It’s time to break up.
Sooner or later there will come this tectonic shift in college athletics that will formally separate the Power Four (SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12) into their own NCAA football division. That is, if the NCAA is even involved. It is certainly not necessary. The Power Four can just as easily buy an office building, create a few departments, fill it with administrators, and govern itself. In the long term, all this could point there too.
But for now, let’s consider the competitive landscape of college football in the wake of this week’s massive settlement in the antitrust lawsuit between the House and the NCAA, which is not entirely finalized but was approved Wednesday by the NCAA Board of Governors . Former NCAA athletes will receive a whopping $2.8 billion in damages over a 10-year payout structure. Going forward, a large portion of Power Four schools’ athletic department revenue — perhaps $20 million a year or more — will go to current athletes. Although with a little belt tightening, they will survive both hits. Small school athletics can’t be so safe.
The revenue-sharing model would be an option for schools, but the big ones wouldn’t be able to compete in recruiting without participating, and the small ones generally won’t have a dime to do so. That is why a break in football makes more sense than ever.
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Calling out the ramifications of revenue sharing with athletes, Power Four sports directors have warned they may have to eliminate some of the money-losing sports. Meanwhile, ADs at schools like Creighton and Seton Hall in the Big East don’t want to hear the complaints. Those schools don’t even have a football program, but they are also bearing the brunt of the settlement between House and the NCAA. If your favorite team’s football facility features a bowling alley (Clemson), a waterfall (Alabama) or a recording studio (South Carolina), rest assured the ADs at James Madison or Appalachian State have no sympathy for the Power Four. income situation.
While big schools see no fat to trim, small schools only see opulence.
And after claiming they were left with much of the deal package without having enough say in the negotiations, they are now more vocal than ever about their poor status. Of course, they have been dispossessed for decades. But the House agreement widens the gap like never before. NCAA Division I basketball is not headed for a breakup, because the Power Four needs smaller schools to pay their end of the deal, and NCAA tournament revenue is the only way they can do that.
But when it comes to football, let’s once and for all dispense with the charade of powerful schools writing checks for easy wins to small schools that, from a competitive standpoint, should only be playing against each other. They have long relied on those controls to help keep the red ink out of their sports budgets. But they’ve been the last dog in the bowl for quite some time, they’re tired, and at this point they might as well find their own bowl.
Your own schedule. Your own tiebreaker. His own television contract.
The powerful four? Counting Notre Dame, there are 68 schools whose time as their own division has come. It’s a concept Nick Saban once championed, but the retired Alabama coach probably couldn’t have imagined it could become a reality so soon.
Big changes are coming, and fast.
And a Division I football game with 68 teams should be one of them.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Contact him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
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