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Power Five, NCAA are now officially adversaries, and a breakaway may only be a matter of time

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The showdown is now out in the open. What was hinted at in the past is formally a conflict. Actually, it's worse. The NCAA and the Power Five are official adversaries.

That much was obvious Saturday night when CBS Sports confirmed a story Sports Illustrated first reported about the willingness of the Power Five to stage its own championships in fall sports (other than football) if the NCAA Board of Governors cancels them this week.

That board, comprised mostly of administrators and campus CEOs, is the NCAA's top governing body. The NCAA does not sponsor a championship for the 130 FBS teams. That is controlled by the 10 FBS conferences, ESPN and the College Football Playoff.

By cancelling those other fall championships, the board knows it would be painting the FBS into a corner. The optics would not be good if the championships in eight sports were canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic yet big-time college football played on.

But by cancelling those championships, the board might set in motion an eventual breakaway from the NCAA by the Power Five -- the 65 total schools from the nation's largest most powerful conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) plus Notre Dame.

Simply put, those power conferences have thought for a while they could do it better than the NCAA. They've increasingly lost faith in the association.

And so, at this inflection point, it's not so much that the Power Five will break away to conduct its own championships. It's that it has reached the point where such a move is financially and systematically possible.

It may only be a matter of time. The Power Five has the money, leverage and -- as we now know -- willingness to break away. A group of schools that can't agree on much -- including scheduling, as we're seeing now -- have agreed to stare down the NCAA, at least on this issue.

Earlier this summer, CBS Sports detailed how that breakaway could occur amid the growing dissatisfaction between the NCAA and the Power Five conferences.

This week could mark the next, most significant step in that possible split. The board already passed on making a decision about staging the championships once, tabling a vote on July 24.

The next vote is Tuesday. The board has been lobbied hard by the Power Five to stand down.

"Lobbied" might be too soft a word.

The disillusionment between the two parties had been growing for a while. Then the pandemic hit.

The perception is NCAA president Mark Emmert has offered little leadership during these trying times. Whenever he opens his mouth lately, Emmert seems to antagonize either his own people or the Power Five "opposition."

"If I were Emmert, I'd really be worried about it. He's got to keep the Power Five together," one athletic director told SI.

Critics of such a power play by the Power Five argue it would be a bad look, ostensibly taking over those fall championships in 2020 simply to justify the playing the college football season. The pressure is mounting due to the pandemic. That's hard to argue against. Dozens of schools in lower divisions have canceled the season and/or postponed until 2021.

But the conferences have their own health experts. They already have the power to cancel the season on their own if the coronavirus spreads.

Sources confirmed to CBS Sports that the Power Five conferences have the financing necessary to stage those championships on their own. The NCAA?

It may not be able to afford them, especially after the fiasco from March. No doubt, the NCAA did the right thing by cancelling its Division I basketball tournament in the face of the pandemic. However, the association may have been woefully unprepared financially when the tournament was called off, according to the Washington Post.

That revenue shortfall alone caused a budgetary tsunami across college sports. The Power Five are best prepared to survive it.

All of this is the latest result of the 1984 Supreme Court decision that allowed schools control of football television rights. That day 36 years ago, the NCAA's iron grip on college sports began to slip. The eventual windfall in revenue led to an explosion in TV media rights, fueled conference realignment and created the facilities arms race.

The schools control the product. It's getting harder for the NCAA to control the schools.


The biggest reason for playing college football this season might be to preserve a portion of that revenue.

If there is a high ground to be gained here, there will be a slippery slope to get there for either side.

Georgia says it has an athletic reserve fund of $100 million. That's a rarity. Some schools may take out loans to make ends meet -- not unlike buying a house. A 30-year loan for $100 million would be backed up by the university itself.

Power Five life goes on. Everybody else is on their own. If that means a super division of those financially elite schools, so be it.

One critic recently called the NCAA the world's largest party planner because, aside from its gala basketball tournament, the perception in some circles is that it does little else that serves the Power Five.

The enforcement division has come under withering criticism. The Power Five and NCAA seem to be on separate tracks regarding name, image and likeness rights for athletes.

Think about these optics possibly emerging out of Tuesday: The NCAA was ambushed by COVID-19 and couldn't stage its biggest event, the Division I basketball tournament. However, five conferences were able to put on those other fall championships.

If COVID-19 sticks around long enough to affect a second straight basketball tournament, the question would have to be asked: What does the NCAA actually do?

SI's story revealed how the pandemic has turned a large part of the membership against the NCAA. At least the part that matters.

You can see the Power Five's, well, power in the return to college football. They have fallen back on their greatest resource -- themselves.

That doesn't make it easy to watch. The minimum testing guidelines provided by the NCAA may be noble but are perhaps not nearly enough.

Scheduling highlighted once again how fractured the big conferences are in achieving a common goal. Four of the five conferences (SEC, ACC, Pac-12, Big Ten) have implemented slightly different scheduling philosophies with the season starting at different times. The Big 12 is to decide its schedule format on Monday.

Those shortened schedules reduce travel during the pandemic but have also consolidated power. In eliminating several Group of Five opponents, the Power Five has denied those schools millions in game contracts. The MAC alone had 13 games against Big Ten opponents canceled. The losses in game guarantees from those Big Ten schools totaled more than $17 million.

That added to a gap between the Power Five and Group of Five (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt) that has never been wider. And it's more obvious than ever.

The NCAA board has options Tuesday. It could do nothing. It could delay a vote. It could separate Division II and Division III, canceling those championships while allowing Division I fall sports to proceed.

The NCAA must choose wisely. Its choice may determine its stability.


https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...a-breakaway-may-only-be-a-matter-of-time/amp/
 
I believe the NCAA is run by the college presidents. If so, it doesn't make sense that they would vote to cancel fall sports and their championships, and then turn around and allow their athletic directors to stage their own.
 
It's no longer about education, that is now a sideline for the P5, now it's about lining the pockets of the ones who are really in charge.
Like the sports mafia has taken over and claiming the number one goal is to educate but behind the scenes we all know that's not true anymore. They now use our universities for their own gain.
 
It's no longer about education, that is now a sideline for the P5, now it's about lining the pockets of the ones who are really in charge.
Like the sports mafia has taken over and claiming the number one goal is to educate but behind the scenes we all know that's not true anymore. They now use our universities for their own gain.

Maybe don’t paint every school with the same brush.
 
The problems with the P5 running things are several:

- They all know that, as much as everybody criticizes the NCAA enforcement office, without it, it would be Dodge City. Totally lawless. It would be a bidding war where we all know who really can win and who cannot.

- The P5 running things really means ESPN running things. Just as ESPN has no real interest in the G5, it has no real interest in the bottom 2/3rds of the P5 either. You think for one second ESPN really would not want an NFL style league of 20 to 30 teams all playing one another in weekly "games of the century". If you are Purdue, or Indiana or Texas Tech or NC State or Ole Miss or Kansas State and the like, you know that. BTW, "the like" includes UK and WVU.

- Basketball. Not only has the NCAA successfully sold this Cinderella theme for decades, there really are teams (UK, KU, Duke, UNC, Louisville, plenty more) and entire leagues (Big East, A-10, MWC, AAC) who are necessary to call a championship legitimate. The NCAA and its separation of Division I football into four parts, allows everyone to play basketball and other sports all together.
 
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It will be interesting to see if somewhere down the road the federal government/congress tries to inject itself into the fray. These schools do not pay taxes on most of their revenue, so there is some leverage for the government at state and federal levels to exert some control over college athletics.
 
320 or so NCAA member institutions in D1 basketball. Similar large numbers in most Olympic sports. Only in FBS football do the number of Power schools, 70 something, outnumber the remaining G5 schools (130 something schools overall in FBS). So if numbers wise it comes to a showdown, VOTE the 70 some power schools OUT of the NCAA. Let em go play each other, they already control everything in FBS football, to the detriment of the other FBS programs. NCAA can then devise a football playoff for the remaining FBS schools, just like they have in FCS. A lot more equitable and you can't tell me that with COMPETENT LEADERSHIP the NCAA can't find a solid TV package/deal with some remaining entity, be it Fox, CBSsports, NBC sports, NBC, CBS, ABC, and, perhaps, some of the ESPN network outlets, and others. Oh, yes, ALL NCAA schools, FBS, FCS, etc., CANNOT play any of the 70-power schools in ANY sport!! Let em compete against each other ad nauseum; the Vandys, WAke Forests, Washington States, Indianas, Oregon States, etc., will soon get mighty sick of being the perennial whipping boys!
 
320 or so NCAA member institutions in D1 basketball. Similar large numbers in most Olympic sports. Only in FBS football do the number of Power schools, 70 something, outnumber the remaining G5 schools (130 something schools overall in FBS). So if numbers wise it comes to a showdown, VOTE the 70 some power schools OUT of the NCAA. Let em go play each other, they already control everything in FBS football, to the detriment of the other FBS programs. NCAA can then devise a football playoff for the remaining FBS schools, just like they have in FCS. A lot more equitable and you can't tell me that with COMPETENT LEADERSHIP the NCAA can't find a solid TV package/deal with some remaining entity, be it Fox, CBSsports, NBC sports, NBC, CBS, ABC, and, perhaps, some of the ESPN network outlets, and others. Oh, yes, ALL NCAA schools, FBS, FCS, etc., CANNOT play any of the 70-power schools in ANY sport!! Let em compete against each other ad nauseum; the Vandys, WAke Forests, Washington States, Indianas, Oregon States, etc., will soon get mighty sick of being the perennial whipping boys!

I'd be fine with a G5 playoff. People say we'd be irrelevant like the BadBoy Lawnmower and the BOBB Bowl is turning heads.

Also save me the argument of that extra month of practice bowls provide. We thrived on the FCS playoff model and became a powerhouse.
 
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I'd be fine with a G5 playoff. People say we'd be irrelevant like the BadBoy Lawnmower and the BOBB Bowl is turning heads.

Also save me the argument of that extra month of practice bowls provide. We thrived on the FCS playoff model and became a powerhouse.

also the "extra month" of practice doesn't even equal an extra month a lot of times as sometimes the bowl game is like 2-3 weeks after the conference championship games and the teams typically don't practice until after the championship games if I remember correctly. G5 playoff could be interesting taking place throughout December.
 
If I were one of the P5 schools playing football like WVU or Wake Forest, Kansas etc, I would be very concerned about the G5 breaking off. As it now stands, they can play in a power conference , collect a fat pay check and say well we are P5. Make them play an NFL model and some of them are going to never have a winning record again....ever.No more FCS or G 5 games, Currently they can schedule 3-4 ooc games they can win and then hope they beat 2-3 conference mates and declare it a success. I personally am okay with the model we are playing. I have no expectation we could ever beat Alabama or Clemson in a year they have a championship caliber team on the field. In my world, It is fun to end up ranked and see the Herd listed in a top 25 poll alongside all the other schools. Is it what I wish for? No, it is reality.
 
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