NCAA May Work With Power Five Conferences

Sig381 · December 12, 2013

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10121476/power-conferences-seeking-more-autonomy-ncaa

Not good for the NCAA football?

runt96 · December 12, 2013

I hate this Delaney pig, maybe we should go with just the top 2 or 3 conferences and leave the Big10 out.

TheFranchise · December 12, 2013

So Delany is basically like a physical trainer looking at this little wimpy guy saying, "Look, dood . . . the key to having awesome abs and biceps is watching ME do lots of sit-ups, crunches and bicep curls. Cuz, like, if your physical trainer isn't all buff, then you can't get buff, amiright, li'l' dood?"

Or better yet, like a financial adviser telling his broke client, "The key to wealth is watching me get filthy rich. Because you can't trust a broke financial adviser, right?" <---------- I picture the late, great Phil Hartman when I recite this in my head.

He's a douche.

Delany, not Phil Hartman.

Edited December 12, 2013 by TheFranchise

eulessismore · December 12, 2013

Karl Benson is looking after our interests here, so not to worry.

Green Otaku · December 12, 2013

They aren't even trying to hide that they are trying to screw us over.

"Delany acknowledged that he and his counterparts don't have many concessions to offer the other members to entice them to approve a change that clearly bolsters those five leagues."

What Really pissed me off was this though.

"If we can do that, I think we can stay together," Delany said. "If we can't do that, I think we have to honestly say, 'Hey, we not only have external threats, we have internal threats.' And the internal threats are that we can't find a way to use the NCAA as a town hall for us to solve our problems."

I know a threat when I see one. If they want to leave go ahead and F@&K off, but I want all other teams to publicly state that they will play no schools from the P5 conferences. We will see how fast the Virginias, Purdues, and Iowa States have second thoughts when they are the body bag games for the LSUs and Alabamas. This would guarantee that these teams would be pushed further to the bottom of their conferences and would be forced to be bottom feeders for a very long time.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Green Otaku

greenit · December 12, 2013

It is convenient how they forget that their millions are built of the backs of the W's they get against FCS and G5 schools. Greed will bring the whole thing down eventually.

Once they start touching basketball, it will get really dicey. They are not the only power leagues in basketball, baseball, etc...

If they F this up, I hope they lose their tax exempt status.

oldguystudent · December 12, 2013

They are not the only power leagues in basketball, baseball, etc...

The big six in baseball are Pac-12, Big XII, ACC, SEC, Big West, and CUSA with the Sun Belt a serious up and coming contender.

The B1G has been bitching for twenty years that its shitty snowbound teams can't get a fair shake. They pushed the start of the baseball season back from late January to mid February. They've talked about playing baseball, on college campuses, in July so that Ohio State and Minnesota can get a crack at the CWS.

Thing is, Rice, Fullerton, Long Beach, Southern Miss, Fresno, et al are not going away. Those schools enjoy the benefit of local high school players who are never snow bound. And just like basketball has its St. Johns and its George Masons, so does baseball have its Coastal Carolinas, its Dallas Baptists, and its Wichita States (good riddance Mr. Stephenson).

The one thing about baseball is that the SEC does more or less own the sport as much as it owns football. Well, not quite as much, but LSU and South Carolina have been fairly dominant in recent years. But it's one sport where Delaney isn't going to get his way, and the fan base fricking adores the little guy. And the little guys have been pretty successful at keeping some of the SEC's cheating ways (trampoline rolled bats put into the hands of linebackers from the football team, defense and pitching be damned) to a minimum, but they can't beat LSU's 50 home games a year playing a non-conference schedule that makes their FCS foes look like NFL teams.

TIgreen01 · December 12, 2013

From the comments, I thought this about hit the nail on the head: "...has mainly to do with guys in football and basketball wanting bling bling, when several don't want to be in college in the first place."

The P5 are worried that the whole charade will come down if they don't start letting the top athletes in on the $$. Lawsuits like the one against EA, the on-going CTE worries/studies that could result in more liability to their universities, etc... All this threatens the core of college sponsored sports.

Up until 30 years ago sports didn't pay enough to be seriously considered by most as a viable full time job. A college scholarship was a HUGE opportunity that helped convince kids that otherwise would give up sports after high school to pursue viable employment to keep playing through college. It still is the case now, except for the top tier kids that only accept the scholarship to play in college as the required stepping stone to a pro career---even though most won't make it that far. Too many kids playing college football at the P5 (and many at the G5) don't value that scholarship anymore---esp. when they are put into degree plans that are largely worthless in the real-world and designed to just keep them eligible. THOSE kids are the ones that the P5 is worried are going to get increasingly active in the legal system as the money being paid to colleges by TV networks only continues to increase to shocking proportions.

The other side to this is that colleges have no fundraising arm that functions quite as efficiently as when they have a top tier football team stoking the emotions of their alums. The obvious solution to the problems they are facing now is to untangle themselves from the mess that they've created out of "amateur" college sports. Not entirely stop sponsoring sports, but stop trying to compete for these kids that don't want to be in college. That's not going to happen for a number of reasons....but don't doubt that the top schools aren't just going to wave goodbye to their money maker without a fight.

And in reality, it's probably not all that grand. Maybe it's simply just legal maneuvering to prevent the universities from liability. I'm pretty certain this is less a conspiracy that the P5 is carrying out to keep the G5 down and more about them protecting themselves---from themselves.

Edited December 12, 2013 by TIgreen01

El Paso Eagle · December 12, 2013

I wonder how many lawsuits will be coming down the road .... not all lawyers are from the Power 5 conferences

PlummMeanGreen · December 12, 2013

From the comments, I thought this about hit the nail on the head: "...has mainly to do with guys in football and basketball wanting bling bling, when several don't want to be in college in the first place."

The P5 are worried that the whole charade will come down if they don't start letting the top athletes in on the $$. Lawsuits like the one against EA, the on-going CTE worries/studies that could result in more liability to their universities, etc... All this threatens the core of college sponsored sports.

Up until 30 years ago sports didn't pay enough to be seriously considered by most as a viable full time job. A college scholarship was a HUGE opportunity that helped convince kids that otherwise would give up sports after high school to pursue viable employment to keep playing through college. It still is the case now, except for the top tier kids that only accept the scholarship to play in college as the required stepping stone to a pro career---even though most won't make it that far. Too many kids playing college football at the P5 (and many at the G5) don't value that scholarship anymore---esp. when they are put into degree plans that are largely worthless in the real-world and designed to just keep them eligible. THOSE kids are the ones that the P5 is worried are going to get increasingly active in the legal system as the money being paid to colleges by TV networks only continues to increase to shocking proportions.

The other side to this is that colleges have no fundraising arm that functions quite as efficiently as when they have a top tier football team stoking the emotions of their alums. The obvious solution to the problems they are facing now is to untangle themselves from the mess that they've created out of "amateur" college sports. Not entirely stop sponsoring sports, but stop trying to compete for these kids that don't want to be in college. That's not going to happen for a number of reasons....but don't doubt that the top schools aren't just going to wave goodbye to their money maker without a fight.

And in reality, it's probably not all that grand. Maybe it's simply just legal maneuvering to prevent the universities from liability. I'm pretty certain this is less a conspiracy that the P5 is carrying out to keep the G5 down and more about them protecting themselves---from themselves.

IMO....a great post! :thumbsu:

GMG!

greenit · December 12, 2013

How would eliminating the NCAA affect title ix?

UNT90 · December 12, 2013

Emmeret is nothing but a paid for whore of the Big 5.

If I could think if a worse analogy, I would use it.

Green Otaku · December 12, 2013

How would eliminating the NCAA affect title ix?

It wouldn't. Title IX is a federal law and can not be done away with.

untjim1995 · December 12, 2013

I have a bit of advice...

LET THEM GO!!!

Let the Big AQ 72 go away and create their own association--let them pay for players, coaches, and staff like they are NFL and NBA teams. Let their alumni, their professors, their administration, and their fans pay for that. Let them just play games against each other. All of those OOC games with them are so slanted, usually, to the AQ's benefit, anyway, so why not just let them play each other and see how fun it is in places like Lubbock for their team to go 3-9 every year when they cannot schedule 3 OOC spares evey year.

Let the rest of us then participate in real amateur sports. Here's the crazy thing--we will still be on TV, we will still play teams that we care about playing, and we will be able to compete for a national championship that we cannot compete for today in football. Newsflash, those AQ giants are already get the majority of coverage and following anyway. That isn't gonna change, so just let them get it done. This is nothing liek it was in 1983, when we moved down to i-aa while a huge presence of local teams played in the SWC and we played small schools that were viewed as spares. Now, you'd see every school in the SBC, CUSA, MAC, AAC, MWC, and a some Big XII leftovers join forces with schools in the FCS level to play each other. I promise you that a home game in Denton between us and SMU or TCU will still draw well.

We blew our chance at ever moving upward on the college sports ladder back in the late 70s --we never supported great UNT teams, we never gave the best coach in our school's history a reason to stay, and we just flat out quit after Fry left because the SWC said we weren't going to be invited to their party. And, the worst part of it all, was allowing their snub to be the mindset that WE carried forward, leading us to the i-aa purgatory that haunts us still today. Look, maybe we never even got into the SWC and just stayed independent, like Tulsa did. But when the SWC broke up, guess who could have been in the WAC or CUSA with them? Us. Or even more forward thinking would have been to go to the old Big Eight and talk about the benefits that they could have by gaining a presence in North Texas, which would have helped their league immmensely from a tv standpoint and from a recruiting standpoint. And this isn't even considering the GIGANTIC LEAP it would have given us at that time and today. Imagine if we could have made that work? Games in Denton against OU, OSU, Nebraska, and Colorado in football...hoops games against KU, KSU, Iowa State, and Missouri...we would have BLOWN by the SWC schools of the day, except for UT and A&M. Today, we would be looking down at Tech, UH, TCU, SMU, and Baylor in the same way they look down at us.

Meanwhile, our universities can go after kids that will actually graduate from schools while representing us on the field and earning a scholarship. That, to me, would make me so proud as a UNT alum, especially if that was combined with a league that gave us great Southwest colleges to play (hint, SWC teams and other local schools in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico).

UNT90 · December 13, 2013

That would be exactly like it was in 1983.

Exactly.

And our fan base and relevance would shrink to where it was in the mid 80s.

Tell yourself that isn't the truth as much as you want, but it is the dead honest truth, and everyone in our AD knows it.

greenit · December 13, 2013

The funny thing is that TV networks use team's own fans as a barometer of interest. Until we start averaging at least 35k-40k per game in football, not much chance of going anywhere.

untjim1995 · December 13, 2013

That would be exactly like it was in 1983.
Exactly.
And our fan base and relevance would shrink to where it was in the mid 80s.
Tell yourself that isn't the truth as much as you want, but it is the dead honest truth, and everyone in our AD knows it.

It may be true, but it's way better for us than it was in 1983. The other left behinds are much more relevant to the college landscape than anyone we had to align with back then.

If you think we are ever going to be allowed to be included in an AQ league. That will never happen. We don't have the tradition, resources, or name recognition that the other AQs want. It sucks, but it's the truth.