As the college baseball world gets closer to the College World Series, North Texas Fans are left watching other teams fighting for the trip to Omaha and Rosenblatt Stadium. College baseball is becoming more exciting because high school players with pro potential are foregoing the signing bonuses and the grind of the minor league to get an education and play for colleges.They are getting just as much playing time, if not more at the college level and having fun of the college experience.

As the years have gone by, more and more high school players see what happens to players who opt to the minor league system, instead of going to college. Even getting big signing bonuses, the vast majority of players get stuck there for years and never see “the show.”  When they exit the minor league system they have no alternative career path waiting for them and if they decide to go back to college they are responsible for the full cost of tuition. (True, baseball scholarships are not always full rides but partials, but as least some of the tuition is paid for by the school.)

The result is college baseball now has better players and pitchers then in the past so the level of play has increased. As a result there are more and more fans attending games, more games on television and more revenue sharing. The result is adding baseball now is not as expensive as in the past. 

A check with North Texas Athletic Department finds they have considered adding baseball to the line-up card but the timing to do so has not been right.  It is something they will look into in the future.

Since the majority of schools do not add baseball because of Title IX entanglements, when asked about the North Texas situation our source said that would not be a problem for North Texas. If baseball were added, it would skew the North Texas Title IX components but it would not be a major problem. 

The reason is simple, North Texas is the best in the nation when it comes to meeting the Title IX requirements. North Texas participates in 13 sports. There are six men sports and seven women sports. With the campus breakdown of 53% women and 47% men the required ratio of men to women sports is almost dead on.  It is something the Athletic Department and Athletic Director Rick Villarreal “take great pride in.”

(There are three components to Title IX and most schools, like UNT, use the on campus men to women ratio to determine the amount men to women sports.)

So adding baseball would give North Texas a 50-50 ratio of men to women sports. With the 53-47% campus ratio it would not be far out of line. Adding one women sport would put the ratio back in line.

Right now the big issue appears to be money. After being rejected by Conference-USA, A.D. Rick Villarreal moved forward to upgrade both men and women sports facilities. The goal in mind was if a new conference came calling, UNT sports facilities would be ready. With the addition of the new stadium, the upgrades are basically completed. When the stadium is open, there maybe a look to see if baseball can be added.