(05-27-2020 07:34 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  The P5 is going to separate and this time they really, really, really, really mean it!

lol yep

(05-27-2020 02:47 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Reading this article Dodd concludes a group of 90-100 schools in the breakaway, and specifically mentions the AAC schools as the leaders to come with the autonomy schools.

Dodd does mention 90-100, but he doesn't say the AAC are leaders to be included. He quotes an AAC official as saying the AAC has been adamant that it would go along, which means next to nothing as they won't have a say.

That said, if 90-100 do break, the AAC would surely be among them as well as the MW.

(05-27-2020 07:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 02:47 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Reading this article Dodd concludes a group of 90-100 schools in the breakaway, and specifically mentions the AAC schools as the leaders to come with the autonomy schools.

Dodd does mention 90-100, but he doesn't say the AAC are leaders to be included. He quotes an AAC official as saying the AAC has been adamant that it would go along, which means next to nothing as they won't have a say.

That said, if 90-100 do break, the AAC would surely be among them as well as the MW.

Very doubtful!

(05-27-2020 07:55 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 07:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 02:47 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Reading this article Dodd concludes a group of 90-100 schools in the breakaway, and specifically mentions the AAC schools as the leaders to come with the autonomy schools.

Dodd does mention 90-100, but he doesn't say the AAC are leaders to be included. He quotes an AAC official as saying the AAC has been adamant that it would go along, which means next to nothing as they won't have a say.

That said, if 90-100 do break, the AAC would surely be among them as well as the MW.

Very doubtful!

Oh i agree. I do not foresee any P5 breakaway.

(05-27-2020 05:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:19 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 04:47 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 03:48 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 03:09 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  One problem with a "breakaway" is leadership. Who will lead it?

The leading college presidents? Please. They have much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

The leading college ADs? Any meeting of the ADs will be crashed by the NCAA leadership.

The P5 commissioners? Maybe. That's a small enough group that they could lead this. But it's really tricky. Any decisions they agree on effectively will have to be ratified by the presidents of the leading schools - because you know darn well that the Presidents of Texas, Ohio State, USC, UNC, etc all view their commissioners as their employee, not their boss.

That makes it a mess. Any objections will have to be settled by 5 powerless commissioners acting as intermediaries for the decision makers. If you've ever negotiated to buy a house, imagine that instead of two parties having two intermediaries, you have 20-30 important parties with 5 intermediaries about topics that might violate labor laws or anti-monopoly laws. Again, the Presidents don't have the time to do this by themselves... they're busy plugging budget gaps of hundreds of millions of dollars and don't want to risk the bad publicity that could come from leading this crusade.

Come on you can do better than that. Who stands to make the most out of this other than the schools? Who drove the OU/UGa suit in the early 80's? It sure as hell wasn't the presidents and ADs. It was strongly encouraged behind the scenes by networks.

Have you guys stopped to consider who Mike Slive, Jim Delany, Warren, Sankey and other such guys really are? Contract lawyers for media rights companies. That's right the foxes were put in charge of the hen houses and the hens paid them!

Was realignment started by presidents and commissioners? No It was started when networks told Kramer and Delany how much more they could make by expanding.

Who is it that would like a better organized and contained football product to be a cheaper alternative to the NFL but one that had great advertising rewards because of the days on which it is played and the diverse audience it reaches? The Networks

And what was it that Howard Beal said when talking to his network executive when the executive explained to him who it was that drove the news and how it was that they made money? The fictional character from the movie Network exclaimed to Ned Beatty's character, "I have heard the voice of God." To which Ned Beatty said, "You probably have!" "It's TV dummy!" The brain trust for organization of a breakaway will be corporate in nature and will involve the commissioners who will show the AD's and College Presidents the sums they will make and the latter will drool and it will be a done deal.

IMO the biggest thing to be worked out would be subcontracted a unified officiating service, paid much better than the NCAA is, which will have its own enforcement wing and each conference will front their share of overhead to make it happen.

Once that is taken care of there isn't much else that need be done except for each athletic department to hire a legal team for the drawing up of contracts instead of grant and aids.

Those who can't wrap their heads around how far down the road this is are typical in their hysterical claims that it can't happen. It's already happening. Quit overthinking things and reacting like the sky if falling. The only thing happening, hopefully, is the death of an outdated, bloated, greedy organization that has 2 endowments of over a billion dollars total, that has no justification for ratholing that money save crisis and when one hit the first thing they did was to back away from using the endowed money to cover the schools that they exist to serve. In the South we say Piss on 'em! It's easier than people think when you have those who are dying to help you monetize and organize it waiting in the wings for an opportunity to do so.

I shake my head a lot at what I read here and categorize as ambient hysteria. It reminds me of an old saying that once adorned the walls of Auburn's School of Agriculture, but was removed when PC set in, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think!" The word play of course was on horticulture, but the point was uncultured and uneducated leaves us all to be whores of the world. Well substitute slave for whore and you have what the NCAA has done to the athletes and to the schools, but when you think about it whore is still appropriate as well. We've been all working for a Pimp called the NCAA!.

If profit & revenue were the dominant concern (like it was with realignment), you'd be right. The network execs could lead the charge.

But the bolded part is the toughest part to accomplish.

If something's going to change, it has to change in a direction that the Presidents want. Notre Dame & Stanford & Wisconsin & many others won't sign up for a new organization that decreases the players' connection with the academic side of the university (because they think the connection is already too tenuous). It'll be very tough to find a solution that the Presidents, the schools' legal counsel, and the schools' accountants are happy with. So most schools (particularly in the North & West) will stick with the NCAA until a solution presents itself.

And who is most likely to come up with such a solution? Not the media executives, the conference commissioners, or the Presidents. Rather, the solution is likely to come from the organization that has the most to lose from a new system: from the NCAA itself.

The NCAA has too much money to collapse on its own weight. The only thing that will doom the NCAA is if they are so incompetent that the conference commissioners take it upon themselves to find a better solution to the NIL crisis.

What they say today and do tomorrow are two different things. Financial need and need for exposure in a time of nadir for enrollees will change their tunes. Being painted as a plantation owner benefiting from a modern vestige of slavery won't help their PC feelings either.

We've known that this was a possibility but it won't stop the Big 12/ SEC / and ACC from making the move, nor will it stop some key independents.

If folks up North choose their path it will be seen for what it is, a lesser form of the game and they can thump their chests over ethics but it won't help their exposure, their sagging population, or their futures.

Nathan Bedford Forrest once said , "The battle is generally won by the side that gets there firstest with the mostest." Not much has changed in 160 years on that front.

Oh lets all hear what the founder of the KKK said! I'm sure it's just full of folksy wisdom!

This. What a dumb quote from a traitor. Good God

The reason I don't think an all-sports breakaway will happen can be summed up in one word: Villanova.

Do you leave behind one of the best basketball programs in the country, or do you take an FCS football team along?

(05-27-2020 08:18 PM)Inkblot Wrote:  The reason I don't think an all-sports breakaway will happen can be summed up in one word: Villanova.

Do you leave behind one of the best basketball programs in the country, or do you take an FCS football team along?

Believe what you will but Villanova would have a choice to compete in Hoops, but to play football at a lower level. Football won't be devalued as a product to include basketball teams, nor should it. If Villanova wants to compete in hoops they have a seat. If not it's their choice.

(05-27-2020 06:55 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:28 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:20 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Here's who is in the P5 who might choose to stay behind or be shown the door:
- Wake Forest
- Duke
- Boston College
- Washington State
- Oregon State
- Stanford
- Northwestern
- Rutgers
- Kansas State
- Baylor

Not a single college President at any of these schools would not choose to continue with the P5. Rutgers has the entire political structure of New Jersey funding it's move to P5, so they are not going anywhere. Duke, Northwestern and Stanford define themselves in P5 and have championships, especially Stanford and Duke; they have massive money and big donors. Those State schools might be relatively poor, but they are not going anywhere either.

It's delusional to think you can shed any schools in P5

It isn't necessarily the choice of those Presidents. Rutgers may have the whole state of NJ behind it but the state of NJ itself is emptying like the bread and milk aisles in Atlanta before a snow storm. NJ is the 3rd most popular state attending Clemson ... because it's cheaper to attend Clemson out of state with no help than it is to attend Rutgers in state with no help. So not only are the demographics upside down in NJ but so are Rutgers' tuition and fees.

Stanford and Duke are more likely to choose to stay behind than be left behind however both are structurally not really cut out for football. Stanford tried and was successful ... and nobody cared and the brand new modestly sized all chairback stadium remained half empty. Duke is what Stanford would look like if they straight up didn't try in football. Duke may have big donors but they've shown a reticence to invest it in football and a flat out incompetence of how to run a football program. Though I'm sure Alabama appreciated their 50+ point wins and playing a home game on the road in Durham.

Delusion to think ANY schools can be shed in the P5? Vanderbilt is a straight up welfare queen. They take that SEC football check and then use it to field a really good baseball team and little else. Wake Forest is structurally not cut out for football and they don't have the necessary market penetration in the Piedmont Triad to offset their tiny enrollment. There are several more structurally unhealthy athletic departments littered around the P5, some of them with bigger names than you'd think. Find the schools fielding really large numbers of non-revenue teams to pursue the Capital One Cup and follow the red the ink from there. Maryland's finances were VERY ugly long before they left the ACC. There are several P5s toting around over $100m in straight up debt in their athletic department. It's been a few years but last I looked Cal-Berkeley was the leader in the clubhouse at well past $300m in debt.

As a long-time Vandy fan, allow me to modify the "and little else" part of your "Vanderbilt ... takes that SEC football check and then uses it to field a really good baseball team and little else" comment.

After we take our welfare queen football check to fund our baseball program, we spend some on our elite women's bowling program — the envy of many a P5 member.

Thank you.

(05-27-2020 08:01 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 07:55 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 07:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 02:47 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Reading this article Dodd concludes a group of 90-100 schools in the breakaway, and specifically mentions the AAC schools as the leaders to come with the autonomy schools.

Dodd does mention 90-100, but he doesn't say the AAC are leaders to be included. He quotes an AAC official as saying the AAC has been adamant that it would go along, which means next to nothing as they won't have a say.

That said, if 90-100 do break, the AAC would surely be among them as well as the MW.

Very doubtful!

Oh i agree. I do not foresee.

There, I fixed it for you and it's accurate. I've not known you to foresee anything. I remember you denied the networks were behind realignment. I remember when you didn't think there was a coming drawdown in higher education that would close some schools and re-task and restructure others. Now there's not going to be any breakaway. You've been wrong so far so I accept your pronouncement as the perfect reverse barometer. I suppose one could be avoided should the right circumstances unfold, like WWIII.

(05-27-2020 05:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:19 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 04:47 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 03:48 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 03:09 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  One problem with a "breakaway" is leadership. Who will lead it?

The leading college presidents? Please. They have much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

The leading college ADs? Any meeting of the ADs will be crashed by the NCAA leadership.

The P5 commissioners? Maybe. That's a small enough group that they could lead this. But it's really tricky. Any decisions they agree on effectively will have to be ratified by the presidents of the leading schools - because you know darn well that the Presidents of Texas, Ohio State, USC, UNC, etc all view their commissioners as their employee, not their boss.

That makes it a mess. Any objections will have to be settled by 5 powerless commissioners acting as intermediaries for the decision makers. If you've ever negotiated to buy a house, imagine that instead of two parties having two intermediaries, you have 20-30 important parties with 5 intermediaries about topics that might violate labor laws or anti-monopoly laws. Again, the Presidents don't have the time to do this by themselves... they're busy plugging budget gaps of hundreds of millions of dollars and don't want to risk the bad publicity that could come from leading this crusade.

Come on you can do better than that. Who stands to make the most out of this other than the schools? Who drove the OU/UGa suit in the early 80's? It sure as hell wasn't the presidents and ADs. It was strongly encouraged behind the scenes by networks.

Have you guys stopped to consider who Mike Slive, Jim Delany, Warren, Sankey and other such guys really are? Contract lawyers for media rights companies. That's right the foxes were put in charge of the hen houses and the hens paid them!

Was realignment started by presidents and commissioners? No It was started when networks told Kramer and Delany how much more they could make by expanding.

Who is it that would like a better organized and contained football product to be a cheaper alternative to the NFL but one that had great advertising rewards because of the days on which it is played and the diverse audience it reaches? The Networks

And what was it that Howard Beal said when talking to his network executive when the executive explained to him who it was that drove the news and how it was that they made money? The fictional character from the movie Network exclaimed to Ned Beatty's character, "I have heard the voice of God." To which Ned Beatty said, "You probably have!" "It's TV dummy!" The brain trust for organization of a breakaway will be corporate in nature and will involve the commissioners who will show the AD's and College Presidents the sums they will make and the latter will drool and it will be a done deal.

IMO the biggest thing to be worked out would be subcontracted a unified officiating service, paid much better than the NCAA is, which will have its own enforcement wing and each conference will front their share of overhead to make it happen.

Once that is taken care of there isn't much else that need be done except for each athletic department to hire a legal team for the drawing up of contracts instead of grant and aids.

Those who can't wrap their heads around how far down the road this is are typical in their hysterical claims that it can't happen. It's already happening. Quit overthinking things and reacting like the sky if falling. The only thing happening, hopefully, is the death of an outdated, bloated, greedy organization that has 2 endowments of over a billion dollars total, that has no justification for ratholing that money save crisis and when one hit the first thing they did was to back away from using the endowed money to cover the schools that they exist to serve. In the South we say Piss on 'em! It's easier than people think when you have those who are dying to help you monetize and organize it waiting in the wings for an opportunity to do so.

I shake my head a lot at what I read here and categorize as ambient hysteria. It reminds me of an old saying that once adorned the walls of Auburn's School of Agriculture, but was removed when PC set in, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think!" The word play of course was on horticulture, but the point was uncultured and uneducated leaves us all to be whores of the world. Well substitute slave for whore and you have what the NCAA has done to the athletes and to the schools, but when you think about it whore is still appropriate as well. We've been all working for a Pimp called the NCAA!.

If profit & revenue were the dominant concern (like it was with realignment), you'd be right. The network execs could lead the charge.

But the bolded part is the toughest part to accomplish.

If something's going to change, it has to change in a direction that the Presidents want. Notre Dame & Stanford & Wisconsin & many others won't sign up for a new organization that decreases the players' connection with the academic side of the university (because they think the connection is already too tenuous). It'll be very tough to find a solution that the Presidents, the schools' legal counsel, and the schools' accountants are happy with. So most schools (particularly in the North & West) will stick with the NCAA until a solution presents itself.

And who is most likely to come up with such a solution? Not the media executives, the conference commissioners, or the Presidents. Rather, the solution is likely to come from the organization that has the most to lose from a new system: from the NCAA itself.

The NCAA has too much money to collapse on its own weight. The only thing that will doom the NCAA is if they are so incompetent that the conference commissioners take it upon themselves to find a better solution to the NIL crisis.

What they say today and do tomorrow are two different things. Financial need and need for exposure in a time of nadir for enrollees will change their tunes. Being painted as a plantation owner benefiting from a modern vestige of slavery won't help their PC feelings either.

We've known that this was a possibility but it won't stop the Big 12/ SEC / and ACC from making the move, nor will it stop some key independents.

If folks up North choose their path it will be seen for what it is, a lesser form of the game and they can thump their chests over ethics but it won't help their exposure, their sagging population, or their futures.

Nathan Bedford Forrest once said , "The battle is generally won by the side that gets there firstest with the mostest." Not much has changed in 160 years on that front.

Oh lets all hear what the founder of the KKK said! I'm sure it's just full of folksy wisdom!

That playful and artsy statue of the venerable Nate B. Forrest can be found in my hometown of Nashville. Three years ago, it was given this lovely pink paint job.

Photo courtesy of WZTV


  Screen Shot 2020-05-27 at 8.34.46 PM.png (Size: 357.38 KB / Downloads: 14)

(05-27-2020 04:32 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  What will be interesting is what schools like Gonzaga, BYU and Army do and if they reach out to those three conferences to try and find a spot. I could see BYU trying to get into the MWC to stay at the top level, Army trying to get into the AAC as a FB only and the Zags trying first for the Big East then the MWC as a everything but FB member.

BYU is asking for a spot in the MWC in a hot NY second if this is going forward. The sticking point in staying independent is that Utah is a P5 and MWC is a Go5 ... if this is formed, being inside or outside the breakaway conference becomes the main status marker, and BYU can't be outside when Utah is inside, so long as they can help it.

A more open MWC question is what happens with Hawaii ... is there still a spot, and if so, does the MWC expand to 14 in FB, and if so, with whom? Supposing, reasonably, that FB-only membership in this thing is allowed (and without an NCAA hierarchy to work with, that is "does allowing FB-only allow making more media-friendly arrangements?", and the answer is "yes!"), Hawaiia FB-only / Zags Olympic Sports makes sense, the question is who #14 would be. There's more than a little "what have you done for me lately" in UTEP, but my guess would be UTEP.

Alternatively, the Academies could decide to stay NCAA, in which case MWC sorts itself out neatly at 12FB/12Olympic with BYU replacing Air Force and the Zags added non-FB to complement Hawaii FB-only. That also opens up a FB-only spot in the AAC next to its all-sports spot.

(05-27-2020 07:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Dodd contradicts himself. A 100 school breakaway is not a P5 breakaway.

There will be a true P5/P6 (hoops) break, or nothing.

Bet on nothing.

He must be a Wyoming Cowboy fan.

(05-27-2020 06:55 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:28 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 05:20 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Here's who is in the P5 who might choose to stay behind or be shown the door:
- Wake Forest
- Duke
- Boston College
- Washington State
- Oregon State
- Stanford
- Northwestern
- Rutgers
- Kansas State
- Baylor

Not a single college President at any of these schools would not choose to continue with the P5. Rutgers has the entire political structure of New Jersey funding it's move to P5, so they are not going anywhere. Duke, Northwestern and Stanford define themselves in P5 and have championships, especially Stanford and Duke; they have massive money and big donors. Those State schools might be relatively poor, but they are not going anywhere either.

It's delusional to think you can shed any schools in P5

It isn't necessarily the choice of those Presidents. Rutgers may have the whole state of NJ behind it but the state of NJ itself is emptying like the bread and milk aisles in Atlanta before a snow storm. NJ is the 3rd most popular state attending Clemson ... because it's cheaper to attend Clemson out of state with no help than it is to attend Rutgers in state with no help. So not only are the demographics upside down in NJ but so are Rutgers' tuition and fees.

Stanford and Duke are more likely to choose to stay behind than be left behind however both are structurally not really cut out for football. Stanford tried and was successful ... and nobody cared and the brand new modestly sized all chairback stadium remained half empty. Duke is what Stanford would look like if they straight up didn't try in football. Duke may have big donors but they've shown a reticence to invest it in football and a flat out incompetence of how to run a football program. Though I'm sure Alabama appreciated their 50+ point wins and playing a home game on the road in Durham.

Delusion to think ANY schools can be shed in the P5? Vanderbilt is a straight up welfare queen. They take that SEC football check and then use it to field a really good baseball team and little else. Wake Forest is structurally not cut out for football and they don't have the necessary market penetration in the Piedmont Triad to offset their tiny enrollment. There are several more structurally unhealthy athletic departments littered around the P5, some of them with bigger names than you'd think. Find the schools fielding really large numbers of non-revenue teams to pursue the Capital One Cup and follow the red the ink from there. Maryland's finances were VERY ugly long before they left the ACC. There are several P5s toting around over $100m in straight up debt in their athletic department. It's been a few years but last I looked Cal-Berkeley was the leader in the clubhouse at well past $300m in debt.

The way its been done in the past is shaking lose programs like SMU, Rice and more recently UConn and USF by raiding the SWC and Big East respectively for the desirable programs while leaving the others behind.

Could there be this super division in FB with 48 teams based on geography leaving out some of the names you've mentioned?

If you had 9 teams in the ACC leave + ND to form a new conference the left behind ACC could rebuild. Leave behind WF, BC, Duke, UVA, Syracuse and let them rebuild the ACC as a G5 level FB conference. Play with Temple, UConn and Navy.

Likewise a new conference formed out of the PAC-XII with the leftovers rebuilding with MWC/AAC schools.

SEC
B1G
ACC 9+1
PAC-XII best of 12

That is about 50 schools right there for a new top division with 8 team playoff.

The remaining FBS schools keep the bowl system alive for an 80 school division and get paydays against the super division. Dial back the coaching salaries in FB.

(05-27-2020 08:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 08:18 PM)Inkblot Wrote:  The reason I don't think an all-sports breakaway will happen can be summed up in one word: Villanova.

Do you leave behind one of the best basketball programs in the country, or do you take an FCS football team along?

Believe what you will but Villanova would have a choice to compete in Hoops, but to play football at a lower level. Football won't be devalued as a product to include basketball teams, nor should it. If Villanova wants to compete in hoops they have a seat. If not it's their choice.

Would the NCAA let Villanova compete in FCS football if it was paying players on its basketball team as part of a P5 cartel, or let any of the service academies participate in its watered down basketball championships if they paid football players as FB only P5-breakaway members? And how could the schools get around Title IX if they are playing one pay-to-play men’s sport but offer no such opportunities for female athletes?

(05-27-2020 07:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Dodd contradicts himself. A 100 school breakaway is not a P5 breakaway.

There will be a true P5/P6 (hoops) break, or nothing.

Bet on nothing.

That's just quibbling over semantics. A P5 breakaway won't be in pursuit of more money from CFB, because they already get the lion's share of CFB money. It will be in pursuit of more money from MBB, where they get much less than half of the media revenue.

They certainly don't "want to" strip notional status from ALL of the schools they will be looking to buy games from. Indeed, some of the smaller stadium P5 schools will still want to make H/H contracts with some of the non-P5 schools, and it looks better if they are "inside the club" schools when they smaller P5 schools heads on an away trip.

And a "P5-only" breakaway will both not support active interest in the regular season leading into a 64-team tournament, or even a 48 team one, and will leave too much basketball brand power outside of the group, reducing the money that can be generated.

So a "P5 breakaway" only makes a lot of financial sense if it is a P5 led breakaway rather than a "P5 only" breakaway. Since there is more money on offer to the P5 from a "P5-led" breakaway of 90ish schools, and the name of the game is a chase for money, a "P5 only" breakaway is not on the cards.

(05-27-2020 10:42 PM)CarlSmithCenter Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 08:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-27-2020 08:18 PM)Inkblot Wrote:  The reason I don't think an all-sports breakaway will happen can be summed up in one word: Villanova.

Do you leave behind one of the best basketball programs in the country, or do you take an FCS football team along?

Believe what you will but Villanova would have a choice to compete in Hoops, but to play football at a lower level. Football won't be devalued as a product to include basketball teams, nor should it. If Villanova wants to compete in hoops they have a seat. If not it's their choice.

Would the NCAA let Villanova compete in FCS football if it was paying players on its basketball team as part of a P5 cartel, or let any of the service academies participate in its watered down basketball championships if they paid football players as FB only P5-breakaway members? And how could the schools get around Title IX if they are playing one pay-to-play men’s sport but offer no such opportunities for female athletes?

If they desire a reason to continue to exist, yes. If not new governing structures will be formed for the groups that need one.

Bruce the breakaway would likely be for the P5 and perhaps a few select G5 schools for football. Basketball only conferences are all that's really needed to fill in the tourney from there. The Big East definitely, and perhaps a created one for the other schools who want to participate.

If the G5 breakaway with the P5 I would think the class distinctions would remain for football.

Baseball, Hockey and Softball all would benefit from this as well. I would think each sport would be treated separately. It won't be the NCAA after all.

I hope this happens for no other reason than to neuter the NCAA. However, it is a extreme longshot.

Fun to dream.

(05-27-2020 08:18 PM)Inkblot Wrote:  The reason I don't think an all-sports breakaway will happen can be summed up in one word: Villanova.

Do you leave behind one of the best basketball programs in the country, or do you take an FCS football team along?

Wait what? Villanova has already left it's FB program behind in the FCS.

ESPN has been positioning its pieces for this for the last decade. In a system that players get paid, who can pay the most?

You build the new organization around SEC football and ACC basketball. The consistently best leagues in college athletics. Ask yourself if a college football championship without Alabama or basketball championship without Duke really a championship?

No one can assume anyone, beyond Notre Dame, and I see that far from a given, would walk away. Notre Dame has the resources to survive outside of the new college athletics structure. Hard to say if playing for the football equivalent of an NIT championship every season would be enough for the Irish.

You are naive if you believe a private school like Northwestern or Duke is going to walk away from suckling at the conference teet for the sake of academics. The moment college athletics agreed to freshman eligibility, redshirting and one & dones the integrity of amateur athletics was forever changed.

Assuming the entire P5 (and Notre Dame) breakaway to start: that's the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, PAC and SEC (65 teams) for football. Anything more than 80 teams in this new football set-up does not really maximize revenue, so, in theory, you have a cap of an additional 15-teams (80 max), for football purposes. From the AAC: Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, Temple, UCF and USF. From the MWC: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State. BYU as independent. That gets you to 76 (with a solid "independent" grouping of 11 for scheduling purposes). Maybe SMU/ECU to get to 78. After that, it's very difficult to differentiate values of programs. The next step is to re-organize the bowl structure and CFP, which the former is long-overdue.

For basketball, once again, the entire P5 (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, PAC and SEC (65 teams). While 80 is the max number in football, I would think 120-ish would be max for basketball. The Big East in its entirety. Even though the AAC and MWC have, at this point, been effectively split as football conferences, they can still remain as non-football conferences. Thus, they can conceivably be brought along in their entirety as well (this ensures programs like Wichita State and Tulsa are still brought along). Would the WCC be brought along in its entirety? Gonzaga (and St. Mary's) could, in theory, slide over to the MWC. The A10 would be brought along, but I could definitely see programs like Fordham and LaSalle choose to stay behind (perhaps Loyola-IL and Murray State are added as replacements). A 64/68 team tournament, with more available bids, as well as a higher take of the revenues (not to mention a possible secondary NIT-like tournament to guarantee each team at least one postseason game).

For Olympic sports, I believe as JR mentioned, you could bring along affiliates in select sports (so schools do not need to elevate their entire athletic department i.e. Dallas Baptist, Baseball). I really like the idea of getting overseen by organizations like the IOC or AOC for each sport.

Those that argue that there won't be money/interest to satisfy such a split, then clearly those folks have not been following the trends that have been set in motion the past decade (and even beyond). A split is definitely coming - and, financially, it makes a ton of sense. For the removal and/or elimination of the NCAA, would be a victory by itself. It's clear that this is the path we are all on.