http://www.courier-journal.com/article/2.../301190057

Tim Sullivan | Louisville already seeing benefits of move to the ACC.

The vote was taken electronically, but it probably could have been conducted with a weather vane.

Friday in San Diego, 800 delegates to the NCAA’s Division I Governance Dialogue were asked to take a nonbinding position on which way the wind was blowing in college athletics.

The question was framed as follows: “To what extent does the room support the concept of autonomy for the big five conferences in certain still-to-be-defined areas?”

Fifty-eight percent of the delegates either supported or strongly supported the power conferences’ desire to operate more independently, to spend their money more freely and to gain formal acknowledgement that parity exists for those who can afford to pay for it.

More specific legislation should take shape this spring, but the general direction is as plain as the nose on the $100 bill. As Puff Daddy put it, it’s all about the Benjamins.

The Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences have massed their financial muscle in an effort to extract (extort?) concessions from their comparatively cash-poor competitors. The purported goal is greater flexibility in the distribution of dollars, which almost certainly means significant cash stipends in the pockets of the NCAA’s best athletes.

This way lies oligopoly, a market dominated by a small group of big players, and to some extent that’s always been the case in college athletics. Yet as this informal trend gains traction toward official legislation, the University of Louisville’s July 1 move to the ACC becomes that much more significant.

If big-time college athletics is to formalize the financial divide between the five power conferences and everyone else, being included among the happy few is absolutely essential to long-term growth and competitive success.

Whether it goes by the name of “full cost of attendance” or some other euphemism, the ability to offer thousands of dollars in cash as an inducement to recruits would enable U of L to further distance itself from long-standing rivals such as Cincinnati and Memphis. The inability to do so could be crippling to those schools that aspire to compete on a national scale.

The difference between being included and excluded in this power play is the difference between abundance and scarcity, stability and stress. That difference can be seen in the divergent fortunes of the athletic programs at U of L and the University of Connecticut — an unsuccessful ACC suitor — and it is dramatic.

Already operating the nation’s most profitable basketball program, and able to anticipate annual ACC windfalls, Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich continues to expand his empire, building a new soccer stadium and buying the Cardinal Club golf course.

Connecticut, by contrast, expects to rely on “reduced resources” according to an athletic advisory committee’s annual report published last month.

ACC member schools stand to earn an average of more than $20 million per year in television revenues through 2026-27. The American Athletic Conference, Louisville’s interim home and Connecticut’s longer-term marriage of inconvenience, reportedly generates about one-tenth that amount in rights fees, or about $2 million per school per year.

Following a consultant’s recommendation, UConn raised its prices for football and men’s basketball only to experience a drop in ticket revenue. Louisville’s 76-64 basketball victory at UConn’s Gampel Pavilion on Saturday night was played before a packed house, but it also represented the Cards’ last foreseeable stop in Storrs as a conference rival. It was another reminder that while U of L is moving on up, UConn remains stuck in place.

Former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese lamented UConn’s fate in an interview last spring with the New York Times, saying, “In the end, they wind up a victim, in a way standing alone, and I don’t know if there is any rational explanation for it.”

The easiest explanations are that Louisville’s athletic budget is more than $20 million bigger than UConn’s; that it has built better facilities and has achieved broader-based success. Once U of L is a full-fledged member of the ACC, those gaps should be expected to grow.