Beech Tree News Network

Old collegiate rivalries and new money drove the economic engine that pushed Western Kentucky University to seek an affiliation with Conference USA, WKU President Gary Ransdell said Monday.

“We can control our own destiny and found a willing partner in Conference USA,” Ransdell said. “Our fans have to relate. As the Sun Belt changed dramatically, our fans related less and less to the games. We want rivalries to be constructive and high energy. Our fans have a reason to get in line and get their season tickets.”

Ransdell said with the geography of the C-USA membership, student-athletes will experience less travel time, as will fans. 

“So much of this is positive for WKU,” he said.

C-USA was founded April 24, 1995, and is headquartered in Irving, Texas. The conference – the largest in size in the number of schools for the Football Bowl Subdivision – has had more than 650 postseason NCAA appearances since 1995 and in football offers six opportunities for postseason competition. “It’s a perfect fit for us,” said Britton Banowsky, C-USA commissioner. 

“Western Kentucky fans are among the best in the United States.”

For 2014-15, C-USA is expected to include WKU, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University, Louisiana Tech University, Marshall University, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of North Texas, Old Dominion University, Rice University, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

When WKU joins C-USA in July 2014, the Hilltoppers will be reunited with current Sun Belt Conference members FIU, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee and North Texas, and renew regular-season rivalries with former Sun Belt Conference opponents Charlotte, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion and UAB. WKU and Marshall were founding members of the Ohio Valley Conference in 1948.

The WKU Board of Regents approved the C-USA affiliation Monday, then several regents joined Ransdell in the Jack and Jackie Harbaugh Stadium Club at Houchens Smith Stadium for a noon news conference. A regents quorum was established with the help of a video link from the Glasgow campus, allowing Regent Melissa Dennison participated in the meeting. Board chairman Frederick Higdon was on a telephone hook-up.

“I’m very solid about this move,” Regent John Ridley said. He said he was at a business meeting recently, and a parent was speaking about his daughter’s decision to attend WKU. “She came to her decision because we (WKU) were on television,” Ridley said. C-USA has more television exposure than the Sun Belt Conference.

WKU’s being shut out from a collegiate football bowl game two years ago despite being eligible also played a role in the decision. “Conference USA has never had a bowl-eligible team unplaced,” Ransdell said. “We never again want to find ourselves bowl-eligible and not have a place to go.”

Whatever impacts WKU impacts Warren County, said Nick Fuhrman, Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce spokesman. “Western helps put us on the map,” Fuhrman said.

Twenty-six percent of all expenditures made in Warren County are tied to WKU in a typical year, or $674 million in 2011-12, said the chamber’s public policy and communications director. 

The move to C-USA is a good one, the chamber believes, he said. “It’s great for the visibility of Bowling Green and Western,” Fuhrman said.

“Sports is an attention-getter,” said Gordon Baylis, vice president of research at WKU. “I think it is all part of the increasing stature of the university – the quality of the academics, the quality of the research and the quality of the athletic programs.”

The move to C-USA doesn’t take effect until July 1, 2014, but Ransdell said the first $500,000 payment toward the $2 million C-USA entrance fee is due this week and the money has already been raised privately. “We already raised the $500,000 in the last couple of days,” Ransdell said. “I’ve got some more phone calls to make.”

Charitable contributions are made tax deductible to the WKU Foundation, and then gathered to pay the C-USA entrance fee. “The fallback (position) is we would have to use it out of future conference revenues, but I am confident that we will raise the money,” Ransdell said.

The second payment of $500,000 is due July 1, then payments are due July 1, 2014, and July 1, 2015. By making notice of an intent to leave the Sun Belt more than year early, WKU avoids a $1 million exit fee penalty from that conference.

C-USA has three television network partners: CBS Sports Network, Fox Sports Media Group and ESPN. Ransdell said the difference in the television money is about $40,000 to WKU through the Sun Belt Conference to about $1 million per school for C-USA. Revenue sharing will take about three years to reach its optimum as WKU joins C-USA. 

“There is a significant difference” between revenues that can be realized from the Sun Belt Conference and those realized through C-USA, Ransdell said.

Ransdell said he recently made a comparison between a 15-year track of revenue sharing in the Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA. “There was a dramatic difference,” he said. Ransdell declined to publicize the numbers, noting that they are propriety to the conferences.

“There is multi-million dollar revenue sharing with Conference USA and considerably less in the Sun Belt,” he did say.

Banowsky, C-USA commissioner since October 2002, mentioned the importance of WKU’s athletic program stability as a factor in the decision to embrace the Hilltoppers.

“WKU has the level of maturity that we need,” he said. WKU was a member of the OVC from 1948 to 1992 before joining the Sun Belt in 1992. 

“We intend to be in Conference USA for a long time,” Ransdell said.

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Story by Chuck Mason

The Daily News, Bowling Green

Kentucky Press News Service