Knight Commission recommends Division I football break away from the NCAA

[Rochelobe]

Not sure if I should have put this on the "Other Sports" board, mods please move it makes more sense there.  I put it on the Husker Football part, since this would involve Nebraska football.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2020/12/03/knight-commission-ncaa-football-bowl-subdivision-split/3811200001/

 

Many people have talked about this happening for quite awhile (although even more fractured - just the P5 teams going their own way). 

 

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An influential leadership group has proposed sweeping changes to the Division I model that would distinguish the Football Bowl Subdivision from the NCAA, transforming the highest level of competition in the sport into a separate entity responsible for its own governance and revenue distribution.

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The NCFA would conduct all FBS operations and the national championship while managing issues related to eligibility, rule changes and enforcement, regulatory functions, athlete safety, and revenue disbursement.

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In the Knight Commission proposal, members of the NCFA would remain members of the NCAA in all other sports. The NCAA would continue to operate the Football Championship Subdivision, which generates far less revenue than FBS competition, and the men's basketball tournament would remain under the current structure.

Probably there is an inevitability of some kind of change with the rules about college players getting marketing money, which will primarily affect football players and basketball players.   Interesting that they did not recommend pulling men's basketball, but that is probably due to the fact that March Madness is the NCAA's crown jewel.

[jaws]

The NCAA already doesn’t handle the CFP or the bowl system. This doesn’t really seem to solve anything. It is all about the P5 keeping as much money and power as possible for themselves. 

[Rochelobe]

Yup - that is why they probably want to let P5 goes its own way and don't care that the rest (G5 plus remaining minor FBS conferences).  They offload the expense of doing all the enforcement onto another org.

 

I've heard some congressional rumblings in the past from non-P5 states if the P5 decides to try and strike out on their own - conduct a P5 only championship, no mixing with non-P5, etc., if the money would be bigger.  The non-P5s I've heard talk about it were making some kind of restraint of trade type of argument, since they wouldn't be part of it.  Sort of the initial things they said that resulted in the agreement that the highest ranked G5 team would get a New Year's Day Bowl game (like UCF did when Frost was there, or Utah when Urban Meyer was there).

 

I think a separation of P5 from the rest is also going to happen eventually, particularly if after we see how bad the pandemic has been on the non-P5 programs around the country. 

[Mavric]

 

[XsurferX]

Horrible idea, leaves the nonP5 players in limbo...as if JUCO wasn't bad enough...does not lay out how the revenue will be shared by other programs in the AD...I'm sure NU women's volleyball team generates enough revenue for themselves and oh yea the mens bball team are world beaters...this is just going to turn P5 into semi-pro league and kill academics, as if they have mattered any way

[desertshox]

If they break away, who would the sec play to pad their wins? Kansas can only play 12 games and they do have a conference slate to play.

 

*Read the user name before replying*

[Cdog923]

@desertshoxAt the rate we're going, probably us. 

[Rochelobe]

 

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(quote from desertshox, since quote function isn't working):

 

If they break away, who would the sec play to pad their wins? Kansas can only play 12 games and they do have a conference slate to play.

If this initial plan was actually put in place, my understanding is that the G5 and other FBS conferences would come along, thus allowing the SEC to still play teams from places like the Sunbelt conference, which would at least be an increase over most of their current 4th OOC game choices.  The initial proposal is to only separate what used to be called Div 1-A (now FBS) from Div 1-AA (now FCS).    Thus we would no longer  have North Dakota State vs Minnesota type matchups.  The Big Ten could still hammer <MAC team of choice> if they wanted to.

 

However, such a separation would very likely lead eventually to a P5 split from the rest of FBS, in which case, Kansas becomes everyone's favorite OOC game.

 

I think to some extent this separation has started with other conferences - doesn't the Big Ten ask that their members avoid scheduling FCS teams if at all possible (like what Nebraska had to do with Bethune-Cookman after the Akron cancellation). 

 

Here is how I understand the hierarchy:

 

 

 

Note that the recommendation is football only.  We will still have the entire population of basketball teams (from ~34 Div I conferences) participating in March Madness.  This would be pretty much the same teams as Div I football today, plus conferences like the Big East, which don't play football anymore, just basketball.