WP wants to grow the sport at the college level but our championship games are always at the same locations. Question to the forum: What if NCAA were held in Austin at the UT pool or in Columbus at the OSU pool?
Both schools have huge AD budgets and a local population base that supports athletics. Adding WP to the athletic department might require an initial spark and hosting the NCAA Champs might be that spark.
Particularly at UT - with crazy AD $$$ and an emerging local youth polo community - if we could get 4,500 spectators to the facility it might make the AD think about adding it.
The downsides for the typical schools and fan bases are obvious, but if short term travel issues resulted in WP college growth I think everyone would benefit.
For the most part, you are right that they are primarily held in California. UM hosted in 2022, and Indiana will be in 2025 with Women’s Polo. In decades past, Men’s Championships have been held in other locations such as Bucknell, Princeton, Brown along with locations such as Indiana, New Mexico, and Florida. But not since 2009 outside of California. With everything happening in NCAA Athletics, my hope is to keep it from becoming a Club sport.
I don’t think rugby is an NCAA sport that would get recognition for NCAA national titles. It may be a more popular sport nationally but it doesn’t fit under the NCAA D1 umbrella. (Correct me if I’m wrong).
As we have seen in recent years with Fordham and Princeton there is a solid chance that a non-traditional WP program outside of California COULD win an NCAA D1 title.
It would require some very strategic and direct marketing at the Texas AD but a strong case could be made that Texas COULD win an NCAA WP title in a few years with $$$.
Schools like Texas/michigan/Ohio state/Florida that might want to claim national titles in any NCAA sport might see WP as an angle to accomplish that goal.
WP is certainly an easier and cheaper path than football or basketball and it would earn a NCAA title that could be used as bragging rights at the overall AD level.
If there was funding to pay for all the teams to travel there could make sense. I am skeptical however you are going to get more fans than in California anytime soon.
I believe UCSD is hosting it next year. I am not predicting UCSD will not make the tourney, but quick glance it looks like its been 20 years (2004) since a team hosted that was not in the tournament when it was at LMU (and yes only 4 teams).
Someone historian correct me if wrong.
Unrelated: I would love to see the third-place game come back and have some meaning.
NCAAs was supposed to be at UCSD this year but UCSD lost the right to host due to not submitting the NCAA campus sexual violence attestation form. The announcers said after the championship game that NCAAs will be hosted by Stanford again next year.
Rbpolo said that the last team to host but not compete at NCAAs was Cal.
I appreciate the excitement and energy of the Fordham Fans. It got me thinking about how much the rest of the country blindly love and support their teams. Opposite of most of us in California who are fans when it serves us (I’m generalizing but it does apply to myself).
I agree getting Texas, Alabama, Oregon, OSU et al to convert their club teams to d1 would bring tons of players and fans out of California and be beyond exciting. Getting CA water polo kids to head to Texas or Oregon would be easy.
Most fans enjoy traveling to California for the weather. But if it got Texas a D1 team from this, I’m sure everyone in polo would be all in.
While I totally agree with you in concept, in practice it’s extremely tricky at best. Of course it helps to have the money that a Texas or Oregon would have, but it’s about more than that w.r.t. adding men’s sports of any kind at these big schools.
I’ve said this on a different thread: Maybe if (when?) FB becomes a separate non-NCAA sport that could happen, but Title IX will always be an issue for adding men’s sports. If there’s going to be growth in collegiate D1 polo it’s almost certainly going to be on the Women’s side; see VB: 28 Men’s program and 346 Women’s programs in D1. Perhaps D3 could see growth on Men’s side but that’s also likely marginal; although given the new roster limits you could see the quality of play go up there. I digress.
I know this is a thread about future sites, but as current stewards of this awesome game, we need to be clear-eyed about our limitations. Then, we can focus our energies and resources appropriately. Which is, again tricky.
As an East Coaster, it would be great (again in theory) to see the championships out here. But realistically, most of the American players are from California and to essentially impose that additional cost on families and programs seems counterproductive.
But perhaps there’s a middle way. Maybe one-off games or tournaments in other locations at the beginning of the season to showcase high level polo in places where there are existing clubs/HS/D3 etc. You could have those other teams play before the main event. This has probably been done before so forgive me if it has!
I’m spitballing but glad to have this community to share it with.
Salem, Princeton, Fordham are east coast so almost 50% of this year’s tournament.
And >50% of players are from Europe…cheaper and easier to get to east coast
I might be wrong then, maybe the most optimal location based in players’ families location is doing the USA ncaa tournament in Madrid. Sad but true.
It is actually Barcelona for Spanish/ Catalan players.