2018/19 Season Announcements

Over the summer the Board did a comprehensive review of the budget and as a result we are going to be making some long overdue changes that were alluded to at the conclusion of the road season. The review will be published as a separate document available to the public. The conclusions from that review are:
1. The Conference fees are going to increase from $2.00 to $2.50/rider/event.
Conference fees have remained stagnant for a number of years. We currently have the lowest Conference fees in the country despite having one of the most active racing calendars. As our operating costs (travel/lodging of Conference Staff) increase each year, it is time that we begin to account for that in our budget. As it is written in our Bylaws, we will continue to perform this annual review at the completion of each academic season.
2. Road season entry fees are going to be increased over the course of the next two years to $20. For the 2019 season, entry fees will be $18, and $20 effective 2020.
In line with the Conference fees, road season entry fees have remained stagnant for several years and it is time that they are increased. Teams take on a significant amount of expenses and risk when they permit a collegiate event. Currently, the only way for these events to be successful is to have a high rider turnout in the open fields. Essentially the open fields were subsidizing the collegiate events. This has lead to some events losing money due to conflicting open events in the region or other mitigating circumstances (weather/location). It is our goal to make collegiate racing more sustainable for clubs promoting events. By increasing the road entry fees, teams will have increased revenue from events to be used to pay off expenses. We anticipate that by making event hosting more lucrative for clubs that we will see a more diverse racing calendar as more teams consider it beneficial to bid for an event.
3. All Conference omniums (team, individual) will be based on the top 85% of your participation (for a 6 race season, this would be 5 weekends).
Throughout the 2017/18 season, concern about the increasing costs for travel and participation was a prominent topic. Teams on the outskirts of the Conference or those that do not have the budget to travel to all of the events in a season did not feel that they could compete for the omniums. By allowing teams to “drop” a weekend, it is our goal to provide teams/individuals with a way to offset some of those costs and create more flexibility for students with already busy schedules.
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