(07-14-2017 03:45 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 03:14 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I wonder if anyone has ever thought about just merging the NAIA and NCAA, and letting all NAIA schools have membership in DIII (with no scholarship) or DII with waivers on the minimum number of sports?

What really is the big benefit to being in the NAIA over the NCAA, other than a lower minimum sports requirement?

Vastly cheaper, less complicated and more flexible. I don't see an advantage to D2 except for NCAA name recognition, and being only 1 step from NCAA D1 (which isn't even on the radar for most small schools).

Really. The rules for D2 are nearly identical to D1. So even if you're a small school, you still have to run your program as if your coaches will win $1m salaries if they win a national title, as if agents and boosters are plying your athletes with cash, cars and hookers, and spend as if you have a 100 million dollar endowment or 20k enrollees.

For those schools that can afford the money and other resources to pull it off, it's a dividing line against those that can't. Emmanuel's and Spring Hill's difficulties just go to show that the D2 committee is intent on being gatekeepers preventing those that can't/won't jump through those hoops from getting in. I predict that if they end up back in the NAIA, they'll take their NCAA sized budget, reallocate the dollars away from administrators and towards athletic scholarships, and be Top 10 programs. Spring Hill was always respectable, but Emmanuel was a door mat in their NAIA days.

You also have to look at where your peers/local teams are playing. If everyone you associate with is DII, then that probably makes the most sense for you, even with the added costs.