So Fresno, are you getting excited about Fresno State’s potential 2011 Fresno State football schedule?  How could you not?  We could be playing powerhouses like Utah State,  San Jose State, Idaho, New Mexico State and possibly UC Davis, Montana State, Sacramento State or even Cal Poly.  Yes, the landscape of college athletics is changing quickly and Fresno is in a tough spot…again.

It was just 12 years ago when Fresno was left in the dust for the first time in the WAC, and now the teams of the Mountain West Conference (many formerly of the WAC) seem to be back to finish the job.  Yesterday’s Announcement of Boise State heading to the Mountain West Conference to become their 10th team is a severe hit to the WAC which already struggles.  Yes, you may be asking the question that many will: But I thought Fresno State was an overall better athletic program than Boise State right?  The answer is yes but in the world of college athletics, football is king and money speaks very loudly.  Boise’s success on the football field in the past five years has not gone unnoticed, nor has the big time money they have brought in through BCS games.

Fresno, listen up because this is important stuff!  Whether you care about Fresno State or sports at all, a competitive D-1 football team and a competitive conference brings a tremendous amount of economic benefits to a city and citizens of Fresno, we are closer than many realize to loosing all of it.  Matt James of the Fresno Bee writes an article in today’s paper that talks also about some of the potential sports impacts bur also highlights the economic impacts.  James even asks what the re-sale value of the Save Mart Center would be?  You can find Matt’s article here.  The economic impacts for the university and specifically the athletics program could be great but I also see great impacts to Fresno as a city and the region as a whole as well should Fresno State Athletics be stuck in a conference of no-names.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, in a lot of ways Fresno has been defined by our university.  This has of course been the source of much pride and embarrassment at times but the fact is that we are known throughout the nation through Fresno State.  Should the university loose exposure, television time and money the city looses also.  Being stuck in an irrelevant conference will not just impact the university and the city financially though, in my opinion it will really hurt out quality of life as well.  Fresno State Athletics add a tremendous amount of economic impact to the area and a lot of family value.  According to a 2010  California State University Impact Report Fresno State annually has over 750,000 people in attendance to its athletic events each year and calls Fresno State the regions most attractive intercollegiate sports program.  Those attendance numbers translate into a large dollar amount when it comes to economic impact and my guess is on the path we are headed it could nearly be cut in half.

Now is the time for our community  to speak up, rally and push the leaders at Fresno State to be jockeying for any position they can to get us out of what appears to be a dying WAC conference.  We must challenge these leaders to fight for a spot.  Boise State began fighting for the MWC the moment they entered into the WAC and that has now paid off nicely for them.    Now Fresno, the PAC 10 (likely to become the PAC16) is a dream that will  never happen.  Fresno State’s best bet is to hope for more conference shake-up to happen this weekend and more conferences become mega-conferences, that the Mountain West Conference would consider adding some more teams.  A far less likely scenario would be a crumbling Big 12 conference that seems to be getting smaller by the minute would in an act of desperation, invite some west coast schools to join their (once exciting) club.

Now I am the first to admit that it may be to late to fix this problem.  The truth is that it began years ago with bad decisions and subsequently, worse reputations.  However, I don’t think it is an understatement that Fresno State is truly on the verge of becoming insignificant in the college athletics world.  The thought of going backwards to this degree is truly scary.  What a tragedy it would be if we lost our athletic programs, the national exposure and our Bulldog pride because nobody spoke up.  Traditionally, nobody moves in this town to save something until it is to late.   I hope that isn’t the case here.

So what are your thoughts?  What are the best case scenarios and the worst case scenarios?