Tales of a middling regional daily trying desperately to remain relevant in today's media landscape.
Things have been going OK for University of Houston athletics of late. The football program is on the ascendancy, the basketball team is showing signs of life, and facilities are improving, as is revenue and exposure.
The University as a whole is doing fairly well also. Academic rankings are on the ascendancy, enrollment is spiking, current leadership seems to be more than competent. And despite the occasional misstep news coming out of Cullen boulevard is generally positive.
Of course, this means that it's time for Houston's middling regional daily to start trying to dump buckets of ice water on the institution.
UH 'banks' on joining the big leagues so 'sustain' athletic spending. Benjamin Wermund (UT-Austin alum) and Joseph Duarte (UT-Austin alum), HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Is cost of moving to Big 12 too steep for Cougars? Chron (UT-based) sports staff. Chron.com
No doubt the editorial staff at the Chron considers the above to pieces to be 'important' journalism. Stories that "need to be told" for the "good of the community" rather than for the good of the alma-mater of the overwhelming majority of the journalism staff.
Never you mind that, in accepting the Chron's premise in the latter story involves ignoring a few, key facts:
1. University spending on athletics is not a zero-sum game.
In fact, a successful athletic program often, although not always, increases funding in other departments due to increased exposure, university pride etc. It is clear that the leadership at UH, but not the Chron, feels that their athletic spending is an investment toward the future. One that, unless you're Baylor right now, will pay off in terms if increased positive exposure. In none of the stories that they are writing does the Chron even pay lip-service to that fact.
2. Revenues aren't static.
The underlying theme in the second story is that UH doesn't make enough to be able to "afford" Big XII membership. If you assume that their athletic revenues will stay flat after membership to the Big XII, then that argument might hold some water.
But the reality is, their revenues from athletics will increase after joining the Big XII, even if they have to spend a few years under a reduced-share agreement. Because part of the Big XII revenues is going to still be greater than a full share of American Athletic Conference revenues.
The only reason you write this article is that you don't want to see UH included. For UT-Austin, aTm and other schools the primary reason for this is because you don't want to compete with them.
So far Baylor (Baylor!?) is being honest about this and so is Former UH head coaching disaster Dana Dimel. But "we don't want UH in the Big XII because it makes recruiting harder for my school of choice" is a tough-journalism sell. It's not deemed to be "important" enough as is making the tenuous connection between athletics and tuition increases far more 'important' journalism might consider looking at the Permanent University Fund which is controlled by, and exclusive to, the Texas University System and the Texas A&M university system to the exclusion of all others. (Including, most egregiously, the Texas State University System which is growing in size, and having to increase tuition at rates much higher than the two systems provided an artificial funding advantage due primarily to politics.)
I'm not suggesting that it is the job of the Houston Chronicle to cheer for the University of Houston, although Rah! Rah! reporting is typically what they do best (provided the Rah! Rah! target in question is rich, well connected or puts on cool parties). What I am suggesting is that what the middling regional daily should focus on is not the rooting interests of their ever-shrinking group of reporters, but the financial well-being of the entire Texas public university system. That goal is not accomplished by selectively choosing facts and then presenting them in a way that's not exactly reflective of the truth, or (in the case of the first story) regurgitating a more than four year old story about athletic fees and then leaving out the fact (reported in their own paper) that the students voted FOR the very fees that are in question.
As bad as the Houston Chronicle tried to frame it however, it appears that UH leadership understands that this will not last if the University doesn't attain membership into a power 5 conference. UH is firing their shot, and they are doing it with student approval.
That should have at least been MENTIONED in the Chron's 'reporting' on the issue, but it wasn't. Regardless of your opinion toward UH inclusion into the Big XII that type of omission is a grievous journalistic sin by the Chronicle. At best it was lazy, at worst it was a ham-fisted attempt at opinion writing in what was framed as a 'hard-news' story. Regardless of the motivation it's just another data-point illustration the Chron to be an intellectually lazy middling-regional daily with little interest in reporting the news as opposed to trying to "make" the news.
It's also a diminishing institution, whose had to shutter it's downtown offices and whose diminishing circulation is only outpaced by the diminishing size of it's staff. UH meanwhile appears, for now, to be on the ascendancy.
All that said I still think UH' future is better served outside the Big XII. But I understand their trying to gain access to it.
