Quote:It would be the height of naiveté to not see the end game here. The NCAA performs three major functions for its members: it operates tournaments, regulates members, and absorbs public criticism. By moving to an autonomy system where five conferences not only draft but administer their own rules, Delany is suggesting the NCAA cease performing the latter two of those tasks, at least for a subset of rules. Conferences also already know how to run tournaments (or could simply poach the NCAA's best people), so the only reason to keep the NCAA around and Division I intact is the value of March Madness.

That is not enough to keep Division I together for even the medium term. The Division I men's basketball tournament might be an $800 million/year property. But the five power conferences only see about $200 million of that, some of it with significant strings attached. A lighter, leaner organization might be able to produce the same distributions for power conference members on a tournament generating as little as a third of the revenue of March Madness.

You only have to read between a couple of lines to see that Delany is even indicating when a split will happen. Multiple times, Delany mentions a time frame of five to seven years to get Division I restructured, reform it to the liking of the power conferences, and let outside reform efforts like the wave of lawsuits play out. That is also, perhaps not coincidentally, the average time between governance reforms in Division I over the last 20 years or so.

Quote: John Infante ‏@John_Infante ·15 mins
The same numbers and logic that make leaving the NCAA make sense for the power conferences also make sense for the rest of DI too.

John Infante ‏@John_Infante ·14 mins
Especially if you’re talking about a subset of Division I, like the other five FBS conferences and the top 5-10 non-FB conferences.

John Infante ‏@John_Infante ·12 mins
If the power conferences go, it makes sense for a group from the rest of Division I to go off on their own as well.

Quote:John Infante ‏@John_Infante ·2 mins
But I think if the next step is not a split, then it is easy to pivot to “everyone should have to do these things”.

(05-07-2014 02:32 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2014-05-07/ncaa-restructuring-hits-point-where-split-is-preferable

John Infante, the writer of the bylaw blog, is going out on a limb here about a split, and mostly basing it on Nicole Auerbach's interview of Jim Delany. Now we all know Delany tends to overplay his hand in order to get what he wants, but Infante makes a great parallel between this new governance struture (and the avarice for wanting more and more out of it) and the failed PAC-16 consolidation of 2010. His point is that if the PAC-16 had gone through, it would have been less painful than what has since happened in realignment.

But he does make a good point about the posturing of Delany:

Quote:It would be the height of naiveté to not see the end game here. The NCAA performs three major functions for its members: it operates tournaments, regulates members, and absorbs public criticism. By moving to an autonomy system where five conferences not only draft but administer their own rules, Delany is suggesting the NCAA cease performing the latter two of those tasks, at least for a subset of rules. Conferences also already know how to run tournaments (or could simply poach the NCAA's best people), so the only reason to keep the NCAA around and Division I intact is the value of March Madness.

That is not enough to keep Division I together for even the medium term. The Division I men's basketball tournament might be an $800 million/year property. But the five power conferences only see about $200 million of that, some of it with significant strings attached. A lighter, leaner organization might be able to produce the same distributions for power conference members on a tournament generating as little as a third of the revenue of March Madness.

You only have to read between a couple of lines to see that Delany is even indicating when a split will happen. Multiple times, Delany mentions a time frame of five to seven years to get Division I restructured, reform it to the liking of the power conferences, and let outside reform efforts like the wave of lawsuits play out. That is also, perhaps not coincidentally, the average time between governance reforms in Division I over the last 20 years or so.

Not a bad observation.

(05-07-2014 02:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If they should split then we, in the G5 need to make sure it is for all sports.

(05-07-2014 02:49 PM)Tigeer Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 02:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If they should split then we, in the G5 need to make sure it is for all sports.

Why, I would want Memphis to still play big boy basketball?

(05-07-2014 02:47 PM)bullet Wrote:  I think people overestimate the value of the bottom conferences. I think a 150 team division I would generate more value in the tournament than a 350 team division I. Noone wants to see 106-56 1 vs. 16 seed games.

But the issue is that if the power conferences took the bb tourney money, the NCAA would basically collapse. And many of these people did work at those other schools. So as greedy as they can be, I think they understand the negative impact of leaving on everyone else. And, of course, it might have some negative political impact on them as well.

(05-07-2014 03:15 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  The P5 currently has massive amounts of influence over these sports.

If they break away they lose all of that influence in setting direction for the whole of college sports.

You don't want a competitor, no matter how weak. Even if that competitor is weak...someone strong can use it against you.

Why is it so important for the P5 to divorce us? I think we are a pretty cheap servant right now.

(05-07-2014 03:51 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I've said it before, I'll say it again.

The P5 should be careful what it wishes for as a split would make perpetual losers out of a lot of mid-level Athletic programs like a Minnesota, a Washington State, or a Mississippi. In a split, the strong will be invincible and the weak will wither away.

(05-07-2014 03:51 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 03:15 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  The P5 currently has massive amounts of influence over these sports.

If they break away they lose all of that influence in setting direction for the whole of college sports.

You don't want a competitor, no matter how weak. Even if that competitor is weak...someone strong can use it against you.

Why is it so important for the P5 to divorce us? I think we are a pretty cheap servant right now.

It may change depending on how the lawsuits shake out, but one benefit of the Go5 is the legal umbrella ... a school that can't get into the FBS is not just being denied a place by the P5 schools, its being denied a place by ten different conferences at a wide range of levels of AD budgets, average attendance and etc. And that big protective buffer comes at a relatively small price.

An FBS breakaway with the A10 and New Big East as BBall and Olympic sports add-ons would be 12 AQ spots in a "Intercollegiate American Athletic Association (I-AAA)" BBall tournament ... you could give every conference a tournament AQ and a regular season AQ, for 24 AQ spots, pare the BBall tournament down to 40 to have a first round of 8 games and a second round of 16 games, and still have 16 at-large spots to give out .... bearing in mind that the P5 conferences already have 10 schools in the New Big Dance in a two-AQ system.

If there are any mid-major BBall schools left out, they can angle for a Big East, A10 or Olympic-sport-only spot in a Go5 conference, some of whom might like the chance to upgrade their BBall season, and in the process of fighting for a spot in the new system, get diverted from fighting the establishment of the new system.

None of this prediction, of course ... just one way that it could possibly shake out.

(05-07-2014 03:51 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I've said it before, I'll say it again.

The P5 should be careful what it wishes for as a split would make perpetual losers out of a lot of mid-level Athletic programs like a Minnesota, a Washington State, or a Mississippi. In a split, the strong will be invincible and the weak will wither away.

The "big split" scenario includes the advantage that the P5 (and in BBall Big East and A10) get ample choice of Go5 schools to play. The extra money from shifting the conference share of BBall tourney money from 20% to something more like 80% ought to be more than enough to cover the modest increase in costs of Go5 buy games over FCS buy games.

(05-07-2014 03:08 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 02:47 PM)bullet Wrote:  I think people overestimate the value of the bottom conferences. I think a 150 team division I would generate more value in the tournament than a 350 team division I. Noone wants to see 106-56 1 vs. 16 seed games.

But the issue is that if the power conferences took the bb tourney money, the NCAA would basically collapse. And many of these people did work at those other schools. So as greedy as they can be, I think they understand the negative impact of leaving on everyone else. And, of course, it might have some negative political impact on them as well.

I agree. You take out the P5 from the tourney, and yeah sure they could get $200M-$300M on their own (maybe even more) per year, but the remainder to the non-P5 would dry up to a much smaller number than that (maybe only 10%-20% of that). It truly is a case of the sum of the parts being less than the whole. Nobody is going to be willing to pay $500M-$600M per year for the second-level tourney.

(05-07-2014 03:51 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 03:15 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  The P5 currently has massive amounts of influence over these sports.

If they break away they lose all of that influence in setting direction for the whole of college sports.

You don't want a competitor, no matter how weak. Even if that competitor is weak...someone strong can use it against you.

Why is it so important for the P5 to divorce us? I think we are a pretty cheap servant right now.

It may change depending on how the lawsuits shake out, but one benefit of the Go5 is the legal umbrella ... a school that can't get into the FBS is not just being denied a place by the P5 schools, its being denied a place by ten different conferences at a wide range of levels of AD budgets, average attendance and etc. And that big protective buffer comes at a relatively small price.

An FBS breakaway with the A10 and New Big East as BBall and Olympic sports add-ons would be 12 AQ spots in a "Intercollegiate American Athletic Association (I-AAA)" BBall tournament ... you could give every conference a tournament AQ and a regular season AQ, for 24 AQ spots, pare the BBall tournament down to 40 to have a first round of 8 games and a second round of 16 games, and still have 16 at-large spots to give out .... bearing in mind that the P5 conferences already have 10 schools in the New Big Dance in a two-AQ system.

If there are any mid-major BBall schools left out, they can angle for a Big East, A10 or Olympic-sport-only spot in a Go5 conference, some of whom might like the chance to upgrade their BBall season, and in the process of fighting for a spot in the new system, get diverted from fighting the establishment of the new system.

None of this prediction, of course ... just one way that it could possibly shake out.

(05-07-2014 03:51 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I've said it before, I'll say it again.

The P5 should be careful what it wishes for as a split would make perpetual losers out of a lot of mid-level Athletic programs like a Minnesota, a Washington State, or a Mississippi. In a split, the strong will be invincible and the weak will wither away.

The "big split" scenario includes the advantage that the P5 (and in BBall Big East and A10) get ample choice of Go5 schools to play. The extra money from shifting the conference share of BBall tourney money from 20% to something more like 80% ought to be more than enough to cover the modest increase in costs of Go5 buy games over FCS buy games.

(05-07-2014 04:03 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  And exactly what criteria would be made to include the A-10/Big East and not other conferences?

Quote: How in the world could anyone make the claim that the AAC, MVC, MWC, and WCC do not deserve to play basketball at the highest level?

Quote: Not to mention how can you make the claim that programs like La Tech, UNCC, WKU, UAB, heck even South Alabama do not deserve to play basketball at the highest level?

(05-07-2014 03:15 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  The P5 currently has massive amounts of influence over these sports.

If they break away they lose all of that influence in setting direction for the whole of college sports.

You don't want a competitor, no matter how weak. Even if that competitor is weak...someone strong can use it against you.

Why is it so important for the P5 to divorce us? I think we are a pretty cheap servant right now.

(05-07-2014 04:14 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If there is a "big split" then it needs to be a real split. You play your guys...we play ours.

(05-07-2014 05:49 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 04:14 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If there is a "big split" then it needs to be a real split. You play your guys...we play ours.

Yes ... under the "Big Split" scenario (as opposed to the narrower P5 Split), the Go5 would lose access to FCS buy games, because they wouldn't be in the NCAA anymore, they'd be in the breakaway athletic association.

However, I reckon we would take that downside in return for access to the same BBall conference the P5 play and games against P5 schools (even if most of them may be buy games).