Football programs in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference will play one league opponent twice in a season beginning in 2011 as part of the WIAC’s continuing efforts to reduce operating costs.

One of those two games will be designated as a nonconference contest.    

“The goal of playing an additional game versus a WIAC opponent is to reduce the number of long-distance trips, particularly those involving air travel, that many of our football teams have been forced to take in the past to fill out nonconference schedules,” said Commissioner Gary Karner.  

“While no one is particularly enthused about playing a WIAC opponent a second time, the current economic climate, combined with limited opportunities we have for scheduling other Division III institutions located in the upper Midwest in the sport of football, leaves us with few viable alternatives,” he said.   

Karner said that if the overall economy and operational budgets improve, or other favorable scheduling opportunities arise, the additional game can be eliminated with little impact on the remainder of the teams’ schedules.

Eight of the WIAC’s nine members sponsor football and currently play a round-robin schedule. Each of the eight played three nonconference games this season, with teams playing games as far away as California, Texas and Missouri, among the nine states where WIAC members traveled.

A few of the other WIAC cost-reduction initiatives recently implemented include:

• Establishing later start times for contests to minimize the number of overnight stays for visiting teams.
• Limiting postseason tournament brackets in all team sports to a maximum of six teams.
• Restricting teams to taking no more than one trip during the regular-season outside of an established regional perimeter.
• Suspending the annual conference summer workshop and football and basketball media days for 2009.
• Freezing officiating fees at 2008-09 levels.

The conference’s actions are in addition to budget-reduction measures already imposed by the state or the University of Wisconsin, including an employee salary freeze and mandated furloughs.

The conference estimates its actions will save an additional $250,000 in direct budget expenditures and a total of nearly $450,000 across the conference when factoring in expenditures paid from other sources (such as from foundations, booster clubs and fund raising) as well as activities funded directly by student-athletes.