With a packed schedule from January through April, NCAA gymnasts spend much of their time on the road during the season. We analyzed select schedules for the 2025 season and found that the median round-trip distance a team travels throughout the season is 6,700 miles, approximately the distance from Los Angeles to Istanbul, up from a median of 6,100 miles in 2024. We wanted to know: How did conference realignments change team travel distances between 2024 and 2025?
To find out, we analyzed schedules released before December 10th and calculated distances between home and away campuses. For neutral site meets, we calculated distances between each participating team’s campus and the arena. Conference championships, regionals, and nationals are not included. Distances were calculated using the Haversine formula, which takes into account the earth’s curvature when measuring the distance in miles between two points. We accounted for double-meet weekends with non-round trip travel. For example, Greenville will travel 2,948 miles to Alaska for a meet on January 23, zero miles for its next meet at Alaska on the 25th, followed by 2,948 miles back home.
How did conference changes impact distance traveled?
The table below shows the median distance each conference’s…
