Most, if not all, conferences have a rule stating that if a certain number of conference members sponsor a sport, the conference must offer a championship in it. I have a feeling that it's six for the Big Ten since there's at least one other Big Ten sport with six schools (Field Hockey). Conversely, the NCAA also has a rule that you must play a sport in your conference if the conference sponsors it , unless if you're playing the sport in a different division or subdivision (not sure how Notre Dame football avoids this).

I heard about this as well from the Big 10 and 6 sports but never did the research to confirm it. It will be intresting to see if any other Big10 school upgrades or if ND joins and then what would happen.




Are you sure about the MUST part? I thought the rule was that you cannot participate in another LEAGUE if your conference sponsors that sport. Since ND is independent in FB, it doesn't affect them. This would be an issue if say ECU or UCF gets a FB only invite to the BE because they would have to move their sports to a league that doesn't offer Bowl Championship Subdivision FB (Atlantic Sun or Southern Conference, for example).

As you note above, this wouldn't be an issue with Army or Navy because they have their sports in the Patriot League which doesn't offer the 'Bowl Championship Subdivion' FB.

I'm pretty sure there is no such rule about conference membership in particular sports. 2 counterexamples:

Ivy League members Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, and Dartmouth all play Division 1 hockey, but not in the Ivy League (all play in ECAC Hockey)

Atlantic Ten has members in FCS right now UMass, Rhode Island, and Richmond in the CAA, Dayton in the Pioneer, Fordham in the Patriot, and Duquesne in the Northeast, yet none play in A-10 sponsored football (and only the first 3 did when the A-10 did sponsor FB).

Update: I have learned that Wayne State is eliminating men's hockey. I hope they reinstate it in the future.

That's a shame, having been in those shoes before. It's another example of how state goverments being less inclined to give schools money is killing college sports, since they're having to cut certain programs to meet the budget at the academic end.

bump

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I have added another possible new program: the Buffalo Bulls.

I got the idea after reading an April Fools article, but then I thought, maybe they would make a great addition to the Empire League.

Panthersc97, first off, while the Big 10 Network would LOVE to have a hockey league, it won't happen anytime soon, if ever. First, the rule stating that a conference with 6 teams playing a particular sport has to sponsor the sport does not apply to ice hockey, since it is a non-traditional sport with such a small membership. As dafoeberezin3494 pointed out, everyone in the Ivy League except Penn and Columbia plays puck

Secondly, as already stated in the article, Wisconsin has no interest in forming a B10 hockey conference, and I also believe Minnesota is not interested either, since they don't want to give up the rivalries in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Colorado. There are also royalties that will have to be paid out to North Dakota, Alaska-Fairbanks, Colorado College, and Notre Dame this year since they will be broadcast on the B10N. They're limited in this respect as to who that isn't in the Big 10 they can show, since 10 of the 22 teams are Division II. Where this gets hairy is that the main conferences of the DII schools may not be too keen on their teams earning this extra money. Colorado College is a D-III school, but they are exempt since ice hockey is more or less a standalone program. The Alaska schools also get a thumbs-up from the Great Northwest because most of that goes to alleviate travel costs. The rest, however, may run into problems from the NSIC and GLIAC, since they don't have the extenuating circumstances the other non-DI schools mentioned do.