A Separate, more local, Conference for Non-Revenue Sports?

[TGHusker]

Tom Shatel and Dave Feits argue that it is time to do conference realignment (localization) of sports that don't produce the money that football and basketball produce.

Towards the end of this article (copied below), Dave Feits, recommends that Nebraska & similar schools in our situation (Power 5 conference spread across half of the USA)

should be in 2 or more conferences.  One for conference for the money sports of football & basketball  and one conference for the Olympic type and low- non- revenue sports.

The Big 10 would be our 'revenue' conference while the 2nd conference would be made up of schools within a 3-5 hour drive.   The beauty of the old Big 8 was that

most schools fit within that driving range.  The cost of travel for Nebraska to travel to Rutgers and Maryland or to PSU is too much for the expected return.  Interest in these other sports

would rise, IMHO, if we were competing against more local competition. 

If you agree, who would you like to see in this secondary conference?   (Me:  Creighton, KSU, Kansas, ISU, Iowa, SDSU, Mini, USD, Missouri, - some of these may be beyond 5 hours)

https://www.si.com/college/nebraska/volleyball/dave-feits-hot-takes-closing-the-book-on-2021-22-husker-sports

Tom Shatel makes the case for college baseball realignment to regional conferences. He looks at what happened at Purdue, as well as how Creighton lost the chance the claim a share of the Big East regular season title because of weather, flights and a conference foe that doesn’t appear to care about baseball. (Sound familiar?)



Shatel argues for a regional baseball conference for NU, Creighton, Iowa, UNO and other teams within a reasonable bus ride of each other.



I love the idea.  I’ve been advocating for it for years.  I’ve written about it twice – once back in 2013 and again last year when the Big Ten decided to go conference games only for baseball.I think teams like Nebraska should belong to two (or more) athletic conferences:

• A national, power conference for football and men’s basketball. Think the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big XII, and Pac-12. A basketball-only school like Creighton would still belong to the Big East. This is your cash cow.
  
• One (or more) regional conferences for Olympic & non-revenue sports. The majority would belong to the same regional league, but there may be situations where not everybody in the region has that sport (i.e., hockey) or there is an incentive or competitive reason to play elsewhere (i.e., Nebraska volleyball in the Big Ten)
  

My argument has always been primarily based on two indisputable facts:

1. In normal times, it is asinine – and fiscally irresponsible – to fly a 25+ student-athletes 1,200 miles to play a baseball series at Rutgers, when there are a dozen schools within a three-hour drive. When athletic departments are laying off employees and cutting sports, it is indefensible.
   
2. FOX and ESPN aren’t paying billions of dollars for the TV rights to air regular-season collegiate Olympic sports. Bluntly, and with few exceptions, nobody is watching.                       Five years ago, I would have said this was a fantasy. But now, with the Power 5 college football teams poised to break off from the NCAA, I could see it happening. Because at the end of the day, nobody wants to lose money.
   

https://www.si.com/college/nebraska/volleyball/dave-feits-hot-takes-closing-the-book-on-2021-22-husker-sports#:~:text=Tom Shatel agrees,two indisputable facts%3A

 

[Huskerfollower4life]

No I don't that should happen. This talk started bc Nebraska Baseball played poorly all season then try to rely on a team that if they would have lost would have gotten into the conference tournament. Imo Nebraska has no won to blame except themselves bc they had ample opportunities to turn their season around and they didn't. Leave it be.

 

[84HuskerLaw]

Nonsense.  The problem is the current conferences not the geography.  
 

The power 5 conferences need to reorganize into one 64 or so school super conference (league is a better term).  They all leave the NCAA and set up their own rules and so on.  
 

Id say, 4 divisions - N, S, E and W.  One or two new TV deals.  Set up divisional and inter divisional rotating games/schedules.  

Other sports according to best fit, etc. football set up like NFL basically.  Affiliate with NFL loosely but to get benefits of collective bargaining, caps, etc. 

Schools not in P5 are left out, unless voted in by 75% super majority or maybe unanimously.  
 

This will restore the natural and historic order and truly create better opportunities for better athletes to get good and go pro.  
 

Presumably, the lesser colleges can continue in some kind of amateur system in any way that makes sense.  Geographic proximity seems logical but depends on how colleges wish to continue sports etc.