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Should conferences have only all sports members?
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Bogg Offline
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Post: #21
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 09:15 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Personally I am not a fan of affiliate members. I think schools should be all in. Part of a conference’s identity should be that they sponsor a certain set of sports. If your conference mates have a divergent set of athletic offerings and priorities you don’t have a lot of conference unity. I hate to pick on Denver but they are a perfect example of this. Their priorities are men’s hockey, men’s lacrosse, and skiing. Note these are all niche sports that they play as affiliates elsewhere and as a result they don’t sport teams in sports their league does play. That hurts when your conference is on the fence when it comes to the number of teams for baseball and men’s soccer.

I don't think I could possibly be mad at a school for focusing on sports they can win National Championships in.
08-08-2019 10:12 PM
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esayem Offline
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Post: #22
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 04:46 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 01:08 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  It makes sense when certain conferences don't offer certain sports. South Carolina for example plays in CUSA for men's soccer because the SEC doesn't sponsor it. UConn doesn't play Big east football because they don't offer it. BYU is WCC for the same reason. If the SEC decided to offer SMU an equestrian spot I would be cool with that.

Otherwise, I agree, it doesn't make sense except for Notre Dame/ACC

You make a good point about UCONN. It would appear they are striving to be a basketball only school, hence their joining a basketball only conference.

It’s UConn, and there is no such thing as a basketball-only school or conference. 04-cheers
08-08-2019 10:22 PM
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DawgNBama Online
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Post: #23
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 12:53 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  Conference USA has 14 all sports members. If the conference offers the sport teams are required to play. Isn't this the preferred method. It seems to me that rivalries are made when teams play both basketball and football. Basketball only schools defeat that purpose. So why have them? Basketball only schools belong in basketball only conferences. Of course that's just my opinion, your's may differ.

I've been meaning to respond to this post for awhile, but I kept getting distracted. "Basketball-only" or Olympic sports schools do NOT defeat the purpose of rivalries. I say this as a fan and graduate of a "basketball-only"-olympic sport school.
In the Gulf South Conference, UNA, UWA(West Alabama), UAH, and Montevallo had a fierce four-way rivalry going until UNA decided to bolt for the Big South. UNA and UWA had football, but UAH and my alma mater, Montevallo did not and continue to do not have football. I can't really speak for UAH, but I can say that Montevallo has done just fine without football, and will continue to be fine without it. Plus, there's not any land to have a football stadium anyway, and girls dominate the campus, not guys,even though Montevallo is a co-ed campus. I can't remember exactly how long ago it has been(I want to say around 2013-2014), but at one point roughly five years ago, the University of Montevallo's president decided it was to leave the Gulf South Conference and decided to join the Peach Belt Conference, that had only "basketball-only" schools or olympic sports schools. The experiment did not go well, and when AUM (Auburn University @ Montgomery) decided to join the Gulf South from NAIA, the University of Montevallo re-applied to join the Gulf South Conference again. Ever since then, my alma mater has not made any noise about joining another conference, to the best of my knowledge.

In addition, even though Syracuse bolted for the ACC, the desire to rekindle the rivalry with Georgetown was so strong that the Orange renewed the rivalry with the Hoyas non-conference, so there is another example for you.
(This post was last modified: 08-09-2019 12:37 AM by DawgNBama.)
08-09-2019 12:35 AM
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BruceMcF Online
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Post: #24
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 12:53 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  Conference USA has 14 all sports members. If the conference offers the sport teams are required to play. Isn't this the preferred method. It seems to me that rivalries are made when teams play both basketball and football. Basketball only schools defeat that purpose. So why have them? Basketball only schools belong in basketball only conferences. Of course that's just my opinion, your's may differ.

The question in the title does not seem to be very clear, since different people are answering different questions, and whatever it's saying it doesn't seem to be saying the same thing as the post.

The OP is not actually talking about "all sports", just FB and MBB. It's saying that the Sunbelt and the AAC are "doing it wrong" by having non-FB members and the AAC and MWC are "doing it wrong by having affiliate members in FB.

Now, AFAIR, VCU, UTA and Little Rock are "all sports" members in the only reasonable sense of the phrase ... all of the sports that they sponsor, that the AAC or SBC sponsor, they play in the AAC or SBC.

So among FBS conferences, requiring "all sports" schools would just outlaw Navy playing in the AAC and Hawaii playing in the MWC, and when put in concrete terms rather than in the abstract, I don't see the benefit of outlawing it.

The reasons CUSA should not add non-FB schools or FB-only affiliates are that (1) it is already oversized in both and (2) nobody it could add would contribute enough to justify further watering down the frequency of CUSA schools playing each other in the sport that they play in.

Conferences should be for the benefit of their members. Members of conferences playing each other in as many sports as practical is the ideal, but arbitrary rules banning deviations from that ideal would be silly.
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2019 07:20 PM by BruceMcF.)
08-09-2019 02:31 AM
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Post: #25
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 10:22 PM)esayem Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 04:46 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 01:08 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  It makes sense when certain conferences don't offer certain sports. South Carolina for example plays in CUSA for men's soccer because the SEC doesn't sponsor it. UConn doesn't play Big east football because they don't offer it. BYU is WCC for the same reason. If the SEC decided to offer SMU an equestrian spot I would be cool with that.

Otherwise, I agree, it doesn't make sense except for Notre Dame/ACC

You make a good point about UCONN. It would appear they are striving to be a basketball only school, hence their joining a basketball only conference.

It’s UConn, and there is no such thing as a basketball-only school or conference. 04-cheers

Exactly, the Big East fields 22 sports. It's just that they don't offer football, hockey, and a few other olympic sports, so the schools that have those teams go elsewhere.

If the Big East suddenly started FBS football again, UConn would be a member of that conference. But as it stands now Independence is their only real option.
08-09-2019 07:41 AM
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mturn017 Offline
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Post: #26
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 07:32 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 05:20 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 05:11 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 04:50 PM)Old Blue Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 04:45 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  So VCU is not a rival?

To me...no. We no longer play in the same conference, so no chance for conference post season play. Others are still clinging on, but honestly, that ship has sailed.

But they were a big rival when you both in the CAA?
Yes, it was a huge rivalry. I really think things started to change when we restarted the football program. Once it was determined that VCU would never have football that took some of the air out of the rivalry.

Disagree. ODU and VCU are rivals in all sports and have been since the Sun Belt days and before that even. I don't think conference affiliation matters that much. ODU-VCU is an extension of a natural Norfolk-Richmond rivalry, the two being separated by about 100 miles of I-64. If teams or schools representing those cities are in the same league or conference, they are almost always each other's biggest rival.

VCU has had a longtime rivalry with Richmond, and the Spiders have had football a lot longer than ODU.

Yeah, the hates alive but not so much as when we played several times a season. I think we're starting to form rivalries in CUSA-E, moreso in basketball though because we haven't been much of a threat in football most years.
08-09-2019 08:25 AM
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puck swami Offline
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Post: #27
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-08-2019 09:15 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Personally I am not a fan of affiliate members. I think schools should be all in. Part of a conference’s identity should be that they sponsor a certain set of sports. If your conference mates have a divergent set of athletic offerings and priorities you don’t have a lot of conference unity. I hate to pick on Denver but they are a perfect example of this. Their priorities are men’s hockey, men’s lacrosse, and skiing. Note these are all niche sports that they play as affiliates elsewhere and as a result they don’t sport teams in sports their league does play. That hurts when your conference is on the fence when it comes to the number of teams for baseball and men’s soccer.

As a Denver fan, I think you should find a different school to pick on. The Pioneers have 33 NCAA titles because they figured out a long time ago that a private school can be far more successful in investing in country club niche sports where affluent kids can be difference-makers (DU's prime student demographic) to drive fan interest vs. just being also-rans in sports that everyone else plays, especially when DU is in a locations that is not very conducive to recruiting success in a number of sports (football, men's basketball, track, softball are substandard recruiting areas here)

For example, DU had football for 75 years from 1885 to 1960. Never won a bowl game (in 3 appearances), only won a few league crowns, and in the end, was drawing less than 10,000 per game in 1960. Colorado is a terribly bad recruiting area for football, too. So DU dropped football with its $100,000 deficit and put the money into it's ice hockey team. DU has since won 8 NCAA titles in hockey since 1958 (second all time), selling out most games and generating a seven-figure profit every year. There are only 60 D-I schools playing ice hockey, so your chances for success go much higher than trying to make it in D-I football, where most schools fail and run deficits chasing a few "haves".

DU once had baseball and even went to the College World Series once in the 70s, too but dropped the sport in 1999, due to a lack of regional opponents, poor spring weather here and little public support. Since dropping baseball, DU put the money into lacrosse and has become a national power and sells out every game as a Big East associate member, winning the NCAA title in 2015. Being a lacrosse power has done wonders for generating regular student applications from east coast prep schools, which is a significant market for DU in terms of generating full-pay students, which DU needs as a private school. Lax has been an amazing investment for DU.

Yes, we suffer from a limited sports menu, but if you ask DU fans, we'd much rather have NCAA top 5 calibre programs in hockey, skiing, and lacrosse vs getting killed in football, baseball, track, softball, etc.

As for DU's contributions to the Summit League, what we lack in playing some sports, it is compensated by many successful DU teams in the Summit Sports we do play, as well as the benefits of a large market (TV games on Altitude Sports, etc., fun road trips for visiting fans, the best academics in the conference, great facilities, and a sports budget at the very top of the league in the Summit Sports we do play.
08-10-2019 06:19 PM
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Post: #28
RE: Should conferences have only all sports members?
(08-10-2019 06:19 PM)puck swami Wrote:  
(08-08-2019 09:15 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Personally I am not a fan of affiliate members. I think schools should be all in. Part of a conference’s identity should be that they sponsor a certain set of sports. If your conference mates have a divergent set of athletic offerings and priorities you don’t have a lot of conference unity. I hate to pick on Denver but they are a perfect example of this. Their priorities are men’s hockey, men’s lacrosse, and skiing. Note these are all niche sports that they play as affiliates elsewhere and as a result they don’t sport teams in sports their league does play. That hurts when your conference is on the fence when it comes to the number of teams for baseball and men’s soccer.

As a Denver fan, I think you should find a different school to pick on. The Pioneers have 33 NCAA titles because they figured out a long time ago that a private school can be far more successful in investing in country club niche sports where affluent kids can be difference-makers (DU's prime student demographic) to drive fan interest vs. just being also-rans in sports that everyone else plays, especially when DU is in a locations that is not very conducive to recruiting success in a number of sports (football, men's basketball, track, softball are substandard recruiting areas here)

For example, DU had football for 75 years from 1885 to 1960. Never won a bowl game (in 3 appearances), only won a few league crowns, and in the end, was drawing less than 10,000 per game in 1960. Colorado is a terribly bad recruiting area for football, too. So DU dropped football with its $100,000 deficit and put the money into it's ice hockey team. DU has since won 8 NCAA titles in hockey since 1958 (second all time), selling out most games and generating a seven-figure profit every year. There are only 60 D-I schools playing ice hockey, so your chances for success go much higher than trying to make it in D-I football, where most schools fail and run deficits chasing a few "haves".

DU once had baseball and even went to the College World Series once in the 70s, too but dropped the sport in 1999, due to a lack of regional opponents, poor spring weather here and little public support. Since dropping baseball, DU put the money into lacrosse and has become a national power and sells out every game as a Big East associate member, winning the NCAA title in 2015. Being a lacrosse power has done wonders for generating regular student applications from east coast prep schools, which is a significant market for DU in terms of generating full-pay students, which DU needs as a private school. Lax has been an amazing investment for DU.

Yes, we suffer from a limited sports menu, but if you ask DU fans, we'd much rather have NCAA top 5 calibre programs in hockey, skiing, and lacrosse vs getting killed in football, baseball, track, softball, etc.

As for DU's contributions to the Summit League, what we lack in playing some sports, it is compensated by many successful DU teams in the Summit Sports we do play, as well as the benefits of a large market (TV games on Altitude Sports, etc., fun road trips for visiting fans, the best academics in the conference, great facilities, and a sports budget at the very top of the league in the Summit Sports we do play.

I've been reading posts on this board since about 2014 and this is one of the better posts I've ever read. Well put, PSwami.
08-10-2019 08:39 PM
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