Under fire from the Big Five power conferences, the NCAA as we know it may be on its last legs. Coaches and commissioners have called for a new level of independence from the NCAA, even going so far as to suggest that outright secession could be a "last resort."
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, one of the NCAA's most vocal critics, claims that the organization's current governance system is unfair and provides less competitive institutions, like Boise State University, with as much sway as prominent football programs, such as the University of Alabama and the University of Southern California.
"Look at Division I," he said at last week's Big 12's football media days. "There are programs that have $3 million budgets and programs that have $160 million budgets. How do you begin to try and do things that are good for one that are also good for the other?"
One hotly debated issue is a stipend for student-athletes. While it is unfair that a school like Texas A&M University can make millions off quarterback Johnny Manziel as he makes nothing, the problem is a result of more than just NCAA rules, with the money generated from advertisements and the media circus that accompanies star college athletes also having to shoulder some of the blame. Another issue includes recruiting methods and rules, which big schools say are overly restrictive. Recently, sanctions have been handed down against the University of Miami, the University of Oregon and Ohio State University for recruiting violations.
The Southeastern Coast and Atlantic Coast Conference commissioners have jumped on board, claiming that the NCAA's governance and enforcement structures need significant changes, which may create a "super-division." Popularly called Division IV, this group would be made up of high-level, high-profit football schools the Big Five and the University of Notre Dame.
A potential Division IV, however, will only apply to football. Other sports would remain under the visage of the NCAA because, as Bowlsby said, "It's probably unrealistic to think that we can manage football and field hockey by the same set of rules." This division by sport would be determined by the amount of money each sport makes. College football largely subsidizes the expenses of most schools' sports teams.
The last time a division like this occurred in collegiate football was 1978, when the Football Championship Subdivision was formed from low-budget, low-revenue and what had been considered "low-skill" schools. Critics fear that this further partition will worsen a culture of "haves" and "have-nots" that already exists in college football. Since 2006, four teams, all in the SEC, have won the annual BCS National Championship game.
Commentators are divided over this hypothetical situation. ESPN's Mark Schlabach believes that it is time to end what he calls "socialism" in the NCAA and let the power conferences determine their own football fates. Schlabach argues that equal representation prevents "modern" measures needed in collegiate football from being implemented because "the schools that can't afford it vote it down."
Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports understands the financial motivations and resulting consequences of these actions, which will largely leave "mid-majors" such as Boise and the University of Utah out to dry. Meanwhile, Big Five conference schools currently take 85 percent of all money generated by the BCS through their guaranteed spots in the bowl games.
Dodd warns that the increasingly corporate and for-profit nature of collegiate football, and athletics in general, creates a race to the top in which schools that can afford to outspend competitors dominate the national picture.
"Who needs the MAC, or the Mountain West or any of the non-BCS schools that get table scraps as it is?" he asked. "Certainly not the BCS schools about to formalize what has been a de facto for-profit model driving college athletics."
Dodd fears that this new Division IV has the potential to become corporatized, creating a quasi-professional league where part-time students are paid thousands of dollars to attend a certain school. This would not only eliminate mid-majors from the national conversation, but also hinder traditionally less-competitive Division I football schools.
The creation of this "super-division," while hypothetical, is problematic. It would further the gaping divide that already affects college football and set a dangerous precedent for other profitable sports, notably men's basketball, possibly encouraging some to split from the NCAA over perceived unfairness.
The NCAA is not perfect, as the anti-trust lawsuits and enforcement problems show, but it is the best mechanism that exists for controlling and regulating college athletics. It places a check on money's power and the win-loss column's importance in college athletics and has maintained a level playing field for all who pursue sports at U.S. colleges.
One of the things I enjoy most about college sports is its amateur nature. The student-athletes play for the love of the game, rather than for money from contracts and endorsements. They are students at great academic institutions and compete in athletics at the highest level. A common criticism of big-time college athletics is that student-athletes are more athletes than students, and distancing from the NCAA may only exacerbate this disturbing phenomenon.
