I'm sure there's a market for it. If Alaska-Anchorage went D-I they could survive, at least I think.

(06-21-2022 08:46 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I'm sure there's a market for it. If Alaska-Anchorage went D-I they could survive, at least I think.

Nobody wants to commit to annual trips to Alaska. Half the WAC is grumbly about flying to Seattle.

I was about to start dismissing counterarguments based on teams playing in the Great Alaska Shootout, but that died in 2017.

UAA has the arena and fan base to be viable in D1. They've put out good teams over the years who've competed with D1 teams in the Great Alaska Shootout.

But you need an invite and schools don't want to fly all sports to Alaska.

The Nanooks are an even tougher sell. Fairbanks is hard to get to, even compared to Anchorage.

(06-21-2022 08:50 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(06-21-2022 08:46 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I'm sure there's a market for it. If Alaska-Anchorage went D-I they could survive, at least I think.

Nobody wants to commit to annual trips to Alaska. Half the WAC is grumbly about flying to Seattle.

I was about to start dismissing counterarguments based on teams playing in the Great Alaska Shootout, but that died in 2017.

Half of WAC fans who don’t pay for travel expenses or care about students missed class time, are “grumbly” about flying to Seattle.

The Alaska schools can barely afford athletics. That’s why they’re not in D1.

IIRC even minor league hockey had to leave Anchorage because it was so expensive to travel to the mainland. I remember one time the Alaska team played the local team, the Stingrays in the ECHL finals and they had to separate each team onto 2 or 3 flights whenever they traveled. I think they flew to different cities even before getting to Anchorage.

They were a great fan base, they even showed the games here back to Alaska on TV.

The two Alaska schools probably have fan bases bigger than several dozen D1s but other schools don’t want to go up there. Plus the time difference from even Pacific of an hour.

Location, or lack of.

It's similar to Hawaii. For Hawaii to compete at the D-I/FBS level, they have to subsidize travel for visiting teams to the islands.

The Alaska schools can barely afford to keep athletics going at the D-II level. There's no way they can subsidize travel for visiting teams to Alaska.

Um.... Ten people in Alaska and Big Macs are $10? That Nome and Juneau market really carries its weight. Oh, and let's not forget Barrow. That 30 days of Night will be a fantastic Halloween football concept.

(06-21-2022 10:51 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Um.... Ten people in Alaska and Big Macs are $10? That Nome and Juneau market really carries its weight. Oh, and let's not forget Barrow. That 30 days of Night will be a fantastic Halloween football concept.

Alaska can dangle the Barrow Bowl on the Arctic Ocean for D1 entrance.

(06-21-2022 10:51 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Um.... Ten people in Alaska and Big Macs are $10? That Nome and Juneau market really carries its weight. Oh, and let's not forget Barrow. That 30 days of Night will be a fantastic Halloween football concept.

(06-21-2022 08:46 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I'm sure there's a market for it. If Alaska-Anchorage went D-I they could survive, at least I think.

As a UAA student, I can best summarize it this way: it's a funding issue; UAA lacks the financial support to be a full D1 institution. A shame really; I've argued repeatedly with various UAA officials that UAA could be competitive in quite a few sports at the D1 level. It won't happen so long as State funding support continues to be doled out at a lesser level than in the past. UAA has some of the nicest facilities in D2, so it seems wasted by keeping the school in D2.

UAF is even worse off than UAA in terms of facilities, and they aren't much better in terms of financial support. Don't look for UAF to upgrade any time soon, either. As a result, there will not be any D1 Alaska schools any time in the near future.

They don’t sponsor that many sports so they’d have to add a bunch to go D1.

Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

(06-22-2022 06:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

The D2 schools in their conference manage to make it work. It seems they generally host a couple of teams for back to backs and a four team tournament as part of their OOC as well. It’s maybe not ideal for say a Big Sky or Big West but it’s certainly not insurmountable.

(06-21-2022 08:46 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I'm sure there's a market for it. If Alaska-Anchorage went D-I they could survive, at least I think.

Discrimination.

(06-22-2022 07:01 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 06:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

The D2 schools in their conference manage to make it work. It seems they generally host a couple of teams for back to backs and a four team tournament as part of their OOC as well. It’s maybe not ideal for say a Big Sky or Big West but it’s certainly not insurmountable.

That's what I was wondering.

(06-22-2022 06:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

And yet the Division II UAA women's basketball team had a home schedule that included a 4-game home tournament and 8 regular season games with teams traveling from Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, Alaska, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia.

The women's basketball team had road games in North Carolina, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Alaska.

(06-22-2022 09:37 AM)fsquid Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 07:01 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 06:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

The D2 schools in their conference manage to make it work. It seems they generally host a couple of teams for back to backs and a four team tournament as part of their OOC as well. It’s maybe not ideal for say a Big Sky or Big West but it’s certainly not insurmountable.

That's what I was wondering.

There were two D1 hockey programs up there, and they were part of a conference until the majority of that conference decided to disband and reform their old conference without the Alaska schools (or the Alabama one, which has since disbanded in large part to no longer having a conference).

Why don't the D2 HI/AK schools don't share a conference?

I get why the HI schools prefer a CA conference. But not much in it for the CA schools. Which makes me wonder how long the Pac-West can last.

(06-22-2022 10:06 AM)YNot Wrote:  

(06-22-2022 06:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  Even if, somehow, they could come up with adequate funding, they would probably need to get a waiver from the NCAA to allow them to play all their games on the road. You can find teams that will travel to Hawaii in winter, but not to Alaska.

And if you are going to play all your games on the road, what's the point of having sports anyway?

And yet the Division II UAA women's basketball team had a home schedule that included a 4-game home tournament and 8 regular season games with teams traveling from Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, Alaska, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia.

The women's basketball team had road games in North Carolina, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Alaska.

They had five OOC games at home in November. After that they had 6 conference games at home (including Alaska-Fairbanks) and 10 on the road.

The men's team played two home games back to back against Lincoln Christian (a small bible school with about 500 students, that discontinued athletics after the 2021 season) and hosted two games in the Seawolf Thanksgiving Classic. They then played 7 conference games at home and 8 on the road.

I believe they would have a hard time putting together a viable schedule in a D-I conference. The Big Sky is probably their only chance, and they don't need any more mouths to feed, so I don't see that it's worth the effort to move up.