The WAC is moving carefully in deciding how to expand. As of now, there will be 6 schools in the conference in 2012. And the conference is moving deliberately to ensure that Hawaii, Utah State and Louisiana Tech say on board. If two of the three leave, the WAC is over. I do not have an inside track on the criteria, but whoever moves up, it will be costly. Here is how costly, using the most likely candidate, the University of Montana.
Here is the list of candidates.
Montana
Montana State
Texas State
Lamar
Cal Poly
Cal Davis
Sacramento State
Portland State
Northern Arizona
Weber State
Expense #1 -- Scholarships.
Expect for the schools in Texas and California, the majority of athletes will come from out of state. At the University of Montana, the listed cost of attendance is 25,000. That is for tuition, room and board and food. In Missoula, they will need to add some 50 scholarship athletes, most from out of state. That is 22 for football and another 25-28 for the two woman's sports that need to be added. That is a cool 1,000,000 dollars right there.
Expense #2 -- Travel.
Montana would replace bi-annual trips to places like Pocatello, Idaho with exotic places like Honolulu, Hawaii.
Expense #3 -- Facilities.
Fortunately, Montana will not have to expand their stadium to be FBS eligible. But an indoor practice facility would help with recruiting. This is an optional expense that donors could help with. But there will need to be improved weight rooms and other training facilities will help get blue chip athletes to your football program. Equipment will need to be modernized regularly.
Expense #4 -- Recruiting
Schools like Montana will have to cast a wider net for new recruits. Montana already recruits heavily from California. They will have to expand that net to Texas and the Southeast if they expect to compete at the FCS level. That means bringing more recruits to campus and visiting potential recruits wherever they live. That could add another 500,000 in cost.
Therefore, for the University of Montana, expect that they would incur as much as an additional 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 in expense annually.
This gives a program like Texas State the inside track in getting to the WAC. They have a decided advantage in recruiting and already have FBS-worthy facilities. The expense will likely eliminate schools like Cal Poly in the current economy as they will have the additional expense of expanding a stadium. Right now, that expense is almost impossible to justify, politically. For Montana, the additional revenue would have to more than exceed the additional expense so that money can be added to the endowment and this additional expense can be paid with interest. Montana, however, still has a Pac-10 sized endowment which gives them an advantage. The WAC will want to consider FCS schools that already have a large enough football stadium for the FCS.
The WAC then needs to consider other factors, like community support. For example, even though Weber State, Portland State and Sacramento State are in larger TV markets, they struggle to get even 8,000 to a football game. It may be difficult for these programs to get the required 15,000 paid or actual attendees to a game.
Therefore, the WAC needs to consider the following in their choice of invitees.
1. Are the needed facilities already in place?
2. Does the program already draw the required 15,000 fans?
3. Does the program have the recruiting structure in place?
4. Does the program fit geographically within the footprint to minimize travel expense?
5. Does the program have a large enough TV market?
6. Can the program reduce expenses by recruiting locally?
7. Does the school perform well at sports other than football?
8. Can the program succeed well enough right away to keep the fans interested?
In the coming week I will look at each potential WAC invitee individually to help everyone determine who would be best. There is not a program, however, that will fill all of these categories.
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