Gas prices and a weak economy will certainly hurt many schools budget. Fewer people will attend the games.
1. Will this cause schools to drop down a level or stop teams considering moving up?
2. FBS teams not making the 15,000 cut, will those teams be forced to drop to FCS? If so, how would this work in conference play?

Am I the only one who thinks the gas prices will seperate those serious about moving up and those being fake? I wouldn't be surprise if a few FBS drop football or move down. La tech comes to mind. A school of only 12,000 in a small market, how are they dealing with travel?

The price of gas/the economy is only one factor in any institution's decisions. The only schools I think it would hurt are those who were already having attendance problems. The price of gas I think will first affect population/demographic trends, which might mean the revival of cities and the end of suburban sprawl. This might actually have a positive effect on attendance, since universities could have a better shot of retaining alumni in the community and then get those alumni to come to the games. People living close enough could even walk to the games, I usually walked about 3 miles every game last season from Bursley Hall to Michigan Stadium.

dafoeberezin3494, you do make a strong point that as travel costs increase more people will live closer to campuses --- which should increase attendances accross the board for schools with on or near campus stadia, but... I think you gloss over strong points made by Playa. LA Tech was noticably bleeding money with their travel expenses BEFORE the price of oil doubled in the last 2 years. Their travel budget was a bloated drag on their program before it doubled. There is talk of $200 barrells of Oil and $7 gas by next year.

I think by 2010 La Tech admins will concede to taking the best footprint they can get, even if it includes ULM.

Regarding teams not moving up, I have read a few stories about stadium building costs shooting up dramatically as gas is such a key part in transporting the building materials. Some in-process projects were able to sidestep this by prepaying for their materials before gas price went up, but I'd imagine most of the poor publics moving up do not have the money up front. For them, their stadium upgrade plans might have to be downgraded, delayed, or perhaps even cancelled. Will that prevent some from moving up? Will it make evaluations of FBS upgrade hopefuls that would normally be pro-upgrade come back as anti-upgrade? Will this stem the seeming rush of schools to upgrade to FBS that we have seen in the last 2 years?

Which schools that might affect...I don't have an answer.

Schools that appear to be in trouble and their average att #s from the last 4 seasons:

Akron 14.0K
Ball St. 13.4K
Idaho 13.1K
Buffalo 12.8K
Utah St. 12.5K
Fla. Atlantic 12.5K
Florida Int'l 11.5K
Kent St. 10.2K
Eastern Mich. 9.7K

The NCAA really doesn't want to get embroiled into a lawsuit with a university and a conference about the NCAA forcing them to a lower level, but the 15K thing is based on not bleeding money profusely and the NCAA is often pushed to take action they don't want to take by powerful BCS schools and conferences.

I think the NCAA will start slowly pushing some of these schools back down to a lower level to send a message to the other schools. With 13 football playing members, the MAC can afford to lose 1-2 schools and Kent State and EMU have been bleeding for a while now. I think they will be targeted by the NCAA.

I could see the NCAA forcing them to FCS with a behind closed doors deal that the university will sue the NCAA and the NCAA will settle paying the university a few Mil to cover the cost of downgrading to FBS with a gentleman's agreement not to try to upgrade for at least the next 10 years.

That could eventually become an NCAA standard. Maybe Universities pay some amount ---say 6M -- to an NCAA account to move up. If they fail to hit the attendance minimums the NCAA forces them to a lower level but returns the 6M to the university to pay off dismissed coaches and other downgrade costs.

I think FIU and FAU with their new stadiums/upgrades will be given a flier. I think the message of Kent State and EMU will clearly be directed at Idaho to get their stadium enlarged or replaced. Utah, Ball St, Akron, and Buffalo are generally within sniffing distance of 15K every year but most of them have had a wretched year in the last 4. I don't see any of the rest getting run out of FBS.

How do you push down a FBS school in a FBS conference? Will the school be FCS independent?

I think attendance will drop. Instead of going to games, that money will be used for gas.

Not easily. A lot of schools look at the possibility of downgrading and just forld their program. It is a shame. They should really look at the Montana business model. You can be profitable in FCS too.

Could the two MAC schools catch on with an FCS conference? Absolutely. Look up "conference list" on wikipedia and look for a map in their region.




We disagree on this one. If gas prices rise, people will gat annoyed at the travel industry and the government for not taking care of the issue. They will take actions to reduce their travel. For students in a lot of cases that will mean living close enough to school to walk.

I think the more STUDENTS you have near campus, the better your attendance. Now that doesn't mean you will be swimming in the dough-- student tickets are often discounted or even free --- but it does mean your attendance will go up.

I'm not sure why D1 football needs to be split between FCS and FBS (besides the BCS schools wanting to keep all the $$ to themselves). The other D1 sports seem to be doing fine without two divisions. I say let all teams compete at the same level. I doubt much would change if they did that, the BCS conferences will still get most of the money and media attention anyway. I know a lot of the FCS schools like the idea of a playoff system or can't really afford 85 scholarships (but some FCS schools don't even give out scholarships).

How many schools can be an FCS power AND the state flagship university? Not many schools can emulate Montana.

What I'm seeing, if I'm seeing this correctly... the most affected division is D-2. People will either move up or drop down... it COULD happen in enough numbers that NCAA may have to pull it and sort of go back to an older standard. University Division and College Division, with University broken up into 1-A errrrrrrr FBS and 1-AA errrrrrrrrrrrrrr FCS. The College Division will have very regionally tight conferences, theoretically.

To answer centex... the less money/power sharing by BCS schools, the happier they are. The less the smaller schools offend the BCS schools, the less likely the BCS schools are to take the ball and run to a potentially more lucrative arrangement. Hence FCS will continue.

I strongly disagree. There are about 4-5 schools in IAA that take football seriously and make money consistently. You don't have to be a flagship to get your alumni to upgrade your stadium to 22-25K. If you have a large alumni base there really is no reason for it. You don't have to be a flagship to get them to buy you good training facilities that allow you to compete at the highest level in IAA. The fact is most schools have 15K stadiums at best. Is it easier if you are Deleaware or Montana? (or even UMASS)? ...Sure. Is it very difficult if you are a school with less than 8K enrollment or a private with less than 4k enrollment? Absolutely. I don't mean to imply that ANY school can survive and prosper at the FBS level --- I only mean to say that MOST FBS schools with enrollments larger than that could be breaking even or making money if they didn't approach matters with the idea that they were going to lose money.

There is no reason most members of the MVC, Big Sky, and Southland for example shouldn't have 20K+ stadiums.

I think you should either do what is needed to break even in football or just be a IAAA non-football school.




This definitely could happen. I could also see a number of small FCS schools (5K enrollments and down) dropping football unless they have a tight conference. Or maybe we might see a lote of Patroit League clones pop up in FCS to cover the travel shortfalls.

In fact I will predict that by 2020 there will be 5 FCS conferences going the partial or non-football scholarship route in FCS. Will that lead to the NCAA forcing the IVY league and non scholarship others into DIV II or Div III. (or maybe just for football forcing them to a lower calssification...?)


I've said this before and I'll say it again. The BCS crew would be smart to INSIST member schools play 2 FCS schools every year and make FBS ranking methodology pay more attention to the rankings at the FCS level. That alone would keep a lot of FCS schools at that level and would help moderate FCS.

1) top 25 teams would not want to hurt their strength of schedule and as such they would try to schedule FCS top 25 teams --- not dog FCS wannabees.

2) FCS schools would have a choice of being in a FBS dog conference like the Sunbelt and being avoided by BCS schools or being a profitable FBS power who would play 1-2 games a year vs. big schools while not having to maintain the larger scholarship and travel burdens.

3) FCS schools who should really be Div 2 or Div 3 would get financially and competitively pushed out.

To me, that is exactly waht the BCS schools want, isn't it?