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Q&A With Tom Burman on Realignment

MrTitleist

MrTitleist

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Posted up a blog w/ the Q&A that UW Athletics just emailed to us

MrTitleist

Thread 'Q&A with Tom Burman on Realignment'

This is from UW Athletics and Ryan Thorburn's interview with Tom Burman

LARAMIE – Ryan Thorburn sat down with Wyoming athletics director Tom Burman on Friday to discuss the latest round of conference realignment, which will have a direct impact on the Pokes and the Mountain West.

Here’s the transcript of the conversation:

Thorburn: What is your reaction to Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State leaving the Mountain West to join the Pac-12 in July of 2026?

Burman: Well, no doubt disappointed just like our fan base. We’ve had, especially with Colorado...
 
Wow none of that projects any confidence or hope. Burman admits that the MWC may (if not likely) lose more members and admits that Wyoming is not a team with a path to the new PAC or any other landing spot. Wyomings relevance in college athletics (to the tiniest extent we had any) is officially over.

All on Burman’s watch. All without any apparent accountability.
 
Yup. I did not like what I read there other than we are not going FCS. They will take 2-4 more for the MWC, so probably UNLV, Nevada, AF and New Mexico.

It’s looking like us, Utah state, sjsu and Hawaii are fooked
 
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LanderPoke said:
Yup. I did not like what I read there other than we are not going FCS. They will take 2-4 more for the MWC, so probably UNLV, Nevada, AF and New Mexico.

It’s looking like is, Utah state, sjsu and Hawaii are fooked
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Vintage Burman. This is more aggravating and frustrating than the conference breakup. To hell with that guy...he really dropped the ball, and is just shrugging his shoulders being a condescending dick.
 
McPeachy said:
Vintage Burman. This is more aggravating and frustrating than the conference breakup. To hell with that guy...he really dropped the ball, and is just shrugging his shoulders being a condescending dick.
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Jeff Pivic is at OSU, he and his team just ran circles around this bag of farts. They need to get rid of Burman and let Jeff take the reigns to send us into the 21st century...then maybe catch up to the rest of the G6
 
Burman "All Division I conferences at this level have a third party media rights evaluator, someone who takes a look at institutions and helps guide these decisions or when you’re doing a television contract helps you negotiate your television contract with the entities involved. But all of them use basically the same metrics. Generally, you would find that those metrics include media market, size of the media market obviously, media performance – so your viewership, how many households are watching – and fan base engagement, which often looks at social media following and streaming numbers. Fan base profiling is a demographic analysis that’s used to look at the household income, the demographic buying patterns of people in those markets. Obviously, athletic performance plays a role. And then miscellaneous attractive drivers. Those things could be like, is it a championship city? Could it host a bowl game? What’s the airport situation? What’s the travel in and out of there? Etcetera. All of those are generally the same across all these metrics and decision-making processes."

So - all this wonderful TV viewing of games Wyoming has been involved in exceeding various other games really wasn't true or simply considered a blip because nothing else worthwhile was being telecast? And despite the ratio of Wyoming fans attending the game as compared to the population really didn't matter that much because attendance still ranks in the bottom 25% of FBS. The lack of TV sets is a no brainer and I think the adult diabetes commercial with UW fans eating hot dogs by the Wyoming Dept. of Health just about clinched how irrelevant the media is in Wyoming.

As for athletic performance playing an obvious role - no s#!t Sherlock. It would take decades of 5-3 conference finishes for Wyoming to get to .500 overall in MWC play. Apparently no one realized that Wyoming has been a consistently poor performer in the MWC???? BTW - how is that offense improving since you have had the conversation with Bohl and now Sawvel when he was hired? Have you ever noticed Mr. Burman that Wyoming perpetually ranks somewhere around 110-130 out of 131 or so FBS teams. Has scoring more points that the opposition been any issue in winning games? And basketball exceeds only AFA from the original 6 members still in the MWC before this latest event happened. It has been that bad.

It's the length of the runway in Laramie dictating the size and weight of the aircraft isn't it? There is obviously a very limited amount of commercial air travel available in Wyoming and Cheyenne is the nearest airport capable of handling the necessary aircraft. Too bad that wasn't something resolved several years ago. Maybe there are other factors that explain this deficiency such as required ground support. I have heard too many times that air travel to Laramie and a lack of hotel accommodations is a huge reason why it is challenging to lure opponents to play a home game in Laramie.

The entire interview came across as "Here Pig, let me put lipstick on you!"
 
So over the last 35 years, we go from being in the same conference with ASU / Arizona to BYU / Utah / TCU to Boise State / SDSU / Fresno State to most likely Texas State / Sacramento State. And we're supposed to be excited because the athletic department is doing everything they can to keep us relevant.

It is so hard to be a Cowboy fan when the Captain of the Titanic / Exxon Valdez is running the show.
 
PorkerPoke said:
Burman "All Division I conferences at this level have a third party media rights evaluator, someone who takes a look at institutions and helps guide these decisions or when you’re doing a television contract helps you negotiate your television contract with the entities involved. But all of them use basically the same metrics. Generally, you would find that those metrics include media market, size of the media market obviously, media performance – so your viewership, how many households are watching – and fan base engagement, which often looks at social media following and streaming numbers. Fan base profiling is a demographic analysis that’s used to look at the household income, the demographic buying patterns of people in those markets. Obviously, athletic performance plays a role. And then miscellaneous attractive drivers. Those things could be like, is it a championship city? Could it host a bowl game? What’s the airport situation? What’s the travel in and out of there? Etcetera. All of those are generally the same across all these metrics and decision-making processes."

So - all this wonderful TV viewing of games Wyoming has been involved in exceeding various other games really wasn't true or simply considered a blip because nothing else worthwhile was being telecast? And despite the ratio of Wyoming fans attending the game as compared to the population really didn't matter that much because attendance still ranks in the bottom 25% of FBS. The lack of TV sets is a no brainer and I think the adult diabetes commercial with UW fans eating hot dogs by the Wyoming Dept. of Health just about clinched how irrelevant the media is in Wyoming.

As for athletic performance playing an obvious role - no s#!t Sherlock. It would take decades of 5-3 conference finishes for Wyoming to get to .500 overall in MWC play. Apparently no one realized that Wyoming has been a consistently poor performer in the MWC???? BTW - how is that offense improving since you have had the conversation with Bohl and now Sawvel when he was hired? Have you ever noticed Mr. Burman that Wyoming perpetually ranks somewhere around 110-130 out of 131 or so FBS teams. Has scoring more points that the opposition been any issue in winning games? And basketball exceeds only AFA from the original 6 members still in the MWC before this latest event happened. It has been that bad.

It's the length of the runway in Laramie dictating the size and weight of the aircraft isn't it? There is obviously a very limited amount of commercial air travel available in Wyoming and Cheyenne is the nearest airport capable of handling the necessary aircraft. Too bad that wasn't something resolved several years ago. Maybe there are other factors that explain this deficiency such as required ground support. I have heard too many times that air travel to Laramie and a lack of hotel accommodations is a huge reason why it is challenging to lure opponents to play a home game in Laramie.

The entire interview came across as "Here Pig, let me put lipstick on you!"
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I don’t disagree with your sentiments. But I noticed BYU is flying out of Laramie tomorrow in a 757. It may actually validate your points.
 
I've defended Burman at times, much to the chagrin of other fans. But man, he really leaned into his reputation here.

The man stuck his head in the sand and stood pat, vehemently claiming a while back that MWC teams couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't move to a rebuilt Pac and that it had no value whatsoever. This was even before Cal and Stanford left.

He really, truly thought the MWC would remain completely untouched in all of this. Now, he's been blindsided...and instead of being proactive, he's doubling down on it.

He has zero desire to get ahead of anything or move the school (and conference) forward, instead throwing his hands up and being like "welp, them's the cards we've been dealt".

Not that we had a great chance to get in the PAC anyway, but ffs you at least shoot your shot (leaning on your ties to CSU). We didn't even submit a bid back then (to the Pac-4), and doesn't seem like we will now.

And if the MWC loses even more? Burman's not on the phone with any other conferences. He's really content to just backfill with even lesser teams and remain in a hollow shell of an MWC. Hell, even with their downgrades, I'd rather be in the AAC...or a now-stronger Sun Belt...than what the MWC could potentially end up as.

We stand to lose millions upon millions here long term, but all Tom can see is the upfront bags from the departing schools' penalties. And to add insult to injury, he doesn't even want to use the majority of those bags to backfill with good teams; he literally wants the remaining schools to just pocket most of it. WTF?

I understand that there were some unknowns, and even I questioned whether the PAC would rise again. And while I knew BSU and SDSU would eventually bolt based on history...CSU bolting was definitely a dagger and the MWC is in more danger than I ever thought.

But I'm not the AD of the University of Wyoming. As an AD, his ENTIRE JOB is to prepare for all possibilities and put your program in the best position for advancement.

This is what being a local guy and a beneficiary of the good ol' boys system brings. Complacency.

What's funny is that UW and state leadership have repeatedly said FCS is not, has never been, and never will be an option (and rightfully so), but we show ZERO willingness to shoot our shot for anything better or protect ourselves at all in situations like this. We bury our heads in the sand and hope we'll remain untouched.

Sooner or later, this kind of complacency is going to land us in the FCS whether we like it or not, due to things beyond our control...and that's going to be a huge blow.
 
Burman's phone ain't ringing. Nobody want's Wyoming in their conference no matter who is at the helm. The invitation from the P12 to CSU proves it's about population centers and factors that just do not favor UW. If Burman had publicly "applied" for membership anywhere, he would have been publicly denied.

Does he suck? well...put it this way. Whoever is in that chair has a sucky job.
 
307bball said:
Burman's phone ain't ringing. Nobody want's Wyoming in their conference no matter who is at the helm. The invitation from the P12 to CSU proves it's about population centers and factors that just do not favor UW. If Burman had publicly "applied" for membership anywhere, he would have been publicly denied.

Does he suck? well...put it this way. Whoever is in that chair has a sucky job.
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If Burman were in the private sector he’d have been fired. Sucky chair or not……he’s there and he has failed. If the phone ain’t ringin sometimes you have to push the buttons……….
 
Itsux2beaewe said:
If Burman were in the private sector he’d have been fired. Sucky chair or not……he’s there and he has failed. If the phone ain’t ringin sometimes you have to push the buttons……….
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Sure... Sure. If it turns out he's been merely waiting by the phone I would be very surprised. My guess is that there have been conversations that would not be great from a PR standpoint if we knew about them I imagine them to be very very depressing if your are a pokes fan.
 
307bball said:
Sure... Sure. If it turns out he's been merely waiting by the phone I would be very surprised. My guess is that there have been conversations that would not be great from a PR standpoint if we knew about them I imagine them to be very very depressing if your are a pokes fan.
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Agreed... Wyoming would be one of the last teams to get a call from the PAC or any other "power" conference looking to expand.
 
I am blaming the Mountain West commissioner. I was at the game yesterday and this is the worst possible timing. Wyoming pleading its case with a horrible team and seemingly irrelevant. Flying home now and feel it will be a long time before I see the War again. It’s all sad. Passed the indoor training facility on way out of town. My wife said “they better be in there.” Kind of funny but nope.
 
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