(09-02-2023 07:28 PM)tf8693 Wrote:  2. The travel is not such a big deal for football, where it's only once a week and the student-athletes have to miss, at most, a day of classes. It's quite another thing for olympic sports, especially where many of the games are played midweek.

I know that olympic sports don't matter when it comes to realignment. But if the welfare of the student-athletes is at all a concern, perhaps they should, at least in this limited context.

Well, the non-revenue/olympic sports are MORE LIKELY to play on weekends and not weekdays compares to the revenue sports, who will play whenever TV tells them.


But the distance between schools matter a lot less than the EASE of getting somewhere. Major airports have bigger planes that fly faster, and more direct flights (and more total flights).

The SMU soccer team flying commercial is going to get to BC (1545 miles away) faster/easier than ECU (1123 miles away), because DFW to Logan is nothing, but Dallas to Charlotte, puddle jump to Raleigh, bus to ECU takes all day.

PROXIMITY TO MAJOR AIRPORT is the number one factor in travel for college teams, not distance:
For Northern Illinois, Miami FLORIDA is like 40 minutes longer to get to than Miami OHIO.