A new home for ODU
Sun Belt membership should benefit both the university and Hampton Roads
OIt’s not just the schools which benefit from a high-profile program — through alumni enthusiasm, athletic donations that serve other sports and even an increase in student applications when teams do well — but restaurants, hotels, caterers, retail outlets and other businesses, where fans spend their money.
ld Dominion University traveled a difficult road at breakneck speed from when restarting its mothballed football program in 2007 to the packed stadium that celebrated a win over Virginia Tech about a decade later.
Now the Monarchs appear poised for another, unexpected step in that journey: leaving Conference USA to join the Sun Belt Conference in a few years’ time.
That’s exciting for the ODU community, of course, but also for the city of Norfolk and the wider region. Success in this endeavor — and finding comfort in a new conference affiliation — could offer broad benefit, for the university and Hampton Roads, that cannot be ignored.
For better or worse, college football is the engine driving the athletics budgets of numerous schools across the nation. A 2020 USA TODAY Sports analysis of schools’ financial reports to the NCAA found that the 50-plus public schools in the so-called “Power Five” conferences generate at least $4.1 billion in fiscal-year revenue for the athletics departments, an average of more than $78 million per school.
The commonwealth has two such schools, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Tech’s move there in 2004 involved a lot of heavy lifting by state officials, who believed it would serve the interests of the whole state.
That’s not just speculation. A 2015 economic analysis study found, “Virginia Tech football facilitates $46.9 million of annual spending in the [New River Valley MSA and the Roanoke Valley MSA], from which 189 jobs are created or sustained annually and $11 million funnels into households through workers’ wages.”
It’s not just the schools which benefit from a high-profile program — through alumni enthusiasm, athletic donations that serve other sports and even an increase in student applications when teams do well — but restaurants, hotels, caterers, retail outlets and other businesses, where fans spend their money.
In restarting the Monarchs program, ODU officials didn’t expect to reach that level of revenue, for the school or the community, in short order. But through smart moves, thoughtful investment and steady progress, there’s little question Old Dominion could grow something substantial and exciting in Hampton Roads.
In fact, it’s almost hard to believe what’s already transpired: getting a program off the ground; the 2012 decision to move up from playing in the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football
Bowl Subdivision as a part of Conference
USA; the 2016 win in the Bahamas Bowl; and the fast-paced construction of a $70 million stadium that opened in 2019.
Expectations of broad benefit have also come to fruition, as the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 season unfortunately demonstrated.
It wasn’t only the school’s athletic department which took a financial hit, but the wider community as well.
One estimate put per-game economic impact of Monarchs football between $100,000 and $300,000, meaning the loss of a season would cost the local economy about $1.2 million. Those numbers are just ballpark figures, and ODU Athletic Director Wood Selig told a Pilot reporter he believes they were “grossly understated.”
How would Sun Belt membership affect that? The conference realignment being discussed could see the Monarchs in a division with James Madison (moving up from FCS football, as ODU did), Marshall, Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina and other regional rivals.
That would make it easier for opposing fans to visit and for Monarchs fans to travel. It would mean lower travel costs for non-revenue sports, which is no small thing for those writing the athletic department budget.
And it should mean an opportunity to compete for titles and even national attention, despite not being in the Power Five. Coastal Carolina, for instance, reached
No. 12 in the polls last year during its 11-1 season.
Some might dismiss this obsession with college football landscape as frivolous and unimportant, but these are serious decisions with serious implications, on campus and off. A home in the Sun Belt would be appealing for ODU — and therefore for the region as well.