Louisiana Tech is now a member of the Sun Belt Conference. The move became official today. Tech Athletic Director Ryan Ivey expects to compete for conference championships right away and welcomes the pressure of a new conference.
“There are more eyeballs that are going to be associated; there’s going to be more intense scrutiny of the things that we do, and that’s okay. That’s why we do we do, and we’re excited about the opportunity to compete, moving forward,” Ivey said.
The Sun Belt sent a school to the College Football Playoff last year and had back-to-back College World Series appearances.
The Bulldogs join in-state rivals ULM and UL-Lafayette in the conference. Both schools advocated for Tech to join the conference due to decreased travel costs and the renewal of historic rivalries. Ivey says they’re already seeing the impacts.
“We’ve already seen an increase in football ticket sales. There’s a higher interest in the games that we’re playing, the opponents that we’re playing; we know that we’re going to have more visiting teams come this year because of the schedule,” Ivey noted.
No longer part of the weekday C-USA schedule, the Bulldogs will host six home Saturday football games for the first time since 2017.
Louisiana Tech agreed to an over $8 million exit fee with Conference USA after back-and-forth negotiations and a lawsuit the UL system filed in March. Ivey says the athletics department may be strapped for cash in the short term, but the investment will pay off quickly.
“You look at the net revenue or the net position increase that we’re going to have from a departmental standpoint; in two years, we’re going to more than make up for whatever financial liabilities we had to pay out here early on,” Ivey explained.
Comments