Conference Realignment: Stephen F. Austin to Southland + State of the WAC

Lumberjacks are back in the Southland as the Pineywoods power has returned when looking at athletic revenues among the 12 Southland schools Steven F Austin would lead the conference in both the eada database and the night commission at about 25 million deling into those athletic budgets further using the eada database the top half of rows are athletic revenues followed by football revenues and then how much of their athletic revenues are left over once you subtract football revenues and Stephen F Austin would be first in athletic revenues after you isolate those football revenues now the bottom half of row would be their athletic expenses followed by how much of their athletic expenses are diverted to athletically related student aid money and then how much of their athletic expenses are left over after you isolate that student aid money and you can see with private schools with high tuition like UIW or hcu that athletically related student aid money took up nearly half of their athletic EXP expenses overall Steven fustin would have 21.9 million left over of athletic expenses after you subtract that student aid money which would be nearly 7 million more than second in the Southland at 15 million in lar now looking at football expenses per the eada database Stephen F Austin would have 6 million which would rank 32nd and FCS now the eada database gives us student aid money for the the overall athletic department but it does not give us those numbers for football so I'd imagine if you took away the scholarship money for football Stephen F Austin would be first instead of second for football budgets and then the bottom number is every School's football expenses per the night commission but the night commission only does public schools now here are the men's basketball budgets stepen F Austin at 3.2 million is 33% higher than second in the Southland which is Texas A&M Corpus Christie at 2.4 million Steven F Austin is 161st nationally the next tius would be Corpus Christie at 221st Stephen F Austin has had tremendous success in men's basketball is their 10-year kenpom is 12 122 nationally the next highest in the Southland is Corpus Christie at 263rd when looking at Travel obviously your Revenue sports are going to be taking charter flights to anywhere that isn't a short bus ride however for non-revenue sports travel Stephen F Austin is within 6 hours of 10 Southland schools leaving the only really long bus trip at utrgv now in the whack Stephen F Austin would have three schools within a 5 and 1 half hour drive however four schools would require a flight for non-revenue sports I'm not privy to Sten F Austin's travel itineraries but I'm going to assume that they would have gone to either Houston airport or D FW airport just for the sake of having a direct flight instead of a connecting flight so if they were to go to Utah Valley that would be a 2 and 1 half hour drive to Houston Airport a 3-hour 15-minute flight to Salt Lake City and a 1-hour drive to Utah Valley now with Utah Tech and Southern Utah I'm assuming they would go to DFW airport instead of Houston because DFW has a direct flight to St George so that would be a three-hour drive to DFW Airport a 2hour 45 minute flight to St George and then 20-minute drive to Utah Tech 1 hour drive to Southern Utah and for Cal Baptist a 2 and 1 half hour drive to Houston Airport a 3 and 1/2 hour flight to LA and a 1 hour 45 minute drive to Riverside now stepen F Austin joined the whack in 2021 and flight costs at Major us a reports have increased an average of 29% since 2021 when stepen of Austin joined the whack so that would mean flight expenses have gone up 30% for them now if you look at the night Commission of Intercollegiate and Athletics database and look at their category that is game expenses and travel costs so it's not travel costs on their own it's combined with game expenses and from 20134 to 2020 21 when Stephen F Austin was in the Southland that number was between 1.8 million and 2.2 million every year and every year but one that number was below 2 million now when they joined the whack that number went up to 3.6 million and 3.4 million so when moving from the Southland to the whack their game expenses and travel costs increased from between 1.4 million and 1.6 million now while the expenses went up the revenues went up as well for NCAA conference distributions and media rights those were always between 0.5 million and 0.8 million in the Southland while they were in the whack that was 1.06 million and 0.84 million so they saw an increase of 350,000 to 550,000 so looking at the categories that conference affiliation might have an effect on for expenses you have game expenses and travel costs which went up 1.4 to 1.6 million for revenues you have distributions and media rights which went up 350k to 550k then ticket Revenue which went up 170k to 310k then sponsorships and advertising which went up 160k then donor contributions which went up a little over 1.1 million so whether the wack was a net positive financially for SFA depends on whether they attribute the increase in donor contributions to the whack because if you do attribute those donor contributions to the wack that the increase in revenues would exceed the increase in expenses now if Stephen F Austin believes the donor contributions were independent of the whack then it would appear the whack was a net negative because then the expenses would exceed the increase in revenues now I would not know the answer to that the Stephen F A Administration would know the answer my belief is that the Stephen F Austin Administration would say that that increase in donor contributions was not due to switching to the whack and the reason why I believe that is because Stephen F Austin switching to the whack coincided with Stephen F Austin's 100-year anniversary fundraising campaign from October 2021 to September 22 2022 which raised 121 million after a goal of 100 million so a byproduct of the Elevate SFA campaign was likely that increase in donor contributions and if that is the case where those donor contributions to the athletic department were due to that elevate SFA campaign then the expenses of the whack would exceed the increase of revenues making it a net negative financially one Revenue stream which would have helped close that Gap would be an increase in student fees but that increase in student fees was voted down by the students in a 900 28 to 816 vote 53% to 47% and without more student funds it was going to be hard for SFA to close that financial gap another factor in returning to the Southland might have been student demographics Texas accounts for 97.3% of SFA domestic students when you look at their top states Texas accounts for 97.3% Louisiana accounts for 0.6% so Texas and Louisiana account for 98% of stepen F Austin's students now the database on Stephen F Austin's website breaks it down further east Texas accounted for 37.5% the Houston area accounted for 27% so between the East Texas and Houston areas alone that's 65% of SFA students the DFW area would add another 18% and then other Texas would add 14.5% while Louisiana would add 0 . 6% meaning that the other 48 states accounted for only 2% of SFA students and here's a map from the Stephen F Austin website showing that 35% of their students came from within 100 miles of campus and then when you add the additional 56% that came from with between 100 miles and 200 miles of Campus that would mean 91% of Stephen F Austin students Came From Within 200 miles of Campus when looking at the distribution of stepen F Austin Al lni nearly 28% came from DFW over 20% came from Houston it doesn't specify the exact number just by the circle used we know it's over 20% and then over 5% came from Austin and then over 1% came from San Antonio so this would mean roughly half of Steven F Austin alumni reside in either the DFW or Houston areas moving to the the Southland connects SFA more with their Houston Alumni and San Antonio alumni not as much their DFW alumni as UT Arlington remains in the whack so SFA is going to be hoping that UT Arlington moves to the Southland with them the Southland footprint makes more sense for stepen F Austin football recruiting as stepen F Austin will play more into all conference roow games in Texas which is the number one recruiting State overall and stepen aost is number one recruiting state in Louisiana which is Stephen F Austin's second most recruiting State and the number seven recruiting State overall in the rankings Stephen F Austin is going to be playing two or three Road conference games each year in Texas and one or two Road conference games each year in Louisiana whereas in the UAC they would be playing one road conference game in Texas and then the other three Road conference games would be scattered Georgia Alabama Tennessee good recruiting areas Kentucky and Arkansas mid l Utah would be midlevel but their game in Utah would be in southern Utah away from the primary recruiting footprint this will make recruiting easier for the football staff at stepen F Austin stepen F Austin men's basketball saw their Glory Days in the Southland 2019 14 seed in the NCA tournament 2014 12 seed won a game to advance to the round of 32 2015 12 seed again 2016 14 seed Advanced for a second time to the round of 32 2018 14 seed and in 2019 they knocked off the number one team in the country Duke those Glory Days extended Beyond men's basketball into women's basketball and all sports Stephen F Austin won the commissioner cup seven times from 2010 to 2021 then the other five times they play second and in women's basketball Stephen F Austin has been to five sweet 16s and they've won the Southland regular season Title 20 times from 198 88 to 2021 a span of 34 years SFA Alum night and fans are going to love the Southland scheduling Matrix as the Southland is a fan-friendly league that schedules Saturday women's basketball and men's basketball double headers for fan and alumni engagement those women's basketball and men's basketball double headers are ideal for stepen F Austin alumni to come back on Saturdays during Southland play DFW in Houston area stepen F Austin alumni can plan five basketball Saturdays where they leave home at 10:00 a.m. arrive in the college town at 1:00 p.m. for lunch at one of their favorite establishments the women's basketball game would be at 2 p.m. the men's basketball game presumably would be at 5:00 p.m. and then they can have dinner at one of their favorite college town establishments at 7:15 leave at 8:00 p.m. or stay in a hotel Airbnb and arrive home at 11:00 p.m. so between those five football home home Saturdays in the fall and then those five basketball double header Saturdays in the winter those DFW in Houston stepen F Austin alumni which accounts for half of the school's alumni base can plan up to 10 long Saturdays returning to campus during the school year for either an action-packed football game with tailgating or an action-packed basketball double header Stephen F Austin's conference history began in 1925 when they joined the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association and they would remain there until 1931 when they joined the Lone Star conference Stephen F Austin would be in the Lone Star conference for two generations 53 years until 1984 when Stephen F Austin would join the GF star conference for three years and then 1987 Stephen F Austin would join the Southland Stephen F Austin would stay in the Southland for 34 years when in 2021 they would make a three-year Excursion into the whack and now they will be returning to the Southland the whack is down to seven schools UT Arlington Charlton State abing Christian Utah Valley Southern Utah Utah Tech and Kell Baptist and NCA bylaw State a multiport conference shall be composed of at least seven active division one members the member conference shall include at least seven active division one members that sponsor both men's and women's basketball so to be cons considered a multiport conference you need seven full division one members now if you drop below seven full division one members you do get a two-year grace period and considering the NCA bylaw 20.02.13 in everyone else's hands in order to stay or join the whack so while the whack might be the best realistic option for all seven schools they all have to leave their fate in trusting other humans everyone has to trust the summit league and Big Sky won't invite any of the three Utah schools everyone has to trust the MVC won't invite UT Arlington and that UT Arlington won't jump at a summit or Southland Lifeboat everyone has to trust that Conference USA won't get poached and invite Charlton State and that abene Christian Charlton State won't take a summit Ace on or Southland Lifeboat and everyone has to trust that the WCC in Big West won't invite kale Baptist if even one of those seven schools takes a Temptation the whole thing falls apart now the aing Christian president is still all in on the whack telling Shelley wack of the big country homepage if I were to look out across the landscape any opportunity that ACU might want to pursue if it's a available today it's going to be available in a year or two or 3 years so our priority is going to be to stay and build the whack and I think there are a lot of opportunities with additional conference shakeouts that might take place over the next several weeks and months for us to be in this position we have significant financial resources in the whack more so than most any conference at our FCS level and for us to be looking for what opportunities might emerge that we could take advantage of in this time of shuffling that could really reinforce what we're doing that's going to be our first priority if you're asking me if I would love to see an all Texas conference at some point you better believe I would if I ever get the chance to bring something like that about or have an influence on bringing Texas schools together under a Texas Brand to play Texas Sports together especially football man we would jump at that chance if there was ever a state in the country that could do that well it's Texas so maybe there will be an opportunity for all the movement that's taking place to emerge as something we could pursue so the abling president is holding out probably for a whack that would be all types of schools without the Louisiana schools and when you consider aing Christian's geography and travel you can see why he would have that perspective while Northwestern State is 6 hours 15 minutes away the other four Southland schools are all quite a hike three of them are between 9 10 hour bus ride and would likely require a flight for non-revenue sports the whack has four schools that require require a flight for non- Revenue sports for ACU and the Southland has three maybe four for Tarlton it's somewhat similar there's four wack schools that require a flight for non-revenue sports and then three Southland schools like aing Christian tlon might want to be all and on the whack as well Tarlton like aelyn Christian seems to prefer the higher budgets of the whack in terms of finding a division 2 School willing to take that risk to jump up to the whack Metropolitan State decided in 2019 that division one is too costly their Board of Trustees had presentations from both the whack and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and ultimately they decided on the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and if they decided that division one was too costly in 2019 they're very likely going to decide that in 2024 as the costs of division one have only gone up since then West Texas A&M has not been interested in division one the West Texas A&M president has been consistently adamant about staying division too he's even written an oped on it and then these quotes are from the West Texas A&M website from their longtime athletic director since 2006 who actually just took the stepen F Austin athletic director job last month and his comments would reinforce the president's comments he says when you ask as division one in the future my answer to that would be absolutely not not with the way things are right now assuming that Metropolitan State and West Texas A&M feel the same way here are eight schools in the whack footprint they might take a look at and hope that one of them would be willing to take the risk of jumping up and spending that money into division one in the whack and those eight schools would be Angelo State UTPB Midwestern State UT Dallas central Oklahoma Colorado Mesa the or diggers of Colorado Mines and csup here are some surface level numbers nothing deep or analytical just their enrollment undergraduate full-time enrollment the number of FCF schools with athletic Revenue less than what they have than their overall athletic Revenue their football Revenue what their athletic Revenue looks like once you subtract football and then where they're at in terms of division one sports requirements keep in mind that UT Dallas has been division three they're moving up to division two soon so if they were to move up to division one it would be via the St Thomas route and note that UT Dallas was funding Sports at the division 3 Model UT Dallas wasn't spending a Dollar in athletically related student aid money so if they were to move division one their funding model would be completely different so those budget numbers are pretty much meaningless for them majority of these schools would have an athletic Revenue that would be in the bottom 10 of FCS Colorado Mesa and Colorado Mines have an athletic Revenue that would be above 20 FCS schools and then central Oklahoma would be above 10 FCF schools I imagine that aene Christian and Tarlton would want a football playing School in t Texas or near Texas so the schools they would likely pursue would be Angelo State or Central Oklahoma or a slight chance of UTPB and it really comes down to whether one of these schools are willing to roll the dice and spend the money to move up to V to division one and hope that none of the seven current wack schools take a Temptation elsewhere