Partly to flesh out my list of games to watch on Youtube, but largely because my third daughter's family moved to Alexandria for her husband's job in the LSU ag system, I have started paying a little attention to the NAIA. There are two colleges in the Alexandria/Pineville metro area. LSUA is already NAIA, and Louisiana College recently announced that they were applying to move from NCAA D3 to NAIA.

https://www.naia.org/why-naia/naia-vs-ncaa/index

The NAIA pushes its case vs. the NCAA (see link above). Of course, the level of ability is far less than at D1 or even most D2, but as they point out, NAIA schools get a lot more bang for their buck in terms of student participation.

It is an interesting concept: the more elite the athletes, the less participation you get. We attended a couple of games at D3 Ozarks in Clarksville last year, and it is amazing the percentage of the student body that are in athletics. They have an enrollment of about 900, and yet they have 34 (if I counted correctly) athletes on the wrestling roster. They have 37 on the baseball roster. Those two sports alone account for close to 8% of the student body.

And the thing is that to the kids involved, a national championship means just as much to them at that level as it would D1. And, of course, John Brown won the NAIA national basketball championship in 2005.