It is official. As of 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, Saint Louis
University accepted the Atlantic 10 Conference’s invitation to the
A-10 as their 13th member.
“I think this is a great partnership,” said University President
Lawrence Biondi, S.J. “Winning on the field is just as important as
winning in the classroom, and the Atlantic 10 gives us the best
opportunity to succeed in both.”
SLU’s move to the Atlantic 10 was set in motion over the span of
the past few months, starting with the Atlantic Coast Conference’s
invitation for the University of Miami and Virginia Tech
University, and later for Boston College, to leave the Big East
Conference and join the ACC, which all three accepted. This left a
void in the Big East, which was filled when Marquette University,
University of Cincinnati, University of Louisville, University of
South Florida and DePaul University accepted the Big East’s
invitation to join and left Conference USA.
Keeping the domino effect intact, C-USA grabbed Southern
Methodist University, Rice University and the University of Tulsa
from the Western Athletic Conference and Marshall University from
the Mid-Atlantic Conference. This move left SLU and the University
of North Carolina-Charlotte as the only schools without a football
team in C-USA.
“Football drove this whole thing, starting with the ACC and
moving down,” said Doug Woolard, SLU director of Athletics.
The shuffle of teams left SLU in a rather precarious situation.
It could remain in C-USA, even though the focus of the conference
had drastically shifted from basketball to football and baseball,
or it could look elsewhere, such as at the Missouri Valley
Conference or the Horizon League, both of which had already
extended offers to SLU. However, a third possibility emerged: the
Atlantic 10.
When SLU was still evaluating their options, Biondi, Woolard,
Provost Joe Weixlmann and their staff put together a criteria they
wanted met in the conference SLU would end up being in, be it
staying in C-USA or moving on to somewhere else.
“We put together a group of core values that we were looking
for. What we found in the A-10 was a group of like schools: four
Jesuit schools, eight Catholic schools and all were schools that
value academics,” Weixlmann said. “This is a terrific move not only
athletically, but academically.”
The core values SLU was looking for were strong academics,
strong athletic competition, finances that were the same, if not
better, than C-USA and better exposure for their athletes.
But while SLU happened to find a great fit in the A-10, the A-10
did not set out at the onset of all of the conference dealings to
add a team.
“When the landscape of college athletics changed, the A-10 did
not have to change, but we saw a chance to get stronger with SLU
and we took it,” said A-10 commissioner Linda Bruno.
The move still had a few kinks to be worked out, and so both
parties looked outside for some help and found it in former NCAA
President Cedric Dempsey.
“He helped navigate the waters throughout this process,” Woolard
said.
As far as the base criteria, or the “core values” that SLU had
set out to find in a possible suitor, they believe that each has
been more than filled by the A-10.
With respect to academics, the A-10 has more institutions like
SLU than any other conference. According to Woolard SLU had set out
originally to find the conference that fit best, without having the
issue forced, as it was this year, then the A-10 would have most
likely been the ideal conference. In fact, of all of the
student-athletes who competed in the A-10 last year, 1,800 of them
had a 3.0 GPA or better.
The competition level in the reconfigured C-USA, that is the
skill level of the teams in two years when the conferences are
re-settled, would have been far less appealing for a predominantly
basketball and soccer school. However, with the Atlantic 10 and
their focus on sports aside from football, SLU found an ideal fit.
As far as the soccer rankings go, if the new A-10 existed now,
there would be six teams in the RPI 100, compared with just three
in the re-configured C-USA for men’s soccer. In women’s soccer,
there would also be six teams in RPI 100 in the A-10 and only two
in C-USA.
From a financial standpoint, the considerations that had to be
evaluated were television revenues and travel expenditures. The
A-10, which now has numerous schools in Philadelphia and New York,
as well as schools playing in Washington D.C., Boston and
Cincinnati provides ample opportunities for large viewing audiences
in very big markets, and, as such, has larger television revenues
for its teams, due to more national television games than C-USA and
the A-10 also has its own Emmy Award-winning syndicated television
network, the Atlantic 10 Television Network, which this season will
air 35 men’s basketball games and 10 women’s games. The network
reaches more than 21.7 million homes.
The travel considerations were similar to those that SLU has in
C-USA because both conferences will require a large amount of
travel. In fact, in the A-10, because most of the teams are located
in large cities, there will not be much excess travel beyond the
flights to and from St. Louis and the destination, unlike C-USA,
which often required bus travel on top of the time spent in the
air.
The final core value, exposure, was fulfilled using many of the
same considerations as the financial requirement. Because SLU will
be seen in more markets and bigger markets, the programs will be
able to recruit athletes on more of a national level, and the
athletes, themselves, will also gain more exposure on a national
level. The new A-10 will now be represented in seven of the 30
largest markets in America.
“Realignment was not something initiated, but it turned out to
be very beneficial,” Woolard said.
