D-1 football’s oncoming fault line

Stewart Mandel and I see eye to eye on one consequence of the Pac-12’s ginormous new TV deal:

… The playoff zealots keep telling us that the schools and conferences are committing a grave injustice by refusing to pursue the hypothetical windfall that would come from a hypothetical playoff. Well, there’s nothing hypothetical about the Pac-12’s staggering new contracts with ESPN and Fox. According to The New York Times, the deals are worth a combined $250 million per year — and that’s before additional revenue from a forthcoming Pac-12 Network. That’s about nine times more than the league made from the BCS last season ($28 million) and about 17 times more than it made from the 2010 NCAA basketball tournament ($14.7 million). Each school will earn more than a $20 million share. And to get a sense of just how rapidly things have escalated, consider that just seven years ago no conference was yet earning $10 million per team.

And you wonder why these guys talk so much about protecting the regular season?

The other part of this to keep in mind is that the big boys don’t share.

… And some estimates do suggest that a playoff would net three to four times what the BCS contract does. But first of all, that doesn’t mean each of the conferences would automatically make three to four times as much. An NCAA-sponsored tournament would require certain operating costs, would likely follow a performance-based distribution method and would be spread more evenly among all 11 conferences.

Over the long haul, that’s what a move to an expanded, NCAA-run football tourney risks for every Big Six conference.  And that’s why Mandel is right to ask if you’re a president or commissioner in a BCS conference, what the point is in risking that in moving to an expanded postseason model.

On the other hand, if you’re a mid-major on the outside looking in, the view is only getting gloomier.

… Which completes the continental divide between five of the six “BCS conferences” along with Notre Dame and the rest of the alleged Division I football members. In limbo is the Big East, which remains sort of a stepsister to the others, still in the process of attempting to negotiate a reasonably lucrative TV deal of its own.

So, that makes 61 members of the gated-community football elite; nine others in the Big East counting future immigrant Texas Christian, all of which have cloudier horizons but also a measure of hope; and 50 outliers who have absolutely no chance of catching up.

(In purgatory: FCS Villanova and Conference USA’s Central Florida, either of which might be invited in from the kitchen table to the Big East within the next month or two, neither of which might ultimately survive the move.)

That Forlorn Fifty — consisting of the Mid-American, C-USA, Sun Belt, Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences — has no more prospect of dining at the main table than uninvited walk-ons have of starting on Saturday. In fact, that’s a very good analogy of what they are. Those 50 bottom-feeders are practice-squad meat. Not even scout-team caliber. Blocking sleds. Warmup fodder.

Overwrought, but basically correct.  The money difference is becoming so great that I don’t see how much longer the status quo can be maintained.  Either the money gets spread over a greater number, or there’s a divorce.  At this point, I don’t see where the middle ground is much more than a convenient fiction.  As Jones hyperventilates,

In the meantime, the hourglass sands dwindle for all the pretend D-I schools such as Temple and Troy and Boise State. They shouldn’t be labeled as equals if they aren’t. And if it’s decided they should be, then give them a level playing field. What’s going on now is ludicrous.

Yep, and you can guess which way Delany, Slive and Scott will jump when the time comes.  It’s one reason I’m somewhat amused reading about the alarm over how the SEC’s TV deal is being eclipsed and what the conference may be stuck with for a long time.  The reality is that’s likely to become a moot point in the near to medium future.

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UPDATE:  The Department of Justice has written a letter to the NCAA asking why there isn’t a D-1 football playoff.  No word on whether that was posed rhetorically.

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UPDATE #2:  According to CNN, the question definitely isn’t rhetorical.

In a letter to the NCAA on Wednesday, the Justice Department said it has opened an antitrust inquiry into the current Bowl Championship Series system, which excludes some athletic conferences from the formula for choosing schools to play in major bowl games…

… In her letter, Varney asked Emmert to explain why college football does not have a playoff when so many other college sports do. She also asked what steps, if any, the NCAA has taken to create a playoff, and whether the NCAA has determined that there are aspects of the BCS system that do not serve interests of fans, colleges, universities, and players.

I can’t help but wonder why she’s asking the NCAA this.  Is there a purpose here I’m missing – is she pushing the NCAA to explain why it’s not a competitor to the BCS, for example – or is she just another person who fails to grasp that the NCAA has nothing to do with the BCS?

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UPDATE #3:  Here’s the letter.  CNN’s read too much into it, but it sounds like Justice wants the NCAA to explain why it hasn’t taken control of the D-1 football postseason away from the BCS.

This may be getting interesting.