(06-23-2021 07:28 AM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  FCS should go away. Allow schools to either be D1 FBS or DII in football or DI and no football. Or play each sport where you want.

With the recent SCOTUS anti trust ruling it would appear the NCAA would have a hard time stopping a school or conference from moving to any level they desired.

On your last point, unlikely. When it comes to school classification, the courts would apply a Rule of Reason analysis, which asks whether the restraint (requirements for being in divisions) is reasonable.

The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates and perhaps thereby promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition. - Chicago Bd. of Trade v. US

The recent case involves educational-related expenses, and I don't think the Court even made it to the Rule of Reason analysis because the limitation was basically a per se restraint. The division classifications would surely make it to a Rule of Reason analysis and be found reasonable to group similar institutions together and to require schools to compete on level playing fields (i.e., not having FBS/D1 MBB make money to fund your D-3 operations in all other sports).

The issue the NCAA would run into is that they don't actually enforce the standards for joining D1, especially FBS. We've seen that repeatedly with the attendance requirement and then with the waiver of the conference requirement for Liberty. The requirement to have a conference membership might not survive the Rule of Reason analysis though, which is why they waived it for Liberty. Given that there are several independents, there's not much defense of not allowing other schools to move up as independents.

That said, I can certainly see Kavanaugh going off and saying schools should be able to compete at whatever level they want. And frankly, that will be the death of the NCAA. Once we start getting schools moving their MBB programs up to D1 just to get part of the NCAA Tourney Money, the P5 will be gone. They're not going to split that money with another half-dozen or more conferences that are D2/D3 schools masquerading at D1.