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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/Adminsneed2Chill on 2026-03-24 13:19:19+00:00.
Original Title: Since 2020, 8 schools have moved up from FCS to FBS, spending an ever-increasing amount of money to do so. 19 schools have done so since 2011. Two more are in the works. What are these schools seeing about the future of the FCS that the rest of us are not?
- Sacramento State: 2026
- North Dakota State: 2026
- Delaware: 2025
- Missouri State: 2025
- Kennesaw State: 2024
- Jacksonville State: 2023
- Sam Houston State: 2023
- James Madison: 2022
- Liberty: 2018
- Coastal Carolina: 2017
- UNC-Charlotte: 2015
- Appalachian State: 2014
- Georgia Southern: 2014
- Georgia State: 2013
- Old Dominion: 2013
- South Alabama: 2012
- Texas State: 2012
- UMass: 2012
- UTSA: 2012
Historically, a team aspiring to move up required an average attendance of over 15,000 per game annually, a one-time payment of $5,000 to the NCAA, and an invite from an existing FBS conference, on top of meeting the new scholarship obligations of the FBS (and potentially new conference). That changed in 2024, when new rules went into effect, scrapping the attendance requirement (that had never been followed by FBS members anyways) in favor of raising the “entrance fee” to $5,000,000. Delaware and Missouri State would be the first to pay that when they were invited to C-USA.
North Dakota State and Sacramento State would not only pay that $5 million, but also additional fees to the tune of a combined $40 million to their respective conferences, along with forgoing any media distributions from the current media deal cycle (one might argue these are so high specifically because they are off-cycle moves, that necessarily cut a figurative media rights pie into smaller pieces). UC Davis has a standing invite from the Mountain West, and Tarleton State has made its intentions to move up to C-USA and Sun Belt (and WAC and FBS writ large) clear.
The cost of moving up is also moving up - exponentially so. Yet teams are still willing to pay it. Why?
For each individual school you have a series of questions you need to ask. As things increasingly polarize, the answers will similarly become a binary, with no room for a middle class.
- “does your school emphasize athletics, or does it not?”
- “why is your school emphasizing athletics?”
- “if your school does emphasize athletics, what is your school and its donor base willing to pay or give up?”
- “Is what your school is currently paying right now satisfying or fulfilling the ‘why’ in question 2?”
I think we can reasonably answer the first two questions. Who cares, and why do they care are questions that can be answered with public knowledge from the outside looking in. The last two questions must be individual for each school and no one but those whose doors are closed can give us that answer, and they are subject to change in a way the first two questions are not.
I am primarily raising these questions for the benefit of fans of South Dakota State, Montana and Montana State fans, who now have two peer schools that have broken the 30-year proverbial seal in the Western US in which no team outside of Texas has moved up since Idaho and Boise State in 1996. I do think that this line of questioning is being asked in athletic departments across the country, in Villanova, Illinois State, Eastern Washington, Stephen F. Austin, etc. etc. I am sure other schools, like Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and South Dakota, are extremely concerned about the downstream effects of these moves, but the three schools I listed have been identified as the other FCS powers as the subdivision has hollowed out (App State, Georgia Southern, James Madison types) or otherwise declined (CAA’s regression from a peer of the Big Sky and MVFC to hemorrhaging members and pillaging the Big South and MEAC). But for our questions, we know those three schools care.
For the second question, college athletics at its highest level generally serves two purposes for its host university: alumni engagement and brand recognition for new student recruitment. Alumni Engagement is readily apparent: the investment of resources into football and basketball as entertainment and community for alumni also keeps bringing them back on to campus. A good fundraiser uses this to tap into their nostalgia and good memories, and encourages them to give back to other aspects of the university as well as athletics.
Apocryphally, I have heard from the NDSU fans in my life that donors “closed the checkbook” until NDSU moved up to the FBS. This was an existential move to keep alumni engaged. Alumni engagement is also the value proposition for Sacramento State - to shed its commuter school image and chase an identity of an “HBCU without the H” to recapture former alumni and local businesses (If you are unfamiliar with the life and times of Dr. J. Luke Wood, and his vision for Sacramento State, I recommend doing some research. Charitably, the man is an enigma). But for other schools, so long as the gameday experience is a positive for the alumni, the FBS label does not inherently add anything, and it may even be a drawback as C-USA, Sun Belt, and MAC regularly play weeknight games in October and November. And for our three schools, Montana, Montana State, and South Dakota State, all three are well-known for having a fantastic gameday experience that draws in their alumni, which might actually be hurt by a move to FBS.
On the other hand, brand recognition for new student recruitment (AKA the Flutie effect) is also apparent, but it’s far less tangible and controllable. The more you win, theoretically, the more eyeballs you have on you because of the increased publicity. But publicity cannot be manufactured by the schools themselves. It requires the media to devote attention to the successes of its athletes to create the intended recognition during the application cycle. Given the current state of college sports media (wherein legacy media has more or less consolidated under ESPN’s control), this is harder and harder to come by.
Brand recognition has also become increasingly important in the pursuit of student retention in the face of the “demographic cliff.” Put simply: The “demographic cliff” is coming for many smaller colleges and universities. Basically college enrollment peaked in 2010, and has declined every year since. And given the collapse in birth rates post-financial crisis that never truly recovered, and the decline in college enrollment among younger men specifically, colleges are going to be competing over a shrinking group of applicants for years to come.
Football, as an avenue for brand awareness, and attracting out of state students, is a Hail Mary for many of these colleges. For the schools subject to this post, it’s not that they will shutter their doors. But they may significantly contract and cut programs and shutter departments. The out-of-state issue is really pressing for Montana and Montana State given how much of their student bodies come from California, Washington, or elsewhere (roughly half, last I looked). I get that football isn’t a requirement for those two to recruit out-of-state students, since the scenery and recreational opportunities do a lot of heavy lifting, but a fear that these places end up looking like, say, Vermont, athletically speaking, if they are on the wrong side of the line is not an irrational fear.
The alarmist in me thinks that the move-ups since COVID are signaling that the gate is closing for aspirational programs, and if you are not taking action to move up, then your program is not aspirational. This many teams moving up, especially since COVID, seems to signal a *de facto* relegation for South Dakota State, Montana, and Montana State, and also their conference rivals. One might even argue that the losses of teams is made up for by the move-ups from Division II. Another might reasonably notice and argue that Division II moveups would precisely prove the point of *de facto* relegation. Since 2020, the following teams moved up:
2026: Chicago State
2025: UTRGV
2024: West Georgia, Mercyhurst
2022: Lindenwood, Stonehill, Texas A&M Commerce/East Texas A&M
2021: St. Thomas
2020: Dixie State/Utah Tech, Tarleton State
Notwithstanding Tarleton State being one of the schools most anxious to move past the FCS purgatory it believes it is in, who in this list is going to fill the loss in the subdivision left behind by James Madison, Sam Houston State, or NDSU? I think anyone who has followed conference realignment over the last 40 years can tell you that you cannot replace the loss of a good program. Arguably the only conference for whom replacement has worked is the Sun Belt, made up of and realizing the value of many of the very same programs the FCS is now missing.
The schools that have left the FCS seem to demonstrate that the difference in brand recognition from being FCS vs being Division II is marginal at best. It is a common complaint among educated FCS fans that casuals simply do not see FCS as part of Division 1. To wit, Montana State, the most television-visible FCS program in the country, appeared on linear TV just five times in a full season: three appearances came from a deep playoff run, one from being on Oregon’s nonconference schedule, and one from the Big Sky’s TV deal. Meanwhile an 0-12 UMass team appeared on national television six times simply by existing in the MAC.
And the schools that are moving up to FCS are not going…
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