(10-16-2017 01:34 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (10-16-2017 12:38 PM)ken d Wrote: Obviously, polls like this one carry no weight. The schools pretty much ignore them, because - why not?
They are interesting, though, in their own way. At least to some extent, the things a school's fans (or a group of schools) are concerned about are likely also what their Athletics Departments and even their administrators are concerned about. What this poll suggests is that the P5 schools don't have much to worry about. Either way, they are still going to be at the top of the heap.
But 46% of the G5 fans voting in this poll are afraid they would be worse off without the NCAA. That's ambivalence with a Capital A. Even though they hate being viewed as inferior to the P5, I believe they would hate even more being viewed as the best of a lesser division. They would rather lose in FBS than win in FCS, or whatever classifications would replace the current NCAA ones.
They need the P5 more than the P5 needs them, and they will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo IMO.
I largely agree with you, but a lot of people are missing the bigger picture here. At least on this issue, it's not really about football (which was decentralized a long time ago with OU winning its antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA. Instead, the only reason why the NCAA can even exist financially is because of *basketball*. There has long been a tacit understanding between the power conferences and the rest of the NCAA that as long as the NCAA doesn't mess with football, then the power conferences won't kill off the NCAA Tournament (as the NCAA Tournament is actually a walking antitrust violation with its redistribution of money from the power conferences, as much as the smaller conferences might mistakenly think it's the other way around).
The P5 would be all too happy to simply set up their own structure in basketball that mirrors what they have in football (where they have 95% of the revenue and effectively 100% of the postseason slots). If/when the NCAA dissolves, you can be certain that the P5 will be consolidating power even further (and even the best of the G5 like the AAC and MWC can't be assured that they'll be coming along for the ride). It certainly won't be more access than there is today.
The NCAA doesn't actually need the basketball tournament revenues.
Until about 20 years ago NAIA was much more vibrant of an organization than it is today. For smaller schools wanting to play low scholarship athletics it was a great organization, sensible rules, easy compliance responsibilities compared to the NCAA, common sense initial eligibility (ie. if the kid meets the school's admission standards without special admission, the athlete is immediately eligible).
The NAIA though was funded primarily by dues paid by member schools. The dues were tied to enrollment size.
So a lot of the larger NAIA schools figured out that they could move to NCAA Division II and save a decent amount of money, especially since the NCAA provided travel subsidies for post-season.
The old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference broke up because the smallest schools were very content in the NAIA the larger schools wanted to go to Division II and the in-betweeners were ambivalent. The bigger schools gave up and joined the Gulf South, soon followed by a number of the mid-sized schools from Arkansas.
The NCAA doesn't have to have the basketball tournament for revenue. They can simply assess dues sufficient to fund the operations. Now in a dues based system that might mean some programs no longer seem critical.
That was the whole point of the NIT lawsuit, the NIT was saber-rattling that if they could get the must play rule over-turned they could find a corporate sponsor or two challenge the NCAA Tournament.
I myself have argued that a CFP style system makes better sense and smaller conferences rather than getting their spot via winning their conference tournament should be seeded into four regional qualifying tournaments to pick up one or two spots per region in the big dance.
Take the carrot away of the NCAA tournament subsidizing post-season events and just have what dues will pay for would in the long run be far healthier for intercollegiate athletics because associations like the NAIA, NCCAA, USCAA are more viable and schools would be choosing their association based on the best fit, not the cheapest fit.