College Sports Realignment Roundup for April 4, 2025

The end of the week saw yet another school announce that it will not be moving forward with a varsity athletics program. One NCAA Division 1 school will not bring back discontinued teams and two NCAA Division 3 conferences will partner up in women’s lacrosse.

Academy of Art Dropping Athletics

Another school is getting rid of its athletics programs at the end of the year. The Academy of Art (San Francisco, California) will discontinue athletics at the conclusion of the 2024-25 academic year. The Urban Knights competed in 13 varsity sports in the NCAA Division 2 Pacific West Conference. The school started its athletics program in 2012, making it relatively new compared to most other schools.

Another Pac West school, Azusa Pacific, is leaving to join the NCAA Division 3 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) in 2026-27. The Pac West will have 12 full members by the start of the 2026-27 season despite the departures of the Academy of Art and Azusa Pacific.

There has been no stopping the trend of schools dropping athletics, as the Academy of Art is the 3rd in the past ten days. Bryn Athyn College announced it will drop athletics after the 2024-25 academic year on March 26 while Rosemont College will end its varsity programs after the 2025-26 academic year due to a merger with Villanova University. So far, 9 schools will drop athletics by choice, due to closing, or as a result of a merger. In addition to Azusa Pacific moving to NCAA Division 3, Saint Francis announced it will move from NCAA Division 1’s Northeast Conference to D3’s Presidents’ Athletic Conference in 2026-27.

Cleveland State Not Bringing Back Three Sports

Cleveland State University is sticking to its original plan from January when the school announced the cuts of men’s wrestling, softball, and golf. The inclusion of $1.6 million in the Ohio budget earmarked specifically for men’s and women’s wrestling programs wasn’t enough to sway CSU leadership. Cleveland State would start a women’s team as part of the funding. The money would have been split evenly between the men’s and women’s teams for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years.

Two NCAA D3 Conferences Partner Up for Women’s Lacrosse

The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) and United East Conference (UEC) will form a women’s lacrosse partnership. Starting with the 2025-26 academic year, the women’s lacrosse teams in each conference will compete for an automatic qualifying bid to the NCAA tournament. Both conferences will have a typical regular season and conference tournament to determine the two participants in the crossover championship game to determine the AQ recipient. Bryn Athyn College was originally included as one of the teams in the partnership but is dropping varsity athletics at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.