(06-27-2022 11:11 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 10:32 PM)Longhorn Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 06:48 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 06:14 PM)OsageJ Wrote:  We have 12. I have a hard time seeing us adding 6 to 8 sports. Most SBC schools seem to have 15 or 16 sports.

I would imagine in most cases, states will finance the extra teams needed to maintain division 1 status. The return on investment for the state’s economy is there.

Not in Virginia. In VA, by law, no tax dollars can be appropriated or used to support college athletics.

Virginia universities make up for it with higher student fees than most states where athletics is subsidized. It's the same principal. Students will pay a higher fee to maintain D1 status and fund a few more teams.

In a sense…but the VA law outlawing general state revenue (tax dollars) going to support college sports at VA public universities is really more in-line with the philosophy of “You want it? You use it? You pay for it”…all so the regular Jack & Jill taxpayer who doesn’t have a child attending the college can rest easy.

A recent piece of legislation (within the last 5 years) called the “Cox Bill” (named after a Republican Speaker of the House in the VA General Assembly and JMU alum) also put % caps on the amount of student fees that could be charged for athletics. The bill has a sliding scale, with a higher % of fees being allowed to support FCS programs, and a lower % for FBS programs.

VA is not alone by outlawing the use of tax money to support college sports. Texas has a similar law, and there may be others.

Why don't we kill 2 birds with 1 rock and make ALL sports co-ed? Since gender is only a self-identifying state of mind that is fluid just let defensive players identify as female in odd years and offensive player identify as female in even years. This is in the best spirit of inclusion as athletes who identify as male will have opportunities to compete in sports previously only available to students identifying as female. That takes care of inclusion. Equity means having the same outcomes. That's easy: Donors to rich school have their funds diverted to poorer schools until everyone has the same. ESPN and the 4 other national media conglomerates must provide the exact same coverage to every school. All contests are handicapped IN-GAME to ensure a tie. Diversity: Make sure the racial make-up of every team matches the racial make-up of the student population while also assuring gender identity matches the student population. We'll also have to account for ethnicity, national origin, religion, and sexuality. Easily done.

I suggest collegiate "pro" style wrestling. Costumes, theme music, touring, the whole thing. I think that would really sell some tickets.

Years ago I advocated that at a minimum all Division I should sponsor 16 sports or maybe 18 and increase the scholarship requirement from 50% to 80%.

Ridiculous that FBS requires 16 sports and 200 grants while Division I as a whole requires 14 and 50% of the aid allowed in the sports played.

Schools have been streaming up to get a piece of the tournament money because the cost difference from DII just isn’t that big.

The conference as a whole should add Rugby...

(06-28-2022 05:17 AM)TrojansOneandAll Wrote:  I suggest collegiate "pro" style wrestling. Costumes, theme music, touring, the whole thing. I think that would really sell some tickets.

I think it came up on this board, years ago, that this should be the Sun Belt's approach to wrestling. Heck, it's the Sun Belt...

I'm all for it.

This would be my best, educated guess, at the moment:

* The committee won't make membership recommendations until Q1 of 2023.

* Schools will have a three-year waiver period to get into compliance of new recommendations. Nobody is getting booted tomorrow.

* Schools will need to commit to sponsoring somewhere between 18-20 NCAA sponsored sports, NOT including FBS football.

* Most sport-specific scholarship caps and staffing caps will be lifted, as conferences will decide how many scholarships to offer per sport.

* Benchmarks about stadium size and attendance will be removed

* Schools will need to commit to sponsoring X number of scholarships across all sports, unless they get an Ivy waiver

* Schools will need to commit to maintaining a certain ratio of coaches to scholarship athletes, trainers to scholarship athletes, mental health professionals to scholarship athletes AND academic support specialists. The increase in STAFFING will be a bigger financial lift than the requirement to sponsor additional sports.

* In an effort to get around antitrust issues, these guidelines will be set up in a way for schools to "self select" which levels to participate in, rather than entire conferences getting booted.

* In a related move, I believe the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments will expand, and that not every conference will be guaranteed championship access to every NCAA sponsored sport.

Y’all keep talking about what sports to add, but this is the one that needs to be getting discussed.

(06-27-2022 11:00 PM)Pounce FTW Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 08:45 PM)AssKickingChicken Wrote:  Beach volleyball seems a simple add. You don’t need to award any extra scholarships or hire any new coaches.

I guess it shows how much I've paid attention if I'm even asking this, but are D1-level team volleyball players typically the same athletes that can compete that well at beach volleyball? I mean, clearly they're, y'know, related...but aren't there different women at the very top in each sport?

Our AD addressed this in a recent interview, because we need more women's scholarships.

Source: Monarchist Podcast

Quote:The Sun Belt conference actually has a good core membership who have sand or beach volleyball. So that would be a natural, that counts as a separate women's intercollegiate athletic sport, cuz they're typically different style athlete and volleyball players who play the sand volleyball versus the indoor. So that's like adding another program. Typically add more coaching, but you know, it kind of plays off the volleyball.

TXST has 15 outside football. If we had to add and stay Title IX compliant I would want mens soccer, womens bowling, and womens beach volleyball.

The scholarship thing is stupid but with NIL and the portal the P5 are splitting faster and faster. At some point you can load up on more talent but a lot of that talent will want to play too so some of those players won't just go and sit on UTs bench and practice squad.

I believe the scholarship limit removal will be for equivalency sports like baseball and softball.

I agree that schools with more money will load up their benches with players but the transfer portal negates that by allowing them to transfer in order to play.

(06-27-2022 06:14 PM)OsageJ Wrote:  We have 12. I have a hard time seeing us adding 6 to 8 sports. Most SBC schools seem to have 15 or 16 sports.

We're not as far as we think. We know we have to add Softball shortly because we're out of Title IX compliance. Depending on the numbers, we'd need to add two other sports. Given facilities, there are a few things we can easily add without much difficulty because we already have facilities needed.

Though I think its smart to take anything Matt Brown says with a grain of salt.

(06-28-2022 10:57 PM)Usajags Wrote:  * Most sport-specific scholarship caps and staffing caps will be lifted, as conferences will decide how many scholarships to offer per sport.


Y’all keep talking about what sports to add, but this is the one that needs to be getting discussed.

I am sure the P5 schools will go unlimited. Just don't know if that would really be a positive for them.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

Something to keep in mind:

The Sun Belt recently committed to adding Beach Volleyball, Swimming and Diving, and of course Men's Soccer. We're also looking into Field Hockey.

There's zero chance the league didn't know going in that this was possibly coming down the pipeline. The league also knows that Beach Volleyball is an easy add facility wise, and we don't have enough schools sponsoring it...yet.

I think some of the freaking out here is going to be pointless. I don't think there's a school in this league not prepared to meet the new criteria.

(06-29-2022 09:55 AM)hburg Wrote:  

(06-28-2022 10:57 PM)Usajags Wrote:  * Most sport-specific scholarship caps and staffing caps will be lifted, as conferences will decide how many scholarships to offer per sport.


Y’all keep talking about what sports to add, but this is the one that needs to be getting discussed.

I am sure the P5 schools will go unlimited. Just don't know if that would really be a positive for them.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

I have a relative who played in the SEC 60 years ago. He says it was the norm for schools to offer scholarships to as many players as they could get. Half the time the coaches knew the kids would never play much, they just wanted to make sure they didn't go to a rival school. Thats what led to scholarship limits. I think you might find some push back on that even in the P5 for that reason. Alabama and Ohio State could have like 500 players on scholarship each if they want, leaving only the scraps for the rest of the P5, and the crumbs of the crumbs for the G5.

Wouldn't it be a laugh if we get UVA or UNC for soccer and field hockey, or the shattered remains of the ACC

Edit: I removed the original link because this one shows both original and reply. Look who is on top of it already!

(07-07-2022 09:05 PM)ODU-Z8 Wrote:  Wouldn't it be a laugh if we get UVA or UNC for soccer and field hockey, or the shattered remains of the ACC

Edit: I removed the original link because this one shows both original and reply. Look who is on top of it already!

If UVA, UNC and Clemson joined the SEC, they’d be one school shy of having enough to sponsor the sport, and at that point they’d probably invite UCF as an affiliate and make it official.

(06-27-2022 01:42 PM)GSUdpb Wrote:  Georgia State currently has 14 sports not including football which he says wouldn't be counted. So that means we'd need to add 4 to 6 sports.

Women's Lacrosse has often been mentioned as our next sport should we add one. After that I could see both Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving and bringing back Men's Track and Field.

That's 4. Beyond that I'm not sure. With Title IX I doubt we add more men's sports than we do women's so Men's Cross Country is likely out.

Cross Country in Atlanta? Urban Country Running. New sport! Would make the Amateur Climatologists happy when we all get up for our exercise in front of the telescreen then go for a run monitored by the drones.

Ok so I'll just throw this out there for opinions...

Article in the Charleston paper yesterday that SB requires lights at all baseball facilities. Yes, Marshall is building a new gem, but for this season we've got 'issues'...do they give us a pass for the year? Do we bus to Charleston for the conference games to use the MILB park?

(07-08-2022 07:39 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(07-07-2022 09:05 PM)ODU-Z8 Wrote:  Wouldn't it be a laugh if we get UVA or UNC for soccer and field hockey, or the shattered remains of the ACC

Edit: I removed the original link because this one shows both original and reply. Look who is on top of it already!

If UVA, UNC and Clemson joined the SEC, they’d be one school shy of having enough to sponsor the sport, and at that point they’d probably invite UCF as an affiliate and make it official.

Yeah that’s true. It is what it is though if they do. We could still be a good conference.

These are such utterly stupid and pointless proposed changes.

If you're concerned about the competitiveness of the bottom rungs of DI, lower the minimum number of sports and let them spend more on their basketball programs. But of course the P5 wants to reduce the number of St. Peters and Loyola Chicagos out there.