(05-12-2023 01:51 PM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(05-12-2023 01:22 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  What's the impact on the Summit League? Do they revisit Augustana?

It reduces them to 6 for baseball and 5 for soccer.

They either need to sponsor football with the four Dakota schools plus 2 of St. Thomas, UNC, Northern Iowa, or Missouri State; or take over sponsorship of the NCHC.

Interestingly, before anything was reported (other than speculation), the hockey talks were far enough along that the NCHC programs apparently voted on this. As such, for all we know, there very well may be serious Summit FB discussions occurring right now. Is WIU's departure potentially a result of these discussions? Either way, it's possible that Summit FB could be in the works without us knowing it. Keep in mind, NDSU put up a huge stink, publicly, about how unhappy they were that Murray State was joining the MVFC. Side note, UNO had about 200 FB players on campus for a weekend this past winter (reported by their local paper) - could they be considering bringing their FB team back for Summit FB, or is this timing just a coincidence?

It's unlikely, but I suppose Summit Hockey could potentially still be a possibility once the conference membership situation gets taken care of (apparently ASU joining is imminent, and depending on who you talk to, Miami may be on their way out). Once that is settled, and if schools can somehow be reassured that they will maintain control of the hockey portion of a Summit hockey conference, perhaps then a Summit/NCHC merger could be revisited? There are certainly huge issues that would need to be worked out in regard to TV deals, the structure/platform/pricing of a streaming package, distribution of TV/streaming/conference tournament revenues, etc. Probably too much to overcome with only three Summit hockey schools. If the Summit League basketball schools add a new school, the hockey programs also wouldn't want to be in a position where they are forced to add an undesirable hockey program (think Murray State joining the MVFC). Tons of hurdles.