ST. LOUIS – The Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet confirmed recommendations for the 2008-10 budget cycle at its meeting February 6-7, including a request that previously requested funds for expanding the football championship be placed in reserve with the idea of increasing the number of teams in the field to 20 for the 2010 championship.

During its September 2007 meeting, the cabinet approved a request of $251,200 to establish an opening round for the FCS championship beginning in 2008. However, cabinet members charged the Division I Football Committee with addressing logistical issues related to the bracket expansion (the first in 21 years) and developing policies to determine which teams participate in the opening round.

In doing so, the football committee found several obstacles that preclude expanding the bracket by the 2008 season.

For example, moving the championship game to a later date would affect the championship host, broadcast partner ESPN and the participating teams in ways that could disrupt the growth that the championship has experienced in recent years. The 2007 title game between Appalachian State and Delaware drew an NCAA neutral-field record crowd of 23,010 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Starting the championship a week earlier requires conferences and institutions to eliminate regular-season bye weeks to clear what is now the final week of the regular season. Adjusting the start date of competition doesn’t seem viable, either. If the entire season began a week earlier, it would have a significant financial impact on all 119 FCS programs, since most already have their schedules in place for the 2008 season.

The football committee believes the best way to solve the issue is to eliminate the regular-season bye weeks; however, conferences and institutions won't be able to make that adjustment until 2010.

Since that would be a new budget cycle, the football committee and the FCS membership want funding to continue for championship expansion since 10 conferences will become eligible to participate in the bracket by then.

Expanding to 20 teams will also ease access problems. Every conference champion would receive automatic qualification into the field and the other half of the bracket (50 percent) would be reserved for at-large berths.

Cabinet Chair and Patriot League Executive Director Carolyn Schlie Femovich credited commissioners with developing the concept.

"The proposal is precedent setting, but the positive part is the way everyone worked together,” she said. “The football committee and the membership came to a decision about the best approach that's good for the sport and can be managed in a reasonable way with respect to planning and budgeting."

The cabinet believes that an additional $300,000 would be necessary for the 2010-12 budget cycle to fully fund the expansion

The Division I Budget Committee, which consists of members of the Division I Board of Directors and Division I Management Council, will meet in March to finalize recommendations for the biennial budget, which then will be forwarded to the Board and the Executive Committee.

The cabinet also looked at whether the expansion of the FCS bracket would alter the 50 percent balance in postseason opportunities for men and women. Currently, the NCAA championship participation opportunities at the Division I level are 51 percent female and 49 percent male.  Expansion of the bracket would not significantly alter those percentages.

Wrestling allocations

The cabinet also directed the Division I Wrestling Committee to develop a selection procedure that would eliminate the use of historical data by 2009, which would align more closely with criteria used for other Division I championships.

Members of the cabinet's Bracket/Format Subcommittee held a conference call with wrestling committee Chair Brad Traviolia to discuss the matter. For years, conferences and regional qualifying tournaments were told how many allocations they would have based on past performances. The wrestling committee is moving away from that approach and is developing a system in which performance during the current season would be a key element in the selection criteria for the 2009 championship.

The plan calls for the champion of every weight class in each eligible conference and regional qualifying tournament to be granted automatic qualification into the NCAA championship. That would result in 110 spots.

The remaining 220 at-large berths would be allocated to conferences and regional qualifying tournaments by the NCAA Wrestling Committee one week before the first qualifying events using current-year data. At-large berths would be selected based upon criteria such as an individual’s won-loss record, an individual’s record against top 10 or top 20 competition and a conference and regional ratings percentage index developed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

However, the cabinet is concerned about a selection process that has predetermined conference and regional allocations. It has asked the wrestling committee to examine whether those at-large selections would best be handled by a national committee. In addition, the cabinet asked the committee to comment on the philosophical difference in selecting the best 33 wrestlers for each weight class versus selecting the top 330 wrestlers.

The wrestling committee is conducting a mock run of its proposal this winter to see how the allocations would turn out.

"The committee's proposal could make the conference tournaments that much more exciting and put more focus on those results," Femovich said. "This could be a very successful approach for the sport or wrestling. With respect to the 330 allocations, we want to make sure they are allocated to the fairest extent possible.[ds1] "

Track and field alignment

The cabinet rescinded its September decision at directing the Division I Track and Field Committee to realign the regions in the sport after discussing an innovative approach delivered by Sam Seemes, the CEO of the U.S. Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association.

Seemes told the bracket/format subcommittee about a plan in which 64 participants would qualify for each event at the national meet, which would become a two-week, one-site event.

The proposal would end NCAA regional track meets, and the allocations for the national meet would come directly from conference meets and a descending order of times, heights and distances.

Once at the NCAA meet, competitors would race in flights to advance to each additional round in each event. When initially proposed at the USTFCCCA convention in December, the concept was met with approval but not by an overwhelming majority.

The cabinet is recommending that the current regional format remain status quo, while the stakeholders in men's and women's track and field work on details of the two-week, one-site concept.

"This idea needs some time to be vetted with the membership and to gather feedback from coaches so we can determine if this is a better way of conducting the championship," Femovich said. "It sounds like the proposal could be cost effective. It was exciting to see that the committee was working to find an innovative solution that's good for the sport in the long run."

Other highlights

Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet

February 6-7/St. Louis

• With the new Division I governance structure set to begin in the fall, each of the subcommittees of the current cabinet has been asked to outline some issues in their respective areas that the new cabinet is going to inherit. The Championships Cabinet will have 31 members and none of the work is scheduled to be conducted in subcommittees.
• The cabinet reaffirmed its commitment to increase per diem in all championships from $115 to $120 over the 2008-2010 budget cycle.