Tom Burman Shuts Down FCS Talk: “We’re Not Going Down”
- Jeff Bugher
- Jan 20
- 5 min read
Recent articles by a regional news organization have insinuated that the University of Wyoming should consider dropping from the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) to the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). In an exclusive interview with Wyoming Athletics Director Tom Burman, it is clear that moving down won’t happen.
“In my 20 years as athletic director, has the University of Wyoming ever considered moving down?” Burman said. “The answer is no. It's never been discussed at the board level. It's never been discussed with me. No one's ever talked about it in my 20 years, and it's never a discussion point. We need to quit talking about it.”
Mountain West Conference Stability Matters
Wyoming holds an important place in the Mountain West Conference, a fact noted during the recent wave of realignment. MWC Commissioner Gloria Nevarez also echoed the same sentiment last summer when we interviewed her.
“The Mountain West is a very good league and a very good fit for the University of Wyoming,” Burman said.
Wyoming’s long-term home remains firmly in the Mountain West.
“What I was really enthused by was how quickly our members linked arms and stayed together,” Nevarez said. “We moved within weeks and months to solidify the core members, to add new institutions, and to commit to a grant of rights through 2032. That was a testament to the ADs and the presidents staying together and making the Mountain West.”
Why Moving Down Doesn’t Make Sense
Burman pushed back strongly against the published ideas that Wyoming would be better off competing at the FCS level.
“All of the most successful schools in the FCS over the last 15 years have all moved up,” Burman said. “James Madison, Boise State, Nevada, you can go on and on. They've all moved up. The schools that are at the top of the FCS now are all wanting to move up.”
The MWC has room for growth, and there was a lot of speculation about FCS schools jumping up in 2025. Several rumors, including Tarleton State and Sacramento State, among others, are in the same geographic footprint as the conference. Nevarez confirmed to me that FCS programs have expressed interest in joining the Mountain West.
“There are a lot of amazing FCS programs that we would ordinarily be very interested in,” she said. “There's a two-year waiting period, there's a $5 million fee that needs to be paid, and we just strategically at this time didn't want to take the risk that those bylaws might change, might get more stringent, or the pathway to FBS might close before those schools had an opportunity to join us.”
For now, the league is holding steady.
Regarding additions, Nevarez stated: “We're just on pause for now. We're going to get through a media rights [negotiation], but we are constantly looking at membership.”
One source told me the MWC media rights deal should be released soon.
Burman added that dropping down would go against Wyoming’s long-term vision.
“The University of Wyoming aspires to be the best university athletically and academically it can be,” he said. “To do that, it does matter who you compete with.”
National Exposure Is a Major Factor
Burman added that staying FBS gives the university an advantage with national exposure.
“The Big Sky and the FCS media package provides significantly less exposure, such as national television broadcast, than the Mountain West,” he said. “This past year, I think we had eight or nine games on national television in football. That doesn't happen at the FCS level.”
While the Big Sky Conference does have a deal with ESPN, most games are shown on ESPN+ or local affiliates. Financial details for the nearby Big Sky Conference are not publicly transparent, but the exposure and financial gap is very clear.
“We get $3.5 million annually from our current media rights deal,” Burman said. “There is nobody at the FCS that's getting anywhere near that amount of money.”
*Following our interview with Burman, documents provided to the Wyoming State Legislature's appropriations committee by the University of Wyoming indicate a possible $1 million decrease in media rights revenue and suggest that the upcoming deal will generate less revenue, especially given that football programs have not yet been replaced in the conference. Yes, there may be a small decrease in revenue, but it should be noted that teams will likely be added to the conference, and revenue should go up in the future.
Non-conference scheduling would also suffer.
“The games that we play right now against the Texas Techs, the Missouri’s, BYU - even in the future, Colorado State - that game wouldn't happen,” Burman said. “You couldn't play Colorado State in Laramie if you were in the FCS. They're not going to play you.”
He added that Wyoming would never travel to an FCS opponent as an FBS program.
NIL Progress at Wyoming
Burman also addressed claims that Wyoming is falling behind in Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) support.
“We're spending somewhere between $1.4 and $1.5 million right now,” he said. “We've had a very successful revenue year, and our dollars are going to go up significantly in the next six to 10 months.”
While Wyoming may not lead the Mountain West in NIL, Burman expects improvement in 2026.
“Because of our market size, it's going to be difficult for Wyoming to be at the top of the Mountain West [in terms of NIL] compared to a school like UNLV or New Mexico,” he said. “But as a whole, we're going to make significant progress, and we'll be in the upper half of the Mountain West easily next year.”
NIL Support Options for Fans
Burman outlined several ways fans can directly support Wyoming student-athletes:
Donate to the Cowboy Joe Club
Support NIL partnerships through Learfield
Use TeamWorks Influencer to work directly with Wyoming athletes
Through TeamWorks: “You can contract with a student athlete to do a social media post, or do a social media reach-out to a birthday kid or something of that nature,” Burman said.
Final Word
Despite outside media throwing out blind ideas, Burman remains firm in Wyoming’s direction.
“We're not going to go down,” he said. “We're going to continue to strive to be better and grow our university... and athletics plays a role in that.”
Wyoming belongs in the FBS - and that isn’t changing anytime soon.
*Last week, Representative Ken Pendergraft, a member of the Freedom Caucus, eagerly proposed a $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming and a $6 million cut to the athletics department. There's no way around it: those "knee-jerk" cuts are devastating and have no factual basis. I reached out to Pendergraft for comment, and he said he has a responsibility to the taxpayers. Both of Pendergraft's motions passed in committee, but the budget still has to be approved through the Senate and then signed off by Governor Mark Gordon.
About the Author:
Jeff Bugher is a third-generation Wyomingite living in Casper. He is a sportswriter and Wyoming Cowboys/Cowgirls enthusiast who is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA ) and the National Sports Media Association (NSMA). Jeff's work has been cited by Sports Illustrated, one of the world's leading sports publications.
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Staying in FBS seems crucial for Wyoming’s exposure and growth. Moving down could limit opportunities and hurt long-term goals. heartopia npc