NCAA Conference Realignment Strains Athletes, Teams And The Planet
DURHAM, NC - JANUARY 16: California Golden Bears head coach Charmin Smith signals the travel during ... More the college basketball game between the Duke Blue Devils and the California Golden Bears on January 16, 2025 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, NC. (Photo by Nicholas Faulkner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
As the 2025 Men's and Women's NCAA Final Four wraps up the season, it marks a moment to reflect on the effects of conference realignment. Shifts in conference structures have led to travel that has stretched teams and fans across the country. These changes are not only reshaping the landscape of college sports, they are contributing to a mounting climate crisis, creating long-term consequences that go beyond the disruption of traditional rivalries and empty seats in arenas.
As the NCAA grapples with name, image, and likeness policies, transfer portal dynamics, and mounting mental health concerns, the 2024/25 season also brought with it major conference realignments. The prominent athletic programs of Oregon and UCLA joined the Big Ten, and Cal and Stanford moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference. These changes, motivated largely by financial incentives and media rights deals in football, have brought about consequences for athlete well-being, travelling fans and environmental sustainability.
While football was the driving force behind the reshuffle, basketball and other sports have arguably been more affected by increased travel. Conference realignment has impacted college basketball 'in a worse way than it did football, forcing fans to either travel distances outside of their region to support the team or watch at home, leading to empty areas for big-time games,' reported Brock Vierra for Sports Illustrated.
While travelling is a violation on the basketball court, it's a necessity off it. Conference realignments have resulted in increased travel for nearly every school in the four major conferences in 2024-25, according to Wall Street Journal analysis.
The 10 schools that left the Pac-12 had the largest uptick, travelling between 47% and 222% further than the 2023-24 season. The Oregon Ducks men's basketball team reportedly travelled 26,700 miles this season, up from 7,327 miles in the 2023-24 season. Similarly, Stanford and Cal women's basketball teams each traveled over 23,000 miles in their inaugural ACC season.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MARCH 21: Rashaan Mbemba #21 of the Colorado State Rams and Dain Dainja #42 of ... More the Memphis Tigers go up for the tip off at the beginning of the first quarter of the game during the first round of the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held at Climate Pledge Arena on March 21, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Outside of basketball, the 18 Big Ten football teams racked up an estimated 158,000 miles of travel during the 2024 season, roughly the equivalent of circling the Earth six times. The Stanford women's volleyball team will travel more than 33,700 miles by the end of the 2024-25 season, three times more than during their final Pac-12 season. Gymnastics also report a similar overall picture of increased travel across the conference.
The physical and mental strain associated with higher instances of cross-country travel poses challenges for athlete recovery and sleep patterns. Frequent travel across multiple time zones disrupts circadian rhythms and increases the risk of injuries due to inadequate rest and recovery. These concerns led Cal men's basketball coach, Mark Madsen, to bring NASA in to share recovery insights.
The Big Ten bylaws require teams to have at least two days between games, so more time away from campus is sometimes needed to comply with scheduling rules. Class time is increasingly missed and online classes are needed.
'Increased travel means more stress on your physical health and academic career,' says NYU varsity women's basketball player and 2024 and 2025 NCAA National Champion, Belle Pellecchia. 'Student athlete mental health is more of a problem than we are recognising. Support might be better now than it used to be, but it's still not considered enough.'
SALEM, VIRGINIA - MARCH 22: Belle Pellecchia #4 of the NYU Violets shoots a free throw in the second ... More half during the Division III Women's Basketball Championship held at the Cregger Center on March 22, 2025 in Salem, Virginia. (Photo by Ryan Hunt/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
It's not just the student athletes that are impacted, says Jonathan Casper, associate professor and sport management program coordinator at North Carolina State University. But also 'the often-overlooked athletic administration staff, trainers, and graduate assistants who travel with the teams. These individuals are expected to perform their duties despite jet lag, extended travel, and lost time.'
USC men's basketball coach Eric Musselman shared his thoughts on his team's fifth trip to Eastern or Central time zones this season. 'I'm so exhausted," he told reporters. "My wife summed it up best this morning that she's never seen me so sick throughout the course of a college basketball season.' UCLA men's basketball coach, Mick Cronin, has been outspoken about the impacts of travel too.
Fans are also feeling the toll, facing longer trips and higher costs to see their teams play. Casper believes there might be an initial honeymoon period for those travelling to away games at new locations, but excitement could be 'tempered by the realities of long flights, little free time to explore, and the toll of crossing multiple time zones.'
The increased carbon emissions associated with more frequent travel, over longer distances, raises a red flag for the environment. Calculating definitive figures for the increase in carbon emissions from travel this season is difficult, with many variables and lack of data on teams, let alone fans. For football however, researchers have found that team travel emissions in the 2024 season were estimated to have doubled compared to 2023.
Increased travel driving up carbon emissions sits in opposition to leading experts advising that we actually need "rapid, deep, and immediate" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, to avert the most severe consequences of climate change. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and we are going to be poorer, and sicker in a warming climate.
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 18: A burned basketball hoop stands in the yard of a home that ... More burned in the Palisades Fire on January 18, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Twenty-seven people are confirmed killed by wildfires in Los Angeles County so far as urban search and rescue teams continue combing through the destruction. Historic wildfires driven by dry conditions and powerful Santa Ana winds destroyed homes by the thousands, beginning January 7. The region has had virtually no significant rain since last winter, lowering the moisture content in the local chaparral habitat vegetation and increasing its flammability. Scientists say that fluctuating years of extreme weather conditions - record drought years broken by record or near-record rainy winters - is fueled by worsening human-caused climate change. No rain is in the forecast at this time and communities are bracing for a possible return of dangerous fire weather next week. (Photo by)
Bad weather and natural disasters have disrupted sports schedules for decades, but scientific consensus shows that climate change, driven by human activities, is now causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events.
This is increasingly disrupting college sports, including those that take place indoors. A historic snowstorm hit Louisiana in January 2025, and five men's and women's basketball games were postponed due to 'hazardous travel conditions.' Around the same time, wildfires were burning in Los Angeles, leading Northwestern women's basketball to forfeit games to USC and UCLA, due to their decision not to travel. 'While we acknowledge that bylaws and rules are in place for a reason and we will abide by them, it does not diminish this team's sound reasoning for not participating during this natural disaster,' said athletic director Mark Jackson.
'There are a lot of kinks to be ironed out,' says Jessica Murfree, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 'Performance, revenue and other elements will be cited, but our environment is the puppet master behind it all.'
The success of college sports depends on athlete performance, both in terms of physical conditioning and games actually taking place. Both are impacted by our environment. The uptick in travel associated with conference realignment is contributing to the climate crisis, while the climate crisis is making college sports more challenging. 'Moving forward, college sports programs will need to proactively plan for extreme weather events and have contingency plans in place, especially for outdoor sports,' says Jonathan Casper.
In spite of these college athletes facing more travel and tougher conditions, 'the expectations on them to perform will continue to go up,' says Jessica Murfree. 'We wouldn't have this massive conference realignment and new TV deals if there wasn't a return on the investment.'
CHAPEL HILL, NC - JANUARY 15: Head coach Mark Madsen of the California Golden Bears coaches during a ... More game against the North Carolina Tar Heels on January 15, 2025 at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. North Carolina won 53-79. (Photo by Peyton Williams/UNC/Getty Images)
Optimizing fixture schedules to reduce travel miles could have 'tremendous benefits' says Brian McCullough, associate professor at University of Michigan, including cost savings, performance recovery and athlete wellbeing. 'These optimizations can also help reduce environmental impacts of the expanded conferences.'
Optimized schedules that reduce carbon emissions could involve matches between teams with shorter travel distances, and if longer travel is required and student timetables allow, adding additional matches with teams along the way. "I would love to bunch it up," Cal men's basketball coach, Mark Madsen has said. 'Let's get four games in one trip. Let's get three games in a trip.' He also suggested early tip times on Saturday to allow easier return travel.
As the NCAA and its member institutions look to the future, the path forward for college sports must consider more than just growth, revenue and viewership. The consequences of conference realignment are already evident in the physical and mental toll on athletes and staff, and escalating carbon emissions amidst a worsening climate crisis. Financial sustainability might be at the forefront of minds, but if college athletics are to remain socially and environmentally viable in the long term, the NCAA must address climate resilience and travel impacts.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
England hopeful over Ecclestone despite new injury
England said Sophie Ecclestone's omission from the series against West Indies was to aid her recovery from a knee injury [Getty Images] England are hopeful Sophie Ecclestone will be fit for this summer's series against India despite the spinner suffering a new injury. Ecclestone was withdrawn from Lancashire's T20 defeat by Hampshire on Tuesday because of a quad problem. Advertisement The severity of the injury will be assessed in the coming days. The 26-year-old had already been left out of the ongoing series against West Indies as part of her recovery from a knee injury. England insisted Ecclestone's omission from the squad, the first chosen by head coach Charlotte Edwards, was not related to the controversy that overshadowed an awful Ashes tour of Australia earlier this year. During England's 16-0 series defeat Ecclestone refused to take part in a TV interview conducted by Alex Hartley, following the former spinner's criticism of England's fitness. Ecclestone, England's leading bowler, actually made her return for Lancashire at Warwickshire on the day she was left out by England. Advertisement She had previously spent almost two months on the sidelines after playing for UP Warriorz in the Women's Premier League. Ecclestone has since played two one-dayers and six T20s for Lancashire, including two in a day in a starring role for the Red Rose as they won the Twenty20 Cup last month. In Ecclestone's absence, England have outclassed West Indies across the 20-over and 50-over formats. Fellow left-arm spinner Linsey Smith marked her ODI debut with a five-wicket haul in Derby last week. The series against a powerful India side, including five T20s and three ODIs, begins on 28 June.
New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
2025 French Open Final odds, predictions: Coco Gauff vs. Aryna Sabalenka picks, best bets
Gambling content 21+. The New York Post may receive an affiliate commission if you sign up through our links. Read our editorial standards for more information. The 2025 Women's French Open will wrap up with a bang Saturday morning. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and World No. 2 Coco Gauff will duel for the Coupe des Mousquetaires. Both players are in terrific form, and have split their 10 head-to-head matches, but it's Sabalenka who is the decided favorite. The Belarussian is -210 on the moneyline, meaning she has 67.7 percent chance of winning according to implied probability. French Open Final: Gauff vs. Sabalenka betting preview It's hard to poke any holes in how Gauff is playing right now. She's won 12 of 13 sets and has barely been under any pressure, save for going down 1-0 against Madison Keys in the quarterfinals. Coco Gauff takes on Aryna Sabalenka in the 2025 French Open Final. AFP via Getty Images Gauff turned that match on its head, winning the next two sets 6-4, 6-1. The American followed that performance with an emphatic win over Lois Boisson in the semifinals. Every part of Gauff's game seems to be clicking, but the betting market believes she's running into a freight train Saturday. Get the lowdown on the Best USA Sports Betting Sites and Apps Sabalenka has long been respected as one of the most gifted players in the WTA, but her mental game held her back. She finally broke through with a Grand Slam title at the 2023 Australian Open, and since then has taken over Iga Swiatek's spot atop the women's tennis world. Sabalenka put an exclamation point on that by ousting Swiatek in the semifinals, ending the Pole's three-year winning streak at Roland Garros. Aryna Sabalenka is looking for her first French Open title. AFP via Getty Images French Open Final: Gauff vs. Sabalenka pick You can easily make a case for either of these women to win Saturday, which is why Gauff stands out as value as an underdog. Sabalenka is the No. 1 player in the world, just defeated Gauff on clay last month and has been dominant in this tournament, but Gauff is the No. 2 player in the world, has five wins against Sabalenka in 10 tries and has also been dominant at Roland Garros. In other words, Sabalenka should be favored, but the odds should be tighter. THE PLAY: Coco Gauff (+172, FanDuel) Why Trust New York Post Betting Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
National Geographic
5 hours ago
- National Geographic
In the Sichuan capital, renewed heritage appreciation is helping ancient teahouses go viral
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). It's barely 9am when I slide into a bamboo armchair at Heming Tea House in Chengdu's sprawling People's Park. This century-old stalwart is one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity that I called home until I was nine. While I was growing up here, in one of China's oldest tea-growing areas, many weekends were spent in an open-air teahouse like this one. While adults played games of mahjong and the kids ran riot, roving hawkers carrying heavy baskets balanced on bamboo shoulder poles would come round selling snacks. The most famous of these is dan dan mian (shoulder pole noodles), where a nest of cold noodles is placed on a hot and tongue-numbing mala chilli oil base, topped with spring onion and minced meat, then mixed and greedily devoured. But as I sip my grassy mao feng green tea, I'm struck by how unusually busy it is. Hordes of tourists with phones in video mode stream past the chairs crammed under teak pavilions and beige parasols. Most seats already filled by pensioners putting the world to rights or families cracking into toasted sunflower seeds. Heming Tea House has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral. Photograph by Getty Images, Plej92 A group of photography students is playing cards next to me, their backs turned on a pile of cameras carelessly stacked on a spare chair. I lean over and ask why there are so many people here on a weekday. One of the students looks up and tells me Heming has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral. Later, I head to Lao Chuzi Sichuan Restaurant for a family gathering. The low-key restaurant and teahouse on the top floor of a four-storey office block isn't particularly well known, but my uncle picked it because it's a favourite in his neighbourhood, and it serves a stellar line-up of Sichuan dishes, including garlic-infused fish, fragrant aubergine and thin slices of poached pork served with a drizzle of sesame-laced chilli sauce. I bring up the wang hong phenomenon. 'There are wang hong places everywhere now and business is booming,' my uncle tells me, noting a similarly popular place down the road: 11th Street. Later, we stroll over to take a look. Amid the low-rise residential blocks is a row of a dozen or so two-storey buildings, their exposed wooden beams and pitched roofs incongruous with the more modern surroundings. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto the street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating. 'These all used to be teahouses,' says my uncle, who's lived in the neighbourhood for over 30 years and watched the buildings' metamorphosis into buzzy restaurants. Before that, this ramshackle collective was made up of homes built during the tumultuous period after the Qing dynasty ended in 1912 and before the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Since the 1990s, billions of pounds of investment have poured into Chengdu from the central government and private developers, triggering a building boom that's given large swathes of the city a complete facelift. These buildings have somehow escaped the demolitions that razed their neighbours, and ironically their rundown appearance may now become their saving grace as people seek to hold on to the last vestiges of an old Chengdu. Head chef, Steven Tan, stands proudly at Mi Xun Teahouse at The Temple House hotel. Before it was a Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant, Mi Xun started with tea and snacks until more and more people requested the food. Heming Tea House is a century-old stalwart, and one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity of Chengdu. Photograph by Alamy, Lejeanvre Philippe In recent years, there's been a concerted effort to protect and redevelop old buildings with heritage value — the type that don't hold historical significance, like temples and monuments, but still have a place in the city's history. One of the more sensitively done projects is the downtown Taikoo Li shopping and entertainment complex, where a handful of 19th-century homes surrounding Daci Temple were restored and given a new lease of life a decade ago. Mi Xun Teahouse, the Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant at The Temple House hotel, occupies one of these. The grey brick walls of this single-storey building — set aside from the modern tower that makes up the main hotel — hide a tranquil courtyard that transforms into a wood-panelled al fresco dining spot in fine weather, a single tree providing dappled shade. It's here that I meet executive chef Tony Xu, who tells me that in the beginning Mi Xun was just supposed to be a teahouse. 'Because Chengdu is very big on tea, we started with tea and some snacks,' he says, explaining that teahouses almost always serve some kind of food. 'But more and more people were requesting our food, so we added more dishes to the menu. And now people mainly come for the food.' Tony takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, and so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices and no garlic or onion. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as a vegan dan dan mian, made with an egg-free noodle of his own creation, containing wheat and cake flour for extra bite and spinach juice for colour; and mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Executive chef at Mi Xun Teahouse, Tony Xu takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Photograph by Jiang Xiaodan For the tea connoisseur, Mi Xun also offers a selection of premium brews such as da hong pao from Fujian province, and Pu'er from Yunnan, served in a pared-down version of the traditional gongfu tea-preparation ritual. Instead of an elaborate ceremony where a tea master washes the leaves, warms the tiny cups and prepares the tea, some of these stages are done behind the scenes. All the guests need do is steep the tea according to their preference. Attention is still paid to the drinkware — green tea always served in a glass pot, for example, while red tea comes in white ceramic. 'We've simplified things so everyone can enjoy the experience and take joy from tasting tea,' says teahouse manager Yvonne Du. Tea is cheap and widely available in Chengdu — meaning it's enjoyed by a wide cross-section of society. 'You'll find teahouses all over China,' explains Susan Yin, a guide at food tour company Lost Plate. 'In Chengdu, tea is for everyone. It doesn't matter what your background is, or whether you're rich or poor.' Yin is my guide for a food tour just east of the downtown area. The company's co-founder, Ruixi Hu, lives in Chengdu and designed the itinerary around some of her favourite haunts. As part of the tour, we hop into a cramped tuk-tuk that whizzes us around the neighbourhood. At one stop, we try dan hong gao, fluffy pancakes stuffed with a mix of sesame, crushed peanuts and sugar. At another, we tuck into enormous bowls of freshly made pork wontons, some in plain broth and some swimming in fragrant chilli oil. We also stop at casual noodle shop Tang Dan Dan Tian Shui Mian, visited by the late US chef Anthony Bourdain for his CNN show Parts Unknown, and slurp through bowls of tian shui mian ('sweet water noodles') — a thick, springy, hand-cut variety that comes slicked in a sweet, peanut and sesame paste sauce. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto 11th Street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating. It's only when we sit down at a restaurant serving jiang hu cuisine — a rough-and-ready style of cooking that has its origins in the street markets of Sichuan, a province that's big on flavour intensity — that Yin and I finally get some time to chat. As we liberate chunks of dry-fried chicken from underneath piles of chillies, and fish out tender slivers of beef from a spicy broth, Yin tells me she settled in Chengdu over a decade ago for two very simple reasons: the food and the lifestyle. Taking a sip of buckwheat tea, she adds: 'Chengdu is a laid-back city, and the best way to experience this is in a teahouse.' Audley has a 15-day tour of China, which includes two nights in Chengdu, as well as time in Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Yangshuo and Shanghai. From £5,495 per person, including flights, transfers, B&B accommodation and excursions, such as the Lost Plate food tour. This story was created with the support of Audley. Published in the July/August 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
