Economy effected by Griz not making it to the playoffs

People in Missoula can't be happy about the Griz missing the playoffs for a reason more than just pride.

MISSOULA - The Griz football team is not in the playoffs for the first time in 18 years and according to University of Montana Athletic Director Jim O'Day, the greatest financial impact is not on the university, but rather on the community.

He says each playoff game is worth about $30,000 and the money goes into the UM's athletic fund. But this year the university won't have the cash while the community won't see as much business from those coming to watch the games.

"We get a lot of fans that come into town for a game. I know during the regular season the numbers that are showing out there are usually between five and seven million coming into the community on a Grizzly home football game," O'Day told us.

He added that when fans come into town some of them go to the game, others go shopping, go out to eat or find other things to do in Missoula.

It makes sense. In a city of 100,000 people, having 25,000 more people milling about for a football game is definitely a big boost to the local economy. If you consider that a large amount of people that have Griz season tickets live outside of the county, and the fans of the other team and Missoula is missing out on a whole lot of cash.

The Big Sky just got a whole lot more interesting

The gauntlet has been thrown down by the Bengals!

Oh Idaho State, I watched them last Saturday and they were TERRIBLE. Conveniently, their head coach had already been fired and it was announced earlier this week that Mike Kramer will be their new coach.

(Mike Kramer is the guy on the right, in case you didn't know)

The Big Sky Conference better look over their shoulders because Kramer is one hell of a coach. He's won three conference championships with Montana State, who stupidly fired him for something he didn't even have control of, and one at Eastern Washington University.

In 1997, Kramer led the Eags to the semi-finals of the FCS Playoffs. The last Big Sky team to make it that far other than Montana.

He's a good coach, MSU was dumb in letting him go and I fully expect Idaho State to be a power in the next few years.

It's now just adding another storyline to the Big Sky Conference which is seeing the additions of more teams, the rise of Eastern Washington, parody abound in the league and the fall of Montana being the best team in the world.

Wow. Buckle up.

MHSA suggests a fifth classification

Big news from the Montana High School Association. They might be making a new classification for the smallest of C schools. Here's the posting from the Billings Gazette...

The Montana High School Association has sent out a memo detailing the possibility of splitting Class C into two divisions, a move that would create a fifth classification for Montana high school sports. If implemented, the change could come as soon as the 2012-13 school year.

MHSA executive director Mark Beckman recently sent the eight-page memo to Class C administrators. The memo details a recommendation put together by a committee that was directed by the MHSA Executive Board to examine the addition of a fifth classification.

“It’s not a proposal at this point. It’s a recommendation from our committee,” Beckman said Friday. “At this point it’s in the hands of our Class C schools. We sent it out to them to look at, discuss and tweak.

“We’re hoping they will discuss it at the upcoming district and divisional meetings and then provide input back to the board. (The recommendation) is basically a starting point to see whether there is support for a fifth class or not.”

Obviously it would help with competitiveness, but my question has been about Class A and why is has such a wide range of school enrollments in it. They should considered splitting that up too.