Success, Location, Money

[kalm]

None of this should be surprising. The just dial-up-a-SWAC option isn't always available...

As Eastern Washington flies across the country Thursday in search of its first football win of the season, it’s fair to wonder when the Fordham Rams will return the favor.

The answer: never.

Saturday’s game in New York is a one-and-done, with no return engagement in Cheney. That’s happened before, in 2011 with South Dakota, and with money games against FBS competition.

For a financially challenged school such as Eastern, the formula is pretty much the same for an 11-game schedule: one big payday (Texas Tech compensated the Eagles $475,000 to come to Lubbock), a home game against an FCS team (that was North Dakota State this year) and another FCS road game (Fordham).

That means a steady diet of six games on the road and five on the road. Flipping the script is problematic.

“There’s a couple of ways these things (home-and-home series) occur,” Eastern athletic director Bill Chaves said. “You find someone who wants to play home and home or you pay for someone to come in.

“The latter is relative to what your financial situation is and the size of your stadium. We’ve gone with the latter.”

The Eagles have three things going against them when chasing home-and-home series against other FCS teams: money, geography and the Eagles’ success on the fiel

d.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/sep/13/success-location-money-complicate-eastern-washingt/

 

[LDopaPDX]

First off, props to Jim Allen for reading my posts! Let me know if you need other story ideas! :rofl:

Second, does this conversation sound pretty much like the same one we hear when discussing the stadium expansion? Everyone gets that finances are a big deal and don't work in our favor, but it is imperative to mention it seems to be a perpetual excuse for us that other Big Sky teams don't make.

I have a very hard time believing Incarnate Word can get talked into getting blown out by Sacramento and earning half of a much smaller gate than they would have received coming to Cheney and getting blown out by Eastern.

I get it, we don't have the financial clout of the Montana schools. But getting outscheduled by Sac State and Southern Utah? That's a hard pill to swallow. You think getting to Spokane is hard? Try going to Grand Forks or Cedar City.

 

[Obzerver]

“The latter is relative to what your financial situation is and the size of your stadium. We’ve gone with the latter.”

Size does matter...we've been saying that for some time.

 

[marceagfan5]

I'm not sure I buy this....I get the money thing, but success and location? Montana, MSU, NDSU, all get better games. They have the $$, but they are a helluva lot harder to travel to than Eastern and have been just as successful.

Basically what he's saying is our budget doesn't allow us to bring teams here for a one off game and we don't have the money for home and home vs east coast teams...also, how are we not stronger in our negotiations? It's to hard for us to get teams to travel here, but we will agree to fly to New York?

In my opinion then is we need to keep the FBS game, get the one home and home we've been getting and then pay a d2 to come here. It guarantees us 6 home games every other year

 

[kalm]

I'm not sure I buy this....I get the money thing, but success and location? Montana, MSU, NDSU, all get better games. They have the $$, but they are a helluva lot harder to travel to than Eastern and have been just as successful.

Basically what he's saying is our budget doesn't allow us to bring teams here for a one off game and we don't have the money for home and home vs east coast teams...also, how are we not stronger in our negotiations? It's to hard for us to get teams to travel here, but we will agree to fly to New York?

In my opinion then is we need to keep the FBS game, get the one home and home we've been getting and then pay a d2 to come here. It guarantees us 6 home games every other year

Agree. As long as we're scheduling top tier FCS and FBS, this is the formula.

 

[LDopaPDX]

I'm not sure I buy this....I get the money thing, but success and location? Montana, MSU, NDSU, all get better games. They have the $$, but they are a helluva lot harder to travel to than Eastern and have been just as successful.

Basically what he's saying is our budget doesn't allow us to bring teams here for a one off game and we don't have the money for home and home vs east coast teams...also, how are we not stronger in our negotiations? It's to hard for us to get teams to travel here, but we will agree to fly to New York?

In my opinion then is we need to keep the FBS game, get the one home and home we've been getting and then pay a d2 to come here. It guarantees us 6 home games every other year

I don't understand why travel to the East Coast is too expensive. Travelling to South Dakota is about as bad as you can get; anytime you fly into a regional airport, the cost skyrockets. If you can fly to a major airport in the East, that's going to be a lot cheaper than a regional airport somewhere in the Midwest. (The obvious caveat is charter flights which charge by flying time; but if budgetary concerns are paramount, then charter flights aren't part of the equation anyway)

I agree with what you've said. I understand buying one-offs isn't in our budget. But any home/home arrangement should be feasible. I see a lot of these lower-tier FCS teams playing major conference FCS teams that are going to beat them 95% of the time. If they're already doing it, how does playing Eastern differ from, say, playing James Madison, Chattanooga, or Jacksonville State?

But I also agree with your summary; if our *only* options are take a one-off road game with some FCS team to fill a date or pay a lower-level school to come to Cheney, let's take the home game. Our strength of schedule is good enough without that second non-conference roadtrip in there.

 

[kalm]

I'm not sure I buy this....I get the money thing, but success and location? Montana, MSU, NDSU, all get better games. They have the $$, but they are a helluva lot harder to travel to than Eastern and have been just as successful.

Basically what he's saying is our budget doesn't allow us to bring teams here for a one off game and we don't have the money for home and home vs east coast teams...also, how are we not stronger in our negotiations? It's to hard for us to get teams to travel here, but we will agree to fly to New York?

In my opinion then is we need to keep the FBS game, get the one home and home we've been getting and then pay a d2 to come here. It guarantees us 6 home games every other year

I don't understand why travel to the East Coast is too expensive. Travelling to South Dakota is about as bad as you can get; anytime you fly into a regional airport, the cost skyrockets. If you can fly to a major airport in the East, that's going to be a lot cheaper than a regional airport somewhere in the Midwest. (The obvious caveat is charter flights which charge by flying time; but if budgetary concerns are paramount, then charter flights aren't part of the equation anyway)

I agree with what you've said. I understand buying one-offs isn't in our budget. But any home/home arrangement should be feasible. I see a lot of these lower-tier FCS teams playing major conference FCS teams that are going to beat them 95% of the time. If they're already doing it, how does playing Eastern differ from, say, playing James Madison, Chattanooga, or Jacksonville State?

But I also agree with your summary; if our *only* options are take a one-off road game with some FCS team to fill a date or pay a lower-level school to come to Cheney, let's take the home game. Our strength of schedule is good enough without that second non-conference roadtrip in there.

I'll wager that JMU's UTC's, and JSU's OOC one off FCS games are almost all bus trips. UTC plays UTM and JMU plays Hampton this week. JSU played UTC and plays Liberty this week but those are h&h's.

 

[clawman1]

The team will charter to every game except Davis where there is commercial that is a direct flight