As the NCAA constitution changes, will strong college football teams attempt to formally distribute FBS?

College football has always been a class war: public vs. private, Power Five vs. Group of Five, SEC vs. world. Membership has always had its advantages. These 65 Power Fives schools distribute 78% of the half-year annual support for College Football playoffs each year.

Among those high schools that are wondering if they should be shared at all, the idea is growing. What has quietly emerged in recent months is perhaps the biggest class war in decades.

“Membership” is the buzzword when the NCAA rewrites its constitution. That would mean an additional split between 130 schools playing college football. Division IA, now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), was formed in 1978. It was the last major pick of receivables and deficiencies.

Basically, there may be a departure from FBS’s least resource programs. The reasons would be the same as they were 43 years ago: The smallest programs have too much effect – voting and otherwise – on what a group of about 80 schools would like big football to look like.

“I think the discussion is going to happen,” the current sports director of Power Five told CBS Sports. “Yes on FBS. The differences in revenue, only between FBS, are already huge. But from Big Ten to the SEC and the smallest conferences in Division I, it doesn’t even apply to apples and oranges.

“In the absence of a better term, we have a football problem.”

The problem is that schools emphasize football at different levels. The resources of Georgia and southern Georgia (recruitment, salaries, TV contracts) are currently not very similar. Still, they play under the same FBS banner.

“I think you’ll see it layering or a significant change,” said Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock. “It’s just a lot of work in a short amount of time.”

Convergence of concerns forces this. Game brokers need to figure out how to distribute an unprecedented future cash flow. The box office is fuller than ever as College Football playoffs expand and several conference TV contracts are renegotiated.

Many administrators believe it is inevitable that athletes – especially football and basketball players – will eventually become school workers.

“How can Power Five legally give more money to its athletes? [That’s] which is the next step, “Power Five AD said.

The slaughter of FBS cattle has become more clearly the focus of attention since the NCAA decided to change its rules in August. The resulting constitutional treaty ended on Monday with broad concepts that are expected to be added to the NCAA convention in January. The constitutional amendments are expected to be fully effective in August 2022.

Implementation is another matter. The 20-member Change Committee from the Convention is responsible for the details of how the NCAA steps aside and lets divisions and conferences make their own decisions. In essence, it allows them to practice college sports in their own way.

The elephant in the room is a possible additional division of FBS. Which schools are going to make the cut and which will fall into a category called “Division IV”? Although the division of FBS is uncertain, it is more likely now than ever since that last major division in 1978.

“It’s not on the table yet, but that’s the first thing to ask,” said West Virginia AD Shane Lyons, a member of the Transformation Committee. “What are we looking for with those members of the Change Committee? Is it a membership requirement? There is a difference between schools earning $ 175 million and schools earning $ 4 million.”

“One of the first questions will be, ‘What will this look like?'”

Overall, the rules and restrictions will almost certainly be liberalized. NIL has already turned a major NCAA violation into shrugs in the past.

Power Five AD goes crazy with those details. They are frustrated that smaller schools have such a voting effect, for example, on staffing issues.

“Coaching Limits… I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t care,” Lyons said. “If you want eight coaches in baseball, hire eight coaches. That’s between the coach, the AD and the president. [worry about it] all the time in football. We pay thousands of dollars to compliance staff to try to figure out what these people are doing sideways or in practice.

“Does it really matter? Let them coach. Who cares? If Alabama wants 75 coaches, give them 75 coaches. In West Virginia, we have 20.”

The Transformation Committee will be chaired by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Ohio AD Julie Cromer. The composition of the committee alone anticipates dismissal. Sankey leads the country’s most effective football conference. Cromer is from AD MAC School, who plays some of his games on weekday evenings to maximize visibility.

SEC schools will soon each earn $ 60 million in average media rights fees each year. MAC’s current ESPN contract, which expires at the end of 2026-27, is worth $ 100 million in total.

“Anyone with Sankeya would give me an indication that the gap is widening,” said a university sports consultant who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the situation. “Julie is in Ohio, and I really like Julie. She’s hell smart. I’d see her and Sankey hit in a clash. I suspect that’s the case, but Greg will win every time she can. She has the power.”

The ability to flex this force brings with it responsibility. Any of the 130 schools that would not undergo surgery would lose enormous brand power. Being on FBS allows schools to fund athletics at the highest level, increase enrollment, and even attract teachers and scholarships.

The heartlessness of the process struck home for a couple of weeks this summer as information leaked about Texas and Oklahoma heading to the SEC. It was suddenly realized that schools like Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Kansas (especially in basketball) could only invite a five-person conference home. That fear quickly dissipated as the Big 12 took on four teams, expanded to 12, and – presumably – retained its Power Five position.

It was a signal to some that college football is once again gathering around the campfire of the biggest brands.

“We lost two huge brands,” one Big 12 AD said. “It would be like the Big Ten wiping out Michigan and the state of Ohio. Don’t take anything away, but Purdue doesn’t have such a big brand. Indiana doesn’t have such a big brand. If you compare the anchor., They were our two anchors. Every conference has them.”

The list of options is mentioned in the “alliance” of 30-60 teams into a group of 80-100 teams that would operate according to the same rules. It would not be so much the exclusion of schools as the standard they must meet.

Currently, there is no impact on the NCAA tournament and the 351 Division I members that add to its charm. Schools from all three current NCAA divisions (I, II, III) will share an annual revenue of $ 800 million from the event.

There are currently minimum requirements for FBS membership, including (just to name a few): sports sponsorship (16), minimum schedule requirements (60% of games vs. FBS, 5+ home games) and an average number of participants (15,000). Raising the number of visitors to 30,000 alone would theoretically result in the loss of FBS membership for 56 schools (43%) based on the 2019 averages.

Consider top schools voting to increase their share of the 95 football scholarships. (The current maximum is 85.) Those who could not afford to fund those 10 additional scholarships would be priced out of the market and possibly end up in “Division IV.” The same goes for the idea of ​​full funding for equivalence sports. These sports include baseball and football, which may have large lists but have a limited number of scholarships. (Division I baseball teams, for example, hand out 11.7 scholarships.)

What if those little sports were funded with exactly the same scholarships as sports like football? It would force smaller schools to drop the level due to increased financial obligation.

“Can you imagine if Georgia, at that recruitment site, had basically 100 scholarships?” asked Power Five AD.

MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher, whose conference may be one of those affected by higher business costs, will not be discouraged.

“I am pleased with the discussions I have had with FBS commissioners and Greg Sankey,” he said. “I don’t think people should over- or under-react to anything. Whatever the outcome, we’re in a good position. It’s really interesting to talk about deregulation in the abstract, but in reality it’s badly hard to do.”

There has long been talk of the “detachment” of high schools from the NCAA itself. This is not it. Last December, the Knight Commission recommended FBS to be completely separate from the association.

With conferences having broader powers, the new constitution would provide a real subdivision. In 1978, Ivy League schools had the same voting rights as Big Ten schools, but they did not place the same emphasis on football. These Ivy League schools eventually dropped out of Division I-AA (FCS), which was able to sponsor its own playoffs. Division IA (FBS) maintained its lucrative bowl system.

When this split occurred, there were 137 members in Division IA and 43 in Division I-AA. Today, these figures are closer to – 130 for FBS and 125 for FCS, although there will be some change in these totals once this round of conference restructuring is completed.

Not surprisingly, J. Neils Thompson, the former president of Texas, chaired a committee that recommended the division 4½ decades ago.

“I don’t think it rules out anyone,” Lyons said of today’s thinking. “It just says, ‘Here are the criteria.’ If we go down this road, here’s what it takes to belong to this particular group. “

“Power Five” and “Group of Five” were terms that evolved from the establishment of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 1998 by the media and college administrators. The competency requirements for these BCS bowls drew an informal line between power. conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC) and smaller leagues (Big West, Conference USA, Mid-American, WAC).

Power Five now consists of ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, while the fifth group consists of American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt.

Voting rights for autonomy were agreed for these five power conferences in the 2014 NCAA Convention. At the time, Power Five’s enhanced voting rights laid the groundwork for the cost of participation fees and NIL rights.

As the NCAA relinquishes power with its restructuring, Power Five may seek an even more weighted vote to rule Division I. For example, in the future, conferences are expected to establish and implement implementation procedures.

“Some believe that when we made the changes, we did not go far enough in voting [in 2014]that it should be higher, “Lyons said.” I think autonomy schools and conferences require weighted votes. “

The rewriting of the Constitution is part of the consequence Alston v. NCAA A decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that deprived the NCAA of much of its power.