Perhaps an equally interesting hypothetical is which schools would reject the opportunity to join the Ivy League today. I think several of the schools, even beyond the existing power-5 conference schools (Stanford, Duke, Vandy, NW, which would reject 100%) would reject the opportunity.
Chicago has made their identity on the rejection of big-time football. I don’t think they’d ever go back, nor would their alums let them.
Bowdoin already rejected the Ivy League once, didn’t it? Similarly, the other Amherst/Williams types have no interest in joining a league that would require that they grow their schools into something unimaginable.
MIT - so proudly focused on academic admissions? No way.
I wonder if those numbers were ever scrutinized.
Given how easily figures are shifted (“allocated”) into different buckets, based on what’s considered “academic”, “general”, etc. expense, or how amortization/construction costs for stadiums, etc., it would be quite possible for sports programs to “show” profits if that is the sought-after answer.
You forgot Gary Fencik. The Harvard TEs is a bit of an aberration, and I’d question the “star” label the article uses. And of course, Fitz is everybody’s favorite feel-good story. Overall, the speed and line play from P5 would be overwhelming for Ivy League squads. It would be ugly.
Gary Fencik. There’s a name from the past. He could lay them out. Like the can in the commercial and of all the accomplishments of the Ivies - Presidents, CEOs, diplomats, etc - there he is front and center (#45) in one of the great music videos of all time.
This assumes the P5 wants to join the Ivy League. I expect few, if any, would. Stanford was looking for a new home after the Pac 12 dissolved and recently joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. Given that Stanford joined an east coast conference, it seems distance to east coast for athletic events is manageable. However, if the Ivy League had invited Stanford to join instead of the Atlantic Coast Conference, I very much doubt Stanford would have accepted.
Stanford has a very different sports model than Ivy League colleges and wants to retain that model, particularly for football, which is the key revenue earning sport for Stanford. For example, Stanford’s net profit/loss by sport in a recent year is summarized below. Stanford does not want to drop down to Ivy League conference level, particularly for football. They also do not want to eliminate post-season bowl games, eliminate athletic scholarships, drop down to max of 10 games per season, etc. The Ivy League has an especially unique athletics program that apparently works well for the member colleges, but would not work well for most other colleges.
Football – $13 million net profit
Men’s Basketball – $2 million net profit
All Other Sports – Loss of $0 to $3 million (highest loss occurred in women’s basketball)
I agree, and in fact I am assuming a P5 would turn down any such invitation for the reasons you mentioned.
I’m just saying that any hypothetical matching would require the P5 to change their programs or the current Ivies to change theirs. Both rather unlikely.
In case anyone missed it, Duke beat Clemson last night. That’s what the Ivy League would be up against just in Duke, and Stanford football overall is significantly better than Duke.
The Patriot League (originally The Colonial League) was founded with the express purpose of providing football opponents for the Ivies. At the time, the original schools did not give athletic scholarships. They are also very selective schools with some overlap of applicant pools with the Ivies (Bucknell, BU, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lehigh, Army/Navy, previously Fordham, etc)
If the Ivy League were to expand, they wouldn’t be so pedestrian as to think within national boundaries. It might ruin their exclusivity! Plus, they can show up those conferences that think it’s a big deal to have people on both the east and west coast. For their one-upmanship, they’d want to go international to up their cachet. I’m thinking:
Cambridge
Oxford
St. Andrews
The Sorbonne
And since they don’t want to be considered European exclusivists, then they might add on:
U. of Tokyo
Tsinghua U.
Peking U.
National U. of Signapore
So even if they can’t give their athletes scholarships, they can now let them jetset around the world to neat destinations. And with 4 schools in each region added it can make it easier to attend tournaments and the outliers could play some additional games relatively nearby. So they won’t be bi-coastal…they’ll be multi-continental.
The first few schools were chosen off the top of my head, and the remainder were inspired by Times Higher Education’s list of the top 50 most prestigious universities in the world: The top 50 universities by reputation 2023 | Student
Looks like we can add Yale to that list. While shocking that a school like Auburn would ever lose to an Ivy in something other than fencing or crew, basketball is a weird game and on a given day a team of lesser raw athletic ability can beat you. But it won’t last, and going out on a limb here, neither will Yale. But that’s the fun of it.
I disagree. Oxbridge will jump at the chance to add serious college sports so their students can finally develop grit, teamwork, leadership, time management, sportsmanship and character (not to mention physical fitness.)
There already is competition between the Ivy League and Oxford and Cambridge in track. One of the really cool traditions in the Ivy League is that both Penn+Cornell and Yale+Harvard team up to compete against Oxford+Cambridge in track every other summer. The meet locations alternate between England and the US.
I am late; at one time the Ivy League considered expansion and included Colgate, Holy Cross, and Northwestern. Of course it never happened. But we can see through their optics who they considered. West Point and the Naval Academy, up to the year 2000, played many of its sports routinely in the Ivy League, until they both formally migrated all of their athletic programs to the Patriot League. If I was to refactor the Ivy League today based on academics, geography, and athletic capacity I would include:
I would not consider Notre Dame because they would never relegate themselves to an inferior sports conference (i.e., the massive loss in profits, TV exposure, abandoning scholarships) despite the cache of an Ivy League affiliation. The University of Chicago makes sense but disbanded most of their sports by WWII, citing incompatibility with its mission.
