Without digging too deeply into travel distances and costs to every member of a conference, looking at the olympic sports (since football really only travels to conference locations 4-5 times a year, but the other sports do it more often and there's more of them)....the geographic midpoint of the conferences and distance from Macomb:
Summit League: ~320 miles
Summit League (minus Fort Wayne and adding UMKC, for example): ~370 miles
Ohio Valley: ~310 miles
Horizon League: ~325 miles
MAC: ~368 miles
If we want to stay DI, probably our best bets (other than staying in the Summit League) are to go to the Ohio Valley or to try to get into the Horizon League for non-football sports and keep football in the MVFC (that would be my preference). It would probably take a bit of work to get into the Horizon, but could be worth it and could keep football where it's at currently.
Summit League
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
To be fair though, I'm pretty sure those are under what the actual attendance was for those games. I'd say they were probably close to double what the reported attendance was, but if you want to be conservative, half-again what we had is probably a safe bet. Even if it was actually double and we had nearly 11k people at Homecoming...still no reason to add more seats (and no way to go FBS) unless we SIGNIFICANTLY increase our home attendance. If we can somehow get back to the point where we're regularly hitting capacity at Hanson Field...then maybe...but I don't see that happening.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
- Western_101
- Posts: 1197
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:09 pm
- Location: Morton, IL
Some very good posts here.
Horizon ain't what it used to be sans Butler and Valpo. That being said Western is neither A) good at basketball, B) in a metro area.
That being said I would prefer that Western were a Horizon member school with MVFC football of course.
Horizon ain't what it used to be sans Butler and Valpo. That being said Western is neither A) good at basketball, B) in a metro area.
That being said I would prefer that Western were a Horizon member school with MVFC football of course.
- Tere North
- Posts: 1146
- Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:59 pm
Of course you mean Men's Basketball, not Women's!RedNeck wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:19 am Some very good posts here.
Horizon ain't what it used to be sans Butler and Valpo. That being said Western is neither A) good at basketball, B) in a metro area.
That being said I would prefer that Western were a Horizon member school with MVFC football of course.
With the Summit League becoming "Dakota Centric", Augustana University fits right in.
In looking at photos of their facilities, they have facilities as good -- if not better -- than what Western has.
They are in a metro area with a larger TV market.
Their attendance is better than Western's.
And they have more corporate sponsors -- including Sanford Health.
- Western_101
- Posts: 1197
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:09 pm
- Location: Morton, IL
Correct.Tere North wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 12:47 pmOf course you mean Men's Basketball, not Women's!RedNeck wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:19 am Some very good posts here.
Horizon ain't what it used to be sans Butler and Valpo. That being said Western is neither A) good at basketball, B) in a metro area.
That being said I would prefer that Western were a Horizon member school with MVFC football of course.
Props to the Lady roundballers they make me proud.