The unofficial online home for fans of the Old Dominion University Monarchs. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

quote from ESPN article
""""The MEAC, which will celebrate its 50th year of competition during the 2020-21 academic year, has been on the negative end of conference realignment in recent years -- the biggest blow being N.C. A&T, one of its seven founding institutions. Hampton left the MEAC for the Big South in 2018 and Savannah State departed in 2019 to drop back to Division II.
Following N.C. A&T's departure, the MEAC will have 10 members but only eight for football.""""

For FCS this could force the hands of SWAC, Southland and MEAC members:

The median $ expenditures for FCS in 2018 was $16.4 Million (stats from Knight Commission Report and USAToday articles)

Current MEAC
Norfolk State- no money (I work there too, they have no$) 13.7M
South Carolina State- 5.3M
NC A&T 14.4M leaving for Big South
NC Central 13.8M
Delaware St 14.6M
Florida A&M 11.5M
Morgan State 11.6M
South Carolina St 5.3M

Current Big South
Monmouth (private)
Kennesaw St 26M
Charleston Southern (private)
Campbell (private)
Gardner Webb (private)
Hampton (private)
Presbyterian (private) leaving Big South going to Pioneer (no schollys)
North Alabama (private)

SWAC
Alcorn St (private)
Alabama A&M 10M
Alabama State 13.5M
Jacksonville State 17.7M
MissValley State 4.2M
Southern 13.4M
Prairie View A&M 18.5
Grambling 9.2M
Arkansas Pine Bluff 8.7M
Texas Southern 11.6M

Southland
Central Arkansas 14.2M
Nicholls St 9.6M
SE Louisiana 13.9M
Sam Houston St 19.1
McNesse St (private)
Abilene Christian (private)
Incarnate Word (private)
Northwestern State 13.1M
Stephen F Austin 17.1M
Houston Baptist (private)
Lamar (private)


MY TAKE:
Schools within 15% of the mean average of 16.4M (which is 13.2M) will stick it out in FCS and the rest are off to D2, Presbyterian is probably an exception.
A much larger Big South (the hot take conference in the 2010s) could add NSU, NCCU.
CAA could look at Delaware St and Howard (hard to tell).
Heading to CIAA: FAMU, Morgan St., BCCU, South Carolina State.
Mississippi Valley State gone D2 with Grambling, UAPB, Alcorn (probably), Alabama A&M, Texas Southern.

FCS IMPACTS:
The musical chairs start from down below: Kennesaw State moves to Sun Belt (average $ spent is 28M); JMU goes D1 independent (51M); USM (26M), LaTech (24M) have tough decisions to make.
SWAC dissolves with FCS hold-overs to Southland
MEAC dissolves

Basketball impacts:
2 less conferences would open the stage for the white whale of ODU/JMU/UMASS dreams- an East Coast Conference.
Then the NCAA tourney is 30 conference champions and 34 at-large, much easier on the committee (and another slot to the P5s).