Mtn.Devil, I have a theory: Administrators and the sports programs find both of the locations exceedingly attractive. They're right about that.
Maybe this is a harbinger of the Expedia.ComConference. Schools sign up for desirable places to play! And rack up miles!
“I love it. Coach, when we came here, we had a three-hour meeting about the core values. If you really represent the core values, it means diving on the floor, sacrificing your body for your teammates, no matter how much you’re up by or how much you’re down by, always playing hard.” -- Zion
UC Santa Cruz is the outlier, but all the schools are very far apart. Warren Wilson is 400 miles from the CLOSEST school.
Seems insane to me. I know D3 schools have way fewer sports, but even still, is Santa Cruz gonna ship their women's volleyball team to Asheville for a series?
Fair point, but the most recent data I could find suggests that the median age of a college football viewer is 52. Considering that Big 10 schools still have higher enrollments than SEC schools*, it is going to be a long time before the SEC has more 52 year old alumni than the Big 10.
*According to Wikipedia, the median undergrad enrollment is
- 32,814 for the Big 10 (Wisconsin, UCLA)
- 24,593 for the SEC (Auburn, Tenn), and
- 16,651 for the ACC (Georgia Tech).
FWIW, six of the nine Power 5 schools with less than 15,000 undergraduates are in the ACC. The FBS school with the smallest undergrad enrollment appears to be the University of Tulsa (2,929 undergrads).
SE Conference Expansion.jpg
You knew it was just a matter of time.