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Big 5 conferences pondering move to Division IV led by the SEC & Commish Slive

TheReff

Rod Griffin
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DESTIN, Fla. -- The Southeastern Conference sent a strong message to the NCAA on Friday: provide the Power Five some autonomy or they'll form their own division.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said if the Power Five conferences -- which also include the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 -- don't get the flexibility needed to create their own bylaws, the next step would be to move to "Division IV."

"It's not something we want to do," Slive said on the final day of the SEC meetings. "We want the ability to have autonomy in areas that has a nexus to the well-being of student athletes. I am somewhat optimistic it will pass, but if it doesn't, our league would certainly want to move to a Division IV. My colleagues, I can't speak for anybody else, but I'd be surprised if they didn't feel the same way."




We hope everyone realizes we are moving into a new era and (Division IV) is the way to retain your collegiate model. It would be a disappointment and in my view a mistake not to adapt the model. This is a historic moment. If we don't seize the moment, we'll make a mistake.
” -- SEC commissioner Mike Slive

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. The SEC, for example, would like to pay full cost of college attendance, provide long-term medical coverage and offer incentives to kids who return to school and complete degrees.

Smaller Division I schools likely can't afford the changes the major conferences are seeking. And while Division II and Division III have their own rules, forming a Division IV would seemingly create a wider divide between the Power Five and other smaller schools.

Slive, however, said a potential move wouldn't disrupt championship formats, including the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

"I've been so optimistic that we're going to stay in Division I that we haven't sat down and tried to map it out," Slive said. "But we know that failure to create what we're trying to create would result in doing something different. How we would construct a Division IV? We haven't looked in that.

"We hope everyone realizes we are moving into a new era and this is the way to retain your collegiate model. It would be a disappointment, and in my view a mistake, not to adapt the model. This is a historic moment. If we don't seize the moment, we'll make a mistake."

University of Florida President Bernie Machen wasn't nearly as confident about staying in Division I.

"We're in a squeeze here," Machen said. "There are now six lawsuits that name our conference in them that specifically have to do with the whole cost of attendance and stuff like that. We would like to make changes, but we can't because the NCAA doesn't allow us to. We're really caught between a rock and a hard play. We desperately would like some flexibility."

Southern Mississippi athletic director Bill McGillis believes the major conferences will get that flexibility and that a Division IV won't be needed.

He said more autonomy for the high-resource leagues is just "the reality of the situation" and that schools like Southern Miss in Conference USA agree with many of the proposed changes. McGillis expects schools from all Division I conferences will have a say in the process and will adjust to whatever is decided.

"I think the system will work and that the schools outside the high-resource five conferences that are committed to competing at a high level will still be able to do that," McGillis said.

The SEC wants the NCAA steering committee to adopt its proposal for the voting threshold, which would allow the Big Five to pass legislation with more ease. The NCAA board of directors will vote on the steering committee's proposal in August.

Currently, the NCAA requires a two-thirds vote of the 65 schools and 15 student representatives as well as four out of five conferences.

"What we fear is that nothing will change because the threshold is so high," Machen said. "We're asking them to lower the threshold, which we propose is 60 percent and three conferences. With three conferences out of five and 60 percent of the 65 and 15, you can make those kinds of changes."

Still, Machen has his doubt it will pass.

"This is the NCAA we're dealing with," he said.

And Machen envisions rough waters ahead if things don't change.

"The whole thing could go up in smoke if the lawsuits come down or with the unionization rule," he said. "So the whole intercollegiate model is at risk if we don't do something. If they don't want to do this, it seems to me it's incumbent upon them to come up with something else that will help us get out us this box."
 
It's only a matter of time. The NCAA is about to become a thing of the past.
 
It's only a matter of time. The NCAA is about to become a thing of the past.

True. Just a matter of time whether these conferences "secede" from the union, start their own deal or something like that. When the small schools can dictate what we put in our football & basketball media guides as far as color photos inside because they have equal votes, it is just a matter of time. Hard to say if what they said toward the end of the article and we have the same all encompassing NCAA March Madness tourney, College World Series, etc. I would hate to lose that. But I can see a different deal come into play for a Div IV for football playoffs definitely.
 
That's some choice they're giving them: de facto autonomy or secession.
 
True. Just a matter of time whether these conferences "secede" from the union, start their own deal or something like that. When the small schools can dictate what we put in our football & basketball media guides as far as color photos inside because they have equal votes, it is just a matter of time. Hard to say if what they said toward the end of the article and we have the same all encompassing NCAA March Madness tourney, College World Series, etc. I would hate to lose that. But I can see a different deal come into play for a Div IV for football playoffs definitely.

ACC would be extremely well positioned.on a Div IV basketball tourney.
 
with a 64 team division IV tournament, we would have to make it right?
 
This way Cal and Saban can pay their player in the open....
 
Div IV can run the tourney and invite the smaller teams in. It's a billion dollar event. NCAA keeps all that money.
 
Sports are becoming a pretty big deal in this country. I am thinking that there may actually be a market for paid professionals to play team sports. There could be a league for basketball, baseball, and football, maybe even some other sports.

What's that? Professional sports leagues already exist to fill an entertainment niche in this country?

Never mind.
 
Sports are becoming a pretty big deal in this country. I am thinking that there may actually be a market for paid professionals to play team sports. There could be a league for basketball, baseball, and football, maybe even some other sports.

What's that? Professional sports leagues already exist to fill an entertainment niche in this country?

Never mind.

Ha. This is about how I feel though. At the risk of sounding bkfanish, I'm over the whole paying players thing. As much as I have been glued to the tv on Saturdays in the fall, and laid out of work on tourny weeks, I'm finding it harder and harder to connect with college sports anymore and the whole thing has just gotten out of hand. Maybe I'm just getting old...also my alma mater sucking hind tit for years hasn't helped I'm sure.
 
College athletics has completely gone to hell. I've about lost all interest in it. Everything is about money now. College sports is becoming just like another professional league. 100-year old rivalries sacrificed for more money. So sad.
Same here.. sad... no tickets bought... will travel to UNCC to see a game with grandson who is there.
 
College athletics has completely gone to hell. I've about lost all interest in it. Everything is about money now. College sports is becoming just like another professional league. 100-year old rivalries sacrificed for more money. So sad.

Serious question for you, bkf? When did the glory days of college athletics end, and what was the point of collegiate athletics during that time period?
 
I don't think there was any exact point in time when this happened. Rather, it was a gradual transformation over time. Obviously, the creation of money-driven "mega conferences" that trampled over century-old rivalries in the search for more money has been a defining example of the problem. If I had to pick the biggest factor in causing this transformation, I would probably say the widespread proliferation college sports on television and the explosion of money that accompanied it....because that is what has driven all of this other insanity, such as building mega-million dollar facilities to attract multi-million dollar coaches and what amounts to professional athletes....because a growing majority of them look at themselves as athletes, rather than students who just happen to being playing a sport while they are getting an education.

What was the point of college athletics before all of this insanity bastardized college athletics with its millions of dollars? That's easy. College athletics was supposed to be just one part of a well-rounded college experience, where the athletes were really not that much different from the rest of the students. They both went to class for four years and graduated.....and everyone enjoyed the experience of playing in closely-knit geographical conferences where there were long-held rivalries and the schools were close enough together, for the most part, that students & alumni from both schools playing could go to many of the games. That was particularly true of the original ACC....with 4 schools in NC, 2 in nearby SC, 1 in nearby VA & 1 in Maryland. How far is it from Columbia, SC to College Park, Md? That would have been the longest trip for any game played in the conference. Wake Forest was within relatively easy driving distance of every school in the conference except for Maryland.

I cherish the memory of all four WF-Carolina football games that I went to when I was a student at WF (and we won 3 of the 4 games!). Now, you can have situations where entire graduating classes of WF students will never have the experience of going to a home football game between Wake Forest and Carolina. Instead of playing Carolina, Duke, NC State, Clemson, South Carolina, Virginia & Maryland every year....they get to go to WF games against Louisville, Syracuse, Boston College....and non-con games like Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian & Liberty. And for what? So we can try to win 6 games and qualify for a "bowl" game against another 6-6 team on the 3rd Saturday in December in Shreveport, La.

I appreciate the response. When athletics were just part of a well rounded collegiate experience, were tickets sold to these games? Why?
 
Nicely done BKF. I think it the slippery slope started in the 90's with the explosion of cable sport networks which needed content to fill the schedule. When that happened, the pie got bigger but more people found ways to spend all that money. The real "jump the shark" moment happened with the birth of the Longhorn Network. All Texas, All the time. They were going to give Big 12 members a smaller share of the TV rights. They were also going to broadcast the HS games their recruiting targets. Nebraska and Colorado jumped ship and A&M was looking to go to the SEC. Texas agreed to give more money to their conference opponents. Gene Stallings got the Aggies to the SEC 2 years later, in time for Johnny Manzeil to hit the big stage. Mizzou came with them. If the economy hits the skids like in '08, some of these ideas along with some of the bowl games, will disappear.
 
BKF bringing the heat in this thread. For once I actually agree with him, though I don't think college athletics were as innocent and innocuous in the 70's as he's making them out.
 
The SEC just gave out 20+ million per school this year, a new record for them, and the SEC network hasn't even started yet.
 
BKF bringing the heat in this thread. For once I actually agree with him, though I don't think college athletics were as innocent and innocuous in the 70's as he's making them out.

I agree. I do think college sports were about generating revenue earlier than the 70s though. I think they were also about promoting the schools. The problem with the genie that's now out of the bottle is that a handful of schools can force everyone else into an escalating arms race.
 
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