Source: Sun Belt commissioner Benson will be 'leaving'

Tim Buckley | The Daily Advertiser

Show Caption Hide Caption Sun Belt commish Karl Benson preparing to leave Sun Belt Commissioner is planning on 'leaving' his post, a source said. Benson is under contract until June 2019.

Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson will announce Thursday that he is “leaving” his post, a source with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Advertiser.

The Sun Belt on Wednesday scheduled a telephone conference call with media members for 1 p.m. Thursday, at which time Benson intends to reveal his plans.

UL is a longtime member of the Sun Belt, an NCAA Group of Five league which currently has 10 football-playing members and two others that do not field a football program.

The commissioner currently is working under a contract that expires at the end of June 2019, and it is anticipated that he will continue to work during the upcoming 2018-19 school year.

Benson, who turns 67 in December, has been commissioner of the Sun Belt since the spring of 2012.

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A native of the state of Washington and a graduate of Boise State, he previously was commissioner of the now football-defunct Western Athletic Conference (WAC) from 1994-2012 and commissioner of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) from 1990-94.

Benson also worked four-plus years on the NCAA staff as director of NCAA championships.

During his tenure as Sun Belt commissioner, Benson oversaw transition of a membership lineup that added football-playing members Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Texas State, Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina.

They replaced current Conference USA members North Texas, Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic, Florida International and Western Kentucky, who left the SBC as part of a nationwide conference realignment.

Non-football-playing Texas-Arlington was added as well.

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MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Under Benson’s watch, the league also added, then later dropped, New Mexico State and Idaho as football-only members to meet a since-expired NCAA requirement of 12 teams for leagues staging a title game.

The Sun Belt currently has 10 football-playing school, and two — UT Arlington and Little Rock — that don’t play football.

“The fact that we were able to build out the conference,” Benson said in New Orleans last month, is among the biggest achievements during his time with the SBC.

The decision by Sun Belt presidents and chancellors not to extend their agreement with Idaho and New Mexico State, he added, was “probably one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever been part of in terms of that type of an impact,” but it ultimately was “the right change.”

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Three of the Sun Belt’s current five postseason partners also were added during the tenure of Benson, who helped to secure agreements for guaranteed currently berths with the Camellia, Cure and Arizona bowls.

Agreements with the New Orleans Bowl and the Dollar General Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, also were extended, and Benson said creating and maintaining five bowl opportunities was his No. 2 accomplishment, second only to the membership picture.

“The partnership with those … five bowls has given the Sun Belt credibility,” he said.

Sun Belt teams have won 11 of their 18 bowl appearances over the last four years — the highest winning percentage of all 10 FBS conferences during that time period.

Benson recently suggested the league intends to maintain five bowl tie-ins beyond this year, but said a potential new bowl that would be based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and that currently is pursuing certification “is one, obviously, that we would be interested in being part of.”

Now beginning its 18th season as a major FBS conference, the Sun Belt is the youngest of the 10.

For the first time in its history, the Sun Belt also has a league football championship game scheduled for this season.

It will be played Dec. 1 and aired on either ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC.

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KEY INDICATORS

Benson also was party to negotiating the Sun Belt’s current multi-media deal with ESPN and a future one as well, ensuring all SBC home football games will be carried on an ESPN platform of one sort or another.

A new eight-year deal that gives ESPN exclusive multimedia rights to all Sun Belt sports through the 2027-28 school year, and that will roughly double its payout for SBC schools, was announced in March.

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“Every key indicator that can be used to evaluate the strength of a conference has indeed risen for the Sun Belt in the past four years,” Benson said in New Orleans, mentioning growth in in-game attendance and end-of-the-year revenue distribution while it “may be down in some conferences” along with “sizeable” facility renovation at multiple SBC schools and “a dramatic change in our non-conference scheduling strategy.”

That scheduling model for football — though not in place for all Sun Belt teams in 2018 — includes one game against a Power 5 program, two non-conference games against fellow Group of Five members and one against a lower-level FCS team.

It’s designed to help more Sun Belt teams have a winning season and go to a bowl game, but comes at the expense of a second payday against a Power 5.

End-of-the-year revenue distribution among SBC members has grown ten-fold compared to 2014, Benson said last month without divulging specific numbers.

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