I could see St. Thomas in the MVFC in a couple years.... they can use the time in the Pioneer to bump up their stadium capacity.
Don't believe everything you think.
Good grief! I just looked at Google Maps.... you aren't kidding - there is ZERO room for them to expand that stadium. They have the South Athletic fields space but that's it - and that's barely enough long enough for a football field.
Man, they would bleed money if they tried to do scholarship DI football.... on the other hand, they will be bleeding quite a bit from traveling all over the country for the Pioneer schedule too. That Ford plant site development deal that you mentioned would have to fall through for them to use that. That neighborhood is already so dense that the current residents might prefer a stadium to 10,000 more people.
Edit: If we ever do a home and home with them, they'll have to find an off-campus stadium or they'll be throwing money away (and I'd be willing to do a home-and-home with them for the Twin Cities exposure.)
Last edited by tony; 07-16-2020 at 10:35 PM.
The talk is that St. Thomas is doing this with basketball as likely the biggest beneficiaries. While it would be years down the road it has been mentioned in the Minneapolis papers that UST likely has their sights set on trying to join the Big East conference for basketball down the road to essentially try to become Minnesota's version of Marquette.
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This makes the most sense to me. Like Tony said, facilities are really going to hurt them in football unless they just adopt Allianz as their home field (no clue if that is an option at all). But hoops will be much easier and more plausible to have an on-campus arena that can attract some good players and interest. Will be interesting. Could be a scenario where football is a non-entity and the hoops improvement brings good attention to the Bison and the conference itself. Could also be a scenario where they get to use Allianz for football, do backdoor schollies and totally screw us. WTF knows!
I think the availability of Allianz has a lot to do with the viability of the soccer team. If soccer comes out of COVID as a popular entertainment option, they are probably out of luck.. If the team struggles, they maybe looking for an income source.
The wildcard in all of this is the money. There is a lot of money down here and frankly not a lot of allegiance to the Gophers. If there is a school that has a chance to raise money, its St. Thomas.
The weather in Fargo keeps the undesirables out.....
...Which is why I live near the Twin Cities.
The tommies are better off dropping hockey and putting all that money into their BB programs. The Big East is a pipe dream at least for the forseeable future. They'd probably have to work thru the SL and the Horizon or MVC after that to even think of getting a sniff. Long road to hoe, it's doable but it aint happening over night or the next 10 years.