146: Road to Omaha by conferences
A look at the conference affiliation of the 2025 College World Series.
The last time you heard from me, I put together a table calling the 2025 NCAA Tournament the SEC-ACC Invitational. No surprise, I was wrong1.
The 2025 College World Series features teams from seven different conference affiliations, which includes Oregon State competing as an independent. While the SEC (13 bids and 8 Regional Hosts) and the ACC (9 bids and 3 Regional Hosts) represented 34 percent of the 64-team field, only three teams from the SEC or ACC reached Omaha this season.
Here is the breakdown of the 2025 CWS by conference showing teams that reached Omaha from each of the seven conferences and the other teams that received NCAA Tournament bids from each one of those conferences.
Conference history
The last time Coastal Carolina reached the College World Series was 2016. The Chanticleers beat Arizona in two out of three games to win the National Championship.
The Beach Chickens were members of the Big South Conference in 2016, which was a one-bid league that season. Fast-forward to 2025, and the Chanticleers are now members of the Sun Belt conference, a two-bid league this year.
Arizona, a four-time National Champion, was a member of the Pac-12 conference back in 2016. The Wildcats are now part of the Big 12.
Louisville is making their sixth College World Series appearance in program history. The Cardinals have been conference nomads and you can tell by its CWS history: Big East members in 2007 and 2013, American Athletic Conference in 2014, and ACC for their last three CWS trips (2017, 2019, 2025).
UCLA is returning to Omaha for the first time since 2013. This season the Bruins are now part of the Big Ten, not the Pac-12 as they were over a decade ago.
Three-time National Champion Oregon State is making its eighth trip to the College World Series. The Beavers are independent this season, not affiliated with any conference. Oregon State played 35 games away from home this season (20 away, 15 neutral) but still displayed the Pac-12 logo while hosting NCAA Tournament games over the past two weeks2.
Murray State is the fourth team to reach Omaha as a Regional No. 4 seed and the first to represent the Missouri Valley Conference since 2003. Of course, the Racers were members of the Ohio Valley Conference, not the Missouri Valley, back in 2003.
The 2025 CWS marks only the third time since 1999 that the eight-team field features teams from seven different conference affiliations. Each occurrence (1999, 2003, 2025) included an independent team (Miami in 1999 and 2003, Oregon State this season).
The table below shows the number of conferences and National Champions for every College World Series since 1999.
What is a conference these days?
A conference or a league used to be a way to create competition against a group of schools or teams. Those teams were often close in proximity. There was familiarity. Schools from a similar place, that played each other regularly, and built legitimate rivalries over decades.
These days, teams in the same conference often don't even play each other. While there's less actual competition on the field, there's blurrier competition elsewhere. TV ratings, brand recognition, and a share of a media market.
Fans, myself included, fall into these traps of talking about conference pride and brands like it’s a way to keep score. It’s silly. We all have opinions or takes, and more often than not, we don’t even know enough to have an opinion.
Of course, the company you keep can be a competitive advantage. The House v. NCAA settlement and all the media rights deals do matter. But it’s exhausting to listen to analysis on the new settlement with phrases like “a ladder of products”3 for an athletic department.
Conference affiliation has become a business arrangement. It’s a means to generate revenue. Of course, a conference matters. But programs matter too. Players matter. Coaching matters.
It’s why the 2025 College World Series might be the perfect counterpoint to the current state of college sports. Oregon State didn’t need a conference to reach the top stage of the sport. Murray State doesn’t have a budget in the same stratosphere as the rest of the CWS participants.
Maybe that’s the point. After all, baseball is romantic4 … at least it is for now.
Thanks for reading this far. As a recommendation this week, Brian Fremeau made some updates to his college football data site: bcftoys.com. The glossary section with definitions for all the acronyms is super useful. Big fan of Brian’s work.
🤟 Enjoy the summer and stay cool. 🤟
As a Sports Information Director a long time ago, I once had a right-handed pitcher listed as left-handed in the game notes for about ~50% of the season. Not the first time I’ve been wrong, and certainly not the last either.
Of course, the Pac-12 is being retro-fit next season with new members.
John Ourand’s podcast, The Varsity, is a good listen at times. His interview with Len Perna, from TurnkeyZRG, was interesting and also filled with corporate buzz words. Not great.
I believe there ought to be a Constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter.