(05-07-2020 09:51 PM)EigenEagle Wrote: I started to reply to what JRsec's reply to me but then just decided to make my own independent post.
Here's my 4 reasons why a P5 breakaway won't happen (from least important to most important) without even mentioning anti-trust laws or tax exemption.
1. Scheduling in non-major sports. Most sports don't work like football or basketball where only 1/3 of the games are non-conference. In baseball (for example) it's typical to have 30 conference games with 56 (ish) total games. Now this may not be a problem if you're in the southeastern bloc of the SEC and ACC teams, but for much of the Power 5 it will get expensive traveling to only other Power 5s in these sports.
2. If you break away from the NCAA, you're still going to have a hierarchy that creates issues. You'll still have controversies over how to split money. Are the lower rungs of the Power 5 going to be okay knowing they'll need to significantly beef up spending to compete the blue bloods to avoid perennial 3-9 seasons in football which will kill fan interest and maybe put them at risk for being voted out at the next P5 tribal council? And will the blue bloods be okay with giving up home games against G5 and FCS teams to play non-conference P5 games to make TV money they'll have to share? If there weren't engineering and practical concerns you could make your stadium hold a quarter million and make more money off tickets with a P5-only schedule but as it stands now 2 payday games will make more than a single game against a major non-conference opponent. That's a big reason why you don't already have P5 scheduling requirements, because the current business model works better.
3. Conference TV networks. Presumably the plan is to reorganize P5 leagues into coherent geographic conferences to try and mitigate what I mentioned in #1 (though it won't help a lot). But there's a problem with this. Geographic oddities like Maryland and Rutgers in the Big Ten and Mizzou in the SEC don't exist because they want to make football or basketball stronger. They exist to boost the reach of their (very lucrative) conference TV networks into major markets to add subscribers. You kill that reach by going to regional conferences and thus kill a lot of that revenue.
And the biggest reason why a breakaway won't happen...
4. Congress. The fact is that the vast majority of the P5 and DI are public schools which gives government a lot of leverage over them. The members of congress don't represent the Power 5 schools in their state. They represent the schools in their districts and (for the senate) all of the schools in their state. They wouldn't go along with the breakaway and it wouldn't be difficult to stop it.
1. I strongly suspect that any breakaway will include schools who don't want to compete in football but have a particular sport they do want to compete in. Fullerton State and Fresno State in baseball come to mind as well as small programs like Stetson. Southern Miss and Missouri State would be 2 more such schools.
So the breakaway and conference structure would be set up for football. But no legitimacy could be had in a new hoops tournament without some very important mid majors and the Big East.
So I look to see inclusion of different schools for different sports.
2. It is true that we will likely never have parity in media salary as conferences. But we don't have that now and we aren't after it. What would happen with a breakaway is that the emerging conference would have guaranteed access to the playoffs for its football champion and would also be eligible for at large spots should we move to an 8 team playoff. That allows them to monetize their alumni base and their sponsors much more effectively. And I'm sure their media payouts would be more in line with what the Big 12 gets or a bit more than what the AAC currently receives.
As for those only in for baseball, softball, or hoops they would receive equal tournament revenue, equal media revenue for the conference they were associated with, and would be paid accordingly .
3. Your point is moot. Conference networks are not growing they are shrinking. Part of the reason for playing just other P5 schools in football is to raise the T2 content value to levels that surpass what the T3 was paying for these conference networks, which I'm not sure will continue to exist as they have. The programming is going to have to be a lot more appealing when no live events are on. Streaming apps via ESPN+ is going to cover those games for people buying the package. That's where some of the revenue will be recouped.
4. You are way off base in your assumptions here. Nobody in Congress works for the home folks now. They work for corporate America and if Disney wants the rearrangement they'll listen a lot more to the than they will to say the alumni of Troy or Georgia Southern. And if one representative from those districts speak up for those schools his buddies will let him rant and then they will wink at each other and do what the lobbyists pay them to do. So if you think these guys have the gonads to speak up great. But they will be in a vast minority for the reason just stated and because back home their constituents are still largely alumni of the oldest state flagship schools where they themselves graduated law school and attend games when they need to be seen publicly to be reelected. So good luck with all of that.
The bottom line is the NCAA is screwing us all out of revenue, even the small schools. They have well over 1 billion in endowed accounts. They bankroll 70 million plus per year on the tourney and they keep that money for 6 years before paying a share. That's a lot of cheddar in interest. Don't you think the average mid major could use that money they year they play in the tourney? Wouldn't that lump sum go a lot farther in improving the program? If you work this month and your employer kept your paycheck and doled out 1/6th of it a year and it took 6 years to get all of your tournament money could you live on that? Do you think that is fair? Or do you think that is graft? That's your NCAA and it is past time for it to be gone.
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When the P5 inevitably secede from the NCAA
