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Bear in mind that part of that good attendance is the success of the programs. People show up at UND sports because they get to see winning or at least competative teams pretty much across the board. When winning percentage goes down, attendance often does too. I have no doubt that attendance would be good initially following a move to IAA regardless of performance because of the novelty of being D-I. If the teams didn't rapidly improve to levels of success approximating those they currently enjoy you could also expect corresponding decreases in attendance. Excellent football attendence, but for a team that is an annual national title contender in recent years. Would attendence be as good for a team with little to no hope of contending? As a sport, football would probably be our best bet outside of hockey in terms of having a successful program, but if the wins didn't start coming I think attendence could very possibly drop after a few years. And its unlikely UND will ever spend the kind of money on football that the D-IAA big boys, like Montana, do, because hockey is king in GF. Bringing UND football up to Montana levels of funding would involve increases of something like $2-3 million in the football budget ALONE, and then you STILL have to find big bucks for the other promoted programs. So football is unlikely to be funded at a high level, compared to D-IAA big boys. Good basketball attendence, but it needs to be doubled to get up around D-I average. Mens basketball has been OK, but not exactly outstanding at UND historically. Its one revenue sport I could see falling off dramatically at the D-I level. Will attendence double, or even hold steady for that matter, if the team is not competative? I have a hard time envisioning much revenue increase here unless the team has unexpected successes at a higher level of play. However, regardless of their success or lack thereof, the expenses will increase significantly. Hockey of course will take care of itself as its already D-I, but keep in mind you're talking about a tradition filled, highly successful program in a hockey crazy part of the country. I don't think you can project outstanding D-I hockey attendence to mean other sports would also get good attendence just because the other sports are brought up to D-I as well. No other sport at UND is likely to ever approach the success of hockey, at any level.

A better comparison of the UND athletic budget to the "regional" schools would be UND budget minus hockey budget, since none of the schools you listed field hockey and hockey is a major part of the UND athletic budget (probably one reason the IAA hockey schools have much larger budgets than your regional schools). Also, you should be comparing UND's budget to full-fledged I-AA schools, not schools in transition. If you want to get a feel for what the transistion would look like, then you should have 3 groupings: UND, transitition schools, full I-AA schools. You make those changes and then compare UND now to where we would need to get, suddenly the numbers are not nearly as close. Once again, we are going to have to raise money in the range of 7 figures annually to get to D-IAA. A blanket statement of "I think we could do it" isn't worth much. Where does the money come from? What are these great revenue streams that are going to open up to support an all D-I program?

I will admit I also have serious concerns about a state of only 650,000 supporting 2 D-I programs. So NDSU already being D-I is in fact part of my concerns about making a move up for UND.

Maybe I should explain a little bit about where my perspective on all this comes from. I stated in my earlier post that I wouldn't pay 2 cents to see the teams on NDSU and SDSU's home basketball schedules next year. Maybe I'm a little spoiled compared to some in North Dakota when it comes to D-I athletics. I went to graduate school at Iowa State University, a D-I school in a major (Big 12) conference. Iowa State was very competative in basketball when I was there, winning multiple Big 12 regular season and tourny titles during those years and usually being competative (or at least going into the season thinking they would be) for such titles in others. I watched programs like Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and a number of name non-conference teams come through on an annual basis. While ISU wasn't nearly as successful in football, teams like Nebraska and Oklahoma came through Ames during National Championship years, and perennial powers like Kansas State, Colorado, and Texas made regular visits. When I think D-I, I think Big 12, and quite frankly the schools listed on the home schedules for NDSU and SDSU just aren't very impressive. From a competition standpoint, I think it comes down to the following: would you rather be a high end program and watch winning teams in D-II, or likely be an also ran in D-I? The football programs MIGHT become respected in D-IAA, but keep in mind a lot of current powers with established D-IAA connections and traditions will have other ideas. In any and every other sport, from basketball on down, every team at UND would go into the season knowing they have an incredibly slim chance of making the national tournament. Win the conference tourny or your out, not like D-II where multiple NCC teams from many sports make it to the "big-time". And if you ever do get to the national tourny such as in basketball, its most likely that you are a one and done snack for a #1 or 2 seed. But as I said in my previous post, the biggest issue for me is money. Look at what is required, in terms of dollars, to be competative in D-I sports. Many times more than UND currently spends. Where is the money going to come from (it won't magically appear)? Is a fan base used to competing for national titles out of one of the top leagues in D-II going to be happy hoping to just be competative for a league title in a second-rate D-I league? Make no mistake about it, in D-I Big Sky is a second rate league, a league that doesn't put teams into NCAA showcase events unless they win the league post season tourny. In basketball for example, a "one bid only" league. You guys are basically begging to join a D-I equivalent of the NSIC, a league you've been ripping on. An NCC equivalent at D-I is Big 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC, something like that. So all this extra money is poured into D-I athletics so UND can become a second-rate D-I program, while this is happening what other part of the school is going to suffer financially on the alter of athletics? This isn't a rant against athletics, I am a sports fan, but everything has to be put into perspective as well. To this point, the only really decent arguement I've seen for a move to D-I is the potential competition. From my perspective, this issue goes far beyond just athletic competition, this issue is much bigger than "who would you rather play in basketball or football?". It has to, we are talking about an entire university, not just an athletic department. The issue is, given the demographics of the region, the geography of the region, the funding levels of the institution, along with potential available competition, what is the best place for UND? When I look at demographics, geography, and funding levels, those all say "D-II" to me without question. I'm also not convinced D-I is a better place to be from a competition perspective (the ONLY firm improvement I've seen is the chance to play NDSU again), but even if I concede the competetion point I see many other reasons not to go D-I.

I understand your side of the arguement, and don't debate that some people would rather see the D-I schedule. I just don't think that is a universal sentiment. Something else I would note, there isn't a single home NDSU game next year that I, as a sports fan with a casual interest in NDSU sports, would give 2 cents to go see if I were still living in the Red River Valley. Same holds true for the SDSU schedule. There are certainly teams on those schedules I would like to see, including Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. But notice that in each and every case, NDSU and SDSU visit those schools. Getting schools like that to actually come to NDSU or SDSU is going to be next to impossible. To be honest, I don't really care about schools like Montana and Montana State in basketball, they are also-rans. Watching them in football would be neat, but that's it. Just as you noted, that's my personal opinion. Doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong in this case, its simply an opinion. However, my greatest concern about a possible UND move to D-I is less about competition than it is about money. Lets face it, institutions of higher learning in North Dakota are not blessed with great funding from the state. If anything, they are already underfunded when compared to other schools that are supposed to be in their peer groups. A move to D-I athletics is going to cost money, to the tune of seven figures per year. I seriously doubt that revenues will keep pace with increased costs, a doubt that is supported by the experiences of other schools moving up to D-I. So where is the extra money going to come from to support D-I athletics? I haven't seen anyone provide a viable answer to that yet. If the money has to come from the universities general budget, which academic programs / student support programs / etc. suffer to benefit athletics? One final point in all this, I've heard a lot of gripping here about smaller, underfunded programs moving into D-II and diluting the product. The thing I find funny here, is that the big D-I powers view moves by schools like NDSU, SDSU, and if we do it, UND in much the same way. People here seem very willing to run from a diluted D-II product so they can become the diluting part of the D-I product.

I have, seriously, had people ask me if North Dakota was part of the United States!!!!

I e-mailed them as well, but never got a reply.

I don't necessarily agree. If you were from northern or central Minnesota, there is a good chance you'd rather see UND vs Bemidji state (even if you weren't an alum of either). Same might also be true particularly of people in NE North Dakota. In a 100 mile radius, I bet a lot of people would choose two regional programs over a regional school playing someone that half the region has never heard of, even if the two regional schools were in a lower division. Its hard to market a game to casual fans as a whole when the opponent has no name recognition. As an example, I've been to basketball games at Iowa State. Bear in mind that basketball was the big sport at Iowa State, at least during my days there, the basketball team was nationally competative and crowds generally were good. Games against schools like Coppin State, Maryland Eastern Shore, etc typically were not sale outs. No name recognition. On the other hand, games against Northern Iowa and Drake, house was packed to the rafters! Many times those Northern Iowa and Drake teams weren't any better than the other teams we played in the non-conference schedule, shoot, often, the teams that drew poorer attendance were actually better than Northern Iowa or Drake. But people in central Iowa identify with Northern Iowa and Drake, and they turned out to see those games. Want a football example? Crowds were huge for Iowa State vs Northern Iowa football games (a Big 12 team usually beating on a IAA team), bigger than they were when Wyoming came to Ames, for example. Wyoming puts out a better football product than Northern Iowa, they are a step higher in the football food chain. But people responded better to the regional rivalry than to the "superior opponent". The novelty of being D-I might bring the casual out in the early days to watch a team like Weber State. But long term, you have 2 main selling points as an athletic program: 1) name recognition (very few name schools will ever come to GF), and 2) regional rivalries, teams that people in your 100 mile radius CARE about If UND goes D-I, you'll have regional rivalries in NDSU and SDSU. Montana and Montana State might be decent regional rivalries, but that is much stronger out west than in the Red River Valley. The valley tends to be more concerned with Minnesota rivalries. We probably won't get U of Minnesota too often (at least in GF), but we can get UMD, Mankato, SCSU, Winona, etc.

Thats all fine and good, how much more are you willing to pay each year in increased tuition, student fees, and ticket prices to see that more exciting schedule? Because the UND athletic department is going to need to raise additional money to the tune of millions of dollars.

I never was patted down by security, but then again, I was a student in the late 80s

And my knock on NDSU was that they made the move without a conference. I don't think that's smart, and everything I've read (i.e., my research first) supports that idea. If NDSU had a conference commitment, I wouldn't have made my comment concerning their move. BTW, I know 2 NDSU alums down here who agree with me 100% on that statement. I know that doesn't mean you do, but I have read some about DII to DI moves and I have discussed NDSU's move some with the people who are available to me and care about it.

I agree with many of your points, and can certainly respect your desire to play the schools you list. Two things I think are key to what you have mentioned: 1) I don't think you're going to see UM or UW in Grand Forks playing men's basketball. If, and I stress if, you are lucky, they will show up once every 10 years, and even that would suprize me. Those are Big 10 programs, and Wisconsin in particular is a Big 10 power. Big conference programs almost never travel to small conference barns, and that doubles for big conference powers. As I've stated before, just go ask Gonzaga about how easy it is to get a big name team to visit. Gonzaga has a quality program, and has been very frustrated in their efforts to get name schools to visit Spokane. One other problem with getting UW to Grand Forks; they have a policy against playing schools with Native American mascots. That policy is waived for conference rivals and traditional rivals (from before the policy), so its not a problem for the hockey team. However, I doubt the UND basketball team would qualify as a "traditional rival", and we're not going to get into the Big 10. 2) Your points on the need for careful financial planning are well made. Personally I think the money should be in place BEFORE the move, if a move is made. Too many schools jump first, and then just expect the funds will appear because they made the jump.

Why? Because the NHL has a labor agreement? At least wait for someone at UND to make an announcement!

Oh yeah? Well, I have 2 solid chances to finish ahead of your team

I'm in Georgia, and that has a lot to do with it. West Georgia is concerned they will hit additional NCAA roadblocks with their old name.

Other interesting quotes from the NCAA study http://www2.ncaa.org/media_and_events/pres...lstudy_rls.html

And your post has proven my point. I never said D-I schools won't visit you, I said the BIG NAMES won't. You are hosting Idaho, Idaho State, Maine, Denver, and Eastern Michigan. Not a single "big name" in that bunch, these are second tier D-I programs. I don't say that as an insult to them, its just a fact of life. You visit Minnesota and Wisconsin, the "biggest" names you list. You got a home and home with Kansas State, a mediocre at best program in a big league. I will repeat: when you are a have-not in D-I, the big names don't come to your house, YOU GO TO THEIRS. Just ask Gonzaga, a quality program that has been very frustrated in their attempts to get name schools to visit Spokane. There are VERY few exceptions to this. If D-I programs are being sold to people at NDSU and UND with the promise of a regular stream of opponents with national name recognition playing in Fargo and Grand Forks, that's a load of cow manure.

This is one of the problems with going D-I, the big name schools DON'T COME TO YOUR PLACE! YOU GO TO THERES. The trip Kansas made to UND in 2001 was a one-time deal, it was a favor to a North Dakota kid on the Kansas roster. Nothing more.

You obviously don't understand how D-I basketball works. Those schools don't come to your place, you go to theirs. Its called gate revenues, these guys play most of their nonconference schedules at HOME. Heck, a successful mid-major like Gonzaga can't get the big programs to come play at their place! Why would the Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin programs bother to come to Grand Forks?