re: Hate to say it, but West Virginia might be a diamond in the rough in the future.

quote:

---

Would you prefer NC State? How is that any better? Not a bad choice, but at least West Virginia has a whole state to claim as their own.

---

You have no idea how this works, do you?

Let's walk through this:
1) Expansion is all about money, which means it's all about increasing the number of states (i.e. households) in the SEC Network's footprint. You add a state to the footprint by selecting a school with enough alumni to drive demand in the state's metro areas. It matters very little whether or not that school is the only school in its state. That's why adding A&M was as good as adding Texas as far as SEC Network money goes (we delivered the state) and why, prima donna issues aside, it would now be a financial mistake and bad for the conference to add Texas (the state is already generating in-footprint $$$, and Texas would affect that number very little, if at all. That is, they'd be another mouth to feed with the roughly the same $$$ total).

2) Mississippi is currently the smallest school in the SEC with a population of 2.9mil. West Virginia has a population of 1.9 mil, about 1/3 less than Mississippi's.

3) West Virginia's largest "city" is Charleston, which has a population of 50k. That's about the same population as New Braunfels, TX. Ever heard of New Braunfels? Of course not. That's because it's a town of fifty fricking thousand so nobody gives a frick about it, and you certainly don't go to conference war over it. I have no idea how many households and potential cable subscriptions are in West Virginia, but with that population, it's debatable whether they'd even generate enough $$ to cover their cost. That is we'd add their money, but we'd have to pay them a full share, so the other 14 members would make less $$ than they currently are). So $$$/15 > ($$$ + WVU$$$)/16

4) North Carolina is a state of 10 million, more than 5x that of West Virginia. Virginia is a state of 8.3 million. North Carolina State and Virginia Tech are big enough names in their states to deliver their metro areas. It is financially retarded to say that West Virginia is a better choice than either VT or NCSU.