Airports and Athletics: Why travel time matters
In an interview with Louisville’s Courier-Journal, Louisville head football coach Scott Satterfield was asked about what made Louisville a good job and why he wanted to stay as football coach. Satterfield had a predictably bland answer but made an interesting point:
"As I said: No. 1, our administration is great. They are great to work for, they are great people and what they stand for. That’s the most important thing for me. You have to be aligned from the top to the bottom. Everybody has to be aligned to have a successful program and I feel like we have that here. The thing that is unique and different about Louisville is that it has been such a fast rise in the conference. Only six or seven years in the league and it’s a program on the rise and we are continuing to build and that’s exciting. With Louisville and the support we have, the outstanding fans, the airport is three minutes away, there’s a lot of positives you can see here."
The airport is three minutes away?
An interesting point to make in an interview talking about the positives of a job. Why did Satterfield feel the need to mention how far away the airport is? Because in the world of college athletics, travel time matters.
When I was a student-athlete at Boise State, my head coach told me, “You don’t realize how lucky we are to be this close to the airport.” At Boise, the ride to the airport took a little over 10 minutes and made traveling to meets extremely convenient. We could leave Boise at a reasonable hour in the morning and be almost anywhere in the Midwest by mid-afternoon. For coaches and student-athletes who spend most of their weekends (and weeks depending on the sport) traveling, those minutes that you spend driving to the airport add up. Those that are experienced in college athletics know that these little advantages are huge and can be a massive recruiting tool both for incoming student-athletes and transfers. Convincing a prospective student-athlete to come to school is a little easier when they can fly directly in from wherever they are from. Who wants to drive 90 minutes then fly somewhere? No one.
SDSU’s closest airport is the Brookings Municipal Airport, a five minute drive from campus. However, SDSU football, basketball, and any other sport travels to Sioux Falls to take charter flights, a 49 minute drive, done almost exclusively by bus. How does SDSU stack up in terms of airport travel time to other schools in the conference? Does SDSU have an advantage?
Missouri Valley Football Conference Airport Travel Time
1. NDSU – 2 min – Hector International
2. UND - 10 min – Grand Forks International
3. Southern Illinois - 10 min - Southern Illinois Airport
4. Missouri State – 14 min – Springfield-Branson
5. Youngstown State – 18 min – Youngstown/Warren
(57 min) – Pittsburgh International
6. USD – 41 min – Sioux Gateway
7. Illinois St. – 42 min – Peoria
8. SDSU – 49 min – Sioux Falls
9. Northern Iowa – 1:09 min – Eastern Iowa
10. Indiana St – 1:18 min – Indianapolis
11. Western Illinois – 1:22 min – Peoria
(Hector International in Fargo, located directly next to NDSU’s campus)
For this, assuming that every team in the MVFC charters, I took the nearest airport where commercial flights are available. Youngstown was not clear, it is entirely possible that they fly out of Pitt every time.
Does SDSU have an advantage? No, but their flying situation is not entirely bad. Plenty of FBS programs have longer travel times than SDSU does. Further, it is almost guaranteed that SDSU will not run into traffic coming to or from Sioux Falls, something that cannot be said for some of the other locations. While Coach Stig is unlikely to be bragging to reporters about how convenient SDSU’s travel situation is anytime soon, it is a far cry from a “bad” situation. I can only imagine some of the horror stories that Western Illinois must have on some of those bus trips back to campus.