What to know about UD’s move to Conference USA in July 2025

University of Delaware Athletics believes the move to Conference USA in 2025 will position them well to create an NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) budget in a few years.

“We don’t have an NIL budget like what is being reported by a lot of other schools, but we are working with a collective on NIL opportunities for our student-athletes,” said Chrissi Rawak, UD’s director of athletics, community, and campus recreation. “We are not yet in the place, maybe in two, three, four years, we’ll be talking about an NIL budget, but this is going to take a little bit of time.”

What is NIL

NIL officially began on July 1, 2021, when the NCAA implemented an interim policy allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness, following pressure from state laws and a Supreme Court ruling.

Some schools have recently invested a lot in NIL budgets. 

For example, in the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff, which kicked off in late December, teams in contention had budgets as high as around $20 million, according to The Athletic. 

Essentially, college athletes can act as free agents do in professional sports, where top athletes are often bid for by leading universities.

Schools like Ohio State, Alabama, and Clemson have large NIL budgets in college football and can outbid other colleges to “sign” players, while schools like Duke, North Carolina, and Kentucky dominate the market in college hoops.

“I certainly feel like we are very well positioned [for an NIL budget] because of how much people care about our program and how they want it to be successful,” Rawak said, “and so there is support there.”

UD’s move is official July 1, 2025, but not all teams are moving to Conference USA since the league does not sponsor every sport. 

UD sports that are joining Conference USA

• Baseball
• Men’s Basketball
• Women’s Basketball
• Cross Country
• Football
• Men’s Golf
• Women’s Golf
• Women’s Soccer
• Softball
• Men’s Tennis
• Women’s Tennis
• Track & Field
• Volleyball

Non-Conference USA UD sports

Atlantic Sun 

• Women’s Lacrosse
• Men’s Swimming
• Women’s Swimming

Atlantic 10 

Atlantic Hockey America 

 Mid-American Conference 

 The Summit League – 

TBD

Conference USA also sponsors several sports that UD does not compete in, like beach volleyball. 

Why move to Conference USA?

The lengthy process of switching athletic conferences for UD included an internal study of the feasibility of the move and its economic and logistical implications.

“Another big part was studying the economic impact for our community,” Rawak said. “One of the things that I’m really proud of is that right now is every time we hold a football game, it’s about $1 million of economic impact to our community, with hotel rooms and restaurants and all of the things that you can imagine people spend money on, coming from all over the region, and now, with the move, they’re going to be coming from all over the country.”

Bill Sullivan, managing director of the Courtyard Newark at the University of Delaware, is ecstatic about the move for what it could mean for the hospitality industry.

“Geographically, they’re mostly beyond driving distance, so that means that people that want to come to the game will probably get overnight accommodation, which is a plus,” he said.

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Rawak pointed out that there are aspects of Delaware that people from New Mexico or Texas – whose schools UD will now compete with –  have never experienced, which could result in them contributing to the state’s tourism and hospitality businesses. 

Some of the furthest schools from UD that the Blue Hens will be playing next year include New Mexico State University, University of Texas El Paso, Sam Houston State University, and Louisiana Tech University – all more than 1,000 miles from UD’s main campus in Newark.

Sullivan pointed out that the better conferences tend to have more dedicated, passionate fans, who are more likely to attend road games.

“This has a real good, positive impact on the community, and obviously, as a hotel, we’d like to be part of that,” he said, “so I think this move is great.”

He said once he gets the schedule, hotels will lay out their pricing plans and any special packages.

“What we’ll do is go out and see if any of the restaurants want to do a partnership where they give an additional discount for people staying at our hotel,” he said. 

He said he doesn’t see any negatives to the conference switch and that even if it’s slow at first, travel to Delaware for UD athletics will likely grow with increased media and television exposure.

“A big part of this was the visibility opportunity that it provides to the University of Delaware, but also the state of Delaware,” Rawak said. “One of the things that makes this place special, I call it our superpower, is the 302, where we have one area code, we band together, it galvanizes us.”

Being able to perform on national television, Rawak said, and share the stories of the state and the university will only increase exposure to the college and the First State.

“We haven’t been on national television for football in years, and when we were, back when Joe Flacco was playing, it was usually just when we were in championship games,” Rawak said, “so the regularity of us being on national TV like ESPN+ is huge, because people know what ESPN+ is, they don’t always know what FloSports is.”

Another key component of the move, Rawak said, is the demographic change that’s taking place in the country. 

“People here at University of Delaware are researching the growth that is happening in the southern part of the country,” she said, “and while we certainly have an incredible alumni population and student population in the mid-Atlantic, five to 10 years from now, the world is shifting, and so our ability again to have visibility and connectivity to other parts of the country and people understanding and knowing how special this place is ideally going to help us, from a pipeline perspective, for future students.”

She pointed out that one of the things that people don’t realize is that UD had to be invited to join the conference. 

“It wasn’t like we could just knock on somebody’s door and be like ‘Let us in,’ so we were fortunate enough that Conference USA invited us to join, and that was a great moment for us, and one that we’re really excited about and proud of,” she said. 

The move was initially announced about a year ago, and there were about eight months of behind-the-scenes work that went into the decision. 

“This is not something you typically make public, and it was a lot of quiet work being done,” Rawak said. “We were in a conference already, and you don’t want to tell the people you’re in a conference with that you’re looking to go somewhere else.”

UD will receive a little more than $2 million, one time, for joining the conference, largely due to the contracts the conference has with ESPN and CBS Sports. 

It cost $5 million to join the conference, and $1 million to leave its current conference, the Coastal Athletic Association.

“What that is doing is offsetting the expenses,” Rawak said, “so any of the new expenses that we have related to travel or other stuff now that we are going to be able to opt into and participate with, where the quarterback or an offensive player and a defensive player can be talking with a coach.”

Conference USA is also in the higher-level NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division 1-A,  rather than the FCS in which UD currently competes in.

While both the FBS and FCS are Division I leagues, FBS schools tend to be bigger, have more resources, and generate more revenue.

“When an FCS team goes and plays an FBS team, we’re not as valuable to them, so they don’t have to pay us as much to come to play them now,” Rawak said, “because we are a counter in their schedule, there’s a significant difference in our game guarantees.”

Some challenges with the move

Obvious challenges with the move to a larger, more nationally spread-out conference are costs of travel and student athletes missing more academic time. 

But, the costs of travel are offset with the contract with Conference USA, and Rawak believes the missed class time of students won’t be significantly increased.

There’s different travel for different student-athletes, she said, and people don’t realize that many teams, like tennis, golf, our track and field, cross country, or swimming primarily compete in invitationals, which are usually all local.

Of course, there is a conference tournament, which will spike in travel distance and time, but outside of that, those teams compete against local schools. 

“Their travel is not going to change, because they’re going to be competing in the same ways that they’ve been competing,” Rawak said.

Larger team sports like soccer or football don’t necessarily have to worry about travel either, as now they’ll be using planes to fly to games that are far away, rather than buses. 

“That is going to be different for us, but the reality is that they’ve been on buses, and long bus rides at times,” Rawak said. “Going to Northeastern, it’s not close, and even though Stony Brook and Hofstra are miles-wise not too far, when you get on a bus and drive there, it’s a lot further hour-wise.”

She said the move to planes is efficient because Delaware has the Philadelphia airport, the Baltimore airport, and now the Wilmington airport all in close proximity.

“What I hope is that people are as excited about it as we are,” she said. “It was a university choice; this wasn’t like athletics made this decision. The institution made the decision; the board approved it; and the benefits that it has to our university, to our community, to our state, the opportunity for us to be able to highlight and share the wonderful things that are happening within our community is something we’re really proud of and excited about.”

Dan Symonds, a UD alum who played baseball during his time there and is a season-ticket holder for both basketball and football, loves the move to Conference USA.

“It’ll bring a higher level of competition to the athletes,” he said, “I think the fans will enjoy it more. You always want to put yourself up against better competition and see how you fare, kind of a measuring stick for you.”

He acknowledged it might be more difficult for UD fans to travel to away games. 

“The other thing that kind of bothered me about them making the change was that they have to find homes,” he said. “Delaware has to find homes for some of their other sports, like soccer, because they aren’t able to play in Conference USA.”

But, as a former athlete, he likes the idea of flying to games. 

“Bus rides can really take a lot out of you, and they’re nice, comfortable buses, but they’re small seats, and especially for the football guys, they tend to be a little larger,” he said. “If you’re on a bus for four hours or five hours, when you get off,  you’re not feeling that great.”

He said flying, especially when they now get a chance to explore new places like Florida, Texas, and New Mexico, will be something athletes embrace. 

Attempts to reach the school’s alumni association for comment were unsuccessful.