Why Southern Should Leave the SWAC

Last week, sources confirmed that Hampton University plans to leave the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) to join the Big South Conference. The MEAC serves alongside the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) as one of two Division I-Football Championship Subdivision (DI-FCS) conferences within the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) that have only HBCU member institutions.
This comes on the heels of Savannah State University, another MEAC school, reclassifying to a Division II athletic program in April. The athletic director of the school recognized the loss in publicity that comes with being a Division II school, but admitted the costs that came with being a Division I program were too expensive.
What if Southern University began to have a similar epiphany?
The SWAC has consistently remained among the bottom feeders in terms of revenue, despite college athletics being a multibillion dollar industry. It has caused the conference to scratch the SWAC Football Championship in hopes that participating in the Celebration Bowl will pay off.
The Celebration Bowl could be considered ‘the Black College Football National Championship’, consisting of the champions from the SWAC and MEAC conferences squaring off to begin the college football postseason.
This type of bowl game is monumental for HBCUs, but although each conference is guaranteed a $1 million payout, more than half of that money goes to the two teams competing on the field. Technically speaking, if Southern’s football team headed to the Celebration Bowl six straight years, we could forget having this conversation.
Although it gives football teams something to play for, there is no ‘Celebration Bowl’-esque competition for the other sports and programs involved with the athletics department. With the added expenses that come with the other men’s and women’s sports, SU cannot afford to miss out on any checks. Also, there is no word on if the bowl game would even continue after its six-year contract with ESPN expires.
Just saying, Southern University joining the Southland Conference is a move that makes the most sense. The conference is still Division I-FCS, meaning the basketball team would still qualify for March Madness, and the football team could make the (FCS) playoffs.
All of Southern’s sports teams would be able to participate in the different conference.
With this move, the level of competition would increase across the board.
According to the Associated Press, the Southland Conference football is one of the top FCS leagues in America, compared to the 11th ranked SWAC. The Southern Jaguars are capable of competing with anybody, and this move would justify it.
Travel expenses would decrease, since half of the current 13 participating schools are located in Louisiana. (A penny saved is a penny earned.) Adding Southern would bring the conference total to 14 teams, allowing championship games to decide who the best team is, compared to calculating records.
Publicity would definitely increase, since a broader racial demographic would be exposed to a historically black university. More games would be broadcasted on television via ESPN, Fox Sports Southwest, or Cox Sports Television (CST), along with the Southland Digital Network, which is accessible via the Internet, Apple or Android devices. This could lead to gains in in-state recruitment and student enrollment.
Now of course, the Bayou Classic is the Bayou Classic. No one wants that rivalry to end. No one wanted the Michigan-Notre Dame or Texas-Texas A&M rivalry games to end either. The storied history of these programs will be forever remembered. At the end of the day, if alumni and patrons were just as passionate about financially supporting the athletic department as they were making sure Southern plays Grambling in New Orleans every Saturday following Thanksgiving, we could also forget having this conversation.
Right now, Southern athletics are not where they should be financially, and the problems will only get worse unless the Jaguar Nation rises up and supports in any way possible. Until then, if the SWAC is contributing to the deficit instead of setting up the athletics department for success, leaving the conference has to remain an option to be considered.