"lifeisapuntreturn"... candidate for best name ever.
He brought up the frustration regarding moving the BSC up. Problem:
Weber is the fourth school in Utah, so to speak. The fact that BYU is a private makes that scene all the funkier.
Northern Arizona, 3rd school in Arizona.
Northern Colorado, anywhere from 3rd to 5th in Colorado, depending on if you think the attention many sports channels (and others) give to college hockey matters much, plus whether you think Air Force is actually a regional draw more than it is a national draw.
Idaho State, 3rd school in Idaho.
Eastern Washington, 4th school in Washington, with Gonzaga a close 3rd to Washington State.
(all of these are in terms of attention, fan bases, et cetera, and little to nothing to do with game performance)
At least Portland State is the 3rd school in Oregon.
Sac... it's hard to say whether that's a black hole or not. It's far enough away that the Hornets might actually get some attention that Stanford and Cal might get, but they're still in line behind both Sacramento and Bay Area pro sports. Heck, ask Fresno about all the LA school fans that fight for time on Fresno talk stations. California is a tough nut to crack for ANY school, with the POSSIBLE exception of USC...
...which is why it's almost as foolhardy to consider the Big West. The market may grow, but sans baseball, how many of those schools are really going anywhere?
That leaves the Montana schools, and they're in the right position by being the marquee schools in the state. Mind you, the state has a growth rate at half of all the other states (except California) in the SKY, and for not being that well populated in the first place, they aren't anything that TV networks are going to spend money to televise. Unfortunately, that says as much for the Sky's profile as it does for Montana's move-up options.
So consider this: if the Sky does pick things up, other conferences will pick off the responsible schools before the Sky can make anything of it.
