“Big-picture wise, at the end of the day, it’s the dollar signs,” Miller said. “Everything starts and stops there. You’re going to be able to put yourself in a better position in the league. Television is going to be really, really attractive. Moving forward, I think there’s going to be a bigger piece in terms of money.”
The Bulldogs and Rams have more incentives than just that, but the financial piece certainly played a part in their decisions.
VCU is leaving behind $5 million in revenue sharing in the CAA. It also had to pay a $700,000 entry fee to the A-10 and $250,000 exit fee to the CAA. But interim athletic director David Benedict told reporters he expects to easily recoup that money. He said the Rams will have “a lot of additional revenue this year” from fundraising, sponsorships and ticket sales, including 700 orders for new season tickets.
Additional funds also would come with more frequent NCAA tourney trips, something both schools cited as a motivator to switch leagues. Conferences receive payouts, called “units,” for every tourney game its members play (excluding the finals) on a six-year rolling average. Last year, those units were worth $240,000. In the A-10, teams keep 75 percent of what they generate after league expenses, and the rest is distributed equally among the other members.
The CAA has had four NCAA at-large berths and the Horizon has had three since 2000, while the A-10 has had 20, including three last season.
Television rights fees could have an impact on the bottom line, too. The A-10’s deal with TV partners ESPN and CBS Sports Network will expire next year, and new negotiations will begin this summer.
While the league’s rights fees haven’t generated a significant amount in the past, the additions of Butler and VCU, which have made a combined three Final Four appearances in the last three years, should trigger a substantial bump.
“With television, it’s all about matchups,” UD Athletic Director Tim Wabler said. “Both those teams provide us with an opportunity for very attractive matchups with programs that are already in the league.”
Butler and VCU have made serious financial commitments to their basketball programs, especially in coaches’ salaries. The Rams’ Shaka Smart was given a raise from $325,000 to $1.2 million after a Final Four run in 2011, while the Bulldogs’ Brad Stevens, after the first of two national runner-up finishes, was given a contract extension through 2022 that’s believed to be worth more than $1 million annually.
But both programs will encounter increased competition in the A-10 with more schools pumping big dollars into their hoop programs. Butler’s basketball expenses for 2010-11 were $3,541,122, and VCU spent $3,221,519. While those figures placed them by far at the top of their leagues, seven A-10 programs spent more than $3 million, including Richmond ($4,056,940), Xavier ($3,929,624) and Dayton ($3,810,320), and four others approached that figure.
“We have very high expectations within our program,” said Smart, the VCU coach. “We like to take on challenges head on. We understand this move to the Atlantic 10 is going to be a challenge. It’s a phenomenal league. There’s teams across the board in the Atlantic 10 that have done great things going back many years. We know we have a lot of work to do, but we really wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The A-10 still has to hammer out how it will accommodate its newest members. VCU is joining July 1 and Butler in 2013, coinciding with the departures of Temple and Charlotte.
That means the league will have 15 schools this season and drop to 14 after that. A-10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade has said the conference will discuss expanding from 16 to 18 league games in meetings with athletic directors this week, which is something UD has opposed. Divisional play will be considered down the road, she said.
McGlade pointed out that the Big Ten, Big East, Big 12 and Pac-12 all currently play an 18-game league schedule, while the ACC and SEC will play 18 beginning this season. That leaves fewer opportunities for nonpower conference schools to schedule nonleague games, which may hamper some A-10 teams.
But that could cut into UD’s ability to generate revenue by potentially eliminating a lucrative one-way home game (against the likes of Coppin State) or limit them in scheduling nonleague series games with top programs (Alabama and Southern Cal are on the schedule this season).
Having 18 conference games also would mean a change to the A-10’s pod system. Currently, each school plays three teams twice and the others once. With 15 members next year, an 18-game schedule would require schools to play one more opponent home and away. When the league returns to 14 teams in 2013-14, that would mean facing five teams twice.
A pod that would make geographical sense for UD in 2013-14 would include Xavier, Butler, Saint Louis, Duquesne and perhaps a Philadelphia school. But Miller would prefer something different.
“I know the one team that will always be in our pod is Xavier. I don’t necessarily want to be landlocked into playing the Midwestern guys,” he said. “Part of the beauty of the Atlantic 10 is being able to recruit that mid-Atlantic area and getting into New York and Philly and D.C. Those are great opportunities to get out and get our program going. We have such great fan support everywhere we go.”
The A-10 certainly pulled off a coup in picking off Butler and VCU. The conference also reportedly extended an invitation to George Mason, but the Virginia school decided to stay put.
That doesn’t mean, though, that the league is standing pat. The football-driven conference-realignment craze is far from over, and even a basketball-centric league like the A-10 needs to remain ready to strike.
“One of the things that was important to us was to be ahead of the curve and purposeful in how we wanted to position the A-10 going forward,” said Xavier president Father Michael Graham, who is chairman of the A-10’s council of presidents. “For example, there’s all this talk that surfaces from time to time about the Big East coming unzipped and what happens when that happens. We’re not interested in not being in the driver’s seat in respect to the future of our conference.
“The steps we’ve taken in the last couple of weeks have all been designed to cement that stature. And we intend to continue to keep an eye on the situation.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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