by In recent times, it seems that college sports — particularly football and basketball — have been almost entirely driven by money when it comes to decision making and the spontaneous changes within the NCAA’s structure. Whether it be NIL, TV rights, or conference realignment, college sports are rapidly evolving for both the good and the bad, but there is one huge predicament that is being glossed over by many of the officials and committee members who are fully on board with the realignment process: travel.
While it’s an issue that a lot us fans and spectators are already conscious and fully aware of, the impact of excessive travel distances in an athletic program’s full season, especially for West Coast teams now competing in an East Coast conference, could be detrimental to a certain degree.
New ACC members Cal and Stanford (estimated 14,017 total travel miles in 2024) are prime example of this.
The Golden Bears are playing in four 4,000+ round-trip mile games this season (Auburn, Florida State, Pitt, and Wake Forest) to go along with a 2,954 round-trip mile game at SMU.
If you turn to the new-look Big Ten, Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA will be facing the same possible issues travel-wise. A trip between Oregon and Rutgers is more than 2,400 air miles. A trip between USC and Maryland is more than 2,300 air miles. One of those matchups is happening in 2025 and the other is happening this October.
Fortunately, none of these six teams mentioned have a brutal traveling slate in consecutive weeks aside from Stanford who travels to Syracuse, Clemson, and South Bend in a four-week span starting in late September.
This also enforces a huge reset for the diehard traveling fan as longer trips just means more money out of pocket and more time sacrificed on the road. TV money is more significant here, right?
This goes well beyond just football too. Think about other sports, such as volleyball, soccer, or baseball. Sports where teams essentially have to play twice as many games as football and are forced to travel on the road even more depending on the program’s schedule.
For instance, the Washington women’s volleyball team has a stretch in early October where they travel to Iowa City (Friday game) to Madison (Sunday game) and then back home that Sunday night. The Huskies have to travel home on a Sunday evening THREE times that season. So let’s not forget that they are students too and some have Monday classes as well as midterms, final exams, two-to-three-hour labs, etc. That can be downright draining on both a mental and physical level. TV money is more important though.
OK, so what was the alternative option for these programs mentioned? For teams like Cal and Stanford, merging into a conference much closer to its own proximity, like the Mountain West or even the Big 12, or pulling a Washington State/Oregon State and becoming its own “league”. Better yet, the two programs could have temporarily became an FBS-Independent (at least in football) to be able to have a more favorable schedule until realignment fizzles out and conferences continue to adjust over the next few years (assuming they do). Oh wait, I got it! How about the NCAA just keeps the Pac-12 the way it was!
Regardless, at the end of the day, it’s really all about money and staying in tact on the financial front when it comes to college sports. Hopefully these new conference schedules and excessive traveling doesn’t tax the student athletes’ mental and physical health to a serious extent. It makes sense from a financial and television rights perspective, but the product of the NCAA (the students) should be be the top priority. However, for us fans and, most importantly, the coaches and athletes themselves, it’s a matter of becoming relative with the inevitable and embracing this new concept over time.
The term “road warrior” has never applied more for several of these west coast programs in today’s era of collegiate athletics.