ASK THE COMMISH
Each week Commissioner Dennis Farrell will take questions from the fans of the Big West Conference. The best question of the week with Commissioner Farrell's response will be posted on this page. If your question was not chosen this week, it may be in future weeks.
This week's question comes again from David Saw
Question: It is my understanding that conferences do not get the NCAA basketball tournament money until six years later. If that's true, what will happen when the money comes in from Utah State's 2001 NCAA appearance when they beat Ohio State?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "Your understanding of the NCAA revenue sharing process is not entirely true. Conferences earn what is referred to as a "Unit" for every game a member plays in during an NCAA tournament. In other words, if a conference gets two teams into any NCAA tournament and they both lose their first round game, the conference has earned two "units". Conversely, if a conference gets one team into a tournament and it wins its first round game before losing in the second round, the conference has earned two "units". The conference begins receiving these "units" the year after any NCAA tournament and continues to receive them for six years before they drop off. Therefore, the Big West conference began receiving Utah State's Ohio State victory unit during the 2001-2002 academic year and will continue to receive it through the 2006-2007 academic year. The Big West Council annually decides how to use NCAA basketball tournament money (whether to invest it in some special project like television or marketing or to distribute it to the members)."
This week's question comes from David Saw
Question: Has there been talk about the Big West moving the Big West basketball tournament to either campus sites or someplace like the Long Beach Arena?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The conference is constantly evaluating its post-season basketball tournament event. During the 2002-2003 academic year we conducted an extensive review of the tournament and concluded that at least for the foreseeable future, the Anaheim Convention Center is the ideal venue for it. The coaches desire having the tournament played on a neutral court for a couple of reasons: it presents the fairest way to contest the event; and it's the way most major conferences hold their tournament. The Anaheim Convention Center, which has undergone dramatic renovation in the past three years, is considered the best possible site for the tournament because of its quality, size and location (specifically, its proximity to five Southern California Big West campuses and to the world renown Disneyland Resort). We will be at the Anaheim Convention Center for at least the next three years."
Another question from David Saw
Question: I understand that seven sports are Big West priority sports. Women's volleyball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, baseball, and softball. Can you explain what it means by a sport being a Big West priority sport? What would it take for another sport to be added as a Big West priority sport?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The term "Priority Sport" is a bit of misnomer in that all 17 of our championship sports should be considered "priority". The members that sponsor the seven sports that you listed above do have some conference-mandated requirements that they must place on those sports that are not required in the other sports. Specifically, each team in those seven sports must be funded with at least 80 per cent of the NCAA maximum allowable scholarships. This is required to keep from having a team be significantly less funded than the others in the conference. Why these seven sports? These are the seven round-robin championship sports that the Big West sponsors and that our NCAA post-season at-large participants are selected (and all participants are seeded) by computer rankings. If you have a poorly funded team in either of these seven sports, its performance can severely drag down the rest of the teams' computer rankings and affect their post-season selection and seeding. Will there be other teams added to this list? You never say never!"
This week's question once again comes from Dylan Boggs
Question: What is the Big West's position on the elimination of the 5/8 rule?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The Big West Conference administrators did not support the elimination of the "5/8 rule", although our coaches were supportive of its elimination. Though the conference cast a "No" vote at the Management Council meeting in eliminating the rule, we recognize that with the new "Incentive/Disincentive" legislative package, the 5/8 rule would become unnecessary eventually."
This week's question comes from Dylan Boggs
Question: Will Utah State and Idaho be eligible for the Big West Basketball Tournament next season? With them leaving the conference, wouldn't it be more important to feature the teams that are staying, like the CAA did when Richmond left in 2001? It makes the conference look bad to have a team win the championship and then leave.
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "Utah State and the University of Idaho have been outstanding and loyal members of the Big West Conference for many years. As such, they are due all the respect, courtesy, and privileges that are accorded other members of the conference. Their decision to leave the conference has been supported by the other conference members and has been in no way acrimonious. Therefore, both teams will be eligible to participate in next year's Big West Basketball Tournament. We'll let the results on the court next year decide which team within the conference is most deserving to call themselves "Champion". We've had teams leaving the conference before win our tournament championship in their final year and we've recovered from that. We will again, should that happen in 2005."
This week's question comes from Joe Loevner
Question: When will UC Davis become an official member of the Big West?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "UC Davis officially joins the Big West Conference on July 1, 2007. They are in the first year of a four-year transition phase to Division I. They will not be eligible for conference championships or NCAA Championships until the 2007-08 season. The only championship to this date UC Davis will compete in prior to 2007-08 is the Big West Swimming and Diving Championship. They will count as a Division I opponent for both NCAA Division I membership scheduling requirements and in the RPI beginning in 2004-05."
This week's question comes from Keith Ross
Question: Do you believe San Jose State will rejoin the Big West? What are other possible conference expansion targets beyond UC Davis?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "It is inappropriate for me to speculate or comment on the athletic future of any institution that is not currently aligned with the Big West Conference."
This week's question comes from Kyle Smith
Question: How is the Big West working to improve the marketability and media attention of the conference as a whole and the individual programs. It seems to be a double edge sword, especially in the Los Angeles / Southern California area where there is a large concentration of media outlets that could potentially help to spread the word, but a wide range of competition for the attention of college sports fans.
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "As I’ve mentioned before, television is the primary marketing tool for the Big West Conference. The Conference’s basketball coaches feel it is imperative to have as broad of television coverage as possible in order to recruit elite student-athletes. In addition, television provides the conference the widest distribution of its product on a live basis or any medium. This year we had a total of 27 men’s and women’s basketball games televised as part of the Conference package. The Big West Basketball Tournament has found a comfortable home at the Anaheim Convention Center that, I believe, will allow that event to grow in recognition and fan support. It’s a neutral-site arena, which is desired by the coaches, and located adjacent to one of the world’s great tourist attractions. I see attendance and media coverage for the tournament growing each season to the point where tickets will become a real premium. We had coverage of the event every day in the Orange County Register, many times on the front page, and we had over 5,500 in attendance at the semifinal games on Friday.
This week's question comes from Jon Ralston
Question: What is the process involved in obtaining a TV contract for Big West Basketball? What aspects of the process are controlled by the Big West members/corporate office and what aspects are out of their hands?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The Big West Conference has contracts with four different television partners (ESPN, Fox Sports Net, College Sports Television, and KVMD-TV). Each of these contracts is a multi-year deal that is usually negotiated near the end of a contractual-term. ESPN has the first option to select men’s basketball games to televise (and has the rights to the Big West Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship Game), followed in order by Fox, KVMD, and CSTV. CSTV also has the rights to televise Big West contests from other sports. Per the Big West bylaws, the Conference Office owns the television rights to all athletic events in conference championship sports that are hosted by a member institution. If a conference television partner does not pick up an event by a prescribed deadline, institutions have the right to negotiate television coverage for their home games with a local packager."
This week's question comes from Adam Pinson
Question: What is currently being done to help promote Big West Athletics? In addition, does the Big West feel that changing to FSN2 and afternoon air times is better than last year's television package?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "Television is the primary marketing tool of the Big West Conference in promoting its athletic events. This year, a total of 27 men’s and women’s basketball games will be televised on one of the conference’s four television partners’ outlets (ESPN, Fox Sports Net, KVMD-TV, and CSTV). The conference’s move to Saturday games was done for two reasons: 1, to hopefully reach a larger television audience; and 2, to avoid the 5:30 p.m. Thursday time slot that proved to be difficult for fans to attend."
This week's question comes from Peter Lund
Question: Does the conference have any specific plans for adding sports in the future due to the addition of UC Davis? Would the conference consider adding men's, women's waterpolo and men's volleyball due to the number of universities that sponsor these programs?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "Men's and women's water polo, along with men's volleyball, are being considered for addition as Big West championship sports. The conference has a bylaw that stipulates when six members sponsor a sport, it can be added as a championship. UC Davis' addition to the conference will give us six women's water polo programs, but only five men's water polo and volleyball teams. Therefore, either a future 10th California member will have to sponsor those sports or we'll have to add an associate member in each sport before we'll create a championship.
"Rules that govern automatic qualification for NCAA championships require a conference to have at least six Division I teams before it can be guaranteed of its champion advancing to the national tournament...thus the reason for the Big West's rule. Even if the conference meets the minimum sports sponsorship requirement, we're not assured of an automatic berth in any of these championships. Only four teams participate in the NCAA men's water polo and volleyball championships and eight teams play in the women's water polo tournament. We are investigating the likelihood that the conference would earn automatic qualification in each of these championships as well as other national consequences that could arise with us creating a championship in these sports."
This question comes from Jonathan Rhim
Question: Our commitment with the Anaheim Convention Center expires after this season. Have we picked our future site yet?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The Big West Conference recently extended its contract with the Anaheim Convention Center for hosting our tournament through the 2006 season. The ACC Arena is an ideal venue for this event for a number of reasons: 1) it's a neutral court, which is the fairest site for determining a conference tournament; 2) it's a quality facility that has undergone numerous upgrades in recent years; 3) it's centrally located for the fans of the Southern California member schools; 4) it's located directly across the street from one of the world's great tourist attractions; and 5) it's got world-class hotels within walking distance of the venue."
This question comes from Jon Ralston
Question: With the likelihood that San Jose State will lose it's Division IA status for Football are there any talks going on about SJSU rejoining the Big West?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "There have been several questions from fans regarding future membership. It is inappropriate for me to speculate on the athletic future of any institution that is not currently aligned with the Big West Conference. It is appropriate, though, for me to reiterate that our conference membership goal is to eventually have ten members located in the State of California. We will review institutions as they become interested in joining the Big West and make our decision based on which one will be the best fit geographically, athletically, and academically. There is no timeline established for meeting our ultimate membership goal."
This question came from Brandon Farley
Question: What level and type of communication goes on between the BWC office and member schools regarding efforts to improve scheduling mens basketball games of out of conference opponents?
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: ""At one point in time, the Big West Conference had a very strict men's basketball non-conference scheduling requirement in its bylaws. We found, however, after a number of years that this requirement was not only failing to improve our NCAA computer rankings....it was actually hurting our ratings. The reason for that was that we were setting up a number of programs for failure by requiring them to play major programs on the road.
"Today we encourage our programs to schedule for success against the highest level of Division I competition they feel their team can handle in any one year. In other words, if a team is returning a large number of veterans then they should try and schedule as strong of non-conference competition as it can. Conversely, if a team is rebuilding, it should schedule a lower level of Division I competition in order to try and come into conference play with a winning record. We encourage all of our programs to try and schedule teams that can lead to a better than .500 non-conference record.
"This issue is discussed annually with the conference head coaches at their spring meeting and then later in the spring with the athletic directors at their semi-annual meeting."
This question came from Christopher Kwan
Question: What is the Big West Conference doing to help UC Davis deal with the NCAA rules about post season play for men's basketball? I think the current post season rules are a little ridiculous and really going to hurt UC Davis men's hoops and the Big West overall.
Commissioner Farrell's Answer: "The Big West Conference has sponsored NCAA legislation that, if adopted, would allow a new member of Division I to be eligible for a conference's automatic qualification opportunity immediately, provided the conference it joins meets the NCAA's AQ requirements. This means that the conference it joins must have at least seven members that have belonged to Division I for at least eight years and at least six of those have been together in a conference for a minimum of five years.
"The conference's legislation is due to be considered for initial adoption by the NCAA Division I Management Council in January with final adoption anticipated this coming April. Needless to say, passage of this proposal would allow UC Davis to be eligible for the Big West's automatic qualification in men's basketball (as well as all other AQ sports) in its first year of full Division I membership (2007-2008)."
