Commissioner says addition of 12th team would aid conference

Ohio Valley Conference commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said Thursday the league remains on the lookout for a new addition that would divide the league into two divisions.

In Cape Girardeau as part of a tour of the league's 11 institutions, Steinbrecher, who has been on the job barely three months, spent Thursday meeting with Southeast Missouri State University officials and media members.

Steinbrecher said expansion to 12 schools would allow the conference to split into six-team divisions for many sports and cut down on travel.

"If we can find the right institution, it would be good to grow to 12, but we won't do that until we find the right institution," Steinbrecher said. "Twelve would provide an opportunity to have balanced divisions, but we're not going to expand just to get to 12 basketball teams. But it would be a benefit if other criteria are met."

One of those criteria would appear to be the presence of a football program. The OVC now fields a nine-team football conference since Austin Peay and Morehead State dropped to the non-scholarship Division I-AA level in the mid-1990s. Austin Peay and Morehead State compete in the OVC in all other sports.

East Tennessee State of the Southern Conference has been mentioned in Internet reports as a potential 12th OVC member -- but the school is dropping football after this year.

"Football is a very important ingredient," Steinbrecher said. "They would have to have a shift in philosophy, but you never say never."

Southeast athletic director Don Kaverman believes expanding the OVC's membership to 12 -- the conference already added two schools beginning this year in Samford and Jacksonville State, both from Alabama -- would be a plus.

"It would permit us as a conference to divide into divisions, which we can't do now," Kaverman said. "With two divisions, you could certainly regionalize travel and reduce expenses to some extent. It would be of interest to all of us."

As it is, both Steinbrecher and Kaverman say the OVC is fortunate as far as travel. Although some schools are spread out quite a bit -- particularly Eastern Illinois and the two new Alabama schools, which will require bus trips of more than 10 hours -- for the most part travel is manageable.

"For a Division I conference, we're about as compact as they come. You can bus just about anywhere," Steinbrecher said.

While Southeast teams will add fairly lengthy trips with the addition of Samford and Jacksonville State -- although in most sports the squads play both on the same trip -- Kaverman said they can bus to those locations in six to seven hours. That's about the same distance to longtime OVC member Morehead State in Kentucky, which has been Southeast's longest conference trip.

"The two new schools will certainly add to our overall travel expense, but we welcome them to the conference. I think they'll be good additions," Kaverman said. "But we're fortunate. The OVC is still a bus league. I've been in conferences where we've been on 12-hour bus trips.

"You look at some conferences that are fairly similar to us, like the Missouri Valley and Sun Belt. Those are a lot more spread out, and a lot of the trips on those conferences require flying."

Steinbrecher has placed special emphasis on marketing the conference better than it has been, particularly in the two major sports of football and basketball.

For football, Steinbrecher helped negotiate deals to have 15 OVC games televised this season -- including several on national networks. He also helped initiate the OVC-Gateway Conference Challenge, which will feature eight games this season between teams from the Division I-AA leagues.

"It's another way to gain visibility," Steinbrecher said. "The Gateway is a very good conference. They have the defending national champion and they're the conference we play most regularly."

Gateway member Western Kentucky won last season's Division I-AA title.

Steinbrecher said television deals for basketball are in the works, but the league will emphasize increased marketing for the annual OVC basketball tournament in Nashville, Tenn.

"We're trying to pump up interest for that," Steinbrecher said. "It is our showpiece championship and it's vital people come to that event."

mmishow@semissourian.com

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