I am waiting for the days of all sports conferences to go to pasture. I expect individual leagues for each sport with many of your olympic non-revenue sports being 100% regionalized. While football and mens basketball do whatever they want

It is simpler for a school to have one conference for all sports, and having different conferences for different sports would make it complicated or impossible for conference TV networks that exist all year. For the top conferences other than the Big East, members are the same for Football and both genders' basketball (except for Notre Dame being a Football Independent), but it is still under seven months from the first Football games to the last Men's Basketball games that are on conference networks, leaving over five months for spring sports and summer when there are not college sports.

TV revenue is the only thing holding it back. It is certainly a piece of the puzzle. But when the payback from the travel is no longer worth it or given from the networks it will force the schools hands to regionalize again. I dont believe there is much more money in the pie to sustain the recent conference shifts and when the bottom line decreases year over year, changes will have to be made. TV can only hold on for so long with leverage. Once the schools start talking I think it breaks down and you will have more school based networks like Longhorn and others that cover their sports vs a collective conference deal

(02-26-2024 05:09 PM)JonP Wrote:  I should add: I do actually expect A-10 to add Charleston. It will be a loss for the CAA, but hopefully not one that leads to rash decisions.

High Point and Fairfield have both been thrown out as possible CAA expansion candidates for a while, and both are having good years. I predict that the CAA will make those additions as plug-and-play replacements for Charleston and Delaware.

From Drexel's perspective, I don't view these as bad adds. Men's basketball is the premier sport for both programs. However, neither school has a lengthy track record of success, and neither is likely to be poached by any other conference (America East could poach Fairfield but let's be real... they're going to sit on their ass like usual). We should wait another season or two with 12 teams and see how well those programs sustain success.

Ultimately we need our weakest programs to step it up for the conference to strengthen. High Point and Fairfield aren't going to cure our issues if W&M, Elon, NC A&T, and Hampton can't get more competitive.

If top schools make their own networks, so much of the time will be replays, shows hardly anybody watches, or paid advertisements. It will be expensive for fans to pay to get all of them. Even among teams in the same conference, Vanderbilt is much better off getting 1/14th of the money from SEC Network than not having a conference or school network while Alabama and Georgia have their own networks. Some schools would start their own networks, have them lose money, and end the networks that lose money, or do something like increase ticket prices to make up for it.

The ACC has a grant of rights through I think 2035. It was made because Maryland left the ACC during a TV contract, and TV channels that pay for rights for many years do not want the rights to get less valuable by schools leaving. Florida State wants to leave, and sued the ACC. In order to leave now, Florida State would have to pay the ACC about $590 million.

The discussion in the women's basketball thread made me interested to look at how the recent CAA additions have been doing. As you might expect, various schools are more competitive in some sports than others. And Monmouth, Stony Brook, Campbell and NC A&T seem to be holding their own. But there is one glaring outlier: Hampton.

I know the Pirates were brought on mainly for football, but it's pretty horrifying how bad they are across sports.

Men's basketball: 3-15
Women's basketball: 3-13
Football: 3-5
Women's soccer: 0-12
Volleyball: 0-18
Men's lacrosse: 0-7 last season (and 0-6 out of conference this season)
Softball: 4-19 last season (5-12 out of conference this season)
Men's cross country: last place at CAA championship
Women's cross country: last place at CAA championship
Indoor track and field: 7th (out of 8) at CAA championship
Outdoor track and field: 6th (out of 8) at CAA championship
Tennis: Didn't make CAA quarterfinals.

I am not trying to knock them, but you have to wonder how long this can go on. Do they really have the appetite to stick with a CAA? I can't see a school being able to stomach year after year of this.

Why not? They stomached it previously before too. They have always been terrible.

But what room do we truly have to talk? When it comes to championships Drexel lacks badly in this conference. And rarely do we have multiple spots being successful at the same time. In general based on years in the conference and titles won we look like one of the bottom feeders of the conference.

I was looking at Hampton's awful softball record and I was thinking, didn't Mo'ne Davis play for them? She would be a senior this year. I remember all the fanfare of her going to Hampton over a big time program. I just looked up her stats and she only played for them in 2020 and 2022 and is no longer on their roster.

(03-06-2024 09:03 AM)dan10 Wrote:  But what room do we truly have to talk? When it comes to championships Drexel lacks badly in this conference. And rarely do we have multiple spots being successful at the same time. In general based on years in the conference and titles won we look like one of the bottom feeders of the conference.

Oh come on.

As I said, every school is better in some sports than others. But you cannot compare Drexel -- as an athletic department -- to what Hampton is doing. Point to any one-year stretch where we had *multiple* zero-win teams.

There's a yawning gap between "not winning many championships" and "not fielding competitive teams in nearly every sport."

(03-06-2024 09:49 AM)JonP Wrote:  

(03-06-2024 09:03 AM)dan10 Wrote:  But what room do we truly have to talk? When it comes to championships Drexel lacks badly in this conference. And rarely do we have multiple spots being successful at the same time. In general based on years in the conference and titles won we look like one of the bottom feeders of the conference.

Oh come on.

As I said, every school is better in some sports than others. But you cannot compare Drexel -- as an athletic department -- to what Hampton is doing. Point to any one-year stretch where we had *multiple* zero-win teams.

There's a yawning gap between "not winning many championships" and "not fielding competitive teams in nearly every sport."

Yeah, the zero-sum positioning of "championship or bust" is a straight-line path to just being miserable. It was unfortunate that we didn't win any championships last year, but we were solid in most sports that we participate in and fell short in the postseason. We were women's lacrosse champions in 2022 and of course we had basketball success in 2021.

There's room for improvement, in fact I agree that we should be improving, to position ourselves as one of the premier programs in the future CAA. But equating us to Hampton is laughable. Not only is Hampton a bottom-feeder in pretty much every sport they sponsor, but Drexel has never finished below Hampton in a sport we both participate in. We at least have a path to consistent championships... Hampton needs a complete program overhaul to even compete.

It's tricky to talk about the HBCUs because the benefit they bring is not entirely confined to the athletic space. They are historic institutions with great fan followings, and they get eyes on the conference. I think both NC A&T and Hampton were among the most-televised CAA teams in men's basketball, and they'll probably give the atmosphere of the play-in games a boost. But Hampton is just a complete competitive drag in every sport. Even if they were added partially to try to lure NC A&T and/or Howard, neither of the latter two is so much of a game-changer to be worth the anchor Hampton has been, 2 years in.

IMO, getting into the HBCU space was a blunder by the CAA that only further blurred what the conference's mission is, while also adding what looks like an anchor for years to come. A conference that tries to serve everyone, ends up serving no one.

EDIT: I know Hampton's long-term goal for a while has been to raise their profile, but now that they're here, I'm not sure how long they have to be bad until they choose to end their CAA experiment. The MEAC would take them back in a heartbeat, Hampton has historic rivalries in the MEAC that their fans care about, and they would be competitive again.

(03-06-2024 11:40 AM)jcohen42 Wrote:  It's tricky to talk about the HBCUs because the benefit they bring is not entirely confined to the athletic space. They are historic institutions with great fan followings, and they get eyes on the conference. I think both NC A&T and Hampton were among the most-televised CAA teams in men's basketball, and they'll probably give the atmosphere of the play-in games a boost. But Hampton is just a complete competitive drag in every sport. Even if they were added partially to try to lure NC A&T and/or Howard, neither of the latter two is so much of a game-changer to be worth the anchor Hampton has been, 2 years in.

IMO, getting into the HBCU space was a blunder by the CAA that only further blurred what the conference's mission is, while also adding what looks like an anchor for years to come. A conference that tries to serve everyone, ends up serving no one.

EDIT: I know Hampton's long-term goal for a while has been to raise their profile, but now that they're here, I'm not sure how long they have to be bad until they choose to end their CAA experiment. The MEAC would take them back in a heartbeat, Hampton has historic rivalries in the MEAC that their fans care about, and they would be competitive again.

Good post. And interesting things to think about.

The last part is what I was getting at. Will Hampton just stick around and endure this year after year? How long can it go on?

I feel like it's too early to say whether N.C. A&T was a blunder. They have had some difficulties for sure.

Here is my conversation with an A&T alum/fan after our game Saturday…

Me: Hey, are you going to D.C. next week?
Aggie fan: (laughs) No, not this year.
Me: The only thing I miss about the Big South is how convenient it was to go to the tournaments. (A&T was in the BS one year…’21-‘22).
Aggie fan: A&T is working toward becoming a R-1 institution….probably in 6 years. That’s why we keep switching conferences.
Me: Do you think you’ll go FBS?
Aggie fan: (smiles, nods yes)

Yeah, I think A&T has been pretty open that they see the CAA as a stepping stone to FBS. They remind me of Georgia State in that way. I think the question is whether they can actually fund athletics at the level to get them there. Football didn't go well for them this season, that's for sure.

That's why I think it's too early to say if it's gonna work for them. The Monte Ross hire didn't exactly scream, "We're investing in athletics!"

They do fit the institutional profile of the CAA in many ways, I will say that.

I was not trying to compare us to them. They are absolutely a drag everywhere beyond being HBCU and the alums they carry for potential. But what is deemed success? Getting whooped in every sport is clearly not success. What is success for Drexel? It is clearly not championships. Is it being mid table in many sports yearly? I dont actually know the answer to that question.

As far as improvement, what is the league doing to force schools joining to actually get better? What are they doing to schools already here to make them get better? I am not sure there is enough drive from the schools to improve themselves without help and I am not sure there is enough leadership or drive from the conference to hurt feeling and force anyone to get better either.

This is more of a CAA topic vs NCAA topic but, we stand out badly as underperforming (again depends on what our actual expectations for success is defined as)

By championships:

Teams that joined when we did:
Hofstra- 47
Delaware- 32
Towson- 32
Northeastern- 31
Drexel- 8 {tied with American (who left in 2001 when we joined) and Loyola (who were only in the conference in m/w lax leaving in 2002)}

Teams that joined after us:
Charleston- 16
Elon- 14
Georgia State- 10

Stony Brook and Monmouth are at 1 each

The big news yesterday for those who didnt see. Could get interesting and really hurt the sport

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...ocal-union

(03-06-2024 02:50 PM)dan10 Wrote:  This is more of a CAA topic vs NCAA topic but, we stand out badly as underperforming (again depends on what our actual expectations for success is defined as)

By championships:

Teams that joined when we did:
Hofstra- 47
Delaware- 32
Towson- 32
Northeastern- 31
Drexel- 8 {tied with American (who left in 2001 when we joined) and Loyola (who were only in the conference in m/w lax leaving in 2002)}

Teams that joined after us:
Charleston- 16
Elon- 14
Georgia State- 10

Stony Brook and Monmouth are at 1 each

I was looking at that chart too.

What jumped out at me was that several CAA schools absolutely dominate in only a couple sports. Northeastern's hardware is almost entirely from running and women's rowing. Elon's championships are mostly from women's running sports. Not surprisingly, southern schools tend to win titles in warm-weather sports.

Now, Drexel doesn't dominate in anything. I get that. But still interesting to me.

I dunno what the takeaway is. One or two great coaches can earn you a lot of titles? Pick a couple things to be great at?

(03-06-2024 03:33 PM)dan10 Wrote:  The big news yesterday for those who didnt see. Could get interesting and really hurt the sport

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...ocal-union

As you may have seen me post on the other board, this could not only mark the end of Dartmouth Men's Basketball but possibly could break up the Ivy League (unlikely but a thought). I really don't see how a program like Dartmouth could benefit from this. It's not like it's bringing in tons of money for the university and possibly operates in the red. If Dartmouth steps in and says "You're locked out until this union game ends", then it would hopefully kill the idea that might be in the heads of other programs.

This wouldn't be like a teachers lockout or hospital, or transit lockout. The purpose of college athletics is to provide an extracurricular activity some select athletes. College do not need athletic programs.
If for example, Drexel's basketball team tried these shenanagans and the university locked the players out or cancelled the program over it, my life would not be affected one bit. I'd just take my entertainment dollars that I spend on Drexel season tickets and spend my money elsewhere. So the players really have zero bargaining power here.

(03-06-2024 04:41 PM)JonP Wrote:  What jumped out at me was that several CAA schools absolutely dominate in only a couple sports. Northeastern's hardware is almost entirely from running and women's rowing. Elon's championships are mostly from women's running sports. Not surprisingly, southern schools tend to win titles in warm-weather sports.

Now, Drexel doesn't dominate in anything. I get that. But still interesting to me.

I dunno what the takeaway is. One or two great coaches can earn you a lot of titles? Pick a couple things to be great at?

One takeaway is, this is what happens when the sport you pick to be great at (squash) is not sponsored by your own conference.