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Buffalo is dropping four sports including baseball and men's soccer. Akron recently dropped baseball and now with Buffalo doing so too, I'm guessing the MAC will just do away with divisions next year.

Hopefully, the divisions are GONE. The scheduling has been horrible with them, not playing everyone in your division, and the uneven scheduling across divisions. 9 weekend league series is perfect.

Column from The Buffalo News on this.

Hard to argue with the conclusions. . .

http://buffalonews.com/2017/04/04/ub-fo ... 1491339496" target="_blank

These were tough decisions, but it seems to me Buffalo made the right ones.

Long article from the Buffalo News on the baseball team. Interesting and sad. Not too far fetched of a scenario for any MAC school.

http://buffalonews.com/2017/06/08/curve ... -involved/" target="_blank

I would hope baseball might be one of the last sports to get the axe, if only because it really doesn't cost that much to operate, when compared to so many other sports. I can see where swimming and diving would get expensive, hell just for maintaining the facility; not sure why rowing would be expensive at all, since if you're on a waterway, you don't really need to maintain facilities very much; and equipment costs overall would not be much.

Many MAC schools have had to drop men's Olympic sports to meet Title IX requirements (also a shame) but having men's track & field, wrestling and swimming is a lot of athletes, and a lot of scholarships, depending on how many are given out.

Baseball only has 11.5 scholarships, so my hope is that it will be around for a long, long time. It's a great game to play (and watch), even though it is not glamorous like football and basketball.

Honestly, I see the real answer to the problem of athletics and funding for any schools not in the Power 5 conferences as one where a sub division of D-1 is created. It doesn't have to maintain the same requirements as D-1, but could still provide fans with a great product, and scholarships (maybe less than now) for deserving players. Cut some of the costs, and then strike a new agreement with the NCAA and/or the Power 5 conferences (which may end up going out on their own at some point, leaving the NCAA behind) for some of the major TV and advertising dollars.

Power 5 schools need opponents besides one another to fill their schedules. Use that as leverage to get a better funding deal in place to support these programs. The same for basketball. With all the money created by the TV deal, there should be plenty to go around if it's not hogged by the NCAA itself and many of the major programs. Again, those major D-1 schools are going to need quality opponents to fill up their schedules because there simply aren't enough Power 5 schools to do it.

I know it is almost heresy to talk about dropping out of D-1 in sports, but it would actually provide a better playing field for many mid majors, like BG, to compete for national titles. It isn't going to hurt attendance at events where two sub division schools play any more than they're hurt already. D1A could be a competitive, interesting and quality alternative to the ever growing divide between Power 5 schools and mid majors as things now stand.

If the Power 5 schools ever decide to chuck the NCAA altogether, mid majors will be left out in the cold, anyway...and don't kid yourself into thinking that is not a distinct possibility.

Akron is bring baseball back, scholarships will be funded by “community financial support” & not university funds

https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/stat ... 0766370821" target="_blank