special kind of dumb or he is intentionally trying to deceive people. His argument just boils down to looking at total unsubsidized revenue for BYU compared to unsubsidized revenue for G5 schools, and then assumes that BYU's unsubsidized revenue would drop similarly if BYU went to a G5. This entire argument is based on the assumption that BYU's revenue streams as a G5 would be very similar to the revenue streams of other G5 schools. Seriously? Do you really think that BYU's ticket sales are similar to the top end of G5 schools, or that they would be if BYU joined the MWC or AAC? How did BYU's ticket sales compare to the rest of the MWC back when BYU was in the MWC? Were they similar then, and is there any reason to believe they would be similar now? Do you really think that BYU's donations would be similar to the rest of the G5? Were they before, when BYU was in the MWC? Is there a reason to believe that the donations would disappear if BYU joined a conference? You could try to make that argument I suppose, but Teeples certainly never tries to do that, he just makes a crazy leap in logic without any reasonable basis for doing so.

If you sincerely want to answer these questions then you have to look at the specific revenue line items and then reasonably explain if that line item would drop precipitously if BYU joined the MWC or AAC (Junior Deputy talked about this in one of his posts). The best way to do so, I think, would be to compare those line items from back when BYU was in the MWC (not to say that you will use the old numbers, but to compare the old MWC numbers to those numbers from the other MWC schools at the time and assume that BYU would presumably enjoy a similar proportional advantage now to what it had back then). Honestly, what this guy says is a massive slap in the face to BYU and BYU boosters because his entire premise is based on the assumption that BYU is the same, from an athletic finance standpoint, as the current MWC schools. That is a huge insult to BYU's historical finances and future potential. You shouldn't be holding up this guy's "numbers" as having any legitimacy, you should be tearing them down because his "analysis" is extremely critical of BYU.

I don't think Teeples is this dumb; I think that he probably likes being independent for non-financial reasons (which is fine, that's his prerogative), but he's trying to use a completely inapplicable analysis to trick people into siding with him.

*Please note that you have to remember the fact that it's extremely difficult to account for "subsidization" because different schools count very different things as what constitutes a subsidy.