(10-12-2021 06:28 PM)dbackjon Wrote: Conferences came to be for logical reasons - guaranteed games, one central body to oversee sports, etc. You blow it up, it will eventually go back to conferences.
Schools have higher travel costs for two reasons:
1) Geography - no reasonable alternative. (Like NAU).
2).
3) Pride - schools, like most humans, want to be upwardly mobile. They want to associate with "better, peer Schools" even if more expensive to travel to.
And realistically, most conferences are fairly logically oriented in regards to geography - only exceptions are a few of the G5's like AAC, C-USA
Yeah, as I've been flipping through wikipedia while doing other things, most of the low-level one-bid leagues are pretty geographically reasonable. Which makes sense--there's no money in that level in being in This League or That Conference, so geography and "institutional fit" are the reasons to move.
There are about a half-dozen leagues that might logically be interested in shuffling their non-revenue sports.
1. Conference USA obviously,
2. American Athletic Conference if you figure out how this isn't beneath their dignity
3. Atlantic 10 (from UMass to Saint Louis and Charlotte)
4. Colonial Athletic Association (Boston to Charleston),
5. maybe the SWAC (Texas to Florida). But TX to FL is really Houston to Jacksonville, so does this do a lot for them?
6. Sun Belt is a maybe. Same geography as the SWAC, with more money.
The WAC would seem like a good prospect, but who would be the dance partners? The Big Sky doesn't really gain from a WAC partnership. The Big West and WCC are already basically bus leagues.
Maybe if you get the WAC, Big Sky and Mountain West? Without doing a full scenario, I'm guessing you're still flying to the games, so is there really a point?