During the NCAA’s history, restructuring typically has occurred when a significant segment of the membership believes it needs to establish its own grouping.

As examples, the College Division was established because smaller schools lacked opportunities to compete in NCAA championships, and Division I football split into subdivisions in 1977 as part of a series of accommodations giving larger programs more autonomy over their own affairs.

As the Association now begins considering the possibility of creating a fourth division — one designed to address pressures created by membership growth and increasing institutional diversity in Division III — one question will be whether there is a significant segment of schools willing to move to that new grouping.

After reviewing analyses of several factors — including the number of sports that Division III institutions sponsor, ways in which voting at recent Conventions might predict philosophical preferences, and directions in which conferences might migrate — a Division III working group studying membership issues concluded that 150 to 200 current division members might be willing to move to a new grouping.

“If we began with the sports sponsorship criteria of 16 — eight women’s and eight men’s sports — and provided an allowance for lower enrollment schools, two-thirds of the current Division III members would be eligible for the new division,” said Eric Hartung, NCAA associate director of research for Divisions II and III, who compiled and analyzed the data.

“If we then take that two-thirds and look at what recent voting records tell us generally about schools’ support for increased membership expectations, the pool gets reduced to 40 percent — just under 200 schools.

“Finally, if we introduce conference affiliation to the model and assume conferences will not break apart, we would then project 30 percent of the current membership, or about one-third of conferences, would be able and willing to align with a division featuring greater legislative standards.”

Hartung emphasizes that the analysis attempts to predict only the number of schools that might be willing to move to a new division or populate a new subdivision within Division III.
“The bottom line is that the findings from this type of analysis are useful to the membership as a whole — but in no way dictate who belongs where — as each individual institution decides what is best for the Association and themselves,” he said.