The End of the NCAA?

Since the beginning of the BCS, college football has undergone a seismic shift. More lucrative tv deals, a host of new technologies, and round-the-clock coverage have all contributed to this shift. I would not argue that college football before the BCS-era was "pure" by any means, but the shift of this era seems to be particularly large. If college football moves to super-conferences, 4 each with 16 members, it will change the game as we know it.

Now, we cannot know specifics, but besides actually talking about the game itself, speculation has become a favorite of fans. I will now do as the rest of the nation is doing and speculate. In this case about what changes super-conferences would bring. Most telling to me would be the end of the NCAA.

Better said, the marginalization of the NCAA. With four super-conferences looking to expand their brand, why subject yourself to regulation from a largely ineffective body? Why follow the restrictions of the NCAA when you could build your program unfettered from oversight? Why not just pay the players? So many questions which lead to one outcome: the NCAA having no authority over the four super-conferences.

The results of this could be scary if you like to think that your team has a chance at the beginning of the year to contend for a conference title. Even though as currently constituted the NCAA is a paper tiger with limited power to enforce its rules, it at least causes programs to have a desire to avoid scandal. An offending program needs to cover its tracks or it could end up like Ohio State, USC, or Miami. Moving to a four-conference system with no NCAA would allow the conferences to set their own rules. Naturally, these rules would benefit the haves over the have-nots. The gap between the leviathan programs who spend gaudy amounts of money and the programs trying to get ahead by, gasp, winning would widen. Big-time schools with the resources to run their corporations/football-programs would have the ability to throw their weight around even more. I assume that there is a limit to the size that any given program can grow, but as of today I do not think any program has reached that capacity.

The end of the NCAA would signal the end of amateurism. Or at least the guise of amateurism that college sports operate under. At the end of the day, all most athletic departments care about is the money. Indeed, some more than others are focused on the "student-athlete" and the formation of these students into responsible adults. Unfortunately, these programs are the exception. With four super-conferences, there would be no need to operate with this facade of amateurism and a focus on academics. Football programs would become money making enterprises for the universities. The programs would bring notoriety and millions in tv money to the school. Athletic directors within the super-conferences would be crazy not to try and build-up their school's football team.

In effect, the four-conferences would become the only organization to come along that could compete with the NFL. The USFL failed. The XFL was a joke. The UFL only kind of exists. The four super-conferences though, now they could give the NFL a run for their money. With the NCAA out of the way, why not put some games on Sunday in order to get more games into prime-time?

At the risk of being alarmist, I will stop there. I do not feel like these are unwarranted claims. No NCAA would free up a lot of schools to flex their muscles. The creation of four super-conferences and essentially a division outside of the FBS and FCS could be the step that moves down that path.

Larry Scott, what have you started?