this would seem to me to be a reasonable proposal:
Played every other year.
Three game agreement. Looked at again after one rotation...might even be willing to do a 6 game rotation, which would be played over 12 years.
Two in Morgantown, one in Huntington.
The first two games act as a 1-1, the third game WVU pays Marshall what they would any other visiting team, which is probably in the neighborhood of $600-750K at the present time.
This will keep WVU from feeling as they have an "unbalanced" trade, and will keep us from being screwed financially.
Both schools get good revenue possilities through advertising and sponsorship as well as television. WVU will draw more fans from MU than they will with UAB or Toledo or someone...and I know they say they are always sold out, but there area empty seat that say otherwise and this is a much more attractive season ticket sales vehicle than say UNLV...and tons more ad revenue.
Marshall benefits from lower travel costs and a travelable game for fans who are willing to go to Morgantown and all that entails. For that matter, WVU gets very attractive travel costs on their away game.
The skip year format allows the talent to significantly change from game to game. Let's face it, we knew when the deal was signed we were at the low end of a down cycle and that we would not be able to consider competing until three or four years in (I think everyone knew that). It will mean better games.
Why doesn't this make sense? I know WVU has traditionally been enough on the state dole that they didn't need to worry about such things, but the state dole is getting thinner by the minute.
I would think this would be livable and it would probably be the best I think we could do in the interest of our program.