2018 FFL Pics

Uncle Brent

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Conference Realignment

On July 1^st 2005 Boston College did the unthinkable by moving from the Big East to the ACC. This move was primarily financially driven and football related. They were just the first domino to fall. The landscape of college sports was forever changed. It left us with odd number of teams in conferences, such as 14 teams in the Big Ten and only 10 teams in the Big 12. It has further widened the gap between the haves and the have nots. Most of these moves were driven by TV revenue for football broadcasts, while the rest of the sports suffered.

 It is my position that the current NCAA conference system is irrevocably flawed and needs to be completely reengineered.

A system of 8 major conferences, each conference containing 12 teams and 8 mid major conferences containing 13 teams and 6 mid minor conferences for basketball only containing 13 teams and finally 6 minor conferences containing 12 teams, would establish a tiered system similar to European soccer leagues.  Also similar to those leagues a promotion/relegation system would exist.

In football Major conference teams would play 11 conference games and 2 inter-conference games one against schools from the other tier and one against another conference opponent on the same tier.  Mid Major conference teams would play 12 conference games and one inter-conference game against a major conference team. The two teams with the best conference records after 13 games would play in a conference title game.

An 8 team playoff would exist for the college football national title. The 5 major conference title game winners would receive automatic bids. The remaining 3 bids would be wildcards awarded by a selection committee and can be earned by a team in any conference on any tier. The mid major conference tier would have their own championships following the same format described above. If a conference champion from a mid-major conference earns a wild card berth for the major conference tournament their vacated spot becomes a wild card slot.  

In college basketball 22 conference games and 8 inter-conference games determined by previous year seeding would be played. Post season for college basketball would remain the same as it is under the current structure because “why mess with a good thing?”

Conferences would be based geographically. The relegated and promoted teams would be slotted into the region that made the most geographic sense every 2 years conferences would be reevaluated and teams could move conferences within the same tier to be in a better geographic grouping. This would be done by petition to a joint committee of the football and basketball selection committees.

Revenue Streams

Each Major football conference will have their own TV network. All conferences can negotiate with all TV networks to sell their live rights. Conferences must distribute money from TV contracts evenly with all schools. Similar to current TV deals each school should have a cap on the number of games played on each network and a floor to ensure all teams get some exposure. For minor conferences that may only get a limited number of TV games a year on TV no floor will be required.

All arenas must stream all games not broadcast on TV. The NCAA will fund upgrades to all arenas that are not currently equipped to handle live streaming. Schools will be allotted two additional full scholarships for students to be responsible for live streaming each game. These two scholarships can be divided as the school sees fit.

Relegation

There will be a two week realignment period ever two years. During the first week of this period a competition committee made up of 10 conference commissioners will assign promoted/relegated football schools to their new conferences. During the second week the committee will consider any in tier conference changes.  Schools can petition the competition committee to be moved to a new conference after having been in there current conference for at least 2 years. Schools petitioning to be moved to a new conference must have school willing to trade conferences with them. A majority vote of the competition committee is needed to approve these transfers.

The major football school tier will relegate 5 teams every two years. The teams with the worst two year combined record will be relegated to the mid major tier. Promotion is determined by the 5 best two year combined records in the mid major tier regardless of conference.

Basketball only schools will have a similar committee formed of the conference commissioners from the 18 basketball only schools. Promotion and relegation happen on a 2 year cycle with the 3 worst two year records at the major conference level being relegated to the mid major tier and the 3 mid major conference teams with the best two year records will be promoted. The 6 worst 2 year combined record for the mid major and mid minor tier will be relegated and the 6 best teams from the mid minor and minor tier will be promoted based on their 2 year combined record. Same as with football schools can petition to swap conferences in the same tier if they have a willing partner and a majority of the competition committee votes for it.  

Competition Committee meetings would be held the third and fourth weeks of July.