NCAA president Charlie Baker suggests a more regional model for non-football sports

NCAA president Charlie Baker used a national television appearance to float an idea that would run against the last several years of college athletics: a return to more regional scheduling, but focused on non-football sports. Baker framed the change as something that could be welcomed by schools even as conference realignment has transformed the day-to-day travel patterns for athletes and fans.

Baker’s remarks came against the backdrop of a realignment era that has made college sports far more geographically dispersed. In college football, the Big Ten and its membership footprint span far beyond the Midwest, the ACC includes schools on the Pacific coast, and the Big 12 spans from the Southwest to Appalachia. The consequence, as Baker described it through the example of how dramatically the landscape has changed, is that college athletics today looks almost nothing like it did a decade ago.

While Baker did not offer a formal blueprint, he suggested that the pressure to play more “national” schedules has become especially difficult for non-football competition to navigate. Most fans, he indicated, would likely prefer schools in neighboring states face each other more often, a shift that would reduce long-distance travel and emphasize familiar regional rivalries. The core question, in his view, was whether institutions would be willing and able to pursue that kind of regionality after the realignment wave.

On the mechanics of why this might happen now or later, Baker pointed to the expiration cycles of television contracts. He described the “real question” as when those contracts come up for renegotiation and what that will mean for how the games get packaged and negotiated at that time. In other words, any movement toward regional scheduling would be constrained by broader rights arrangements, even if schools themselves are interested in a different competitive rhythm for the sports that do not drive the same revenue model as football.

Baker also said he sensed there was a willingness among schools to embrace a more regional approach for non-football sports. That comment matters because it implies at least some appetite for changing incentives even if conference structures remain in flux. Under that framework, the next step might not be a retreat from football-focused alignment, but instead a redesign of how conferences and governing bodies coordinate postseason and regular-season competition for basketball, Olympic sports, and other non-football priorities.

The immediate watch point is whether Baker’s remarks translate into concrete NCAA policy discussions or pilot planning with conferences and member schools. Even if the desire for regionality exists, television-rights timing can lag far behind presidents’ and athletics directors’ preferences. For fans and athletes, the short-term effect may be limited, but the longer-term implication is significant if non-football scheduling starts to reflect geography again rather than national conference footprints.