A 64 team mega conference could basically tell the NCAA to pound sand, right? They could basically pay athletes a reasonable wage, and there would be no more of these Bush type scandals?

Theoretically perhaps, not so sure in practice.

I mean, are the 64 megas willing to forego things like the NCAA basketball tournament (and it's 98% of all revenue produced by the NCAA) for a much shorter national tournament and the reduced revenue?

Because I have a tough time seeing the NCAA willing to allow member schools to compete against non-members in other sports (i.e. letting those 64 break away for football but nothing else) and still feed at the trough for those.

And while the rest are theoretically free to break away for their own group of "The Rest", then negotiate with The 64 & end the NCAA altogether, that wouldn't be something that comes easily nor quickly.

Not to mention having to tear up every contract that's in place currently & start over (not sure what the legal wrangling over that would even look like)

edit to add: Not to mention what 50 different state legislatures would do with the concept of paying players as employees while laying off academic staff.

Also, things work really, really well for the powers that be right now.

Players play football for free (I, know, they get a scholarship, so it isn't totally free).

Colleges make money selling tickets, TV rights, etc.

NFL gets a free minor league system that both develops the players and makes the best of them stars.

While it is possible to start paying players, I'm not sure that that would not be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Cowherd was saying that CU and Utah to the PAC-10 was a done deal. I think they tried to kick Texas' tires and while Texas to the PAC-10 was probably more likely then to the Big-11, it probably bordered on next to nil.

Fun fact: on average about half of a college football program's revenue comes from ticket sales and alumni contributions. Conference distributions (which includes bowl money and television money) are a distant third as a revenue source.

In other words, there is more to this than just television money, and the value of having an extra home game a year is huge for most schools. This ties into JIMGA's point regarding teams not being able to play the BIG 64 teams if they split off and to albion's regarding how good it currently is.

Quite a few of the big schools have athletic departments that are self-funding, and don't receive any money from their respective states.

Even Cowherd is getting in on the fake rumors. I'm ready for a federal gag-order or something.

And ya, I think the everyone's armchair analysis, including my own, is going to prove to to be way off base when we see what actually goes down. There's likely all kinds of politics and negotiations and hidden factors at work.

I know (the Vols are definitely one of them) ... but there aren't 64 of them either.

Interesting. Mizzou has had a club hockey team for several years that they've been looking to upgrade to play at the top level.

Texas is obviously (along with Notre Dame) the big prize out there. I have little doubt that if the Big-10 goes big and starts carving pieces out of the Big-12, the feeding frenzy will be on - the Pac-10 will have to try to grab Texas (and A&M) and whatever else it can get from the remains of the Big-12 in order to stay competitive with the Big-10 and SEC (which will also be looking at trying to grab Texas and A&M).

This is assuming the Pac-10 has the guts to make the bold move, but they have to realize they will be in a precarious position when the dominoes start falling, and merging with/absorbing parts of the Big-12 is their ultimate path to survival.

If Texas is passing up the overtures from the Big Ten, I have to think that the Pac 10 need not bother with them. Perhaps their thinking is that they are heavyweight enough to anchor their conference without having to move (and, they are almost certainly correct in that regard). As long as they have Oklahoma as their wingman (and, again, probably even w/o them), their conference will always be relevant and one of the two will almost always be in the national title picture.

As far as hockey goes, the next two schools most likely to get a D1 team would be Penn State and Illinois. I dunno if it can feasibly happen because of Title 9 but they are most likely.

Title 9 and the fact that Penn State wasn't smart enough to make sure the Bryce Jordan Center could be fit for ice when the built it are two big reason Penn State is just Club Hockey.

Maybe, but as with anything it just depends on the quality of the offers. Perhaps the Pac-10 would be more willing to create an arrangement that benefits Texas more than any offer from the Big-10? Maybe the Pac-10 is more willing to take on Texas A&M as well, and perhaps others from the Big-12?

The Big-10 is obviously in a much stronger position financially right now than the Pac-10, and that gives them greater leverage. But at the same time, maybe that leverage makes them less likely to bend to what Texas would want in return for joining...

I also wonder how much U. Texas has the ability to do that without the blessing of the Texas state legislature.

And, if enough Baylor, A&M, Texas Tech, etc. grads are in that legislature, they may make Texas' approval of the move contingent upon that conference being willing to take [x] other schools.

Yeah, that would be the potential complicating factor. It's already assumed that any conference that takes Texas has to take Texas A&M. That's doable, but if Texas Tech & Baylor are also requirements, that pretty much kills the incentive to grab Texas.

I also wonder how much Texas would insist on Oklahoma coming along too so they don't have to make the Red River Shootout an OOC game...

A&M has a ton of leverage right now politically since the current governor went there. That was a big part of the reason Baylor got pulled in to the Big 12, but their political clout is nowhere near what it was back in the early 90s.

As for OU being a non-conference game, it was that way up until the formation of the Big 12, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It would be, however, if Texas went out on its own. I doubt there would be much support for having A&M and OU be two of the 3 or 4 OOC games every year.

The Big 10 and the Big 12 should just merge to form the Big 22. But I guess then they'll have to add 2 more teams if they want a second championship game.

the cuse community seems to think we're getting an invite. we've certainly been posturing that way with football scheduling the past couple years.

i'm torn. but big east leadership has been so abysmal for so long i guess it was only a matter of time.

But 25 teams would make for some awkward scheduling... :)

Well, the revenue from the tournament comes from those 64 teams being in the tournament. With the NCAA only handing back a miniscule percentage of the money to the schools that earn it, those schools could have their own tournament, sell it to tv for half the rights fees, and still get more tournament revenue per school.

I'm not entirely sure you could even get half, there simply isn't enough commercial inventory to make up for the difference in game.

Lemme see here, a little extremely loose math based on what I've seen spots go for in the past.

Now (I'll skip the nearly worthless play-in game)
32 R1 Games @ 1x dollars = 32 dollars
16 R2 Games @ 2x dollars = 32 dollars
8 S16 Games @ 3x dollars = 24 dollars
4 E8 Games @ 4x dollars = 16 dollars
2 FF Games @ 5x dollars = 10 dollars
1 Title Game @ 6x dollars = 6 dollars
63 Games Revenue = 120 dollars

Then (with a bump for the higher profile & spot scarcity)
8 S16 Games @ 4x dollars = 32 dollars
4 E8 Games @ 5x dollars = 20 dollars
2 FF Games @ 6x dollars = 12 dollars
1 Title Game @ 7x dollars = 7 dollars
15 Games Revenue = 78 dollars

So yeah, a little over half if my generosity is accurate, but that's strictly TV spot revenue and I think I'm probably overestimating it.

You are assuming they'll only let 16 teams in their tournament. I think it would be at least 32 (since that's roughly how many of those 64 make it every year) if not all 64.

Right, but the amount of revenue currently going to the top 64 teams is nowhere near half - its more like 5%. Having their own tournament with half the revenue would represent a HUGE windfall for the 64 teams.

LOL, devalue a tournament much? What's the point to a regular season, strictly seeding?

By the very nature of things, you're talking about a tournament that consistently has .500 or even sub-.500 teams in it at that point, since they're virtually certain to only be playing each other all year.

Yeah, I think that is the big problem to basketball breaking loose - losing the ability to pad records against NCAA schools.

But, a 32 team tournament would not change things all that much - right now around 32 of those 64 are making the tourney anyway, and the worst of those have .500 or less records against each other. All that's lost is the record padding games against inferior competition. I think people would adapt.

I'd be hard pressed to envision a scenario in which the teams that break away losing NCAA tourney money out of creating their own tournament. They just end up with so little of the current pot, and are responsible for so much of the revenue. They've got to be able to make money by cutting out the funding of everything the NCAA does out of their product.

Planning to drop championships in those other sports eh? And enforcement? And attorneys to negotiate these new deals? And logistics? I mean, "funding everything NCAA does" covers a lot of ground.

And, although not at all the problem of The 64 but probably worth at least a miniscule mention somewhere (might as well be here), it also means the end of funding for the 87 other championships the NCAA administers. Free market at work & all that, I know, just saying that it's at least worth a split second of noting.

No, but having the championships, enforcement, logistics, etc. for those 64 schools is a lot cheaper than doing it for the thousands of schools and conferences that add nothing to the pot. "Funding everything the NCAA Does" is a LOT cheaper when doing it for dozens of schools than doing it for 1500-ish schools in the NCAA. All of those costs for not only lower level D-I, but all of D-II and D-III are funded from the D-I basketball tournament.

Some things about higher education to remember:

1. Innovation isn't really cherished by the status quo. It's all about following what the leaders are doing.

2. Nothing happens quickly or overnight. And when it does, it's almost always political.

3. The overwhelming majority are always working to maintain the status quo.

So all of these conversations are nice, but...it's just unlikely it'll lead to any cataclysmic changes like everyone seems to be bracing themselves for. And if does happen, I can't see Big 10 expansion as the domino that starts the nuclear winter of college sports.

A friend and I were talking about the BCS conferences potentially shifting away from the NCAA and how it was coming from the university presidents. We both thought it made sense since a number of universities are getting less funds from their respective states now and thus maybe the presidents are looking at the athletic departments to fund the difference. Just another potential reason for those schools to leave the NCAA.

Presidents care about fundraising. Sports help fuel multimillion dollar donations in some cases, but often times, that money just goes right back into sports. Athletic revenues do not keep schools open, pay for labs or most importantly, build new buildings.

Let's not overstate this.

(not specific to stevew) Yeah, again, to all the "pay athletes" people- IT WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN. EVER. EVER! EVER!!?!! I can't emphasize this enough.

Until you have some magical court challenge or structure that can work around Title IX, you will never, ever, ever have athletes being paid. They would have to become separate entities from the University (moreso than they are now where they are their own corporations) because as soon as you want to pay athletes, you have to pay EVERY athlete, not just revenue generating sports. The wink-wink, nudge-nudge agreement of giving everyone a scholarship while having fairly unbalanced budgets (about 60/40) is all they can do right now to keep from being challenged in court.

Bush had signed an executive order saying that you could have a survey around campus that demonstrated less demand for female athletics then you could unbalance the payment field further but that was recently struck down by an Obama executive order.

I don't like it at all because I think it completely decimates male non-revenue generating sports and, honestly, I don't think the interest is there.

Similarly, I don't really feel sorry for someone who gets to go to college for free, even the ones who "football is their life" because, really, they probably weren't going to go to college otherwise.

But it's not going to change. At all. Unless you have some magical court precedent or way around Title IX and I'm guessing you don't.

SI

I've seen a lot of magical court challenges when this much money is involved, and certainly Title IX itself isn't set in stone or immune from modification.

But where's the money that will push that? The NCAA doesn't want to have to pay- this arrangement works well for them. Any "interested third party" like the ACLU wants gender equity in sports. It's a cute story for the media but they don't care. The only ones who really want it are current and future players and they don't have anywhere near the clout to change what is in the vested interest of the previous parties.

SI

Here's an interesting SI article about conference shifting from 1991:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...40/1/index.htm

In many cases, it's pretty close. If you think that UGA without a football program doesn't turn into Georgia Southern or Gainesville College (academically, enrollment, etc.) in a relatively short time, you're kidding yourself. And the same could be said for a lot of larger state schools.

edit to add: And the issue of state funding multiplies several times over as well, as there will be little voter support for funding UGA from the majority of taxpayers whose only connection or interest in the school at all is football.

Yup, thanks for posting. That's what I meant by my "Blame Notre Dame" post a page or so back. When they bolted from the CFA to sign their own television contract, it really started all of the dominoes toppling.

9 schools have more money coming into the athletic program that goes to the general fund - and it;s usually in the millions of dollars. It's just 9 though. I'm sure you can figure out which 9 pretty easily.

It's interesting how little the discussion has changed over the last 20 years:

"As the haves consolidate their power, the have-nots will be all but shut out of any shot at the major bowls or TV exposure, begging the question of why they simply don't drop back to I-AA or split off and form an entirely new division"

Good arty

Nice find :)

SI

Agreed, to a point. Basically, college athletics basically advertisement for Universities. They pay back to the University for what they borrow or use (i.e. rent on facilities, etc) and, in exchange, they have quite a bit of autonomy. They're essentially an independent entity who swaps scholarships for "free" advertising.

SI

Actually...I think I suggested something similar in one of the other threads.

My understanding from MU's standpoint is that the athletic department isn't a big factor in the discussion. The main consideration is research money. Mizzou stands to get a large research funding boost if they were to join the Big 10. I don't know the specifics, but I've been told that Alden and the athletic department really just have to go with what the university leadership decides.

A Big East note: Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to Advise BIG EAST Conference on Strategic Planning - BIG EAST Conference Athletics

Probably won't hurt to have him aboard (if he has anything left to work with), particularly TV contract-wise. The folks that want a football/basketball school split will probably be disappointed, as he is a Georgetown Alum and has been working for them.

This is an angle that doesn't get a lot of attention by most, but it's an important point. The Big-10 and Pac-10 are more than just athletic associations - they also take seriously academic associations and there is a lot of sharing that goes on in terms of research between the member institutions. Given that the University Presidents are the ones that ultimately make the decisions with regard to the Pac-10 (and I would guess the Big-10 as well), academic considerations should not be underestimated when discussing possible mergers and expansion...

Well, about the time they get that, there will be massive realignment and they'll be screwed again

SI

One wonders if that might be a factor to spur the BCS schools leaving the NCAA.

well if the big ten loots the big east i'm sure they'll lose their bid.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp