Given the vast NCAA bureaucracy, it's no surprise that the requirements for D-I membership are complex and hard to understand. IMO, they are structured in a way to make more schools eligible, even though many are not likely to be able to compete successfully at that level.

I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

A scholarship may be shared by two athletes, with each receiving full tuition, books and fees, but no room and board or FCOA stipend. Each shared scholarship counts as one toward meeting the 130 scholarship minimum for each gender. All athletes may receive NIL from sources outside the school, and may receive additional taxable compensation as permitted by the conference in which they play.

Scholarship limits by sport would be:

85 Football
13 Basketball
25 Baseball/Softball
18 Track & Field
..7 Cross Country
..6 Golf
..8 Tennis
24 Soccer
12 Volleyball
20 Lacrosse
20 Swimming & Diving
20 Ice Hockey
12 Gymnastics
12 Wrestling
20 Rowing
15 Field Hockey

There are currently 133 schools scheduled to play FBS football in 2023 and 128 in the FCS (though not all of them award scholarships) and 97 D-I schools that do not play football. The Ivy League does not award any athletic scholarships, and would require a waiver if they field teams in enough sports where they would qualify if they did.

Requirement: more than 6 posters on random message board knows about th school.

I think the current rules are fine (especially if they permanently just let the attendance rules go).

I think it's reasonable to require a certain number of scholarships and sports, but other than that it should be more or less opt in.

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not)

I don't think you've really thought this through. How are non-football schools going to allocate 85 scholarships when they don't have football? Obviously, they would have to spread them out among other sports, all up to their maximum limits. That would make them dominant in those sports. So to schools who care about basketball, baseball, volleyball and soccer, having football would become a competitive disadvantage. Is that your goal?

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

(04-18-2022 11:38 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

Except that isn't real money.

At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

(04-18-2022 11:01 AM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  Requirement: more than 6 posters on random message board knows about th school.

Finally, a requirement we can easily meet.

(04-18-2022 11:48 AM)inutech Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:38 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

Except that isn't real money.

At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

I get that point, but then on the other hand, what would happen if the school let everyone in for free? I think there would be a significant loss of revenue.

(04-18-2022 12:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:48 AM)inutech Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:38 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

Except that isn't real money.

At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

I get that point, but then on the other hand, what would happen if the school let everyone in for free? I think there would be a significant loss of revenue.

There's no connection between those two things. There is no possibility that any large public university will let all 30,000 students attend for free, regardless of whether they give out 200 athletic scholarships a year.

(04-18-2022 11:48 AM)inutech Wrote:  Except that isn't real money.
At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

In some schools, it does.

(04-18-2022 12:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:48 AM)inutech Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:38 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

Except that isn't real money.

At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

I get that point, but then on the other hand, what would happen if the school let everyone in for free? I think there would be a significant loss of revenue.

What if every college student had to play varsity sports? What would happen the schools paid the students to go there? What would happen if we had a college on Mars?

I think 260 is too high to begin with, but even that number is still fake money. It's not totally negligible for most schools I imagine, but scholarship money for college sports isn't real. As was pointed out on another thread, it's just numbers on a spreadsheet to help you make (or not make) whatever point you want to make in that moment. If you want to cut a program, you pretend like the scholarships are real. If you want to justify keeping (or starting) a sport, you write it all off as "in kind" money at most.

(04-18-2022 12:38 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 11:48 AM)inutech Wrote:  Except that isn't real money.
At least not unless each athlete is truly preventing a paying student from coming.

In some schools, it does.

You reckon those schools are the type of schools that would be interested in something like what is proposed above either way?

How many would support award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 25 teams (M or F)? Let's realize that many schools skimp on sport opportunities to cover their losses elsewhere. There are at least two ACC schools that do not even have 260 scholarships.

(04-18-2022 12:46 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  How many would support award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 25 teams (M or F)? Let's realize that many schools skimp on sport opportunities to cover their losses elsewhere. There are at least two ACC schools that do not even have 260 scholarships.

Why have a minimum of scholarships there? It would eliminate the very worthy of being D1 Ivy League.

(04-18-2022 12:46 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  How many would support award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 25 teams (M or F)? Let's realize that many schools skimp on sport opportunities to cover their losses elsewhere. There are at least two ACC schools that do not even have 260 scholarships.

You are proposing a substantial increase in the current scholarship minimums. FBS programs have to offer a minimum of 200. Other D-I programs have a minimum of 50.

(04-18-2022 11:38 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-18-2022 10:57 AM)ken d Wrote:  I would propose a much simpler (though harder to meet) set of requirements. I recommend that every D-I school be required to award a minimum of 130 men's scholarships (whether they play football or not) and 130 women's scholarships on at least 14 teams (M or F) of the sports listed below and be Title IX compliant.

260 scholarships at a place like UTRGV will cost a school $2.4 million in expense. That same number of scholarships at Fordham will run $20.5 million.

Based on Dept of Education reports they would cost UTRGV about $3.4 and Fordham about $6 million, not counting free tuition which as others have pointed out doesn't cost the school anything out of pocket except in extreme cases. And I would argue that the schools for which their small enrollment makes them one of the extreme cases probably don't belong in D-I anyway.

If we're adding requirements for D1 then maybe have certain sports being a requirement to have as a D1 school? D1 schools need what 14-16 sports already but having set sports would be a further standard level.

Required D1 sports
Basketball M/W
Baseball/Softball
Soccer M/W
Track and field M/W
Cross country
Volleyball M/W
Lacrosse M/W (maybe Field hockey would be a suitable replacement)
Swimming/diving
Water Polo M/W

Most of the required sports could share facilities. Basketball shares with volleyball, soccer shares with lacrosse or field hockey and baseball and softball share facilities. Basically just create a group of core sports schools have to have facilities for and a set level for the facilities should be at.

(04-18-2022 03:43 PM)46566 Wrote:  If we're adding requirements for D1 then maybe have certain sports being a requirement to have as a D1 school? D1 schools need what 14-16 sports already but having set sports would be a further standard level.

Required D1 sports
Basketball M/W
Baseball/Softball
Soccer M/W
Track and field M/W
Cross country
Volleyball M/W
Lacrosse M/W (maybe Field hockey would be a suitable replacement)
Swimming/diving
Water Polo M/W

Most of the required sports could share facilities. Basketball shares with volleyball, soccer shares with lacrosse or field hockey and baseball and softball share facilities. Basically just create a group of core sports schools have to have facilities for and a set level for the facilities should be at.

I don't understand the point of this.

Why is this better than what we have?

(04-18-2022 03:43 PM)46566 Wrote:  If we're adding requirements for D1 then maybe have certain sports being a requirement to have as a D1 school? D1 schools need what 14-16 sports already but having set sports would be a further standard level.

Required D1 sports
Basketball M/W
Baseball/Softball
Soccer M/W
Track and field M/W
Cross country
Volleyball M/W
Lacrosse M/W (maybe Field hockey would be a suitable replacement)
Swimming/diving
Water Polo M/W

Most of the required sports could share facilities. Basketball shares with volleyball, soccer shares with lacrosse or field hockey and baseball and softball share facilities. Basically just create a group of core sports schools have to have facilities for and a set level for the facilities should be at.

Some of these are too regional and make no sense to have in specific places. If a bunch of northern schools don't want baseball because there's no time to prepare for the season to keep up with southern counterparts (unless you fork over enough funds for indoor facilities), then why force them? If non-Atlantic coast schools don't want lacrosse, why bother?

If anything, just make a minimum number of available roster spots across all sports. Don't include scholarships so that Ivies and Patriot league schools aren't forced into it.