“It’s gonna accentuate the division between the haves and the have-nots. I don’t think there’s any question about it. And you might as well just admit it,” said Michael Adams, the outgoing Georgia president. “But the divisions already exist that are pretty pronounced. So I think the 65 schools in the big conferences are going to separate themselves even further from those schools that are not.”

The core issue, according to big schools, is the desire to pay their athletes a $2,000 stipend, for what is called “cost of attendance.” SEC commissioner Mike Slive proposed that two years ago, among other measures, and at one point, it was set to be adopted. But smaller schools, worried how they would pay for that, led a fight against it, voting it down.


Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2013/05/07/2469867/...rylink=cpy

The problem is, who comes along. There are 64 teams in power conferences (65 if you include Notre Dame). That isn't even enough schools to fill the current NCAA Basketball Tournament model. The service academies can't come along, due to their non-football sports needing homes (Except for AFA, but would they want to, or be allowed to be, the the lone service academy). Some other conferences have to come along for the ride.

Football
ACC
B1G
Big XII
PAC-12
SEC

American (- Navy, + USM)
MWC (- AFA, + UTEP and BYU with ND-ACC like deal)

BYU
Notre Dame

Basketball
A-10
Big East

That's 105 football members. And 131 basketball members.

I don't think the "First 4" Games are worth enough to warrant all those invites frankly. I'm not trying to crap on anybody because I think it's unfortunate but I don't see the math working to warrant splitting the pie that much.

Plus what would be lost from those other games could be gained by marketing an all inclusive "New NCAA Tournament" (whatever the post-split name would be). Think about it, a tournament where literally EVERYONE gets a chance at the title. Sounds like a goldmine to me.

Nice and neat at 65

Is Silve saying pay ALL athletes $2000 stipend or just the FB players? Does Lax and Field Hockey get those stipends? Do women's sports get the stipend?

(05-08-2013 06:05 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  Is Silve saying pay ALL athletes $2000 stipend or just the FB players? Does Lax and Field Hockey get those stipends? Do women's sports get the stipend?

Yes. It comes to somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 from estimates I've seen. Most football schools can afford it.

I don't think 65 works. It is an odd number for playoffs and tournaments. Imagine being one of two teams in the whole lot that have to play-in to the tournament.

The have nots need to stick together. If they go...they gotta go. No basketball tourney. No scheduling. No Olympic sports. Complete divorce.

Let them beat each other up in a semi-pro league and form a small basketball tourney with no cinderellas.

The rest of us can work on building a more traditional amateur league with maybe a little less greed.

(05-08-2013 06:14 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  I don't think 65 works. It is an odd number for playoffs and tournaments. Imagine being one of two teams in the whole lot that have to play-in to the tournament.

Fair enough but you could simply invite 3 more teams and get back to the current format. That would seem more prudent than bringing in entire conferences.

(05-08-2013 05:58 PM)krux Wrote:  I don't think the "First 4" Games are worth enough to warrant all those invites frankly. I'm not trying to crap on anybody because I think it's unfortunate but I don't see the math working to warrant splitting the pie that much.

Plus what would be lost from those other games could be gained by marketing an all inclusive "New NCAA Tournament" (whatever the post-split name would be). Think about it, a tournament where literally EVERYONE gets a chance at the title. Sounds like a goldmine to me.

Nice and neat at 65

Remember too, that just because Georgetown (example only here) doesn't have an upper tier football team doesn't mean that the more established basketball only schools would eschew the breakaway. We might well wind up with 65 to 72 football teams in the upper tier plus another dozen to two dozen basketball only schools who wish to pay stipends beyond scholarships and compete against the larger schools of the football upper tier for hoops.

(05-08-2013 06:23 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-08-2013 05:58 PM)krux Wrote:  I don't think the "First 4" Games are worth enough to warrant all those invites frankly. I'm not trying to crap on anybody because I think it's unfortunate but I don't see the math working to warrant splitting the pie that much.

Plus what would be lost from those other games could be gained by marketing an all inclusive "New NCAA Tournament" (whatever the post-split name would be). Think about it, a tournament where literally EVERYONE gets a chance at the title. Sounds like a goldmine to me.

Nice and neat at 65

Remember too, that just because Georgetown (example only here) doesn't have an upper tier football team doesn't mean that the more established basketball only schools would eschew the breakaway. We might well wind up with 65 to 72 football teams in the upper tier plus another dozen to two dozen basketball only schools who wish to pay stipends beyond scholarships and compete against the larger schools of the football upper tier for hoops.

Valid

(05-08-2013 06:22 PM)krux Wrote:  

(05-08-2013 06:14 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  I don't think 65 works. It is an odd number for playoffs and tournaments. Imagine being one of two teams in the whole lot that have to play-in to the tournament.

Fair enough but you could simply invite 3 more teams and get back to the current format. That would seem more prudent than bringing in entire conferences.

What I would expect to see happen here is that those who wish to essentially keep football independent of conference affiliations would essentially become part of a division within a conference and rotate a few other games against those conference members not in that division.

For instance Notre Dame might well wind up competing with Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, and Boston College as part of that future division of the ACC. They could then rotate a couple of other games against other ACC schools annually and have access to the playoffs by winning their division within that conference. They might even just rotate the division they would play with every year.

Now let's assume that Texas would like that same kind of arrangement. Now we are at 66 teams. Add Oklahoma and B.Y.U. to the mix and now you have 68 schools accommodated and you still keep the format of 4 conferences playing down to 4 champions for the finals. The conferences that the other schools are affiliated with have access to half their games for network content and the teams absorbed into the 4 x 16 formats in their official absence as full members might include Cincinnati, South Florida, Boise State, Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico or other similar teams. Each of the major conferences would have 1 of those four independents attached to a division each year. They could even rotate conferences every 4 years if they desired.

So what I'm saying is don't get hung up on odd numbers. We could easily handle 65, 66, 67, or 68 under that kind of arrangement.

I think 65 is too small and hurts TV too much. Essentially, that throws about half the fan bases out of FBS. I cant imagine the networks would be too excited about a concept that potentially alienates about half of thier audience. I think we need to trim it down to where its been historically. Get it down to 80 to 90 teams. That cuts about a third and keeps most every school that would have pretty good argument for inclusion. Thats about the size the top level of college football has historically operated at and is a level where the game has thrived. Ninety teams sprinkled about the nation puts a representative near most everyone, gives the country variety of schools to watch--but keeps the game from getting too diluted.

How about this---5 power conferences.
Pac-12.....12
Big-12......12 (need to add 2)
Big10........14
SEC.........14
ACC.........14

Thats 66. That leaves 24 slots. So the MW is the west mid-major entry and the AAC is the east mid-major entry for an even 90. Eight team playoff. Six champions and 2 wildcards. That guarantees that the #1 and #2 ranked team are ALWAYS included--even if they are in the same confernece. Seed them based on rank, and settle it on the field. A 90 school division should be able to field a solid 64 team basketball tournamant. Or, they could just opt to leave olympic sports in the NCAA organizaion.

This...again...is much ado about nothing...kind of like the 4 16 superconference crap the media and fans were promoting.

Its just not going to happen because of the details and logistics...its not as simple as the media tries to make it out to be.

More fishwrap articles...

That proposed $2,000.00 payment is an attempt to gain another recruiting advantage. They are just buying the athletes.

(05-08-2013 07:14 PM)PirateMarv Wrote:  That proposed $2,000.00 payment is an attempt to gain another recruiting advantage. They are just buying the athletes.

It's all interconnected really. No one could make me believe that some AD's at some Major Universities aren't waving this stipend under the noses of some AD's at some Universities that are used to working those big payments for lopsided games into their budgets. Vote for the stipends then we can vote on extending the season or else our expansions are unfortunately going to cut down on the number of games that are going to happen between those smaller Universities and their larger "big brother" counterparts.

It's all about leverage.

At the very least this article is indicitive of the fact that the stipend is definitely coming....one way or another.

There's some revisionist history here. It wasn't just the small schools that fought the stipend. Several SEC, B1G, and ACC schools put in override requests as well. In fact, smaller conferences such as the Sun Belt actually adopted it into their by laws.

That's the problem with the breakaway. Many schools even within the club can't agree to those proposals or deregulation. The upper echelon of FBS already has a majority of the authority within the NCAA, gets the supermajority of the revenue, and the NCAA already serves as a scapegoat for all the ills of college sports instead of the schools themselves. So why change that?

The military academies would be out, their players are already getting more than $2000.

(05-08-2013 07:14 PM)PirateMarv Wrote:  That proposed $2,000.00 payment is an attempt to gain another recruiting advantage. They are just buying the athletes.

It is better than luring them to your school then telling them they can't get a job, can't accept gifts, and expect they will just sit around their dorms studying all night while their classmates go to the movies.

(05-08-2013 08:31 PM)4x4hokies Wrote:  

(05-08-2013 07:14 PM)PirateMarv Wrote:  That proposed $2,000.00 payment is an attempt to gain another recruiting advantage. They are just buying the athletes.

It is better than luring them to your school then telling them they can't get a job, can't accept gifts, and expect they will just sit around their dorms studying all night while their classmates go to the movies.

Just to stir it up, not all these kids are poverty stricken. Maybe from the 10s of thousands of dollars their families don't have to spend to send them to school like the parents of non athletes do they can scrap up $10 for a movie ticket