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DI Championships Cabinet makes preliminary decisions on budget requests 

By Greg Johnson
NCAA.org

The Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet at its meeting Sept. 13-14 in Indianapolis reviewed budget requests and prioritized preliminary recommendations for the next budget cycle that begins in 2012.

Cabinet members discussed nearly 30 recommendations from the individual sports committees. Initiatives that increase student-athlete access to NCAA championships received the strongest support.   

Those include:

• Expanding the women’s lacrosse bracket from 16 to 24 teams by the 2013 championship
• Expanding the women’s rowing bracket from 16 to 22 teams by the 2013 championship
• Increasing the travel party for the Men’s College World Series from 35 to 40 by the 2013 championship
• Increasing the squad size in women’s soccer from 22 to 24 and the travel party from 28 to 30 by the 2012 championship
• Increasing the super regionals by one day in softball
• Increasing the squad size in men’s soccer from 21 to 24 and the travel party from 27 to 30 by the 2012 championship

The cabinet will weigh budget priorities over the next several months before final recommendations are decided by the cabinet’s administrative committee. The Division I Finance Committee will meet in the spring to approve the budget, which then will be forwarded to the Division I Board of Directors and the NCAA Executive Committee.

Among the reasons for supporting bracket expansion were data indicating growth in those sports. For example, the Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee cited that 12 conferences will be eligible for automatic qualification into the championship by 2013. By NCAA rule, when a sufficient number of conferences reach automatic qualification status, at least 50 percent of the field must be reserved for at-large selections. Sports committees can also provide a play-in opportunity in those instances.

In rowing, 11 conferences sponsor the sport, a number that is expected to remain steady for the foreseeable future.

The requests to increase the travel party sizes at various championships are intended to help decrease the costs to individual schools at these events, particularly the Men’s College World Series, since the length of that event complicates the issue.

The softball request would change the super regional best-of-three format into a three-day event with one game played on each day. Currently, super regionals are two-day events with a doubleheader on the first day, with the “if necessary” game played on the second day.

Track and field regionals

In addition to reviewing budget items, the cabinet once again examined a request to eliminate the track and field regionals.

This topic has been discussed in recent years due to the costs schools incur by sending their student-athletes to one of the two regional sites.

However, the Division I Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee, along with stakeholders in the sport, have also worked on the issue for several years, and cabinet members believe those efforts have put the championship in a good position moving forward.

Under those circumstances, cabinet members voted to maintain the current process because members believe it maintains significant access for student-athletes and is a fair and consistent way to advance to the national finals.

Legislative proposals

The cabinet also reviewed legislative proposals in the 2011-12 cycle that are relevant to championships administration and competition. Cabinet members supported:

• Proposal No. 2011-85, which specifies men’s basketball teams cannot begin preseason basketball practice before 5 p.m. on the first day of practice, and they cannot conduct more than 30 days of countable athletically related activities before the first regular-season game. (Teams currently are allowed to hold their initial practices 40 days before their first regular-season game.)
• Proposal No. 2011-88, which specifies that men’s and women’s golf teams selected to participate in the Topy Cup in Japan can start practice five days before the practice round of the event. (The Topy Cup is a prestigious intercollegiate golf event in Japan that is traditionally held in early September. Since the Topy Cup historically begins before September 7, institutions that have not started classes, typically institutions that operate on the quarter system, are precluded from participating in this event unless a legislative relief waiver is granted.)

Proposals the cabinet did not support include:

• Proposal No. 2011-83, which would reduce the number of baseball games allowed in the regular season from 56 to 52. 
• Proposal No. 2011-86, which stipulates that women’s basketball teams cannot play their first contest with outside competition prior to the Tuesday before the second Friday of November.
• Proposal No. 2011-87, which would exempt one game played in a college football invitational from the maximum number of contests.