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Grand Rapids to have a Division I school?


GRLaker

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According to interviews with football recruits committed to GVSU, the coaches have been telling them GVSU is moving up to Division I with football competing in the Ohio Valley Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) by 2023. GVSU's athletic department has hired a donor relations director for the first time in school history, which tells me that they're preparing financially to make the jump. The school has been denying the claims, but everything points to it being damage control in light of the players getting out ahead of their process. 

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40 minutes ago, GRLaker said:

According to interviews with football recruits committed to GVSU, the coaches have been telling them GVSU is moving up to Division I with football competing in the Ohio Valley Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) by 2023. GVSU's athletic department has hired a donor relations director for the first time in school history, which tells me that they're preparing financially to make the jump. The school has been denying the claims, but everything points to it being damage control in light of the players getting out ahead of their process. 

why on earth would they join OVC instead of MAC?  The regional alignment is awful...

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9 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

why on earth would they join OVC instead of MAC?  The regional alignment is awful...

Money and ability. A move to FCS is already going to double their scholarships for football alone. FBS would tack on another 20. Also, I don't believe you can receive an invitation from an FBS conference without having first competed in FCS.

9 minutes ago, gvsusean said:

Not to mention the stadium is too small…

The stadium would be too small for FBS, but not FCS. I'm sure, though, that a move would lead to a stadium renewal and addition of maybe an extra 10,000 seats. Just an assumption on my part, though. They already go way beyond the current max of 10,000 seats when playing a local team like Ferris. A 20,000 seat stadium when you sometimes draw 16,000+ would be a logical move.

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11 minutes ago, GR_Urbanist said:

I cannot reveal my source, but the story is not fiction, but has caused friction with some faculty that are not sold on the idea.

I'm sure. With Division I status may come a change in academic philosophy toward being more of a research institution than they are currently.

With this move, Grand Rapids could begin hosting NCAA Division I tournaments. The Van Andel Arena would be the logical choice with GVSU being the host institution. This could have quite the economic impact on the area if that ends up happening.

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6 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

I wonder if there are other GLIAC schools making this move with GVSU.  It would be challenging to have 100% of away games be so far away for fans, and disappointing for the rivalries to all disappear...

I could see Wayne State having the money and size to do it. They're currently the highest paid university in Michigan by the state. I don't see Ferris State or SVSU having the financial ability to pull it off. Ferris' D1 hockey program already costs them a small fortune.

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7 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

I wonder if there are other GLIAC schools making this move with GVSU.  It would be challenging to have 100% of away games be so far away for fans, and disappointing for the rivalries to all disappear...

You mean the football team would stop getting its butt kicked by Ferris year after year?

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Just now, cstonesparty said:

Yep. The damage control denial. All while saying the GLIAC is on life support, Division II is a dying fruit, the "entertaining looking at some possibilities." It's happening. They just don't have the logistics fully ironed out yet and the news broke prior to their set timeline of announcement. 

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6 minutes ago, GRLaker said:

Yep. The damage control denial. All while saying the GLIAC is on life support, Division II is a dying fruit, the "entertaining looking at some possibilities." It's happening. They just don't have the logistics fully ironed out yet and the news broke prior to their set timeline of announcement. 

This kind of begs the question of WSU... they've got to be making same calculations and looking at their options...

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54 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

This kind of begs the question of WSU... they've got to be making same calculations and looking at their options...

Seems logical. A large state university in the heart of Detroit and a large state university in the heart of the Grand Rapids metro area. Both could do well for themselves with the increased money. 

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3 hours ago, GRLaker said:

According to interviews with football recruits committed to GVSU, the coaches have been telling them GVSU is moving up to Division I with football competing in the Ohio Valley Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) by 2023. GVSU's athletic department has hired a donor relations director for the first time in school history, which tells me that they're preparing financially to make the jump. The school has been denying the claims, but everything points to it being damage control in light of the players getting out ahead of their process. 

The question I have is where do they park their other sports if only football goes to the OVC? Horizon League? I can see a rivalry with Oakland University and Detroit Mercy in basketball and other sports if that is possible.  

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2 minutes ago, demhem said:

The question I have is where do they park their other sports if only football goes to the OVC? Horizon League? I can see a rivalry with Oakland University and Detroit Mercy in basketball and other sports if that is possible.  

Horizon League does seem to be the rumor.

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2 hours ago, cstonesparty said:

why on earth would they join OVC instead of MAC?  The regional alignment is awful...

They could reasonably compete for a national championship in FCS within a short period of time (see North Dakota State that used to be a GVSU rival in D-2). The MAC is just a doormat in FBS. 

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I doubt Wayne State would make that transition, not sure it would be worth it for them.  It would have to compete with U of M and EMU for the same local attention.   I've been wondering if/when Grand Valley would ever do this.   It would be awesome if it comes to fruition.  Stepping up to FCS vis the Ohio Valley Conference makes sense.   Even though the MAC  is one of the lowest tier leagues in the bowl subdivision, the jump in recruiting and money needed for facilities would just be too much I think.    Some schools jump up to the highest tier(FBS) right away but they typically struggle.      Though if they could find some big boosters and build a stadium downtown it would be a pretty big deal for the GR area.  

GR has to be one of the largest metro's without a D1 school.  Technically WMU is in the media market but it doesn't draw large interest from a huge swath of it.  A D1 school in GR would have a better chance of tapping into that radio/tv market $.

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2 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

I cannot reveal my source, but the story is not fiction, but has caused friction with some faculty that are not sold on the idea.

Is that what is holding this up? At one time I was on the Tim Selgo "let's keep GVSU D2 bandwagon," but D1 FCS in the right conference could be a real benefit to the university, IMO. 

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5 minutes ago, demhem said:

Is that what is holding this up? At one time I was on the Tim Selgo "let's keep GVSU D2 bandwagon," but D1 FCS in the right conference could be a real benefit to the university, IMO. 

I've always been under the impression that the institution has been historically opposed to the idea from the folks I knew.  I also know other schools in D2 don't have a lot of love lost for GVSU when it comes to sports programs.  They pretty much dominate almost every smaller interest sport due to the shear size of the student population.  There aren't to many athletic departments with 25k students competing at such a low level. 

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1 minute ago, MJLO said:

I've always been under the impression that the institution has been historically opposed to the idea from the folks I knew.  I also know other schools in D2 don't have a lot of love lost for GVSU when it comes to sports programs.  They pretty much dominate almost every smaller interest sport due to the shear size of the student population.  There aren't to many athletic departments with 25k students competing at such a low level. 

Right. I can imagine that a lot of smaller D2 schools don't care to compete with GVSU because of their dominance in most of the sports that they participate in. 

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7 hours ago, demhem said:

Right. I can imagine that a lot of smaller D2 schools don't care to compete with GVSU because of their dominance in most of the sports that they participate in. 

The GLIAC has lost 8 football playing schools since its height in the 2010s. Hillsdale, Ashland, Findlay, Walsh, Lake Erie, Ohio Dominican, Tiffin, and soon to be Northwood are all small private colleges that went to form their own conference. They couldn’t compete financially with the big publics in Michigan.

Conference leadership has done nothing to solve the problem. Hence GV’s current predicament. 

7 hours ago, MJLO said:

I doubt Wayne State would make that transition, not sure it would be worth it for them.  It would have to compete with U of M and EMU for the same local attention.   I've been wondering if/when Grand Valley would ever do this.   It would be awesome if it comes to fruition.  Stepping up to FCS vis the Ohio Valley Conference makes sense.   Even though the MAC  is one of the lowest tier leagues in the bowl subdivision, the jump in recruiting and money needed for facilities would just be too much I think.    Some schools jump up to the highest tier(FBS) right away but they typically struggle.      Though if they could find some big boosters and build a stadium downtown it would be a pretty big deal for the GR area.  

GR has to be one of the largest metro's without a D1 school.  Technically WMU is in the media market but it doesn't draw large interest from a huge swath of it.  A D1 school in GR would have a better chance of tapping into that radio/tv market $.

I wonder if Grand Action 2.0 would get involved to make such a stadium happen.

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Keri Becker mentions not having an invite from a conference, so nothing is or can happen. The ‘invite’ is simply a formality. A conference won’t extend an invite without assurance of acceptance.  The Big Ten can invite Georgia, the number one football team right now, but there is no way they would accept. So no invite is made out of pre damage control. Just recently, Oklahoma and Texas announced an intent to move to the SEC, an invite came a week later, and acceptance a few days later after regents meetings. 

After acceptance it’s generally still a few years and millions of dollars in fees. There is a lot of movement on the horizon spurred by the Texas, Oklahoma deal, but it likely won’t happen until 2024 or 25. Not sure how it works in DII, but it’s a  long ordeal with the big boys. 

I have long thought Grand Valley would be a fantastic fit in the Ohio Valley/Horizon. But this could also just be coach’s blowing smoke trying to will it to happen. 

Also, when the football stadium was renovated last I thought it was reported that it could be expanded easily to 30k?

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6 minutes ago, droonus2000 said:

Keri Becker mentions not having an invite from a conference, so nothing is or can happen. The ‘invite’ is simply a formality. A conference won’t extend an invite without assurance of acceptance.  The Big Ten can invite Georgia, the number one football team right now, but there is no way they would accept. So no invite is made out of pre damage control. Just recently, Oklahoma and Texas announced an intent to move to the SEC, an invite came a week later, and acceptance a few days later after regents meetings. 

After acceptance it’s generally still a few years and millions of dollars in fees. There is a lot of movement on the horizon spurred by the Texas, Oklahoma deal, but it likely won’t happen until 2024 or 25. Not sure how it works in DII, but it’s a  long ordeal with the big boys. 

I have long thought Grand Valley would be a fantastic fit in the Ohio Valley/Horizon. But this could also just be coach’s blowing smoke trying to will it to happen. 

Also, when the football stadium was renovated last I thought it was reported that it could be expanded easily to 30k?

Something is definitely stirring over there. I'm getting the "I can't talk about it" type of response from some connections I have at GVSU. 

They wouldn't necessarily need to upgrade Lubbers right away to be in FCS. It isn't far off capacity-wise from what most FCS schools have, and may be better than quite a few FCS stadiums already. Having said that, their average attendance far exceeds the official capacity through standing room only and lawn seating. I think you're right though, I remember hearing that the design could handle 20-30k at full buildout. 

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6 minutes ago, cstonesparty said:

Geographic fit is my question about OVC… closest school in the league is almost 350 miles from G.R.  It’s really a TN/KY league.

120675B5-7DCC-4F34-B8C4-54078FFC5834.jpeg

The OVC is losing Austin Peay and Belmont, so I'm wondering if GVSU isn't their only target for additions. 

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