Olympic Sports with No Conference Regular Season?

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Saw this on the AAC Board and found it interesting. Troy Dannen is quoted. There was no reaction on the AAC board, which surprised me because this would be kind of a big thing.

Colleges target new schedule models to save money

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Jour...ravel.aspx

“I grew up in a time when conferences were regionally based,” AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco said. “But that’s not the case anymore, so we’ve got to look at doing things differently.”

Aresco’s league is focused on creating a more efficient regular season rather than restructuring the postseason. The American’s schools are studying a new model for sports outside of football and basketball that would enable AAC members to schedule in-season games on their own, as if they were operating as independents.

There would be no regular-season AAC games unless schools specifically arranged them, which they would be free to do. The freedom would allow schools to craft a more regionally friendly slate, cutting travel expenses.

The AAC still would conduct postseason tournaments to crown a champion.

ECU’s baseball schedule, flush with in-state road trips, provides an example for how the Pirates could keep teams closer to home and travel by bus rather than plane in the regular season. ECU also cut men’s and women’s swimming and diving and men’s and women’s tennis last week to save money.

Trips by air can cost in the ballpark of $30,000 for commercial flights and $75,000 or more for charter, compared to $5,000-$10,000 to charter a bus. Some schools fly commercial on the front end and charter home to get the athletes back on campus in a more timely manner.

School administrators already are concerned about the viability of commercial air because airlines have reduced flight schedules for now.

“The geographic spread of our league in these times really calls for something other than the traditional model,” Tulane Athletic Director Troy Dannen said.

The American has been discussing a new regular-season model for about three weeks, so the concepts are still in the infancy stage. Given that many schedules already are set for 2020-21, new scheduling formats might not take effect until next year.