There is always discussion about who will raid what conference and what not but what if a conference decided to disband and in particular a G-5 conference?

For argument sake lets select CUSA as the conference that would disband. Would any of the remaining non P5 conferences invite a team from a disbanded CUSA?

Discuss.

MAC invites Marshall in a millisecond.

Because of the barriers the NCAA put up to discourage new D-I conferences from forming and demanding March Madness autobids, every existing conference that holds an autobid is a valuable commodity.

Even if a conference blew up, the schools that didn't have a better option right away would keep it going somehow, to make sure they are in a conference with an autobid. The WAC is an obvious example of that.

The most-recent instances (of which I’m aware) of a conference formally disbanding was in 1995-96, when the Southwest Conference, Metro Conference, and the Great Midwest all went the way of the dodo. But in those cases, every member wound up in a different league. (Not necessarily the league they wanted).

In the CUSA example — which is the league created by the remnants of Metro and Great Midwest — I think that if another league was interested they could extend the invitation now while CUSA still exists. The problem is that you’ve got three separate leagues (CUSA, MAC, SBC) all of approximately equal value/competitiveness, and so nobody really has a motive to move from one to the other.

(10-01-2019 07:20 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  The most-recent instances (of which I’m aware) of a conference formally disbanding was in 1995-96, when the Southwest Conference, Metro Conference, and the Great Midwest all went the way of the dodo. But in those cases, every member wound up in a different league. (Not necessarily the league they wanted).

In the CUSA example — which is the league created by the remnants of Metro and Great Midwest — I think that if another league was interested they could extend the invitation now while CUSA still exists. The problem is that you’ve got three separate leagues (CUSA, MAC, SBC) all of approximately equal value/competitiveness, and so nobody really has a motive to move from one to the other.

This is well put.

(10-01-2019 06:41 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  There is always discussion about who will raid what conference and what not but what if a conference decided to disband and in particular a G-5 conference?

Um, it depends why on earth a conference decided to disband. Under the current rules, a conference with an autobid and and a conference with FBS status, are very valuable things. It's close to impossible to form a new conference--you have to survive for 8 years with no NCAA tournament autobids, which are a major revenue source for all but the top conferences. The Great West tried it, and look where they ended up.

So if you tell us *why* Conference USA is disbanding, we can speculate on how conferences and schools would react to that landscape.


* The C7 Big East is an exception--they ignored the rules for us.
Partially because a Big East autobid didn't take away an at-large bid (9 times out of 10 the Big East tournament champ would get an at-large anyway).
Partially because we're blue-bloods, part of the club, so we get protected.
Partially because we had set up a legal structure for a conference split based upon the pre-WAC conference continuity rules, so we could make an argument in court if we absolutely had to.

Any conference that is raided to the level this thread is talking about would immediately offer and secure the independents in football to survive. UConn, NMST, Liberty, and UMASS would jump on a FB only offer in a New York Minute. Army, ND, and BYU would remain independent though.

In addition to the automatic NCAA bid, FBS conferences get an automatic $300k per team from the CFP distribution, so whoever is leftover in the collapsing G5 league would probably be able to recruit some FCS programs to move up for a share of CFP money.

(10-02-2019 10:12 AM)MechaKnight Wrote:  In addition to the automatic NCAA bid, FBS conferences get an automatic $300k per team from the CFP distribution, so whoever is leftover in the collapsing G5 league would probably be able to recruit some FCS programs to move up for a share of CFP money.

I think the current 10 conferences get $1 Million per team up to 10 teams (So $10 million per year per conference and the reason there's no need to expand the Sun Belt) Indy teams get $300k from the CFP.

(10-01-2019 07:08 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Because of the barriers the NCAA put up to discourage new D-I conferences from forming and demanding March Madness autobids, every existing conference that holds an autobid is a valuable commodity.

Even if a conference blew up, the schools that didn't have a better option right away would keep it going somehow, to make sure they are in a conference with an autobid. The WAC is an obvious example of that.

You're right. NCAAT autobids, coupled with what amounts to an open admission policy in D-I, are the cause of a lot of conference alignment problems. If any school with a pulse and a desire to glom onto NCAAT loot can enter, but no new conferences can form, we are bound to get the unwieldy nightmares we see today and no good way to fix the problem.

The six power conferences in basketball are never going to give up seats in the tournament field. And, IMO, they shouldn't have to. They are the backbone of the tournament. In the past I have laid out a tournament structure that I believe would solve this dilemma.

My proposal was to expand the tournament field from 68 teams with four playin games to 112 teams. 48 schools from the P6 would get double byes, and 64 schools (including all other conference champions) would play two rounds in Week 1 with the 16 winners advancing to the third round. Those 16, plus the 48 P6 teams would be reseeded after round two.

In this scenario, it doesn't much matter if the number of conferences increases. Having more autobids during the first round isn't going to have much impact on which 16 teams advance to the third round. Very large conferences like CUSA and the A10 could realign into smaller, more geopgraphically logical leagues without affecting which 64 schools get invites to Round 1.

All that's really needed to make something like this happen is to figure out a way to eqitably distribute the tournament prize pool. There's more than enough money to go around to make that work.

Possible Scenario: CFP distributions dramatically cut after 2025 and NCAA distributions are spread too thin among the 14 (or more) members.
...members agree that travel savings in a smaller league would offset the loss of these distributions??

(10-02-2019 10:29 AM)Crayton Wrote:  Possible Scenario: CFP distributions dramatically cut after 2025 and NCAA distributions are spread too thin among the 14 (or more) members.
...members agree that travel savings in a smaller league would offset the loss of these distributions??

I actually think the CFP payments will increase after the current contract. Maybe even with another bone thrown to the G5 in the form of another NY6 incentive of a variety.

(10-02-2019 10:29 AM)Crayton Wrote:  Possible Scenario: CFP distributions dramatically cut after 2025 and NCAA distributions are spread too thin among the 14 (or more) members.
...members agree that travel savings in a smaller league would offset the loss of these distributions??

Simply changing the CFP distribution formula to give all non-A5 schools (including independents) an equal share would help a lot.

(10-02-2019 10:46 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  

(10-02-2019 10:29 AM)Crayton Wrote:  Possible Scenario: CFP distributions dramatically cut after 2025 and NCAA distributions are spread too thin among the 14 (or more) members.
...members agree that travel savings in a smaller league would offset the loss of these distributions??

I actually think the CFP payments will increase after the current contract. Maybe even with another bone thrown to the G5 in the form of another NY6 incentive of a variety.

The non-P5 CFP payments will definitely increase if the TV money increases. It won't be a game changer, though. Let's be really optimistic and say that each non-P5 team gets $1.5 million/year from the next version of the CFP. That would double the pool of "non-P5 money" from the CFP, compared to the current contract. That money is nice to have, but it only puts a dent in the budget of an athletic department that uses $20 million or more in university funds each year to cover its athletic department deficit.

I'm skeptical about the value of any new "CFP" bowls. If the playoff expands to 8 teams in the next contract, there won't be huge money offered for bowls in addition to the playoff games. When more teams are in the playoff, even bowl games involving ranked teams look more and more like the basketball NIT.

(10-01-2019 07:05 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  MAC invites Marshall in a millisecond.

No thank you

(10-01-2019 07:08 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Because of the barriers the NCAA put up to discourage new D-I conferences from forming and demanding March Madness autobids, every existing conference that holds an autobid is a valuable commodity.

Even if a conference blew up, the schools that didn't have a better option right away would keep it going somehow, to make sure they are in a conference with an autobid. The WAC is an obvious example of that.

Those barriers present interesting anti-trust issues but not sure who would dare risking that challenge, could be strung out through much of the waiting period in court. You'd have to have someone show they were harmed by the rule.

(10-02-2019 03:45 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(10-01-2019 07:08 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Because of the barriers the NCAA put up to discourage new D-I conferences from forming and demanding March Madness autobids, every existing conference that holds an autobid is a valuable commodity.

Even if a conference blew up, the schools that didn't have a better option right away would keep it going somehow, to make sure they are in a conference with an autobid. The WAC is an obvious example of that.

Those barriers present interesting anti-trust issues but not sure who would dare risking that challenge, could be strung out through much of the waiting period in court. You'd have to have someone show they were harmed by the rule.

Seems to me that challenging those NCAA autobid rules in court would be opening Pandora's Box, because there's a much more questionable NCAA rule underpinning March Madness: The rule that any team who is invited to play in the NCAA tournament and declines the invitation is barred from participating in any other postseason tournament.

That rule is the largest issue (IMO) but not the only one. If the NCAA shouldn't be able to make a new conference wait several years to get autobids to NCAA tournaments, then they also shouldn't be able to require:
-- that a conference have a certain number of members to qualify for autobids
-- that a conference be an "all sports conference" to qualify for autobids
-- that a school transitioning into Division I has to wait 4 years before its athletes are eligible to compete for Division I NCAA championships

... etc., etc.

(10-02-2019 12:09 PM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(10-01-2019 07:05 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  MAC invites Marshall in a millisecond.

No thank you

In that case you'd have to join the SunBelt or pray the AAC invites you. But I think people just want you for nostalgia. You guys don't offer anything X 'mid-major' school doesn't.

It shouldn't matter why the conference disbanded. Just go with the scenario presented, for whatever reason CUSA will disband, would there be another conference interested in any of the 14 members that would be needing a new home?

If the AAC disbanded with no P5 conferences interested, I could see a big mix-up in the current G5 alignment.

If CUSA disbanded, I could see a successor conference and SunBelt shuffling their members to be more geographic-based.