Payoff Season for Fifth- Year Seniors - Old Dominion University

By the same token, there were numerous factors
that led to C-USA’s interest in us, and ultimately
our invitation to join the league. Those factors included
1) our vibrant university and its outstanding
academic programs and achievements, 2) the phenomenal
start-up success of our football program, 3)
our passionate, enthusiastic and growing fan base of
season ticket holders, 4) our strong corporate and
private donor base, 5) the significance of the large
metropolitan Hampton Roads market that is well
known for its insatiable appetite for sports, and 6)
the university’s world-class athletic facilities and the
overall success of our total athletic program, illustrated
by our 32 national championships.
I am very grateful to our coaches and studentathletes
whose success has allowed us to make a
conference move of this magnitude and to the generous
support from our fans and the Hampton
Roads community. We anticipate being sold out for
the fourth straight year in football season tickets and
have over 3,300 people on our waiting list. Much
like the support we received when we started football,
in the two weeks prior to making our C-USA
announcement, 15 individuals committed $3 million
in private support for our conference move and
football reclassification, and we will continue to
seek additional private and corporate donations. In
addition, we are closing in on $5 million toward our
goal of $8 million for a new, state-of-the-art basketball
practice facility complex for our men’s and
women’s teams.
We are asking our coaches and student-athletes
to step up to a new level of competition and everyone
to do the same regarding their financial support.
Please help us by joining the Old Dominion
Athletic Foundation, increasing your donation if
you are already an ODAF member, helping us add
new ODAF members, becoming a corporate partner
with ODU Sports Properties or purchasing
tickets to our events.
We are pleased to be joining our fellow members
in Conference USA including new members,
UNC Charlotte, Florida International, Louisiana
Tech, North Texas and Texas San Antonio, along
with Marshall, East Carolina, Alabama Birmingham,
Southern Mississippi, Tulane, Rice, Tulsa and Texas
El Paso. ODU teams will be competing regularly in
major metropolitan areas such as Miami, Dallas,
Houston, Charlotte, San Antonio and New Orleans.
We look forward to welcoming the fans and student-athletes
of our new conference foes to our
campus in the near future and showing the C-USA
the great spirit and support from our Monarch fans.
National Stage Comes Faster Than Expected
for ODU Football; Details of Conference Shift
When Old Dominion University announced in 2006 that it was
planning to start football, there was a popular view that if the
football team was successful, it would aspire to compete at
the highest level of college competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Nobody expected it to happen this fast.
After just three seasons,
ODU’s football program, along
with 11 of its other sports, is
joining Conference USA, and
will compete in football alongside
the established powers of
the game, in a conference that
contains schools stretching
from the Atlantic Ocean to
West Texas.
It started out as a rumor.
Media stories early in the
spring suggested Old Dominion
was being considered as a new
member for Conference USA,
an athletic conference that was losing three of its own members to the Big
East in football-related conference relocations. At the same time, there
were suggestions that non-football-playing Colonial Athletic Association
members George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth were considering a
move to the Atlantic 10 Conference (a move VCU would actually make in
May).
"While Old Dominion was not actively seeking new opportunities, the
dynamic shifts happening across the country brought several to our attention,”
said ODU President John R. Broderick.
On May 17, at a gathering at S.B. Ballard Stadium, the change in conference
affiliation was announced. ODU would leave its longtime home in
the CAA and join Conference USA beginning July 1, 2013. Old Dominion will
join Virginia and Virginia Tech as the only state schools to compete at the
Football Bowl Subdivision level.
The move will raise the university’s profile, but it won’t come on the
backs of students. School officials have pledged not to raise student fees
to pay the additional $2.5 million to $3 million in annual operating expenses
that will accompany the move, expenses that will partly come from
the additional 20 football scholarships for FBS teams, along with a new
women’s sport to maintain gender equity among ODU’s athletic programs.
The additional expenses will be offset by increased ticket revenue, donations,
corporate sponsorships, and TV and revenue-sharing payouts from
C-USA, Selig said. ODU has sold out every game in three years at Foreman
Field. But with new conference rivals like East Carolina playing in stadiums
more than double ODU’s size, it’s possible the stadium could be expanded.
In 2011, three C-USA teams were ranked in the nation's Top 25 polls and
five competed in bowls, earning the league more than $4.5 million in payouts.
The conference has seven bowl tie-ins with the AutoZone Liberty
Bowl, Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces
Bowl, Military Bowl, R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
and the Ticket City Bowl.
In all sports, C-USA teams and individuals have made nearly 700 NCAA
championship appearances since the league's inception in 1995-96. Sixtyseven
football programs have earned bowl bids, 90 men's basketball teams
have participated in NCAA and NIT postseason play, 47 women's basketball
squads have appeared in the NCAA tournament and 53 baseball programs
have made NCAA tournament appearances, including 12 College World Series
and a national crown for Rice in 2003.
WWW.ODU.EDU 57