In a number of 2025 articles, I indicated we were seeing a signifcant decline in out-of-region travel, with potential negative impacts on the NCAA RPI's ability to properly rank teams from a region in relation to teams from other regions. I WAS WRONG about there being a decline. There has not been a significant change in out-of-region travel. My error was due to a programming issue that resulted in overstated amounts of past out-of-region travel.
The following table shows the percentages of games that were in-region, for each of four time periods:
2007 to 2012: During the period, conference membership was fairly stable, except towards the end of the period.
2013 to 2023: 2013 was the last year of a significant conference re-shuffle, with conference membership remaining relatively stable through 2023. There were changes, but not major ones.
2024 to the Present: 2024 was the year of the demise of the Pac 12 as we previously knew it as well as of other significant conference membership changes, with even more changes yet to come. In particular, these changes have involved conferences trying to expand their geographic (and television market) footprints.
The Most Recent Year: 2025, which also is included in the 2024 to the Present period.
The following table shows the percentage of games that were in-region, for each of the four regions, for each of the time periods:
With conferences expanding their geographic footprints, one might have expected a significant increase in out-of-region travel in 2024 and 2025, continuing into the future. This does not appear to have happened. It suggests that any increase in in-conference but out-of-region travel, for teams in conferences with expanded geographic footprints, has been offset by decreases in non-conference out-of-region travel either for teams in the expanded conferences or for other teams.
Whether this will continue in the coming years remains to be seen.
