November 07, 2024 | Listen Online | Read Online

A reminder: this is why moving to FBS is so expensive

For the North Dakota State, or Montana, or other FCS fans in your life

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

Have you got other stuff on your mind right now? Yeah, me too. But that stuff will have to wait. I don’t know about you…but the only thing I really know how to do is the work. So I’ll do a little work today.

Earlier this week, Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reported that the Mountain West’s quest to add additional football playing members is now pointing to the FCS. Via McMurphy:

Northern Illinois’ interest in joining the Mountain West as a football-only member is “waning,” so the Mountain West is now considering FCS member North Dakota State, sources told Action Network.

If NIU remains in the MAC, it also guarantees Toledo will stay in the MAC, a source said. In September, Action Network first reported the Mountain West had initiated discussions with NIU and Toledo as potential football-only members.

…

There's support within the Mountain West for North Dakota State. However, there's “some concern” that FBS power brokers — such as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commish Tony Petitti — may use their influence to limit more FCS schools moving to the FBS ranks, industry sources said.

FWIW, I’ve heard similar things from conversations with industry sources close to the MWC, Big Sky, Summit, and college sports industry-at-large. Specifically, I was told by two different people that folks in the SEC were leaning on the MWC to not add any additional FCS teams, as SEC leadership is already concerned with the size of D1 and FBS and doesn’t want to dilute the membership pool further.

I had also been told, even at the first round of MWC expansion targets, that North Dakota State was one of several FCS institutions that had support among MWC member schools. The other holdup…not mentioned directly in the McMurphy story but has been a theme in my industry conversations, is cost.

There are some significant up-front costs for anybody trying to move to FBS.

There would be conference exit fees to pay, potentially entrance fees to the MWC, and a whopping $5 million bucks to the NCAA. Those are not small expenses, but just like I wrote last year, my sources have continued to tell me that those cost increases won’t prevent any motivated school from reclassifying. Five million is a lot of money, but you can get five million bucks from donors if you really need it.

The bigger question is the required increases to a school’s regular ol’ athletic budget. Moving to FBS requires a significant increase to what a school spends on athletics, every single year.

Let me try to explain why, because I think this can be tricky for some fans who see their program already has a renovated stadium and plush facilities.

Let’s take the 2023 budget numbers, for example. According to the FY23 athletic department budget North Dakota State submitted to the NCAA, (which can be examined in our Extra Points Library), the school reported $31.8 million in total operating expenses, with roughly $6.4 million earmarked as operating expenses for their football team.

That’s on the higher side for FCS football programs. But it isn’t in the ballpark compared to their new aspirational peers in the Mountain West.