Expanding the college season appears dead in the water

I believe the answer to your question is May 23, 2018, when the Rangers hired David Quinn from BU. Earlier that month, Dallas hired Jim Montgomery from the U. of Denver. In 2015, the Flyers hired Dave Hakstol from North Dakota. So, while it used to be uncommon in hockey, it's becoming more common.

 

There are roughly 3,000 total college programs (all affiliations and genders).

If there is $50m in scholarship money, we must exclude DIII for the sake of athletic aid (850 programs). To get $50m in aid, that means 2,150 programs would give an average of $23,255 for soccer. If we only used men's soccer (since this is typically about men's college soccer), then we have 1,000 programs giving out an average of $50,000.

Call me pessimistic, but I truly do not see this as a legitimate number for scholarship average.

 

1970, Red Wings hired Ned Harkness from Cornell. Is that the last time?

 

Cross-posting, to keep hope alive.

 

The they want a longer season, they'd have better luck going June to December.

College Soccer doesn't exist in a vacuum, and there's no real way that the conferences are ready to staff another set of April or May conference tournaments much less the multi-week NCAA tournament to follow.

 

There are hundreds of DI schools/programs that cannot handle a shift. They may cut men's soccer before moving.

Unless there will be two different DI divisions: school calendar and fall only.

 

Anyone know the numbers of men's programs cut in the last decade?

I am old, but I do remember Vanderbilt getting axed.

 

Yes. I have a list. One more added this week with Lindenwood-Belleville consolidating with their main campus.

 

I have the count at 51. Four of those have been reinstated.

One of the factors that skews this number is the last decade has been the roughest time of college/university closures. An overwhelming majority have closed while some others have been mergers with a "parent" school.

Regardless, 51 programs in 10 years is not good. Additionally, there could be a couple more within that time span too, just do not have the years on them.

 

... but other teams are moving to Division I to make up for the difference so the number of teams has stayed around 205...Two semester season would probably lose some teams but would also put the championship in the spring at a time when ESPN's limited programming means they would need to promote the event (see Men's Lax, Baseball and Softball). It's go time for soccer!

 

That's funny.

 

The website www.scholarshipstats.com states that approximately $68.3 million would be available if all programs were fully funded: $32.7M for D1 (9.9 x 204 schools x $16,200 average scholarship), $12M for D2 (9 x 213 x $6,300), $14.6M for NAIA (12 x 188 x $6,500) and $9.0M for NJCAA (24 x 223 x $1,700). Assuming these numbers are correct, even a 50% funding of scholarships would leave $34M.

This does not include academic $$$ "freed up" to athletes at many schools.

 

Or the financial-based student aid.

 

These Philly Inquirer articles from today suggest that perhaps the expanding the college soccer season idea is, as Monty Python once put it: "not dead yet."

https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/col...gOOpD4-xE-MpXYieQ6vhHMg-tWWm6wSPoKS2aBDGv1Asc

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blo...college-soccer-from-becoming-irrelevant-.html

 

I just don't see it.

NCAA Division I Men's Soccer doesn't exist in a vacuum.

If it did, they could do whatever they want. But it doesn't, so they can't. College athletics involves a huge amount of shared resources and economies of scale that this proposal breaks. It creates huge imbalances in resource allocation. Division I soccer isn't just 25 players and three coaches, you have a significant retinue of support staff that do not have full time jobs with Men's Soccer, the grounds crew, the medical and training staffs, the administration and communication staffs, the training and match facilities - these are all shared with other sports. Moving a bunch of games from the Fall into the Winter and Spring suddenly creates a fair amount of conflict - especially when you get into conference and NCAA tournament play when you move beyond school resources and start creating issues with regards to conference staff and finding places to schedule games.

And to suddenly change D1 Men's Soccer without changing D1 Women's Soccer to match is a the elephant in the room I haven't seen anyone discuss.

Then you further run into the weird situation where you're planning on having the NCAA have different seasons for D1 vs D2/D3 schools in the same sport. I'm not sure how tenable that is either.

Putting forward a unilateral proposal without any counterbalancing factors (moving some Spring championship to the Fall or Winter), not to mention creating gender inequalities makes this dead in the water.

 

AndyMead - all good points, yet Sasho and a good number of other respected college coaches are continuing to give life-support, CPR, etc. -- as least so far.

(Of course, Sasho has also been talking about a new soccer stadium for his Maryland team for about a decade now -- https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...oal-for-university-of-maryland-soccer-stadium .

But perhaps the new stadium might still happen, i.e., Maryland has recently released new info on the new soccer stadium at Maryland matter, but it seems this release is a bit sort of specifics, like costs, time frame, etc ... https://static.umterps.com/custompages/buildingchampions/soccer.html )

(To be fair, the Penn State soccer program that I'm a fan of has also put recently forward plans for a new soccer stadium as part of a "20 year plan," but as that title suggests, also a lot of unknowns regarding its funding, timing, etc. -- https://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/2017/03/penn_state_takeaways_from_mast.html )

 

How many spring sports play an abbreviated fall schedule like soccer does in the spring? If soccer teams are already training and playing in the spring season albeit at a reduced load(?), how much extra demand will there really be in the spring on facilities, medical staff, etc.?

 

All sports that are single-season sports have a non-championship season. Baseball has fall ball. Softball too. Track has indoor track and/or cross country. Volleyball has spring. It's all abbreviated, and it's treated as such. The events are so much lesser than their championship season is.

The demand is massive. Whether it's gameday personnel, medical staff, travel, facility usage, and even just sports information. Look at UK's spring schedule, 5 matches are away matches. They've built that baseball stadium there, it would be an absolute nightmare to accommodate baseball, softball, and men's (and/or women's) soccer all at the same time. No way that's being coordinated easily.

 

What do you consider "a good number"? The proposal is signed by 6-8 coaches total. There are over 200 DI programs.

If this gets passed, you'll see more Valpo's and New Mexico's. Guaranteed. But, good for Sasho and the maybe 20-30 programs that could keep this dream a reality.

 

Where did you get the "signed by 6-8 coaches total" info? I have not seen that. This excerpt alone from the article that I linked to above would seem to suggest that support would be more significant than 6 to 8 coaches:

" ... Cirovski has been leading the campaign for seven years and has many supporters. He has backing from a raft of coaches and formal endorsements from college soccer’s three biggest conferences: the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast Conference and Pac-12 ... "

I.e., I assume the coaches in those three conferences would all likely support this if their conferences are supporting it, and just those three conferences would constitute a good number more than 6-8 coaches.

But perhaps I'm not up to speed on these specifics. Please let me know if I'm uninformed on the issue of coaches supporting this two semester soccer proposal.

 

Maybe the author meant a literal raft that holds 6-8 coaches.

 

This is it here:

The original "letter" was just signed by rougly 6-8 coaches.

As I said, sure it may work for B1G, ACC, and the Pac-12. Why not ask the Horizon? Why not ask The Summit, MVC, CUSA? There are loads that won't happen. I know that coaches would be out jobs. They'd be out programs. And, we'd have thousands more players without places to play.

Why would [insert non-P5 school] move to this model when they already allocate 3 [to 7] scholarships to men's soccer and use the facility for lacrosse in the spring? These schools can't even figure out that college soccer should have abolished overtime YEARS ago and people expect them to sort out a school-calendar schedule? Come on now.

Coaches can speak out. But, in the end, it goes to ADs and Presidents. They look at one thing: money. Does it make financial sense/cents? Nope. So, it won't happen.

 

And this is my point. NCAA D1 Men's Soccer doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is a piece of a much larger organization where it is really hard to unilaterally make changes to just one piece without adjusting other pieces.

 

Thanks, got it. The original "letter" had six to 8 coaches. Do you have a copy of that original letter?

Also get it that the AD and not the coaches call the shots. But seemingly there are a lot more that six or seven soccer coaches out there who have expressed support for this change, and seemingly not just in the big conferences, e.g., saw this on Omaha head coach and former Penn State head coach Bob Warming's FB page:

"Bob Warming: Our coaches in the Summit support I as well as my AD. This has to get passed. There will be some collateral damage in the change but I think those folks can also figure out how to refashion their programs.

Michael Gabb (ass't coach at Creighton): Creighton and the BE are on board as well. "