Conference Realignment

AAC will be fine even with any schools leaving for TV as long as they keep Army and Navy who are the most valuable brands in the league

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PAC still needs to add another team.

I think even if the PAC money is the same as they’re getting now, they’ll make the move. They just couldn’t do it on the Pacs original timeline because of exit fees but those will decline.

Looking at AAC tv viewership numbers, things don’t look good. Even with army and navy both having historically good seasons, AAC viewership was below the MWC. I don’t see a way the aac tv numbers stay where they are in the next contract. Memphis officials will certainly be looking at that and taking that into consideration, not just the number presented today.

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And no way it’s still the Power 5. It’s more like the Power 2, the middle 2 and the group of 6.

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Why are these conference moves in this thread?

Forgot about the PAC.

I can see the PAC as desirable.

The question is does the money make sense for the easterly teams to join them.

This is the conference realignment thread.

I would be surprised if the MVC isn’t in play for Northern Illinois.

For some reason I thought I was in the fire Mike hill thread. Duh.

You were, it got moved

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Could be just haven’t seen the Valley mentioned to the extent as the Horizon and Summit have been though NIU is already an associate MVC member in men’s soccer.

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Partially a victim of the enrollment cliff - from 9,408 students in 2015 to 5,784 in 2024.

More to come in the next decade I’m sure. Lots of schools are going to face an enrollment cliff

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Projected to be most severe 2025 to 2030 so right in line with that.

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Dan Patrick talking about college football relegation system right now. Says he thinks it could compete with NFL for ratings. Finally someone with a platform talking about relegation as a legitimate option.

I’m sure the stats point to this but I wonder if it’s region specific? My daughter is a freshman at a smaller private school. Her freshman class is the largest in the school’s history and the school is building additional student housing to accommodate all the students. Her school may be a outlier, but it seems to contradict all the stats I’ve been reading about declining college attendance. Just an observation…

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I’m sure it very much is, though I bet regionality matters less for small private schools without strong a strong donor foundation.

Privates like hpu and Elon that have solid professional programs and have invested in the growth and future of their campuses are the outliers. Lots of non selective private schools out there with 1000 students, crumbling buildings, and no way to fund upgrades. I get calls every year for work at small universities and their budgets are usually tight. Just did a quote for waterproofing at a local private college because the toilets are literally backing up and shit water coming up through the drains and getting into the bookstore below. Instead of the correct, but expensive fix of fixing the pipes, they just want the floors waterproofed so it can’t drip into the spaces below.

The Catholic private schools at least have Catholic Church funding. Small private Protestant aligned universities I suspect are the most vulnerable.

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Per the National Catholic Register, there have been 21 Catholic colleges that have closed, merged, or are planning to do so since 2016:

According to Wiki, there are 181 U.S. members of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

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I wonder if Belmont Abbey is vulnerable.

Makes sense and thanks for the perspective. I have noticed that more smaller private school are focusing more on athletics to drive enrollment. I know that’s the case at one of my alma maters and also at my daughter’s current college.

We just did three projects for Belmont abbey athletics. Apparently the majority of their student body is there on some kind of athletic aid. I don’t really know how that’s sustainable but that is what we were told.