Gannon, Ursuline, the GMAC, and the realignment lawsuit that could reshape small college sports

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Cool update on our end, as yet another school has committed to Extra Points Library. Welcome, UW-Green Bay!

Thanks to Extra Points Library, UW-Green Bay athletics staffers can now access our database of over 14,000 PDFs, athletic department budgets, vendor agreements, and more. If you want to turbocharge your athletic department (or newsroom, law school, consulting practice, etc), check out Extra Points Library today.

It’s been this way for a few years now, but 2026 has really felt like a year of the College Sports Lawsuit. Between regular legal battles over athlete eligibility, the legality of various compensation regulations, the enforceability of conference GOR agreements, and more, it feels like you can’t go three days on the college sports business beat without having to head to a courthouse or pull up a lawsuit filing.

But not every important college sports legal battle centers around seven-figure-earning athletes and major conference media deals in the billions. There’s another conflict, one involving much smaller D-II schools and zero media dollars, that could have major impacts down the line across D-II, D-III and the NAIA.

Last year, Gannon University, a D-II Catholic school in Erie, Pennsylvania, decided to take a bold step to solidify their financial health. They decided to acquire Ursuline College, another D-II Catholic school just outside of Cleveland. The two boards approved the agreement, and now Gannon operates both campuses. The two campuses share one president, and students who graduate from either campus will get a Gannon degree.

But while the two campuses share a president and a great deal of centralized resources, leaders at Ursuline and Gannon wanted to continue to operate independent athletic departments. Both Gannon University president Dr. Walter Iwanenko Jr. and Ursuline athletic director Cindy McKnight confirmed to me that the NCAA approved this arrangement. Gannon’s current athletic conference, the PSAC, does not object either.

But Ursuline’s current athletic conference, the G-MAC, is not okay with this plan. The conference plans to exclude Ursuline from the league after the 2026-2027 season.

Earlier this month, the two colleges sued the conference. And since these won’t be the last NCAA institutions to merge in the near future, what happens with this lawsuit could impact small college athletics across the country.