Columnist Ron Kantowski: Commish steers MWC toward prominence

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 | 9:14 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

CORONADO, Calif. -- After listening to Craig Thompson's annual state of the Mountain West address Tuesday, it became evident that the sports writers gorging themselves at the nonstop courtesy meals during the conference's football media blitz aren't really the ones with the most on their plate.

That distinction would be belong to Thompson, the MWC commissioner who last year saw mid-major conferences such as his gain more access to the lucrative Bowl Championship Series beginning in 2006. Even more incredible, he witnessed one of the Mountain West's very own, Utah, nearly stand the BCS on its ear. By running the table during the regular season to take their rightful place at the postseason one, the Utes proceeded to turn the Pitt Panthers into bean dip at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and the MWC is richer for it.

In more ways than one.

Thanks in large part to Utah, and in smaller part to the bonus the MWC received from new broadcast/media partner College Sports TV, the league doled out a record $25.5 million to its members, with the majority receiving about $2.6 million each. That's almost exactly double what each would get in a normal year when Utah or Colorado State finishes 9-2.

The thank-you cards to Urban Meyer and Alex Smith are in the mail.

It was a banner year for Utah all the way around, as it also became the first school to have the first players selected in both the NFL (Smith) and NBA (Andrew Bogut) drafts. But now that The Two Utes, as Joe Pesci might say, have put the MWC on the map, Thompson said it will be up to the other MWC members to continue on the course the Utes have chartered.

"This was the type of situaton we envisioned when we formed the Mountain West seven years ago," he said in opening his remarks before the sun burned the haze and mist off San Diego Bay early Tuesday. "Utah had a phenomenal year, a high-water mark for the conference. People ask about an encore but I don't know if you can have an encore."

So Thompson said the focus this year will be enhancing the Mountain West's reputation by its members becoming factors in other sports, continuing to educate fans and building momentum for the full-fledged arrival of CSTV in 2006, and ironing out its relationships with its bowl-game partners, which, frankly, would seem to require an industrial-sized press at the moment.

With Utah proving you can get to Millionaire Acres from the Mountain Time Zone and the BCS having agreed to relax the qualifications for inclusion -- beginning in 2006, an MWC team can crash the party by finishing among the top 12 (and perhaps as low as the top 16) instead of the top six in the BCS standings -- Thompson said it is time that Mountain West teams begin leveling the playing field in other sports.

"We need to do whatever we can to get more teams into the NCAA (tournaments and playoffs)," he said, adding that the league office would be working with its joint council, comprised of associate athletic directors and administrators, to determine what can and should be done.

Thompson said on average, the MWC has sent 2.3 men's basketball and 2.6 women's volleyball teams to the NCAAs per season, and that isn't enough.

Among the competition issues being discussed are scheduling and postseason tournaments, and whether they should be all-inclusive or, in some cases, even abolished. Thompson cited the women's soccer tournament, explaining how MWC teams play on Wednesday and Thursday, take Friday off, hold a championship game on Saturday and then open NCAA play just five days later, when they tend to run out of gas.

"We need to look at the whole (postseason) structure," he said.

But a quicker fix might be the addition of TCU as the conference's ninth member, effective this year. In addition to providing the MWC with the seventh-largest media market, the Dallas-Fort Worth-based Horned Frogs sent eight teams to postseason play last year.

If the Mountain West is successful in improving its image, at least you won't have to get up at the crack of dawn or stay up until the stroke of midnight to hear about it for much longer.

"We needed a new model," Thompson said of operating in a TV vacuum in which the Mountain West took its orders from ESPN. "We don't want to play at 10 in the morning and we don't want to play at 10 at night."

That, and the $82 million over seven years it received from its new media partner, is why the Mountain West jumped out of ESPN's back seat to ride shotgun with CSTV. In fact, some of the media here think Thompson is so far under the covers with CSTV that a few were overheard making bets at poolside as to when he would begin his new career as a network executive.

While many in the press are still skeptical that the MWC made the right decision to bolt monolithic ESPN to join a broadcast neophyte such as CSTV, the agreement does have some upside.

In addition to the money and returning kickoff and tip-off to their reasonable and traditional time slots, the MWC also is hoping to capitalize on the multi-media opportunities that CSTV will provide, such as live football and basketball games over the Internet.

"For the first time, somebody who may be traveling will be able to plug in their computer and watch the Utah-Wyoming game from their Marriott hotel room," said Thompson, never one to miss an opportunity to plug a corporate partner.

But as it is, Las Vegas fans couldn't watch the Rebels play on free TV in their own living rooms, as CSTV is not available in Southern Nevada. Not to worry, Thompson said, as the conference and CSTV have yet to enter serious negotiations with providers such as Cox Cable (which also supplies the San Diego area) and still has a full year to get a deal done.

"Obviously, we'd like to have them now," he said. "But when fans start to say 'we can't get the Rebels' or 'we can't get the (Colorado State) Rams, that's when the rubber will hit the road. We're not at that point yet."

The Mountain West also isn't at the point to announce which bowl game its champion will be playing. In a development that would impact the Las Vegas Bowl's bid to land the conference champion, the Liberty Bowl is here, shopping for a conference tie-in. It is conceivable, maybe even likely, that it will re-up with the MWC.

"A couple of months ago, I would have put it at 10 percent," Thompson said about continuing a relationship with the Memphis-based Liberty Bowl. "Now I'd put it at 75-25 percent, maybe higher."

If those odds result in a signed contract, it most likely will leave the Las Vegas Bowl holding an empty bag as far as finding an opponent for the Pac-10's fourth-best team.

But with everybody in the bowl business lying to -- er, negotiating with -- everybody else behind closed doors, Thompson stated Tuesday that the Las Vegas Bowl is still a viable option with plenty to offer. Especially if the Liberty Bowl leaves the MWC holding that same empty bag, which, of course, Thompson conveniently left out.

"With Las Vegas, we can drive five and maybe six of our nine teams," he said. "That's a $1,000 difference (in travel costs for a family of four) right around the holidays."

Provided of course, the price of gas drops like Nebraska in the Big 12 standings.

Thompson said in a perfect world, the Mountain West would have four bowl partners. That could be the case this year with the new San Diego-based Poinsettia Bowl joining the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco and the Las Vegas Bowl on the MWC committed list, and if the Big 12 cannot supply an eighth bowl eligible team to the Fort Worth Bowl (it hasn't the past two years). In that case, the MWC probably would have an inside track on that opening.

But at this point, the cupboard is virtually bare of any bowls bearing the MWC logo for 2006. Only the Poinsettia Bowl is a done deal beyond this year.

Thompson, however, isn't sweating it. He rarely does. He's an affable business-smart, media-savvy guy who, as I've written before, reminds me of the late Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London." If you saw Craig Thompson sipping a pina colada at Trader Vic's, his hair would be perfect.

So is his timing.

As I write this, I am sitting on the patio, wearing a sweatshirt to ward off a cool breeze filtering under the Coronado bridge. That sure as heck beats the flame-retardant overalls I'd be wearing had the Mountain West not moved its media blitz from blistering Las Vegas to cool and comfortable San Diego.com or 259-4088.

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