(06-10-2015 08:35 PM)cleburneslim Wrote: It could just be that its tennis why no one noticed. How many on here know anything about whose playing tennis at their school?
Stop and think about this for a minute. Where does the NCAA get most of its money? From the basketball tournament for which the networks pay dearly. How much could the NCAA make if the conferences were configured for an 8 team playoff for a football national championship complete with 4 G4 conference winners as underdogs against the 4 P4 conference winners in a first round? Answer: A helluva lot more than for their basketball tournament.
The targets are Texas and North Carolina, which are probably the two biggest stumps to be pulled to allow a very fertile field to be planted. The struggle right now is between the P5 and the NCAA. By clipping the wings of Texas and North Carolina lightly they could gain a lot of compliance for restructuring and maintaining control of their product as opposed to allowing the P5 conferences to chart their own course to the exclusion of the G5. The NCAA derives its power from the lower tier schools and merely accommodates the behemoths.
If the networks go all in with the NCAA in order to get the restructuring they want for a mega event to be maximized by commercial television then the NCAA may find its niche as a broker or negotiator in all of this. Threatening the two largest obstacles to restructuring is the way to go. Besides they probably can't get anything on the Irish. Texas and U.N.C. pride themselves on taking the (hypocritical) high ground of academics first, but have now been accused of, if not downright caught, doing the exact opposite. For a light chastisement they might be amenable to bringing realignment to a close through the NCAA which for them would be a preference to an amalgamation of the P5 where the SEC and Big 10 reign as the overlords and where with autonomy the sky is the limit on spending.
This whole set of issues could bode very well for roping in the ceiling on spending, finding inclusion for the G5 (to become G4) and for the P5 (to become P4) while providing the oversight once again to the NCAA. And you know North Carolina might like that outcome just fine. I'm not so sure about Texas.
I'm not saying this is the answer, but I am saying the scenario is worth considering given there are probably many presidents right now who fear the uncharted territory of athletic spending run amok.