Ohio Bobcats Considering Stupid Move to Sun Belt
Good morning, and welcome to hell.
Yesterday, a report emerged that Ohio University has initiated and engaged in conversations with the Sun Belt Conference about the possibility of exiting the Mid-American Conference to join the SBC.
Before we go in-depth as to why that’s an asinine idea to think, let alone say out loud, let me make my stance on this crystal clear: This is a bad idea.
 |
| While the MAC has flown the flag over Power 5 opponents for several years, let us pray it does not become the image above the conference's epitaph. |
And for the sake of being up front, this piece will be focused primarily through a football lens, because despite the implications a move like this would have on basketball, soccer, softball, and every other sport, football is what is driving these unilaterally shortsighted, selfish, and greedy moves by athletic departments and schools across the college sports landscape.
According to the article that initially revealed the news, Ohio is the only named MAC school among several that have discussed the possibility of conference-hopping to the Sun Belt. Further down in the article, however, it’s noted that two existing Sun Belt schools have been lobbying for in-state rival Louisiana Tech to become the conference’s next expansion target. That would be a far more sensible move geographically and fiscally.
There are three primary reasons given in the article as to why Ohio is having these horribly misguided and foolhardy talks:
The number of mid-week football games in the MAC has resulted in decreased fan interest and ticket revenue.
Once considered one of the most stable and geographically compact FBS conferences, the MAC recently lost Northern Illinois to the Mountain West for football and the Horizon League for other sports. The additions of Buffalo and UMass have increased travel costs in a conference that was once made up entirely of teams from the Midwest.
These initial talks may be more about establishing relationships for the future than a current move considering the potential for a massive realignment across college sports before 2031.
Let’s break these down individually to bust these myths and fallacies with data and facts.
The number of mid-week football games in the MAC has resulted in decreased fan interest and ticket revenue.
This isn’t a new or isolated issue. TV revenue has driven the seismic shifts in college sports for the past 20 years, and as a result, the increased importance put on games being watched at home or streamed has meant fewer fans in the stands, especially for non-power schools. Factor in the added damage NIL payments have done to college sports, and it’s clear the gap between the upper and lower levels of Division I is becoming ever wider.
According to attendance figures tracked by D1 Ticker, Ohio ranked fourth out of the 12 MAC schools in average attendance during the 2024 season, at 17,641. That number is 7.1 percent lower than the team’s 2023 attendance, likely due to 2024 featuring no big-name, non-conference home games, whereas Iowa State visited Athens in 2023, drawing an announced attendance of 21,991.
If Ohio were compared to the 14 schools that played in the Sun Belt last season, its rank would be 13th. The Sun Belt’s average attendance as a conference in 2024 was 21,290 across 85 games, including the conference championship, which was played at Louisiana-Lafayette’s home stadium.
But considering media rights and disbursements from the NCAA and MAC account for nearly three times the amount of revenue generated by Ohio University’s athletic department compared to ticket sales, the impact of viewership needs to be factored much more heavily than in-house attendance. And the numbers below explicitly contradict the claim that midweek games have had a negative impact on fan interest.
The current deal the MAC has with ESPN, which expires at the end of the 2026-27 school year, nets each school approximately $800,000 per year. When added to “Revenue received from the NCAA (including championships) and athletics conferences, media rights, and post-season football bowl games,” Ohio took in $3.95 million in 2024 alone, sixth-most among MAC schools (Akron led with $5.6m). Only one Sun Belt school, Louisiana-Lafayette ($5.09m) drew more than Ohio in the same category, but can be easily dismissed as an outlier. The second-highest earner in the SBC, Georgia Southern, got $3.91 million, while the conference’s lowest-earning member, Troy, got only $2.81 million. The MAC’s lowest-earning member, Kent State, still drew $3.22 million. The MAC as a whole raked in $47.37 million in 2024. The Sun Belt, meanwhile, got $45.5 million.
Midweek MACtion on the ESPN family of networks has done wonders for the conference since 2000, when it first began playing a small portion of its conference games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Rather than be one of dozens of games played during an oversaturated weekend slate, the MAC has basked in the limelight for a quarter century, growing from a regional brand in the midwest to a cult-favourite conference with national recognition. Players like Ben Roethlisberger, Julian Edelman, and Khalil Mack have earned valuable exposure prior to having standout careers in the NFL. Moments like Election Night 2008 would have never happened and unlikely Heisman campaigns likely never would have gained traction without this forward-thinking idea that’s now a quarter-century old.
Late last November, the AP examined the trade-off of midweek football on TV and its impact in the stands. At the time of publication, the most-watched MAC game was a Wednesday nighter between Northern Illinois and Western Michigan, with 441,600 Nielsen viewers. Fans, coaches, and administrators across the conference who were interviewed for the piece acknowledged that smaller crowds on Tuesday or Wednesday nights negatively impacted the stadium atmosphere, but was often cited as worthwhile because of the increased national exposure the league receives from viewers at home. The article also noted that while midweek MACtion is one of the conference’s current hallmarks, it still plays about 75 percent of its games on Saturdays. In the grand scheme of things, playing one-quarter of your games in the middle of the week to gain upwards of 10 times the audience seems like a no-brainer, and the MAC does it exceptionally well.
In 2024, Nielsen ratings reflected a heavy preference for MAC football games versus Sun Belt games:
The MAC had 38 Nielsen events during the season, which averaged 745,131 viewers. The Sun Belt had 36 Nielsen events during the season, which averaged 453,083 viewers.
Nielsen Ratings do not include viewership on platforms including ESPN+, SECN, ACCN, CBSSN, or Peacock.
In regular-season conference matchups, the MAC averaged 213,294 viewers across 17 games. The Sun Belt averaged 172,222 viewers across 18 games.
The only quantifiable category in which the Sun Belt outperformed the MAC was overall average viewership during midweek games (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday), 347,000 in eight games versus 268,000 in 13 games.
However, when removing the ESPNU games from the comparison (the Sun Belt did not have a game shown on ESPNU during the regular season), the MAC’s midweek audience was larger, with an average of 361,111 in nine games.
Games broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 draw significantly higher audiences than games shown on ESPNU, for both conferences.
The most-watched ESPNU broadcast for either conference in 2024 was on November 13 at Miami, with 70,000 viewers.
The least-watched ESPN2 broadcast was on October 17 at Marshall, with 209,000 viewers.
In weekend (Friday/Saturday) regular-season conference games, the MAC and Sun Belt both had average viewership under 35,000 per game, with the MAC narrowly edging the Sun Belt, 34,250 to 32,400. Clearly, neither conference does well when going up against bigger-name schools or more intriguing matchups.
Both conferences held their championship games on December 7. The Ohio-Miami noon game drew 1.13 million viewers. Marshall-Louisiana kicked off at 7:30 p.m., and only had 392,000 viewers.
Both championships were broadcast on ESPN.
The MAC Championship ran simultaneously to the Big 12 Championship between Arizona State and Iowa State (ABC).
The Sun Belt Championship started 30 minutes prior to the Big Ten (CBS), Mountain West (FOX), and AAC (ABC) championship games.
The MAC bested the Sun Belt during bowl season as well, with Nielsen Ratings averaging 1.370 million compared to 1.224 million.
The Sun Belt had eight teams invited to bowl games in 2024, but only seven played, as Marshall opted out of theirs. The MAC had seven teams invited to bowl games in 2024.
Arkansas State defeated Bowling Green in the 68 Ventures Bowl on December 26. It was the second-most watched bowl game for both conferences, with 1.68 million viewers.
Data for James Madison’s bowl game was unavailable, as was the game between Southern Alabama and Western Michigan.
Once considered one of the most stable and geographically compact FBS conferences, the MAC recently lost Northern Illinois to the Mountain West for football and the Horizon League for other sports. The additions of Buffalo and UMass have increased travel costs in a conference that was once made up entirely of teams from the Midwest.
To start, as a Buffalonian, I consider myself and this area much more midwest than I do northeast, Atlantic, eastern, etc. I also love when the Bobcats come to UB to play. It’s obviously a much more manageable trip than traveling to Akron or Kent, or obviously Athens. That said…
The University at Buffalo is an odd fit for the MAC. Just because they have been a part of the league since 1999 and most of us are used to it doesn’t make it any more sensible. Geographically, they stretch the conference beyond its tight-knit region. The drive between NIU and UB is 605 miles, more than nine hours long. Take out the traitorous Huskies, who leave the MAC after this season anyway, and Central Michigan-Buffalo (505 miles around Lake Erie, 367 miles through Ontario) or Ball State-Buffalo (478 miles) qualify as the longest conference trips these schools have had to make.
As odd as UB is, it’s nothing compared to the head-scratcher that UMass will become. As its closest conference opponent, Buffalo is 383 miles away – in the opposite direction. UMass-Central Michigan will be an 877 mile drive (nearly 13 hours without stops). UMass-Ball State will be 851 miles. UMass-Western Michigan are 830 miles apart. Football and basketball teams will likely take flights for these contests, but its implausible to think that teams like baseball, softball, track, or lacrosse will be given the same privilege.
It’s also worth noting that UMass has been here before, as a football-only member of the MAC from 2012-2016. It barely made sense then, considering they went 7-25 in conference and 8-40 overall in those seasons (their first four seasons in FBS from FCS). They left and became an independent after their first MAC stint, and return with an abysmal 18-82 record since leaving the Mid-American. It makes far less sense now to have all of the current MAC programs be forced to play all of UMass’ teams because of a subpar football program and subjects one of the two sides to undertake unnecessarily exhaustive conference-related travel.
During the realignment era, Buffalo has been linked to rumours of ditching the MAC, a departure which would be significantly less damaging to the conference than a cornerstone like Ohio. UB doesn’t fit a lot of conferences, but could make sense in football-only deals like NIU while playing the remainder of their sports in, perhaps, America East. They aren’t particularly competitive outside of football or basketball, so switching to a different conference that’s more within their footprint could help. And by not having UB or UMass, a 10-team league that’s truly midwestern would cut travel costs immensely while enhancing the MAC’s presence regionally and beyond.
And quickly back to NIU, which will be leaving the MAC for a football-only deal with the Mountain West (which took in a total of $86.01 million in “Revenue received from the NCAA [including championships] and athletics conferences, media rights, and post-season football bowl games,” much more than the MAC). Their other 16 varsity teams, however, will now be relegated to the Horizon League, which is no more geographically-centered, and far less prominent than the MAC. It’s a big step down for the school, which only offers a possible upside if it allows them to become instant competitors among lesser competition and earn more autobids to NCAA postseason tournaments and events.
The Mid-American Conference was established in 1946, and Ohio University is the last original charter school in the league. There is a strength in that history, one that is bolstered by sitting in the shadow of the Big Ten, which often pays MAC teams handsomely to play non-conference games in just about every sport on an annual basis. If Ohio were to sacrifice that relationship and throw away its place for a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, it would be detrimental to the department almost immediately, and to the school itself over the long run. Not to mention, Bobcat supporters (who primarily live within the current footprint of the MAC) will be far less inclined to travel to the majority of Sun Belt destinations versus a much shorter and more reasonable contest in a MAC town. One plausible exception to this change would be the reinstatement of the Ohio-Marshall rivalry as a conference matchup for the first time in two decades.
These initial talks may be more about establishing relationships for the future than a current move considering the potential for a massive realignment across college sports before 2031.
This is a line I don’t necessarily understand. The MAC and Sun Belt are entering their third season of playing a challenge series that features matchups between all of the men’s and women’s basketball teams. They have an established partnership, albeit relatively new, but it signals that both sides consider each other a relative equal. Ohio needs to keep that fact in mind.
Both have unique and well-known branding, although I would argue that MACtion is much more pervasive than Fun Belt. Maybe both leagues should talk about a scheduling alignment that would set up non-conference football games between the two entities (similar to what the SEC and Big Ten are kicking around). But Ohio initiating contact with the Sun Belt in a “let’s get our name in early just to see what happens” is both premature and disrespectful. It would also be a lateral move (at best!). The MAC needs a school like Ohio, and Ohio does well in a conference like the MAC.
A move to the Sun Belt for football purposes sets the rest of the department up for failure. A negligible difference in TV dollars (which would go down anyway, as established above) would exacerbate the effect of significantly longer and more expensive conference road trips for all teams. And if the plan is to join the SBC as a football-only member and all other teams would join a lower-level conference, like NIU, I would be even more distraught and dumbfounded.
In closing
I truly hope this is the end of this discussion on Ohio’s part. As a Bobcat to the core, leaving the conference our school built would be a heinous and irreversibly catastrophic decision for both sides. The landscape of college sports is changing, yes, but that does not mean we would be better off by abandoning the MAC. On the contrary, the MAC should genuinely look inward at strengthening its regional presence and renouncing misfits like Buffalo and UMass. Marshall could be a welcome reunification, as would NIU, as it serves us the Chicago market. Being a strong 10-team league would also be fantastic. I’m also not naive enough to think the MAC is impervious to the shifts that are still looming, but I cannot stomach the thought of Ohio leaving and being the reason the MAC dies (if another school or five leave first and the MAC simply can’t hold on, at least it’s not really on us), especially since the reasoning for Ohio to consider such a drastic change is rooted in faulty logic.
Ohio is better off because of midweek football. It cannot be a coincidence that since the MAC began playing on weeknights, the football program is 167-140 overall (0.543 win pct.), and 113-82 (0.579) in conference games. Compare that to games played prior to 2000, when the Bobcats were 437-483-48 overall (0.476) and 158-192-11 against MAC squads (.452). The fortunes of the entire program have completely reversed since the institution of ESPN's MAC deal.
Zoom in to look at the last 20 years, OU has been a consistent conference contender, with only three losing seasons in that span (and just one one since the current ESPN deal came into place). We have played in 14 bowl games in that time, winning eight of them. We have been ranked by the AP, won five MAC East titles, (finally) won a MAC Championship game, and have enjoyed far and away the most prolonged stretch of success since the team first played back in 1894. The money has helped, but the exposure has played an unignorably massive part in our turnaround.
