MAILBAG: Why (or why not) would a school consider non-scholarship FB, why airline travel sucks, and more:

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

I'm working on a bunch of different newsletters at the moment...a reported NIL story, a licensing story, a realignment story and an academic literature story, and I think everything needs just a little more time in the reporting oven.

And by that, I mean that I need a little more time for people to call me back.

This means, in my humble opinion, that now is a great time for a reader mailbag. As always, you are welcome to send along questions in my DMs, or via email at Matt @ ExtraPointsMB.com.

Let's get to it.

This is a fluid situation, but as best as I understand it, Chicago State's senior administration still prefers for the school to join an HBCU-centered conference, like the MEAC. The MEAC had an opportunity to add Chicago State earlier in 2022 and declined, but the school hopes that perhaps they could get another crack at a later date.

There's some potential with Chicago State, but they have significant hurdles in securing any conference membership. The school is not well-resourced and has struggled with stability in department leadership. The leagues that are closest to their footprint geographically, like the Horizon or MAC, have zero interest, and other leagues would require some combination of travel subsidies or new sport sponsorships, both of which might cost money that Chicago State doesn't have.

I know this...Chicago State doesn't want to be an independent program. Not only is it not financially and logistically sustainable over the long term, it might not even be allowed post Transformation Committee. But I don't expect anything to change on this front over the next few weeks.

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