accseahawk wrote:
The Big Sky and WAC working together is an EXCELLENT IDEA. Allow all 16 members to come together, plus UTAH Valley and Cal St Bakersfield, and form 2 9 team geographically friendly conferences.
The Northern Schools: Seattle, Eastern Washington, Portland St, Boise St, Idaho, Idaho St, Montana, Montana St, North Dakota can play under the BIG SKY Banner
The Southern Schools: Sacramento St, Cal St. Bakersfield, Weber St. Southern Utah, Utah Valley, Northern Arizona, New Mexico St., Denver, and Northern Colorado can play under the WAC banner.
The two conferences can work together for scheduling and share revenue. By having 2 conferences there will be greater NCAA revenue than with only 1 as well as greater postseason opportunities due to the 2nd auto bid.
Sports like baseball and softball can be played under 1 Banner of the member's choosing since there are not enough participants for 2 separate conferences still allowing for a geographic friendly, stable conference for these sports.
All schools would be allowed to invest in their football programs more as their non revenue sports are in a geographically friendly, stable conference with minimal travel and maximum postseason opportunity.
I hope they can work it out.
Exactly my thoughts. From what I can tell baseball, softball, men's golf, women's swimming and women's gym would compete under one banner. Worth mentioning, if a couple more schools in the north added golf or swimming they could split into 2 down the road.
M/W Basketball, M/W Cross Country, M/W Tennis, M/W Track, Women's Tennis, and Women's Volleyball would have enough sponsors to have two conferences.
Football would have 6 sponsors in the north (assuming Idaho stays FBS) and 7 in the south (assuming NMSU stays FBS and the California football only schools stay on board).