OT: SEC suggests new Division IV if they don't get what they want
I buddy in the office suggested the article, so please excuse the source... http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11008001/sec-ponders-potential-move-division-iv-ncaa-provide-autonomy At first when I read the title and the first few lines, my reaction was... But then when I read the article, and I think in theory they may have a point. One example: "Moving to Division IV would keep the Power Five under the NCAA umbrella while granting college football's biggest money makers the kind of power to better take care of student-athletes." All this said, anything that is brought in this manner by the ESS EEE SEE I'm automatically suspect of their motivations. I'm not as good at reading between the lines that some of you all are, so I look forward to reading some inputs from the MGoBlog Community.
Then I think the Big Ten should make a Division V.
BOOM.
Delany'd.
Anything that means less NCAA power is automatically worthy of consideration.
acting like the real 1%
I'm all for the Big 5 Conferences throwing off the Indiana States of the world when it comes to money and getting more to athletes. That said, this should not be Division 4, that makes no sense. The only way to do this is to bump everyone else down (Like 1-AA) or to become Division 0.
Because if anyone's going to sucessfully divide by 0, it's the NCAA.
I have yet to figure out what is the difference between a "Division IV" and the autonomy the Power 5 are aiming for. What they're saying sounds like "Let us do what we want or we will do what we want."
The power conferences are asking to allow all FBS conferences to opt-in to their reforms or they'll create a new division.
Basically, give us what we want or we're taking our ball and money elsewhere.
But it's not like they're leaving the NCAA. They would stay in the NCAA and they'd still participate in the basketball tournament (and therefore presumably the other ones except football, too) so what really would be the difference?
I have to imagine the big five cutting football participation would have a seriously negative impact on the number of bowl games that are played every year (not saying this is negative as in a bad thing, just negative as in there'd be fewer). Additionally, the windfalls that small schools score when they play a big five school is usually pretty significant, sometimes millions of dollars. I'm assuming the creation of a Division IV or whatever you want to call it would result in a reduction of those games, as well.
Not participating in Football would take a lot of money out of a lot of pockets. That's a pretty strong motivator.
I'm in favor of a stipend to cover COA but I would be interested to see how it actually shakes out. Would a school like Northwestern, located in an area with a high cost of living, be able to offer a larger stipend than a school like the University of Missouri, which is in a lower-cost area?
That could easily go either way, because today athletes are offered things like tuition - which are definitely different values school-to-school.
the Department of Defense did it for service members who were being paid BAQ (Basic Assitance for Quarters) was to set a base rate of X and a cost of living mulitiplier. The multiplier for a particular installation could be a fraction of X or X plus a fraction so if the BAQ rate was $500/month and you lived in a low cost of living area, your multiplier could be something like .75 and you'd receive $375 instead of $500.
In your example maybe NW gets a multiplier of 1.25 while the rate in Columbia, MO is 1.00.
Japan was quite amazing in that regard. And I have to imagine that Univ of Hawaii will get a nice multiplier.
What really sucked is when I PCSd back to Ft. Knox with higher costs than Germany, but no Overseas COLA.
With everything that has happened in the last 6 months, it is no surprise the 5 big conferences are considering a change. Between the Northwestern labor union filing and the O'Bannon anti-trust suit, the conferences have reason to potentially separate from the smaller schools.
It would open the door for a whole new market and potentially make the big schools even more money.
The article and SEC position seem to be football-centric, but the idea of cost-of-attendance stipends for the "have" conferences has some appeal. My initial response is that the SEC proposal is worthy of attention. (My next response is the gag-reflex, because it's the SEC we're talking about here.)
If this went through, I wonder how you parse the basketball world - which does not as neatly align into five "Power Conferences" as does football, but has plenty of money maker programs. I'd be curious to see how this would all evolve.
Oh, and what about NDU? (Apart from the obvious "to hell with Notre Dame" which is a given.) I assume they'd want special dispensation to be included in the Power Five, since it would suit their needs. But if they slip in, does the NCAA consider other "special cases"?
They might allow anyone who wants in, or any conference. But it's possible that most of the non-BCS conferences want in because they wouldn't be able to afford to hang and would just get smoked. Doing this would put more separation between schools like Michigan and EMU, so it would behoove EMU to stay out of the new division. And the ADs for schools like EMU might realize they don't have the funds for the extra stipends and say they're staying in the MAC.
If we do pay players then we need to get rid of scholarships. I'm not in favor of giving them a free ride then thousands on top of that.
What's wrong with the stipend that they already get if they live off campus? When I was in school, athletes had plenty of spending money after rent/utilities.
What if "Division 4" was only a 64 team football division made up of the power 5 conferences and Notre Dame? Or would there be too much red tape in having separate ventures among the NCAA?
This could work... It would be similiar to how some schools have Division I basketball, but only FCS football. Some schools would just be in Division 4 for football and Division I for everything else.
is what would be interesting because I'm guessing there are some schools who do quite well in revenues with their basketball team. Football only though might allow March Madness, the NCAA Hockey Tournament, Baseball tourney, etc. to continue to exist in their current formats.
If you do include the basketball programs, then you probably end up with a complete separation of the Big 5 conferences and everyone else with almost all sports.
I'm on board with the SEC if they're talking about providing further benefits to athletes within the context of rules that everyone agrees on. I'm not on board with them when, in practice, they wifully ignore illegal benefits being given from boosters to athletes.
The notion of a "Division IV", or whatever it would come to be called, is an interesting one in that it would essentially be a way to neatly compartmentalize what was already proposed back in April. That is to say, giving the power conferences in football a system in which they could pass "permissible legislation", as they called it, but having to do what they proposed - pass it and then simply tell the other conferences to either adopt it or not.
In a separate division, they wouldn't even need to go through with the formality of presenting changes they know other conferences would not support.
It might even eliminate or at least mitigate the problem of the "actionable legislation" for them, or things which would still need approval by various committees. If it came to a separate division, it probably makes something that seems to be developing as it is just that much simpler for five conferences.
Also if they're paid, can't they be cut. If this was a job and you don't perform you'd get shown the door.
Scholarships are not guaranteed.
They are guaranteed in the big ten.
Oh look, Football and dollars potentially screwing up the entire landscape of college athletics.
Oh well, at least everyone is used to it by now.