NCAA President Proposes New FBS Division

Yes, just go all in and separate it from college athletics. Fans aren't going to put up with much more of the NIL / transfer scenario.

 

That's exactly my point. The SEC and Big-10 are not going to be swayed by fear of losing $1 million per school in March Madness money. These schools are already getting about $70 million per year and would surely get more than that amount by controlling their future instead of the NCAA.

Again, this is my point. The Big-10 and SEC will almost surely prefer to stay in the NCAA for all sports other than football. But if the ACC and Big-12 somehow decide to fight and manage to kick the SEC and Big-12 out of the NCAA, everybody loses.

When it comes to conference 1st and 2nd tier status, I totally it varies by sport. The SEC and Big-10 are clearly tier 1 in football, but probably tier 2 in basketball. The ACC, Big-12 and Big East are probably the 3 tier 1 conferences in basketball. Your conference tier status in one sport doesn't carry over to other sports. The ACC and Big-12 aren't going to be saved as tier 1 conferences by basketball.

As far as football, which is the big moneymaker, The SEC and Big-10 are clear top tier, even moreso next year. The ACC and Big-12 are pretty clearly already second tier. I don't think there's any doubt about that now that the CFP chose a 1 loss tier 1 over and undefeated tier 2 team. AAC, CUSA, MAC, Sunbelt and MWC are all pretty clearly 3rd tier.

 

The question is, can the B1G and SEC squeeze enough out of Fox and ESPN respectively based on just football? And considering the business model for these sports channels is becoming more and more outdated as more people cut the cord, the answer is probably not. That $1 million a year from March Madness then becomes more important. ESPN is still profitable, but QoQ profits have been dropping for the past few years. And with the SEC contract, expenses next year go up, and income will likely drop.

The NCAA Governance is made up of member schools plus two independent voters. I doubt the NCAA would allow the SEC and B1G to split from football, but remain NCAA members for all other sports. I'm sure the SEC and B1G would love this, but can you see the BIG12 and ACC, plus all other members vote for this? No.

All this points to the SEC and B1G staying a part of the NCAA. MM is growing and is guaranteed money. Relying on ESPN and breaking off into a Big 2? Not so much.

 

I'm not sure how you don't see that the $1M you claim teams get for MM does not even close to compare to the roughly $70M the SEC and Big-10 members are getting already. Granted, I agree that the crazy TV deals the Big-10 and SEC got are probably going to be scaled back, but all sports TV deals, including ACC and Big-12, are likely to be scaled back.

And the thing you have to understand about the NCAA is that it's basically the NCAA member institutions overseeing themselves. The primary objective of the NCAA in recent years has been to add new members and more evenly distribute revenues to all the schools. In particular, they started allowing newer more metro schools to become FBS members based on student enrollment. In a lot of cases we're talking about schools that may not have even had football programs 10-20 years ago. And at the same time, giving these new schools an equal seat and equal share of the revenues.

This, in my opinion, is the problem that is totally opposite of what the blueblood public land grant universities that have built the college football brand want. And that includes schools not currently in the Big-10 or SEC, like Arizona, Kansas, UNC, FSU, etc. Most of these blueblood public land grant universities capped enrollment over the last 30 years to increase academic standards. As a result, a lot of the smaller schools absolutely exploded in enrollment and are far bigger now than the bluebloods.

The blueblood schools don't want the upstarts like Liberty, UCF and Boise State to have an equal share just because they can put a talented team on the field. These new metro schools don't have the fan bases or generate the revenue or TV interest of the bluebloods. I'm pretty sure even the blueblood like Arizona, and FSU don't like it. And I'm sure they're doing everything they can right now to get bumped back up.

The bluebloods don't want to be on the same level as the upstarts. But the NCAA wants more more schools and equal distribution of revenues to all schools because that's what the new members want. These are completely polar opposite objectives. That's what this is really all about. This issue is SO much bigger than I think most people realize.

I don't think the SEC and Big-10 want to leave the NCAA, but unless they get the autonomy they want, I'm not sure there's any realistic alternative.

Out of spite, you may be right.

But do the SEC and Big-10 need the NCAA? Does the NCAA really serve any function? I think the bigger question would be if the NCAA survives if the SEC and Big-10 leave.

If the SEC and Big-10 leave and set up their own governing entity, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the ACC and Big-12 didn't want to leave the NCAA to join them. There are still several bluebloods in the ACC and Big-12 (including your Arizona Wildcats) who are being hurt by what the NCAA is doing.

 

The $1 million is pennies, compared to the $70 million. But the $70 million is coming from a well (ESPN) that is showing signs of drying up. If the next TV contract is for the same amount or even slightly less because that's all ESPN can afford, considering inflation, then that $1 million from MM becomes more than just pennies. It becomes nickels, and now rises a bit in importance.

Football is king, but the future has some potential dark clouds on the horizon. Which is why the SEC and B1G schools still need the NCAA. And the NCAA absolutely needs these two conferences to survive. The future is still cloudy as well, and it's possible that streaming services will continue to rise, which will cause a rise in ESPN revenues, and one day, it will be enough for the SEC to say goodbye to the NCAA. But current forecasts says that's unlikely, and certainly won't happen soon, especially when you look at the ESPN financials.

Going back to the OP, the proposal would likely split all schools with a current $100 million a year athletic budget and higher, as they are the ones who could afford to be in the new model. This would include all the traditional land grant schools, and exclude some of the directionals who are new comers to P5 conferences. But difficult to see schools like Central Florida give up their seat at the P5 table so soon after finally getting an invite.

The whole thing is a mess. And potentially unsustainable, if ESPN and FOX start losing money. Just look at what happened with Bally Sports Group. They bought many of the Fox Sports regionals, lost tons of money, and are now bankrupt. Locally, in Phoenix, Suns and Coyotes games that used to be on FS Arizona that became Bally AZ, are now being broadcast on local, OTA channels in both Phoenix and Tucson. And for a lot less money for the franchises. Not saying this is the future of college sports, but it's a cautionary tale, for sure.

 

This guy needs to quit collage football and join the XFL...

 

The problem with this argument is that the media issues are across all sports. Bally overpaid for MLB. ABC/ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS have all overpaid for college football, etc. The issue is that they didn't factor how consumers are cutting the cord and the carriage fees they based their projections are may not be there. But this issue is going to eventually hit every single contract they did that were structured based on carriage fees, including MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA the ACC and Big-12 deals. If the revenues from football drop 25%, the revenues from MM are also likely to drop by roughly the same amount. As you stated, how streaming pans out is the big question now.

But the SEC and Big-10 still have and will continue to have a product and audience that will dwarf the other conferences, even moreso once they separate themselves completely to a new level.

I'm not understanding how the NCAA helps with the issues being faced. They are actually the source of many of the problems.

I'm not really sure how this helps. It seems to me that in the future, a school with 70,000+ students (with no cap) like UCF would be much more easily able to support a $100 million athletic budget than say Duke with 17,000 (with a cap) students. This kind of seems like it would eventually have the opposite effect of what the blue blood public land grant universities who have the significantly larger fanbases want.

This concept seems VERY similar to the issue the NCAA has created with college football where FBS eligibility is based on student enrollment. This is the exact issue that blue bloods are trying to escape.

We totally agree here.

 

One point I didn't see brought up is that because of the title 9 equal access money being pumped into the woman's programs, there would be an extremely unfair advantage for them compared to the woman's programs without semipro football cash machines. You'd have to break out women's sports into a semipro division too.