And so it begins

[pbiflyer]

Is this bad news for the Big East and the end of the NCAA? The big 5 conferences want autonomy.
http://m.espn.go.com/wireless/story?storyId=10121476

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

Ultimately I think football breaks off and does their own thing... Who knows if that happens now or down the road, my only hope is that Basketball gets left alone.

[ge1974]

If the schools from the 5 major conferences are able to pay players and the rest are not, there will be an uneven playing field. Of course, for recruiting, the best players are pretty much going to go to schools that pay them.

[TheSultan]

Providing additional payments to students will be more than just football. The Big East is going to have to follow suit as a non-football conference in order to stay competitive.

[BLT]

Football should just break off with the Top 60 teams. It is a very expensive sport and not a profitable one, despite all the revenue. It needs a separate business model so its popularity matches its financial requirements.

Olympic sports are another thing and have been suffering from football's costs and Title IV restrictions for years. Let's take Men's Water Polo which just had its championship. The NCAA bracket schools were USC, UCLA, Stanford...all BCS football. And then there were Pacific, St. Francis, Whittier and UC San Diego. Many of these sports cannot exist without non-BCS schools.

If the Top 60 break off for basketball, in a 30 game schedule, do schools play 50% of the schools every year? The NCAA tournament is 68 teams...so now back to 32 with a good number of BCS teams well under .500? That isn't going to happen as that is a lot of TV revenue from those other games the BCS won't be getting for their win credits as they most typically advance. More likely the compromise is that the field expands in order to create the revenue needed to pay the athletes.

Of course there are Title IV complications. Schools cannot just pay football athletes and not fencing. It would be nice if football scholarships were exempt from Title IV as a compromise and the cutting of Olympic sports prohibited. But that is a federal lawsuit waiting to happen. So, do the BCS schools just cut Olympic sports like Water Polo completely? Could be, but there are a lot of ramifications to feed the Golden Goose of football...and as Delany says, they have nothing to offer.....yet they have money to offer their football players. I suspect the football schools will muck it up just like they did with conference realignment.

[MUBasketball]

Providing additional payments to students will be more than just football. The Big East is going to have to follow suit as a non-football conference in order to stay competitive.

Will they be able to? It's depressing seeing schools across the country slashing sports due to budget shortages. For many schools, would they have the capability to pay all student athletes (even those in non-revenue sports)?

[Goose85]

This will be interesting. So let's say the Big 5 want to provide players with a stipend of $500 per month.

Will there be anything preventing schools from the Mountain West / CUSA / American / Big East / Missouri Valley / Horizon / Sun Belt / MAC / etc, from doing the same? If the other five FBS conferences all agree to pay too, will they be able to do so?

Is this just for schollarship athletes, or is it for all athletes? Football may have 85 on schollie, but most big schools have about 110 when adding in walk-ons. Baseball may only allow 12 schollies, but they likey have more than 25 on a team. Same with soccer.

No big deal for most Big East schools most likely, as even $500 per month isn't a killer when you don't have the 100+ football players and offsetting women's schollies.

If the Big 5 leave the NCAA, do those athletic departments lose their non for profit status? Are state school athletes now employees of the state (I sure it would be worded to avoid this one).

What happens if in the next 5 years there is a shift in how people view games and subsequently pay for cable tv? Could TV revenues to conferences decline? Then what happens?

[IWB]

I have no issue with stipends as long as they are reasonable, but I find it funny that the people saying they need to pay stipends are from the large schools that lose money on an annual basis. So, what they are saying is, "we need to be able to lose more money to be competitive"?

Also, their argument is weak, very weak. If they want to say that these kids need to be able to afford to do their laundry, get some things for their dorm room, some clothes - fine. But to say they need to do this to stay competitive? Why are you not competitive now? Aren't you all on the same level playing field? The only reason they want to do this is to keep the Fresno States, the Boise States, the BYUs, the Northern Illinois' and the Nevadas at bay, instead of allowing them into their coveted BCS bowls.

[Goose85]

What if the big boys say here are the new rules, $300 per athlete per school month (10 months). What if Nevada, Fresno, Boise, for that matter the whole Mountain West and MAC conferences decide they too will pay, then are they included?

If they split, is it only football? If I'm a BCS school with Lax, hockey, baseball, etc then what?

The Badgers have a successful hockey team. They play only 5 other Big 10 schools in hockey this year, one game against BC, that's it for BCS teams. Almost 40% of their scheduled games are against no BCS schools. Who do they play if they split for all things?

If they split for football and hoops, and still expect everyone else to be ok with that, then I hope the non BCS schools say good luck finding other schools to play because we are taking a few years off from scheduling BCS schools in all other sports too.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

I think you have to open up for everyone to have the option to pay, if a school opts out that's their choice.