NCAA Playoffs Travel Issues

[D3MAFAN]

With the playoffs coming near and many possible playoff teams being left on an island with no other teams with 500 miles and to prevent rematches and inadequate seeding. How should the NCAA respond.

[jknezek]

With the playoffs coming near and many possible playoff teams being left on an island with no other teams with 500 miles and to prevent rematches and inadequate seeding. How should the NCAA respond.

This is nothing new. The NCAA will limit first round flights with rematches. We had a year with 2 first round flights, might happen again. But with DIII already voting to cut championship costs, I expect we'll see as few flights as possible. DIII has already voted to slash traveling parties by 10% (not sure when this kicks in) and to kill some stipend money for host institutions. Don't expect any radical changes.

How should the NCAA respond? Charge more for the membership and seed teams appropriately. Since the membership will inevitably shoot this down, it is obviously not a concern for the members so odd seedings and geographic pairings will continue.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

First of all - travel parties has not officially been cut. I believe that is going to be ultimately up to a vote at the convention. If I am wrong on that detail and it isn't up to the vote and has gone through, it won't happen to next season anyway.

As for charging more for membership, I highly disagree this will or could get shot down. Dues for all of the NCAA haven't been raised since 1985. Dues are currently $950 or something a year. There is a lot of talk of raising dues, but there are challenges in this (not going to get into it now, unless people are interested). However, if they do raise fees in some manner, it won't be voted on until January of 2016 and put in place for the beginning of the 2016-17 seasons.

As for flights, as mentioned the costs of running championships is going to be cut in some or many ways coming up with votes in January (most ,if not all, will be approved). In the meantime, there is no cart blanche in terms of spending. Expect to see as few flights as physically possible, especially considering in football it requires charters due to the size of the travel party (no commercial flights are booked). Expect to see plenty of regional games and even first round rematches if they are unavoidable - and in many ways they may be unavoidable.

[jknezek]

You are right. Several committees recently have recommended these proposals, but the general membership has not yet voted on them. Still, at least 2 committees have recommended the proposals so far, they seem likely to pass the reduced traveling parties and removed stipends.

As for the fees, I posted in the soccer section on this. The fees are ridiculously low and if members were charged $6K instead of $900 (roughly) the expected $2.5MM shortfall over the next several years would be cleared up. 500 members (roughly) x $5000 extra dollars per member. However, since the fees have not been increased in roughly 30 years, I have a hard time believing now will be the time. But I certainly don't have any connection to anyone that would have any information not available on the NCAA website or here, so I could easily be wrong...

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well... just because committees have voted it through doesn't mean it will get passed at the convention. Not everything sent to the convention is approved. The 10% reduction is games is making another appearance after it was shot down a few years ago and it may get shot down again. And it always goes through at least two committees: Championship Committee, Management Committee, President's Committee are the three that bills travel through in some way or another.

Also, stipends are not being removed. They would be taken away for home teams and cut back by $5 for traveling teams (to $90 a day). There are a lot of items up for vote and those are just a couple.

Just because fees haven't been raised since 1985 doesn't mean people are against raising them... they just haven't been voted on. But it isn't that easy, either. If Division III wants to raise fees, the ENTIRE NCAA has to approve the hike in fees. Division II and Division III pay the same (about $950) and Division I pays twice that. All of that money is put into the general budget and Division III gets 3.18%. So, if Division III wants to raise the membership dues, they have to get the entire NCAA to approve it (which they probably would), but then Division III would only get their percentage of the increase. That isn't going to solve a damn thing. There is talk about adding a fee (call it the Championship Fee - something I made up)... that may allow Division III to say double the due, but only half of it is considered a fee... not touched by other divisions. Thus, more money for Division III. There is speculation that could be done and allowed and I haven't met or talked with anyone in Division III who is against the idea of raising fees. Consider Division III schools pay more to their conferences and other memberships like ECAC ($3500-roughly a year).

If you want to learn more about the budget problems and solutions, you can watch my extensive interview with VP Dan Dutcher which was part of the debut episode of "The #WhyD3 Show" - http://youtu.be/H8Y1WD-C7NQ?t=8m3s