UBC Thunderbird Baseball Fan Page

There was a poll on the official UBC Athletics site that asked whether the majority of UBC teams should be competing in the CIS or the NCAA. I didn't see the final result, but the last time I checked, the vote was pretty close.

Now that this question is officially open to public discussion, I have a lot of opinions on it, mostly owing to the fact that my alma mater, Virginia Tech, is, in many respects, your stereotypical U.S. football factory. I haven't been to a VT home game in six years, but I usually watch the Hokies whenever they are on TV. There's also been some off the field politics between VT and the NCAA, and I keep an eye on this sort of thing, too. I've been to NCAA football games at UDub, Oregon, and Oregon State during the past few years. I went to the first- and second-round games of NCAA men's basketball regional tournament action in Seattle last March. I saw Gonzaga get upset by Nevada there, and if you want to develop a rivalry with Gonzaga, put me down for season tickets.

The term "football factory" has been around for a long time, and there's a good reason for it. In Division I, it's football that brings in the money that finances the rest of the athletic budget. High-profile basketball schools like Georgetown and Gonzaga may make some nickels and dimes on basketball, but for these institutions, the payoff is publicity, not money.

In football, the NCAA is split into Division I-A (Miami, Notre Dame, Michigan, Washington, etc.) and Division 1-AA (Montana, Delaware, Penn, etc.) Division I-A has entry requirements that are insurmountable for UBC; a stadium that holds at least 30,000 spectators, and the ability to draw that many spectators on a regular basis. Yes, you might be able to fill B.C. Place for a game against Washington or USC, but this is totally hypothetical, because neither of these schools are looking for teams to add to their schedule.

This isn't something to get upset about. Division 1-AA football is still high-quality and competitive, draws decent crowds, and occasional television exposure. The obvious conference membership for the Thunderbirds would be the Big Sky, which includes Montana, Eastern Washington, Portland State, and Idaho State. All of the teams in this conference except Northern Arizona are closer geographically than Regina and Saskatchewan, and Northern Arizona is still closer than Manitoba.

So, competing in Division 1-AA would mean higher-caliber competion, and no big saving in travel costs (assuming you lose the home-and-home series with SFU), but UBC would not get the license to print money that comes with Division 1-A. The caliber of competion is gradually improving in Canada West, too, so the key question might be, do you want three-down or four-down football?