Division I NCAA Women's Sport for FU to Consider Adding

[Affirm]

Furman could consider adding women's bowling as a women's sport.
Benefits might include enhanced student recruitment opportunities due to publicity from a national bowling championship will put Greenville on the map for some 50,000 bowlers in 2028.
Benefits might also include another opportunity to maintain Title IX compliance.
Is women’s bowling an NCAA sport?
Yes, women’s bowling has been designated an NCAA emerging sport since 2003. This status has allowed NCAA sponsorship of championships and oversight over schools with varsity programs, fostering growth. But it is still not yet considered a fully-sanctioned NCAA championship sport.
Vanderbilt, UAB, Tulane, NCA&T, Duquesne, Monmouth, Fairleigh Dickinson, Sacred Heart, and Nebraska are among the 34 schools that currently have D-1 Women's Bowling.
The United States Bowling Congress will bring its Open Championship tournament to the Greenville Convention Center in 2028.
Tourism promoter VisitGreenvilleSC played a significant role in persuading the United States Bowling Congress to bring its next Open Championship to the Upstate.
… the organization expects a $70 million economic impact from the event, making it the largest Greenville has ever hosted.
The USBC Open Championship will take place over the course of six months at the Greenville Convention Center.
USBC named Greenville as the location of its 2028 Open Championships at its annual meeting in late-April. At the same meeting, the organization announced it would bring the Women's Championship to Charlotte in 2027.
Apparently, USBC has a variety of championship events annually, of which USBC Open Championship and USBC Women's Championship are 2. Apparently, the USBC Open Championship includes both men and women bowlers.

[Affirm]

Yes I know it IS time for football to hurry up and get here!

[Sad Din]

Ladies gymnastics would b SD's vote for a new sport.

With a gazilion little girls taking classes it would be an automatic sell out in new timmons

[Affirm]

Ladies gymnastics would b SD's vote for a new sport.

With a gazilion little girls taking classes it would be an automatic sell out in new timmons

Yes. I would vote with you Sad Din. Women's Gymnastics. I brought up Women's Bowling merely because of the newly announced major professional bowling event that Greenville has landed for 2028. Women's Gymnastics would be much more appropriate, in my opinion.
(Another good option would be Field Hockey, by the way.)
Regarding Women's Gymnastics, there are 60 D-1 programs nationally. Clemson just finished their first year with Women's Gymnastics, 2023-2024 school year. LSU just won the national championship in Women's Gymnastics. UGA is the "gold standard" for many years. NCSU and UNC-CH both have programs. Florida and Auburn and Alabama have programs. W&M has women's gymnastics, as does George Washington, Maryland, Towson, Kentucky, WVU, Pittsburgh, Temple, and Long Island University. (If the distances to some of those places seem too much, consider that even those last 3 mentioned would be within "<fairly short air travel from GSP". )
It is surprising that there are not more programs geographically close to us except those mentioned.
But again, Clemson now has Women's Gymnastics now. Maybe Furman will consider Women's Gymnastics, or maybe there are significant unknown and/or unstated reasons that we have not added Women's Gymnastics after consideration having been given. Too expensive?
As you said Sad Din, a gazillion little girls taking classes everywhere in our area, with some of those continuing it through their middle school and high school years at least. (I realize the same thing might be said for Swimming, Women's and Men's both - not classes but year-round involvement and year-round competition in a lifetime activity.) Apparently, there are "only 5 Division-3 Women's Gymnastics programs" and "only 16 Division-2 Women's Gymnastics programs".

[Choir Boy]

Beach Volleyball

[Affirm]

Beach Volleyball

UNC-Wilmington, Coastal Carolina, CofC, USC, Mercer, Georgia State, UAB, North Alabama, UTC, Tennessee Tech, Austin Peay, EKU, Jacksonville University, North Florida, and FSU are among 62 schools that have D-1 Beach Volleyball. So we would face considerably more competition for recruiting the better athletes for that sport, even if - and maybe because - our somewhat geographically-closer prospective competition might seem to be more numerous.

[MidlandsPaladin]

Bring back baseball. That is all.

[furpop16]

Bring back baseball. That is all.

A couple of years ago, on a boring day, I reconciled FU men's & women's sports with those of our peer institutions. Those that featured baseball nearly uniformly also featured women's field hockey.

[cavedweller2]

Co-Ed Ribbon Dancing. It’s all the rage at the cool schools.

[Affirm]

Bring back baseball. That is all.

A couple of years ago, on a boring day, I reconciled FU men's & women's sports with those of our peer institutions. Those that featured baseball nearly uniformly also featured women's field hockey.

No problem with women's field hockey.
Peer institutions would include Davidson, Richmond, Bucknell, Holy Cross, Colgate, Lafayette, VMI, and Wofford.
All of those peer institutions have BOTH D-1 Baseball and D-1 Field Hockey, EXCEPT Colgate (which does not have baseball) and EXCEPT Wofford (which does not have field hockey). (NOTE: Furman did not list Wofford as "peer", although Wofford did list Furman as "peer". I am giving Wofford benefit of doubt by including them in the present discussion. Also, Furman did not list VMI as peer, but I am giving VMI benefit of doubt because they are highly ranked among US News & World Report National Liberal Arts College, as are the others.)

[FUATT]

Just discovered this thread. My daughter is a low D-1 recruited Women's Gymnast and I can say that it's entirely possible she'd be going to Furman if we had it.

The sport is exploding, and getting more and more television coverage at the college level e.g. brand exposure. And, financially, many of the girls can walk on because it's the kind of sport you are already paying thousands a year in many cases to compete in middle and high school. Even so, the new roster limit is 20 so if you funded even 6 full rides you could become competitive really fast.

The exposure for Furman in the Middle Atlantic, Texas and Florida would be ideal. Oddly, there is no D-1 Gymnastics program in Texas and only one in the state of Florida.

Furman would probably have meets with the likes of Clemson, NC State, UNC, William & Mary, George Washington, and maybe the Ivys like Cornell, Penn, Yale and Brown. There is an EAGL and GEC conference that Furman could probably fit into.

Given the dearth of Southern Gymnastics programs at good schools, I think Furman could become reasonably competitive pretty quickly. I think we would draw from Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia very successfully where there are some really strong club programs but not that many choices of college programs.

As for facilities. I could see moving Volleyball to the newly expanded Timmons and putting WGYM into Alley. And then, hosting the meets in Timmons.

So IF we were to add a Women's sport at Furman, I personally think this would make sense. If you have any questions about Women's college gymnastics, ask me here. I am now the resident expert .

[Affirm]

In this present thread, see the July 25, 8:13 am post on this same topic for previous comments, by Sad Din and affirm.
Great suggestion today by FUATT, with important additional, relevant, and personal comments, to keep this going.
According to NCSA, there already are 13 colleges in SC, NC, & GA with D2 or NAIA women’s gymnastics, in addition to the several in these same states that have D1. Obviously there is interest.

[FUATT]

Also worth pointing out that at several SEC schools, understanding it is an apples to oranges compare with Furman, WGYM outdraws and out revenue produces every sport not named Football and Mens' Basketball. Yes, that includes Baseball, Soccer and WBB. Georgia was basically the worst SEC program last year and they drew over 9000 in their last meet of the year.

W&M is probably the best comparison. They report drawing about 1300. They do not have an on campus practice facility and very little coaching. If Furman did this, they should certainly aspire to be better than W&M.

Furman would have some nice coattails to ride with the presence of Clemson and the expansion of ACC gymnastics. I think we could recruit really well. It would be all about getting the right coach and not having a win now mentality but giving them a chance to build something. Furman would benefit from the TV and streaming exposure, strategic scheduling of meets in certain markets, and recruiting and building the brand in the right places as mentioned above.

WGYM at Furman - nor any new sport, would not be revenue positive on its face, but it would generate actual revenue whereas some of our current sports generate almost nothing (but cost almost nothing). So, reality, not sure Furman is looking to add anything at present. But if they were for Title iX reasons or whatever, I think WGYM would be on the table with Field Hockey for certain.