(06-17-2017 02:12 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The most likely "expansion" moves of the Big Sky are seeing Portland State to the door if they cannot keep football (hello WAC), or watching Sac State switch Olympics to the Big West as the 12th there (this requires UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield to join as a pair first).

The Big Sky is happy to see North Dakota leave. It was a badly failed marriage. They were just too far out of footprint -- institutionally there was never an issue --- but the travel did not work for anyone. There wont be another central time zone experiment.

The negative impacts of North Dakota extended far beyond the travel issue. Having to schedule 8 football games for them meant several traditional games Big Sky schools used to play in football were dropped. This was very unpopular. In Basketball some home and home series were broken by expansion.

An odd number in football is no different than they are right now, and it works fine. Big Sky schools are in demand to fill home game slots of MWC, Pac-12 and western independents BYU and NMSU. Those "byes" often translate into a revenue game. So there is no graet clamoring to get to an even number. (Remember this is FCS with no CCG, simply all schools trying to get one of the 24 Playoff bids).

In Basketball (and Volleyball) 11 may actually be a good number, with conferences moving to 20 game, as this can restore a full double round robin schedule. With the MWC also at 11 (and with Steve Fisher retired maybe will revist 20 games as well), there is a potential partner to fill some of those byes. Soccer will be at 10, so no issue; Softball could use an affiliate, and the rest are individual sports where the conference simply provides a meet. (Tennis is odd, but who cares, nobody realigns for Tennis)

Except for a fixation on numbers divisible by two, there really is not a compelling reason or need to expand. The revenue is limited and adding an additional member simply means splitting the pie one more teim. It also means breaking more rivalry games. The indigestion of going out of footprint (UND) and lowering standards (SUU) combined with the false promises of Doug Fullerton about significant revenue increases and greater exposure from these compromises is fresh on the mind of these Presidents. I just don't see any move coming for many years,