Yeah, it would seem like a deal could be worked out. The SEC plays very few of the 88 (or whatever) sports approved by the NCAA. It is, after all, a pain in the arse to run all the bullshite sports that they do in places like Stanford and UCLA. Still, why can't the SEC just add an additional female sport, and then strike some deal with the NCAA? It's obvious that somebody is being incredibly obstinate.

The hockey thing is pretty unusual, as it is truly a regional sport (unlike baseball), and thus only pertains to about 8 major sports programs: Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Boston College, Connecticut, & Notre Dame.

For these 8 schools, hockey is a major sport on par with basketball.

Then again, in the SEC, we're almost to the point where you can say that 6 of the schools are "baseball #2" schools (LSU, Ole Miss, SCAR, MSU, Auburn, & Arkansas), where annual baseball attendance usually outpaces basketball attendance.

Really, I think there's almost a paradoxical situation where baseball is given too few scholarships, for the very reason that it's played in so many schools out of long-standing traditions.

All 6 major conferences have at least 10 baseball teams (Syracuse, Wisconsin, Iowa State, & Colorado, are the only major schools in the country that don't play), and if the NCAA upped the scholarship allowance, baseball would be cut at a few more schools who are already on the fence about whether they should be playing baseball or not.

Ironically, then, baseball gets lower average attendance than it would, for the very same reason that allows it to be played at over 300 D1 schools (perhaps more than it really should).

So, in a way, it's just a Catch-22.

But only to a certain extent. I still side with Ron Polk on this--in the general scheme of things, the NCAA scholarship limit for baseball is totally fricking ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure that the 12 teams in the SEC alone topped the top 12 teams in the nation in hockey in terms of annual attendance this year, and that no sport can touch baseball's attendance for the playoffs, which was over 800k this year (and only basketball generates more playoffs revenue).