National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Jun 21, 2010 1:07:31 PM

University of the Sciences President Phil Gerbino urged Division II 
presidents and chancellors to think strategically about the growing 
interest in Division II membership. (Brett Wilhelm/NCAA Photos)

Division II chancellors and presidents conducted their third Summit on Saturday in Indianapolis, and membership matters were top of mind.

The discussions took place against a backdrop of possible Division II conference realignment, with the 14-member Gulf South Conference having acknowledged that its six Arkansas members are considering other conference possibilities. If those institutions realign (and nothing official has happened yet), several other nearby conferences could be affected.

Other Division II conferences in the East are considering expansion. Meanwhile, membership in the Western half of the country continues to be sparse. NAIA membership interest in Division II also continues to grow (even in light of recent NAIA legislation that restricts championship opportunities during the NCAA membership process), and NCAA members in other divisions increasingly see Division II as an interesting option.

In other words, the membership landscape is becoming complicated.

The Division II Presidents Council broached the topic at its summer in-person meeting Friday, but the 125 presidents at the Summit added an exclamation point to a need for further examination.

The question relates not simply to growth but also to how the growth will be managed. Among the items on the line are how Division II resources will be apportioned and how access to Division II championships will be determined.

Grand Valley State President Thomas Haas suggested that capacity questions should be the next big examination for Division II once Bylaw 17 issues are stabilized.

"It's a capacity issue for the NCAA as a whole, looking at the number of student-athletes, looking at the number of conferences, looking at number of members," Haas said. "And (then) where is the best place for us to be when it comes to the capacity of DII vis-a-vis DI and DIII?"

Presidents Council member Pat O'Brien of West Texas A&M appeared to agree with the concern.

"There are competing issues," said O'Brien, the Council's vice chair-elect and chair of the Long Range Projection Task Force that will play a lead role in studying the matter. "One is if the division grows substantially but we have a fixed pie of funds, then for existing institutions and conferences, we're going to dilute the resources that we have available.

"Now, we also know that in certain sectors of the country, many of the institutions have to travel great distances because of the lack of Division II schools within their geographic areas. The bottom line is we're going to have to be very, very strategic with regard to increasing membership or changing membership. We're going to be analyzing all sorts of ‘what-if' scenarios – increasing conferences, increasing institutions, and perhaps where we need to increase the numbers that we have in Division II."

Earlier in the day, the presidents heard a report from Greg Shaheen, NCAA senior vice president for Division I men's basketball and business strategies. He discussed the long-term security that new rights deals are likely to bring the NCAA membership, albeit not at the rapidly escalating pace that the previous deal afforded. While Division II members can continue to count on its 4.37 percent allocation of NCAA revenue, they will not realize the 8 percent annual bump that they got from the CBS/ESPN contract.

But although the growth of the money will slow, membership pressure may accelerate.

Phil Gerbino, a Council member and president of the University of the Sciences, noted that there are more than 2,600 accredited four-year institutions in the United States, about 1,500 of which do not belong to the NCAA. If only 20 percent of that group indicated interest, demonstrated philosophical compatibility, and showed the ability to meet financial and other commitments, the NCAA could be looking at about 300 new institutions across all three divisions over the next several years.

Gerbino said Division II owes itself a strategic discussion, just as individual campuses do when they experience significant growth and have to judge whether they can accommodate an influx of students.

"This changing landscape is not a cause for undue concern," he said, "but rather a clarion call to assess our current structure, both from an Association-wide and divisional perspective."

Gerbino detailed improvements that the Membership Committee has made to ensure that new member institutions meet Division II standards. At its winter meeting, he said, the committee began discussions about conference membership, including the expansion of current active conferences and the possibility of new conferences forming in the division.

"The committee discussed that not only does the Division II membership need to study and assess growth from the institutional perspective, it also should study and assess growth from the conference perspective," Gerbino said. "At some point, current active conferences may reach their limit for new members and schools may have to look to forming new conferences. New conferences could place a burden on the current Division II budget and new conferences will have an impact on Division II championships access.

"Ultimately, it is critical that presidents and chancellors take an active role with membership issues, particularly at the conference level."