Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005130021
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Tech's future affiliation, which likely will be determined this spring and summer, could add a green tint to the Hokies' maroon and orange.
"Money - pure and simple," Braine said when asked what is motivating Tech. "Virginia will get $3.5 million from the ACC this year, just because of conference affiliation. We're going to get $65,000 [from the Metro Conference]."
The Cavaliers' participation in the Florida Citrus Bowl, Kickoff Classic and NCAA Tournament helped fill their piggy bank. Theoretically, similar revenue awaits Tech in a football-playing Metro or a new league, and Braine said Tech wouldn't remain in talks that didn't include discussion of at least limited revenue-sharing.
Tech should know more about its future after the eight-team Metro Conference holds its spring meetings May 23-26 in Destin, Fla.
"[At that time] it's all going to be put together or put to bed, one of the two," Braine said of Metro expansion and football.
Metro athletic directors and faculty representatives met May 7 in Atlanta to review a report on a study commissioned by the league and produced by Raycom Sports & Entertainment. The report provided athletic and academic information on the Metro schools, plus football independents West Virginia, Miami, Penn State, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Rutgers, Temple and East Carolina. It also outlined potential revenue available for an expanded Metro.
The Metro hired Raycom in March partly in response to Penn State's announced acceptance into the Big Ten in December and the movement that could cause among Eastern schools.
Several athletic directors and faculty representatives who attended the meeting said the study helped the Metro schools, which had been divided on the subject, decide to pursue expansion and football as a conference sport. League officials, who have said the Metro won't expand without playing football, will consider adding two or four schools to the present members: Tech, Louisville, Memphis State, Florida State, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Tulane and Southern Mississippi.
So Tech, which openly has told other Metro schools that it is studying other conference affiliations, may find the answer to its financial problems and football-scheduling hang-ups under its own nose.
And, while many athletic directors have said that schools involved in conference realignment talks must be prepared to give up something - for example, begin sharing bowl-game money or TV money - Tech seemingly can only gain from Metro expansion or formation of an Eastern Seaboard league.
Braine said he hopes the Metro expands and adds football, which likely would swaddle Tech's independent football program in a high-profile, revenue-sharing league. That failing, Braine said he hopes an all-sports league is formed among Eastern schools with independent football programs. That grouping likely would be just as beneficial financially for the Hokies. Tech's budget and season-ticket sales lag behind most of its Metro brethren, and it funds fewer athletic scholarships than four other Metro members.
At the Metro meetings, Braine said, he expects the league's joint committee to make a recommendation to league presidents about whether the conference should expand and add football.
If the conference approves expansion and football, Tech likely will stay in the larger Metro - although Braine said he wouldn't snub an Eastern league without a closer look. If the Metro spurns football and expansion, Braine said he will turn his attention to the Eastern Seaboard discussions to try to ensure Tech is included in any deals made by those schools.
If one of those scenarios develops and includes revenue-sharing and a TV deal, the affiliation could give Tech its first taste of the big-time money commanded by prime-time college athletics through television packages and postseason play.
Although he is focusing on the Metro option, Braine said he won't form a strategy for Tech to follow during the heated-up conference talks until after the Metro meetings and the College Football Association meetings in early June, when the Eastern Seaboard group likely will meet.
"At that time," he said of the CFA meetings, "we will have met both groups that we're interested in: Eastern Seaboard and the Metro. We are a member of the Metro. It's much easier to stay in a conference than it is to start a brand-new conference, new office, new everything, if you can get the mix you need."
The possibilities don't end there. The only certainty is that Tech won't join the ACC; the league isn't planning to expand, and Tech at best would seem to be behind Miami, Florida State, South Carolina and West Virginia on a possible ACC shopping list.
The Hokies could wind up in a new Metro if member schools such as Louisville, Memphis State and Cincinnati leave to join another basketball conference; it could join with Eastern independents to create a football-only league if the Metro votes not to expand and add football; or, seemingly as a last resort, it could try to join the Colonial Athletic Association for basketball and non-revenue sports and either become a member of the Eastern football league or remain a football independent.
So what should the Hokies do?
Publicly, Braine is playing it safe.
"I'm not going to approach anybody until we definitely know what's going to happen," he said, referring to the Metro expansion and Eastern Seaboard options.
Braine isn't sharing many of his thoughts within the athletic department. Several coaches and administrators interviewed said they didn't know what Tech's specific plans were. Some in the department say they are frustrated either that Braine hasn't openly discussed his strategy - other than repeating the party line that Tech wants an all-sports, revenue-sharing affiliation - or that Tech's administration hasn't endorsed a specific plan.
The administration is a peripheral player. Tech executive vice president Minnis Ridenour, who oversees the athletic department, said he has met with Braine to discuss the conference talks but said the administration hasn't become involved.
"At this point, I'm not exactly aware of where we're going in those talks," Ridenour said, referring to the Metro expansion discussions. "Dave has been given the authority to go out and visit [with other schools]. I've got all the confidence in the world in Dave Braine, and we're looking to Dave to give us guidance throughout [this process]."
The fear exists at Tech that when the domino effect of the expected conference realignments is over, Tech may be left scrambling for leftovers.
"That's a possibility, always that's a possibility," said Braine, adding that he's working on both the Metro expansion and Eastern Seaboard options as a way of guarding against that happening.
But how much influence do the Hokies have, and how attractive are they as a conference member? Tech does not command a large TV market, has not been a perennial postseason competitor in either football or basketball, has weak season-ticket sales in both major sports and is not considered high-profile in athletics. That leads to the skeptic's view of Tech's role in any conference discussions.
However, one athletic director involved in the Eastern league talks said Tech is an active player in those discussions, and is not considered a throw-in member.
"People know who Tech is, people know the program," said Charlie Theokas, Temple's athletic director. "It's just not a school that popped up overnight. People don't say [about Braine], `Who's that guy, and what school is he from?' They're not stepchildren.
"Everybody brings something [to the talks]."
Roanoke Valley Hokie Club President George Hawkins said he has heard many Tech fans say the school should do everything possible to join any group of Eastern independents in forming a new conference, that the diversity of Metro schools and their geographic separation makes for a senseless alliance.
One Tech administrator said the key to the Hokies' athletic future lies in affiliation with schools north of Virginia, not in the South or the Midwest.
So far, Tech seems most closely tied to its next-door neighbor, West Virginia, which seems to be one of the Metro's top two choices if the league expands.
"I would think it would make sense that if we go, we'd go together," said Ed Pastilong, West Virginia's athletic director. "It isn't like we've cut our wrists and made a blood pact. But if we are leaning one way, we're going to share our intentions with them, and I think they'd do the same with us."
Tech may devote its energy to trying to save the Metro, even if it means rounding up at least two, possibly four, new schools should Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis State and either Tulane or Florida State jump ship. Any new league must wait five years, under NCAA rules, to be eligible for an automatic bid to the basketball tournament. Since joining the Metro in 1978, Tech has gotten an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament three times.
"I just think we've got to be careful to [not] always be seeking change for the purpose of change," said Tech basketball coach Frankie Allen, who favors staying in the Metro, even if there is a turnover of member schools. "That [the Metro] could be a lot better than trying to go out there and tread water for two or three years."
Braine agreed that a revamped Metro Conference might not be all that bad.
"You know it wouldn't be such a bad situation, because then you could bring in another mix that might even be more compatible than what we have now," Braine said.
Academic compatibility carries top billing with some Tech coaches. Tech has stricter entrance requirements than most Metro schools, and some in the athletic department blame that for the Hokies' recruiting woes.
"I don't like being in a conference where you're not on a level playing field [with other league schools]," said Carol Alfano, the Tech women's basketball coach. "If you get into a conference, you need something like that. Not two schools doing one thing, three schools doing another."
Independently of the Raycom study, the Roanoke Times & World-News gathered athletic and academic data on the same 17 schools covered in the Raycom report. The information, in detail, is shown in a chart that accompanies this story.
Tech's priority, however, remains money, and how Tech can get more of it to increase its small budget, the number of scholarships it funds and to better its facilities. A three-year, university-run, $17 million fund-raising effort for athletics began in January, and the athletic department is trying to find ways to increase football season-ticket sales in hopes of pumping money into athletics.
But if Tech's program is to attain the national prominence it desires, Braine said, fund-raising and ticket sales alone won't cut it.
"I think it'll ensure survivability," Braine said. "I don't think it'll ensure prosperity."
The Metro is the only Division I basketball league that does not share non-conference TV and NCAA Tournament receipts, and Tech's telecast deal with Telesport Inc. lost more than $100,000 last season. Braine said an expanded Metro wouldn't instantly deliver revenue comparable to, for example, what Virginia will get this year from the ACC. He said the new league would "work into revenue sharing" and said he hoped that eventually would bring payoffs comparable to that of Virginia in the ACC.
Tech baseball coach Chuck Hartman said that in any new league a lucrative TV deal is paramount. And, he said, football has to carry the load - which means Tech can't afford to remain a football independent.
It either means joining an improved Metro that includes football powerhouses such as Miami, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and, possibly, Penn State, if the Nittany Lions aren't accepted by the Big Ten; or an Eastern league that includes Rutgers, Temple and Boston College, which command three of the top six TV markets in the country even though their programs aren't perennial winners.
"We've got to head toward, as bad as you hate to say it, a TV market somewhere," Hartman said. "That's just such big bucks, let's face it. I don't think we're going to survive if we don't get some kind of a TV package for our football program . . . [and not] one of these things where we hope we'll be on regional TV."
Tech doesn't just want to survive, it wants to become one of the nation's better athletic programs. Asked if joining a revenue-sharing, football-playing conference was a cure-all, Hokies football coach Frank Beamer said: "It would help speed up the process. I don't think there's any question about that."
by CNB