If they pursue NIL and offer athletic scholarships, they could expand to keep competitive with the FBS conferences.
My vote for the new members (with existing div. 1 football teams) are:
Duke-UVA
Georgetown-Howard
Rice-Tulane
Stanford-Berkeley
1 Like
From what I read, the Ivies now allow NIL.
Why would any school you mention (short of Howard which Iâm not familiar with athletics) - want to downgrade their awareness / revenue potential?
In other words, Duke/UVA are in the ACC - thereâs zero reason for them financially to pursue the âIvy Leagueâ - if itâs even open to expanding.
5 Likes
Got to agree with @tsbna44 . Moving to the Ivy League would be a downgrade in revenue and competition for most of those teams. I canât see why they would want to. Sports is big business for them. The Ivy League would be a step down.
4 Likes
In addition to often playing at a lower level with less revenue, there are also logistical issues. For example, one of the key reasons why Stanford is in Pac-12 rather than Big 10 or ACC is because of their location on the Pacific coast. They donât want to regularly fly back and forth to/from the northeast, to play games with the Ivy League conference. If the Ivy League were open to expanding, Iâd expect colleges from the northeast area to be most likely to join.
5 Likes
The most likely candidates for an expansion would be northeast division 3 schools that are interested in moving to division 1.
3 Likes
I donât think schools can ânotâ allow NIL. The NCAA has to allow it because the supreme court said the athletes have the right to sell their NIL. Itâs not the schools that have increased scholarships and they canât give more than the NCAA allows, but the athletes can go sign their own deals and stack them with their scholarships. There are schools like Penn State that have a booster club that does nothing but raise money and funnel it to athletes under NIL (run by Joe Paternoâs son), but the school is still limited to the scholarships the NCAA allows.
Ivy league is D1, and they have the right to issue scholarships under the NCAA rules. The schools choose not to, but they donât have to let new schools into their conference to start giving scholarships.
The Ivy league schools are very good at lacrosse. They donât need to offer scholarship to attract the top players. I think there are 6 menâs teams and 4 womenâs teams ranked in the top 20 at the beginning of this season
5 Likes
The Ivy League schools have no need toâor interest inâexpansion. They are delivering pretty much the athletic experience they want and theyâre somewhat immune from the financial pressures facing most other college athletic programs. Theyâve never been heavily reliant on television revenue.
NIL is already happening with athletes within the conference, itâs just that the schools/boosters donât have the sort of collectives happening at other schools. They might or might not develop those but I donât see it affecting the structure of the conference much if at all.
I donât see the Ivy League expanding to include any of the schools listed in the OP.
Many Ivy athletes have NIL deals.
The most interesting issue is whether or not the Ivy league schools will start offering athletic scholarships with the expiration of Section 568 on Sept 30. Section 568 of the 1994 Higher Ed Act allowed schools to set common financial aid policies as long as the schools were need blind (with no exceptions like for waitlist). There is also an ongoing 568 lawsuit.
If the Ivy League schools do start offering athletic scholarships, they would have to follow NCAA guidelines. Certain schools, like some Patriot League members and JHU in Lacrosse, may find it more difficult to recruit, as they currently happily receive some full pay athletes who donât want to be full pay (or other athletes who canât afford their Ivy calculate EFCs) by offering them athletic scholarships.
3 Likes
The Ivy League has distinguished itself from other athletic leagues by placing great emphasis on academic achievement and positioning themselves as premier research universities.
If they start offering non-need based athletic scholarships, should they not also start offering non-need merit scholarships*? Or are they going to signal that athletics trumps academics, the same as at most other schools?
(* I am aware that âmeritâ scholarships are really discounts meant to attract high quality students and the Ivies donât need to do that. But my point here is the message they would send).
1 Like
There has been pressure for Ivy league colleges to expand enrollment. But not by adding schools, instead by adding undergraduate seats. Yale College has expanded by 15% over the past few years, with more to come. Similar story at Princeton and Harvard. Columbia has thought about expanding, but limited space until the Manhattanville campus opens will remain an open debate.
The Ivy league presidents donât really have an incentive to attract better athletes. Their colleges do fine financially without them. In fact I would argue that the only reason Ivy league college degrees are so prized is because of the (perceived) prestige. Employers and the general public believe that Ivy league schools are better. Whatever that means. So the Ivy league grads will be in demand. They already do quite well with endowment and fundraising. I canât see a reason why inviting other colleges into the Ivy league makes sense.
1 Like
I agree, and I assume you didnât mean to reply to me.
Oops sorry about that
The Ivy League colleges generally get the best athletes possible under the Ivy League conferences rules, which permit athletes to have average stats 1 SD below mean of the student body. The colleges can and do push that stat limit as far as they are allowed, resulting in athletes often having lower average stats than any other hook group. There is not as much financial pressure as at other colleges that are successful in Div I revenue sports (football and menâs basketball), but the Ivy League still cares about their sports performance and wants to have high quality athletes.
Employers often favor specific colleges for a variety of reasons, but I donât think a primary reason is belonging to the Ivy League athletic conference. For example, if one of the current 8 Ivy League colleges switched to a different athletic conference, I doubt that employers would stop attending career fairs or participating in recruiting events. Similarly if the Ivy League conference expanded to include other colleges, I also doubt that it would change recruiting at the existing 8 colleges.
I do agree that the Ivy League conference has little motivation to expand. And other colleges have little reason to join, even if athletic scholarships were allowed. Eliminating post-season bowl games per Ivy League conference and joining a conference with less revenue is going to be a tough sell at the many colleges that care about football. Many colleges will also have problems about the athlete stat requirement noted above. Few colleges have as many teams in non-revenue âpreppyâ type sports as are supported in the Ivy League conference. Most US colleges are also not located in the general northeast of Ivy League colleges.
Colleges also need to have a similar caliber of sports to be successful in the Ivy League conference. For example, MIT checks off most of the boxes noted above. However, they are a Div III school that is not comparably athletically competitive with most Ivy League colleges and does not participate in a good portion of Ivy League sports. Itâs more fitting for MIT to remain in the NEWMAC conference, which has all member schools located in Massachusetts (much shorter travel distance than Ivy league) except Coast Guard. Most of NEWMAC is composed of small colleges with ~2000 students who would not be athletically competitive with the Ivy League conference.
All eight Ivies can now offer athletic scholarships? The most recent article I found is from October. It states âwhen Congress allowed the Ivy Leagueâs antitrust exemption to expire a couple of weeks ago, it potentially set a path for major change in the conference. Namely, the possibility of Ivy League schools giving out athletic scholarships.â But have any actually done so? Can you please provide a link?
1 Like
No decisions made yet AFAIK.
2 Likes
I just donât see it. The only real money making sports are football and menâs basketball, head count sports that the Ivies really donât try to compete at the highest levels. With their generous financial aid, economically, athletes in equivalency sports often do better at an Ivy than a D1 that only offers a partial. That is why they can be nationally competitive in sports like lacrosse and ice hockey.
2 Likes
I think the way this was reported in some outlets, and posted by the OP initially, has confused what has happened a bit.
Ivy member schools have had no desire in the past, and still donât, to provide aid based on athletic merit. That is why they have written their rules in the way that they have.
In order to avoid lawsuits (claiming that they were colluding to avoid paying students based on merit) they have sought and received a series of antitrust exemptions.
With the antitrust exemption gone, they are now in theory at legal risk if they continue the conference policy.
But it remains the case that none of the schools individually have a desire to provide athletic scholarships. Itâs just less clear now how/if they can have a conference-wide agreement to that effect.
Itâs a big step from that to Harvard deciding they want to start offering athletic scholarships, along with all that might entail.
2 Likes