CLASSROOM Professor Portal Student Sign-Up LIBRARY Library For Industry Professionals Branch Library For Fans and Students GUIDES College Sports Business 101 Learn how the industry works Working in College Sports What you need to be tracking The Jersey Patch Market What the market is saying How the Salary Cap Works And what is NIL Go How CB Schedules are Made It’s complicated… University Administrators What you need to know SPORTS DATA Football Men’s Basketball Women’s Basketball Baseball Women’s Soccer Women’s Volleyball Golf Search Gannon, Ursuline, the GMAC, and the realignment lawsuit that could reshape small college sports A conference realignment battle after a college merger could have massive implications for DII and DIII Jul 9, 2026 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. Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. What I learned from watching the first Chicago State football game ever Not all expansion teams are created equally. But the journey doesn't stop after Game 1. The Metro Conference is building its own identity How do you pronounce MAAC so it doesn't sound like MAC? That's no longer a question anyone in college sports has to ask. Why DePaul's jersey patch deal with Desert Cactus could pay off in multiple ways It isn't just about the money. DePaul, leading the Big East, could get paid multiple times. Introducing your new favorite volleyball podcast Plus important developments on what California schools were actually paying athletes My biggest questions for the 2026 fall season And no, they don't include "who's gonna make the Playoff?" A group of doctors asked the Big 12 to kill its Monster jersey patch deal Turns out, energy drinks might be bad for you? Behind the scenes of UNC/TCU...in Ireland What does prep look like right now? Why Ireland? What will make this game different? Central Missouri announced D-II's first jersey patch deal, and it's everything you'd expect from a D-I package: UCM operates more like some D-I programs than the median D-II school — and it's trying to get in the patch game early. If the PCSA is dead, here's my proposal for something that could actually pass You can't get everything you want. But you might be able to get SOME things you want. I agree, Mountain West AD: College sports is NOT a free market If you want to save college sports, start with being honest about what it actually is ... and isn't. How important is athletics revenue to a university budget, REALLY? Let's do some math. Or at least, I'll attempt to do some math. Where do sponsor patches go for swimmers? Multiple schools have announced sponsorship deals with "all varsity sports." What that looks like for every sport isn't very clear. Welcome to Extra Points 3.0 We have several major product announcements and new features to share with you. How schools can actually make more money selling tickets It's not just about having a winning team. It's about data. What will happen next with the Oregon State women's basketball union push? Though it's been lost a bit in the news cycle, a major labor story is brewing in the Pacific Northwest. Learn how college sports really works. Extra Points covers the business, policy and off-the-field stories changing college sports. Classroom Extra Points Library Ad Simulator 4000 NIL Wire Upgrade Terms of Service Privacy Policy Advertise Accessibility
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: www.extrapointsmb.com