Why a two-semester season for men's college soccer got voted down

A proposed two-semester model for men's college soccer sharply divided the college soccer community before getting voted down by 247 NCAA-affiliated schools.

When it was initially approved and voted into legislation by the NCAA Division One Men's Soccer Oversight Committee back on May 13, the current limit of 25 games per season was expected to be maintained, with a new maximum of 18 games for the Fall semester proposed as part of soccer's evolution into a two-semester sport.

According to the NCAA, the rationale behind the proposed revisitation of the college soccer calendar included providing "a more balanced academic and athletic experience by reducing time demands in any single term."

The two-semester model would operate, in theory, on a "decompressed playing season with potentially fewer midweek games, resulting in less missed class time and promoting stronger academic performance and degree completion."

The NCAA would go on to cite a "more predictable weekly schedule across fall and spring [semesters]" as well as "enhanced recovery times" and promotion of "stronger integration from the student-athletes into campus life" as reasons for the change in the initial May announcement.

Last Friday afternoon, though, news broke via GOAL's Tom Hindle that 247 NCAA affiliates voted to rescind the decision to extend the NCAA Division One men's soccer calendar across two semesters.

Under the new model, the season would have spanned seven months and seen the national championship tournament hosted in the spring, Now, despite the majority of NCAA-affiliated institutions opposing the change for a multitude of reasons, some are suggesting that the top NCAA Division One soccer programs should secede from the NCAA entirely, or risk the entirety of college soccer fading into sporting obscurity. It's all a chaotic mess.

The Divide: Cost to colleges vs sporting benefits

The two-semester model sounds great, in theory. By extending the men's soccer season across two semesters, the burden and physical stress of squeezing 15-25 games into a single window in the fall is lifted, leaving more time for travel, training and recovery – not to mention aligning college soccer more closely with the professional level with the season spanning from August to May.

Those are all very legitimate positives that could come from an expanded men's soccer season. It would align roughly with the professional soccer calendar and open the door for more collaboration with US Soccer and Major League Soccer. What's not to love?

In reality, many athletic departments face immense financial and logistical challenges hosting a men's soccer program across a single semester. Stretching these already scarce and overtaxed resources across two semesters is an untenable feat for the majority of these institutions.

Speaking to Gareth Elliot, head coach of the University of Rhode Island Rams, he claimed that the change would cost Rhode Island's flagship university nearly $5 million almost immediately — the cost of installing an all-season turf field on campus, with the Rams' current grass facility not capable of being used during the proposed winter months of the updated calendar.

Beyond the facilities, staffing is the other major concern raised by universities in opposition. Many university athletic departments employ smaller athletic communications offices with only a few Sports Information Directors and PR professionals responsible for managing the communications, statistics, record keeping, and media relations for over a dozen varsity programs on average.

Depending on the size of the communications office, some of these media professionals may be responsible for five or six sports at once, juggling two to three per semester — an immensely taxing and stressful feat that's consistently overlooked or discredited by those with limited knowledge of the inner workings of college athletics.

Proponents of the switch failed to take into consideration the financial and logistical restraints that would be faced by the majority of Division One soccer programs. That bore itself out in the vote to rescind the two-semester shift, as 67% of NCAA institutions that sponsor men's soccer ultimately voted against the move.

That's 141 men's soccer programs voting to rescind, accounting for the majority of mid-major schools with small student populations, small stadiums, and small athletic department budgets.

Many of these universities would face immense financial challenges just to host facilities up to the standard required for a two-semester season.

By contrast, only 21 NCAA institutions that sponsor men's soccer voted in favor of the two-semester model – a unanimous vote from the Big Ten, four votes from the ACC, two from the Big East and Sun Belt, and a single vote from each of the Southern Conference, Summit League, and PAC 12.

The Fallout: The end of college soccer?

While some have claimed that the failure to vote this new two-semester model into effect will forever keep college soccer behind the curve of soccer growth in America, others believe that maintaining the status quo is for the greater good of the wider college athletics universe.

Yet there's a vocal minority on social media even campaigning for a third way forward: secession.

Some proponents have gone as far as to claim that major NCAA institutions that backed the move, including the likes of the University of Maryland, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University, break away from the NCAA and instead form a standalone entity to compete across a two-semester calendar, presumably with the backing of US Soccer, which fully supported the initial proposal from the NCAA Men's Soccer Oversight Committee before it got rescinded.

While this would be an extremely unlikely scenario, with most of these universities likely to simply cut the soccer program entirely before endorsing a single varsity sport splitting off from the NCAA, it still highlights the ever-growing divide between, essentially, the haves and have-nots in college athletics.

College athletics continue to evolve. More and more money pours into the ecosystem through name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, with this external cash creating an atmosphere of a pseudo-professional environment, but without the resources or safety nets enjoyed by professional teams.

To put it bluntly, this proposed model did not seem sustainable for the vast majority of NCAA universities that sponsor men's soccer. Many do not possess the facilities, man-power, or both to maintain a program to compete competitively across a seven-month season. Until these programs' financial situations change, that reality is unlikely to change anytime soon.

The majority of the 21 programs who supported the move to extend the season are backed by some of the nation's largest college athletic departments, boasting highly successful college football and/or basketball programs that essentially subsidize men's soccer programs through the sheer amount of revenue generated elsewhere each academic year.

Those programs have the flexibility to hire more staff, invest more in their facilities, and stretch resources to adequately meet the needs of a two semester season. Universities like Rhode Island, Fairfield University, the University of New Hampshire, and others who voted to rescind do not enjoy those same luxuries.

Now, it's back to the drawing board for any potential follow-up vote on a future two-semester model for college soccer.

Any future model would have to undergo the entire vote and appeal process again, and would likely face a similar fate, unless a new proposal features significant changes that take into consideration the financial and logistical concerns raised by the smaller institutions.

In order to avoid another 30-day period where programs can vote to rescind, any future proposal must see 75% of the Oversight Committee vote in favor.

Until that day comes, debate will continue to rage on, because college soccer is a different animal.

It's not necessarily meant to follow the same model as professional soccer. If this year's prolonged drama around a possible two-semester college soccer season is any indication, the current college sports ecosystem cannot handle a drastic change of this nature without additional institutional support, support that is simply not there at this moment.