My original suggestion was that under this new OV rule, coaches will spend more money on OVs than before, period. We can argue all day about how much more those added costs will be. Indeed my logistics calculations are pulled from the sky (3x $500 RT tickets + 2 hotel nights + meals + transportation to and from the airport for that catcher from San Diego to get to Nashville, or that LHP from Savannah to Palo Alto) and may have been exaggerated for effect. But the fact of the matter still seems to stand. There will be more OVs under this new rule and it will cost D1 baseball programs collectively more. It will also make highly recruited juniors less willing to make UVs at their own expense. The vast majority of recruits are local, this clearly won't affect them. But if the new rule makes it easier for a kid from San Diego to go east or a kid from Savannah to go west, the rule change could encourage top programs that don't currently see their recruiting platform as national in scope to become just a little less provincial. That would be an interesting development. But none of the replies to my suggestion has convinced me otherwise: the total number of OVs across the board will only increase, not decrease in the coming years as a result of this rule.
Add this to some of the additional costs imposed on top-tier athletic departments as a result of the recent tax law changes and it would seem to me that administrators won't be happy to see budget requests for any additional baseball-related expenses.
As for Boise baseball, I couldn't agree more. The nearest midweek game will be a 6+ hour bus ride to Utah Valley or Wazzu. That's not the kind of travel demands I'd want for my student-athlete. But for kids from the upper mountain west wanting to stay closer to home to play D1 baseball, I suppose it's a good thing. It makes me think that university is a little bit desperate with regards to it's reputation and doesn't have much in the way to attract out of state students aside from athletics. But I could be wrong.