D3 school move

[CSC Spartan]

BIG 10 conference add to Nebraska,
PAC 10 recieve to Colorado.

I heard that relate to an enormous broadcasting right.

and
D3 school move conference,too now.
I don't think that they have ton of broadcasting rights.

What is the big reason that they move??

[hickory_cornhusker]

There are two primary reasons a school would change conferences at the D3 level.

The first one is the desire to be with like minded institutions. If you are a small 1,000 student private college you don't want to be competeing against 5,000 public universities every night of the week, Granted student population isn't nearly as important of a factor when determining the athletic strength of a school at the college level as it is at the high school level. But you still don't want to be going against schools vastly different than yourself. Part of the beauty of the automatic qualifiers for conferences into the national tournament is that you don't have to compete against schools with an abundant more resources to advance to the national tournament. You just have to beat out your peers. Changing conferences can put you with schools that place the same importance on intercollegiate athletics.

The second reason is travel. While D1 schools are trying to earn more money in their conferences moves by getting more in television rights D3 schools are moving so they can save money by not having to travel as far for conference conpetition. DePauw moving from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference which is spread from Georgia to Colorado is a good example of this. In this conference most of their opponents were a plane flight away. They are now headed to the North Coast Athletic Conference which is spread from Indiana to Western Pennsylvania. All of their trips now will be completed on the ground. A big savings for a school since flying a football squad once will take a small fortune. Also the reduce in travel means less time spent away from the classroom for the students which is why they are going to college.

These are just two reasons. There are others depending on the school but these two almost always come up as a reason when a D3 school changes conference.

[David Collinge]

Furthermore, it should be noted that DePauw's move to the NCAC satisfied both of hickory_cornhusker's two-pronged test.  DePauw evidently decided that the travel burden in the (like-minded) SCAC was too onerous, but they probably had other options besides the NCAC, which, while not the SCAC, is still pretty well spread out.  DePauw (Greencastle, IN) to Allegheny (Meadville, PA) is a drive of about 450 miles; even Wittenberg, their nearest NCAC opponent excluding Wabash, is about 180 miles away.  DePauw could probably have joined the HCAC and had even less travel, but the HCAC doesn't meet the "like-minded" test as well as the NCAC does.

[Pat Coleman]

I would add one more, and that's the opportunity to compete for an automatic bid. Not every conference has an automatic bid in all sports and a school could certainly be tempted to change leagues if the conference it is going to has an automatic bid in more sports.

Also, you could read what I said as "compete" for an automatic bid. That drives some conference changes, too, where a school leaves for a conference in which it can be more competitive. Some of the changes on that list would have to include Hiram moving from the OAC to the NCAC, perhaps Gallaudet from the CAC to the NEAC.