Yeah, the NCAA is hard at work on killing most of the small schools. I don't know if anyone's taken time to consider the impact of conferences like the MAC losing Marshall. If you consider the NCAA's rules on size of stadium, facilities, avg. attendance (etc), and think about how that will be affected by the mass exodus of schools to the new "mega conferences" it's a death warrant for a lot of schools.
Which means it's highly likely that NCAA Division I football will be shrinking significantly over the next 10 years...
You combine less schools that need NCAA handouts (I'm
referring to the scheduled whompings that generate precious appearance fees for the smaller schools), larger conferences (with more in-conference games) and what do you get?
1) Less conferences that are bowl eligible (eliminating the concern someone mentioned about smaller schools being "screwed").
2) Possible shorter schedules and opening weeks up for a playoff system.
3) Less money to be shared with the little guys.
Perhaps it's just a conspiracy theory...but I think we're well on the way to getting the playoff everyone wants...a lot of folks just don't realize the ramifications.
Having said that, unless you went to a small school or care about smaller conferences (I happened to go to Western Michigan University a MAC school) there's little reason for you to care.
On the other hand, they talk about how football is the big revenue generator for colleges athletic programs and that's not actually true. Even with a yearly whomping at the hands of Virginia, Virginia Tech or Michigan, WMU actually operates football at a loss. Of course "needing" to do things like shack up all the football players in Kalamazoo's best hotel the night before home games (with room service) means there's a LOT of other problems.
Enough with my ranting!
-Nick
