Pac-12 to sponsor sand volleyball, WCC too
(see update on bottom of thread. thanks for the help Rayson)
The Pac-12 announced that sand volleyball will become an officially sponsored sport beginning next season, making it the conference’s 23rd sport.
The Pac-12 becomes the first major conference to sponsor sand volleyball. Eight member institutions currently sponsor the sport, well above the conference threshold of six teams to consider sport sponsorship.
Also, and volleyball will have a Pac-12 championship in the spring of 2016. The format of the championship will be based on the to-be-established NCAA automatic qualification requirements.
Will see how long until the Big West does so. only 4 of the 9 schools offer the sport currently.
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The Pac-12 understands the marketability of the sport and is moving fast to capitalize. That’s smart on their part. As for the other western conferences, neither the Big West nor the WCC has the minimum six participating teams to sponsor the sport (I know of Hawaii, LBSU, CSUN and Cal Poly in the Big West and Pepperdine, Pacific, LMU and St. Mary’s in the WCC). So I suppose to get things going the Big West could invite the four WCC schools to be affiliate members in sand volleyball. Or another option would be organize under the MPSF banner, and also accommodate some of the other western non-Pac-12 teams that will be looking for a conference home for awhile, e.g. San Jose State, Boise State, CSU Bakersfield, Sacramento State and Grand Canyon.
Cindy: just to let you know, none of current blogs for any of you writers are being updated on the hawaii warrior world site.
As you suggest, either combine under MPSF or offer affiliate membership to the two schools that really want to get into the Big West: Sac State and Bakersfield.
Both schools have made inquiries but have backed off when learning that they wouldn’t get the Hawaii travel subsidy.
the Pac-12 does understand the marketability but also have the money and the TV network to do it, unlike the Big West, WCC and MWC. That SC won the championship helped the decision. that it will now be an NCAA sport helped the decision.
1) The WCC currently has 6 sand volleyball teams. You forgot USF and Santa Clara. They also just voted to add sand volleyball as a conference sponsored sport for the upcoming academic year and like the PAC-12 they will have a conference championship in 2016.
http://www.wccsports.com/sports/w-volley/spec-rel/060815aaa.html
The Big West need to convince UCSB and another current member to add a sand volleyball team.
thanks for the update. Surprised UCSB doesn’t have a sand program. The Big West still could take affiliate members in sand. GCU, which is a program on the rise but still DII, in the PacWest for most sports, MIVA for men’s volleyball. would be a possibility was would be Sac State and Bakersfield.
2. thanks. will let the web guys know.
http://hawaiiwarriorworld.com/?p=31446
new thread up for Wednesday