One P5 Commish thinks the NCAA is going to lose:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...e-realignment/
One P5 Commish thinks the NCAA is going to lose:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...e-realignment/
I think it is a bit of a stretch on the part of Dennis Dodd to suggest this lawsuit would usher in a new round of conference realignment.
Even if the conferences were to decide their own scholarship limits, nobody is going back to the way things were 50 years ago when the very elite schools could have 150 kids on football scholarship. It would allow one to three schools in each conference to dominate. The rest of the schools in those leagues are never going to allow that. Thus, the conferences themselves would have limits that would likely be very similar.
What I find more interesting is the money aspect of this story. If college football at the P5 level is worth $8 billion a year today (roughly what the NBA is worth) and FAANG gets involved by 2023, it would obviously lead to much bigger payouts to each league. Articles from earlier this year talked about just how much more money could be involved.
Instead of total TV money to a Big 10 school being $50 million per year, what if it's $120 million per year in 2024? What if total revenue at a school like Michigan is pushed up over $250 million per year from $154 million today?
The lawsuits coming down the pipeline could easily lead to revenue sharing between the P5 conferences and their athletes. If an NFL or NBA model is used, the athletes could get 50% of the school's take. At Michigan, that would mean $125 million per year divided by roughly 360 scholarship athletes (remember with Title IX everyone has to get paid).
Even if you deducted the cost of attendance out of the final number - about $50,000 per year at Michigan, it would still mean about $300,000 per year to each athlete. Even if they just split the TV money it would still mean roughly $150,000 per year to each athlete.
So what if the near future of college athletics plays out this way?
Does it mean the P5 breaks away from the NCAA? How many of the other 300 schools are willing to let them keep that kind of cash without sharing at least some of it? What will it take to buy the rest of the membership off?
I suspect the membership gets bought off in some way, and the P5 gains even more autonomy.
At that point I think the P5 has its own commissioner and perhaps revenue sharing between leagues the way the NBA and NFL shares revenue with its teams. Athletes at LSU, Michigan, Virginia, and Oregon State receive the same cash compensation.
Would the P5 realign?
Why would they at point? If FAANG gets involved they would have the all the money they would need. The assumption is in the next round of realignment the Big 12 would go away as we know it. But why would it break up if Amazon, for instance, became the league's new primary corporate partner? Why would Texas or Oklahoma leave the safety of the nests they've built for the last 70 years if someone drops Ft. Knox into the nest?
Also, you hear a lot of talking heads at the national level talk about the focus being on 20 or 30 schools and that's where the money would go. It's nice in theory, but it would never happen. There are too many academic alliances and friendships for a handful of presidents to ditch 30 or 40 schools. Many of these schools have alliances where hundreds of millions in research dollars per year are involved.
So, do we just not play P5 teams anymore because they are a completely different entity? Or do most schools get $5million for a money game while we go for our customary $1 million?
Our AD says that is our "market value". He has his big money folks believing that BS.