It's simpler than that.
Look at enrollment. Look at media market. Look at school mission.
W&M is a public, but public like Binghamton.
They are not going to be able to afford the pay model the CAA and most of D1 have bought into. I suspect that they'll be leaving the conference once the championship season ends so they don't get banned this season.
Does anyone know if the PL has "opted in" for athlete pay? I suspect they haven't or it is very limited.
That's it. Nothing to see here. I'm not sure if Villanova can follow bc I'm not sure if they can selectively opt out for single sports. Not clear to me.
This was to avoid dropping the sport.
This was the discussion a few weeks ago at W&M when they put off "opting in". As a prestigious public university (with 10K total enrollment) revenue sharing is affordable (remember, there is no minimum unless CAA football sets one and it is unlikely to be significant) but really seems to stick in the craw of the admin there. They've always prided themselves on the
student aspect of
student athlete and speak on this almost constantly. The fact that their three biggest CAA football rivals already left the CAA (for various reasons) smoothed the path for football departure. Of course they could have stayed in CAA football and the league would have been much happier if they did.
(Fun fact; W&M was a founding member of the football Colonial League along with Holy Cross, Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate, Lafayette but dropped out to be replaced by Davidson...that league is now the football Patriot League.)