It's a very big deal. As a basketball fan I am sick of home games against Mayviile State, Mary(ND), and crappy teams like that. Now we will get more D-1 schools up here in Fargo. I follow basketball so I heard of all these schools, I am pumped. I don't know if you noticed but we had one of the top 5 youngest teams in the country last year and we did very well(we beat fricken Wisconsin at the KOHL CENTER!) If NDSU ever wanted a chance of getting into the national tournament or even the NIT, they will need a conference, and now we have it!
No Football? Who cares. We are already in a good conference, with 3 teams currently ranked nationally. Granted we need more teams to join in order to get an automatic bid someday in the D1-AA tourney, but right now we are in good shape.