While we've all been concentrating on baseball (and track), I noticed these stories on ESPN.com over the past week that relate to the upcoming P5 Power Play on the NCAA:
June 5: George O'Leary, UCF football coach, says SEC commissioner Mike Slive's threat of forming a "Division IV" (if the P5 don't get the flexibility needed to create their own bylaws) sounds "like the South during the Civil War. If they don't get their way, they're going to secede and start their own country. ... I think college football is in real trouble."
June 6: BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall told the Austin American-Statesman that the Cougars "would love to be in the Big 12. I think that would make a lot of sense."
The article continues: BYU suddenly has plenty of motivation to join a conference. The ACC and SEC excluded BYU from their power five no-conference scheduling mandate, which could make it difficult for the independent Cougars to fill out their football schedule. Also, if the power-five conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC) gain autonomy from the NCAA, BYU could get even further left behind.
June 6: Just so we keep in mind what all this is about: "The Atlantic Coast Conference distributed a record $291.7 million in total revenue for the 2013-14 fiscal year. That number is up $56.6 million over last year, when the ACC was a 12-member conference. But now it has 15 members with the additions of Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame in all sports except for football.
Expansion allowed the ACC to renegotiate its television deal, a big reason why revenues have increased. All 14 full members are set to receive an average of $20.8 million, up $1.2 million from last year. (Notre Dame will receive a different share, which was undisclosed.)
The $20.8 million average each school is in line to receive is nearly identical to what will go to the 14-team SEC, which announced last week it will hand out slightly more than $20.9 million to its member schools after a record $292.8 million in total revenue.
The Big 12 also announced last week it would distribute a record $23 million to each of its 10-member schools.
June 8: Pac-12 university presidents and chancellors reiterated the conference's call for reform in college athletics at the conclusion of its summer meetings. The Pac-12 CEO Group, which is made up of the league's presidents and chancellors, moved closer to finalizing a proposal that better addresses the needs of athletes and "simultaneously reaffirms the primacy of our universities' academic mission."
Pac-12 leaders sent a signed letter to their colleagues at the other four major football conferences last month outlining plans for reform and asking for feedback. The Pac-12's proposal includes a stipend for athletes, improving health coverage, protecting against unfair loss of scholarships before graduation, reducing time demands, liberalizing transfer rules and incorporating athletes into the conferences' governance groups.
In addition, the conference expanded a health initiative for athletes that includes extending the funding of a research grant program at $3.6 million per year for the next three years. The program will be reviewed after that.
