Agreed. If the P5 were to separate any further, the NCAA would have to fire the first shot. They won't because they make a pant load of money from them. The NCAA doesn't control the championship, but they have a hand in everything else.
The NCAA is ALL of the schools, not just the 65 that make up the so-called P5, but I'm referring to the individuals who make up the administration of the NCAA. Particularly at the top.
UConn, Alabama, etc. make up the NCAA's member institutions, but the organization is run by humans, who's self interest is not necessarily as altruistic as the organization's mission statement may indicate.
It's only a free market up to a point, just ask John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Ma Bell, IBM, International Harvester, Jeff Bezos, or Jamie Dimon. If the P5 tries to monopolize college football as "freescooter" stated, and make billions every year, there will either be class action lawsuits or the government will step in. Why do you think there are salary caps in pro sports?
It hasn't monopolized college football yet to the degree "freescooter" envisioned, the existence of Rutgers, Vanderbilt, most of the PAC 12, Wake Forest, Kansas, and Texas Tech are evidence of that.
Media markets?
Where on Earth did I say they're taking money from the networks???? They're receiving millions from the networks for broadcasting their games, and are greedy with respect to other schools trying to compete at the FBS level. Read my original reply to "freescooter" and it might make more sense to you. If it can be proven that a group of top tier P5 schools formed a new and exclusive conference and conspired to prevent other schools from enjoying $40 or $50 million dollars a year each in broadcasting rights by locking them out and thusly negatively effecting the locked out schools in athletics and also in academics, then they would be opening up themselves to violations of antitrust laws. They would be absolutely no different from Standard Oil, US Steel, International Harvester, Ma Bell, Amazon, all the big banks, or IBM in attempting to stifle competition. The government would find against this hypothetical top tier of schools if the monopoly was on recruits, the quality of facilities and the school in general, instead of Ticketmaster, all paid for by the billions they rake in each year, while the schools not in this top club suffer and can't compete.
If the media rights bubble has indeed burst, its main beneficiaries, the P5 schools, will look to replace that revenue. March Madness is the low hanging fruit.
I can see how what you wrote in response to Scoot might make sense to you, but that hasn't happened and probably won't. The P5 conferences would have to completely split away. While a flimsy argument can be made that they practically have, they would have to give up their spot within the NCAA and all the protections and benefits (at the moment) that go with it.
"Power 5" is a football related designation. They would have to replace it with football related revenue. If they split from the NCAA (which they won't) the first thing that happens is it that opens up the amateur question. If they have to play players a salary, they become pros and where is that money going to come from for that?
"Power 5" is a football derived designation of institutions. All of them play other sports as well, particularly MBB. If the P5 left the NCAA and set up their own March MBB tournament, it would be worth a big amount of money which they would use to fund their BB and Olympic sports much the NCAA does now. I don't see how it impacts the pay for play issue at all, except, perhaps that it provides another pool of funds to pay for it.
We differ on the amount of money the P5 conferences would be worth as a stand alone entity away from the NCAA. For starters, amateur designation is a huge consideration. The NCAA model of amateurism is already hanging by a thread, if only because big time revenue generating college athletics was nowhere near the money maker in 1906 as it is now. Lower tier pro athletes had to take second off-season jobs as recently as the 1970's to supplement to the point of a viable living.
We agreed yesterday that the P5 have all the separation that they want.
I just don't see how football players who are students at a college or University that has split from the NCAA can be paid, regardless of who is paying them? Even if they try it, they would have to pay ALL the student athletes at that school, both men and women. That's an anti trust law violation to the nth degree.
Substance over form.
So the school sponsors a professional de facto football team? That reeks of antitrust, and the men's and women's basketball teams remain amateur, as well as the field hockey team, soccer team? Talk about discrimination. Last I heard, players not even remotely interested in academics flunk out?
