUSA, but TV exposure will be much more broad.
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