Wednesday, May 27, 1998
Remaining WAC teams
By Cindy Luis
to weigh their options
Star-BulletinThere have been rumblings -- and grumblings -- ever since the Western Athletic Conference announced it would expand to 16 teams in 1994. Yesterday, the WAC volcano erupted, spewing half its teams into a new alignment and leaving eight teams to salvage a league from the ashes.
"It was totally unexpected," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said from his home in Denver last night. "Our board of directors is scheduled to meet this weekend in Monterey (Calif.). Obviously, the talks will take on a much different shape than what was planned.
"I'm not surprised that this happened, but I am surprised that it happened so quickly. We may have underestimated the degree of discontent."
Just a few weeks ago, the WAC athletic directors voted 13-3 for a permanent East-West alignment. The three "Front Range" members -- Air Force, Colorado State and Wyoming -- objected strongly because Air Force had been moved into the West and separated from the other two.
Benson was blindsided by the defection. The commissioner was home yesterday morning, recuperating from eye surgery, when Colorado State president Al Yates informed him that Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming plan to leave the WAC after the 1998-99 academic year.
It was the second eye surgery for Benson to correct a detached retina. Doctors have since discovered a bubble behind one eye, which precludes Benson from traveling to this weekend's meetings.
Today, conference officials and university representatives from the remaining eight schools begin trying to add some meat to the WAC skeleton. The eight-team league needs to fatten up geographically to fill the Great Continental Divide between Hawaii, Fresno State and San Jose State, and Tulsa, Texas-El Paso, Rice, Texas Christian and Southern Methodist if it hopes to survive.
"The immediate plan is to find out what the eight remaining schools want to do," said Benson, WAC commissioner since 1994. "I haven't talked to them all. The biggest challenge is bridging that geographic gap between the three Pacific teams and the five central teams. It's a wide gap."
The rift in the conference was created by several key issues, most relating to money. These included increased travel costs in the nation's biggest and most spread out league (3,900 miles), and reduced revenue from bowl games and NCAA tournament payouts, now split 16 ways.
The eight breakaway schools also said traditional rivalries would suffer when the WAC went to two permanent divisions in 1999-2000. Ironically, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to permanent divisions being created earlier was the refusal of New Mexico and Texas-El Paso to be split up in an East-West alignment.
UTEP, which joined the WAC in 1967, is the only team left from when Hawaii joined in 1979. No charter members -- Arizona, Arizona State, Brigham Young, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming -- will be in the WAC in the fall of 1999.
The remaining eight schools are considering several options. One is to stay together and invite several of the schools that had been considered for membership in 1994.
Those schools include Big West members New Mexico State, Utah State, Reno, Boise State and North Texas.
"My challenge was to create a financial source that was enough to satisfy 16 mouths, and obviously we weren't able to do that," Benson said.
The telling blow, he said, was the WAC's inability to become a member of the Bowl Alliance or to get a Fiesta Bowl slot for BYU two years ago, which would have produced $7 million for the league.
Another option is for the four Texas schools and Tulsa to align themselves with a conference that is more geographically favorable.
Of the three remaining schools -- Hawaii, Fresno State and San Jose State -- UH and Fresno have the better television markets and more attractive athletic programs.
"Our options are to either stay with eight teams, which is not the best in long terms because of geography," said Jim Donovan, UH associate athletic director. "We can approach the other eight teams that have left to see about rejoining them. Another is for us to try to create our own conference. Or we could go independent, which is the least attractive option."
"I don't want to speculate what will happen," Benson said. "I think this will cause all the remaining schools to have to take a a look at what is in their own best interest. This dramatic decision by those eight teams leaving has serious repercussions for the rest of the teams."
There is talk already of Rice joining Houston in an expanded Conference USA. But many doubt that the breakup of the WAC will trigger a chain reaction of conference realignment.
The WAC has a television contract with ESPN for football through 2000 and for basketball through 2001, but those contracts will be voided if the league membership changes. Most of the WAC's biggest TV markets -- Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose -- remain with the teams left behind, but the WAC is not the dominant TV attraction in any of those markets.
The WAC retains NCAA Tournament financial units generated -- largely by Utah -- over the last six years. That pool will total about $2.6 million next year, and will continue to grow as Utah's recent successes are factored into the equation. That money stays with the WAC, even though Utah is leaving.
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
