These discussions happen on eGriz all the time, a lot of "why don't we move up" threads. Most of them really go no where, but there's a few reasons, IMO, they can't move up. 1. We'd probably have to bring Montana State with us. They're working on expanding their stadium to about 20,000 and the plans for it look really nice, but they're 3 years away from that. 2. We don't quite have the local economy to support the extra money needed to field more scholarships and sports teams. Football scholarships would increase from 63 to 80'ish, we'd have to take on a couple more womens sports and probably another men's sport. Boise is pretty well sustained with the various tech giants that live in Boise, Reno is fed from the gambling, Hawaii from the tourism, Fresno from Silicon Valley, the list goes on. Notice how the bottom feeding teams in the WAC have no local economies.. Moscow, Las Cruces, Ruston, etc. Missoula is a large town, but no where near the economy of Boise. 3. We're a big fish in a small pond.. we have history, tradition of winning, etc. We move up to the WAC we'd risk the chance of falling into mediocrity, and as such, the football team would lose interesting, attendance would drop, we're just like the middle of the pack WAC schools. A lot of bandwagon fans wouldn't renew season tickets if the team started losing a handful of games a year. Boise, UNR, Idaho all used to be in the Big Sky.. only Boise has really stood out as being a successful move-up, but even for them it took some time. However, seeing the Idaho State's and Eastern Washington's of the world is getting old, as they typically provide a nice punching bag in most sports..
