- Extra Points
- Posts
- How are the non-Power Conferences prepping for a Post-House world?
How are the non-Power Conferences prepping for a Post-House world?
I talked to ADs and Conference Commissioners over the last few weeks to better understand
Matt Brown
June 25, 2024
Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.
On Monday morning, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports dropped another important dispatch in the ongoing saga of NCAA reform. Via his story, told from the NCAA conference commissioners meeting in Florida:
As evident from their separate meeting, NCAA Division I has never been more fractured, fragile and frustrated. The split between the haves and have-nots in college athletics is becoming more real than ever, in fact.
Unveiled during this week’s meetings of conference commissioners was none other than a new governance model for Division I. Stemming from the NCAA’s landmark antitrust settlement, the model further separates the four power leagues from the 28 lower-resourced conferences in a more formal break.
…
Historically significant, the governance model segregates the more than 350 schools in Division I, creating what some describe as a separate subdivision for the power schools — similar to a proposal Baker publicly unveiled last December. The power conferences are expected to hold authority to create and even enforce their own rules, many of them related to the antitrust settlement and new athlete revenue-sharing model coming to college athletics.
I had spoken to a few conference commissioners from low-major type leagues that were strongly considering skipping the Florida commissioners meeting entirely, in large part out of deep frustration over how they feel they’ve been treated during the House settlement negotiations. If those folks already thought the NCAA was a P4 world (until it’s time to pay a massive legal bill, anyway), well, those governance meetings weren’t likely to change any minds.
It appears there are still plenty of details to iron out about what even more legislative autonomy for the P4 leagues would mean, or how roster cap limits will actually work, or about dozens of critically important details in how the proposed House settlement terms will be implemented….if they even get approved.
But the highlights of the proposed settlement have been public long enough for me to talk to several athletic directors and conference commissioners from outside the P4, from G5 leagues to multi-bid I-AAA leagues to some of the lowest of the lower majors. I wanted to better understand what the settlement terms mean for their budgets, their near term plans…and how they felt their schools and leagues fit into whatever college sports is now.
Here my some of my biggest takeaways.
Yes, this is going to be a budget cut. But probably not a fatal one. For now.
Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.
A subscription gets you:
- • FOUR newsletters a week
- • Access to every single article in our archives
- • Access to Athletic Director Simulator 4000
- • Free digital copy of the What If? ebook
- • TWO MONTHS FREE compared to monthly pricing
Reply