From: don.p.del.grande@gmail.com   
      
   > > Source of this "proposed breakaway"? Not that it's never going to happen -   
   I think everybody here agrees that, eventually, college football breaks away   
   from the NCAA, mainly because it pretty much has to - but the SEC and Big Ten   
   aren't quite big    
   enough yet to pull this off.    
   > > Keep in mind that the rest of the FBS schools can stop that by changing   
   the NCAA Bylaws to prevent a playoff that is not supported by at least three   
   conferences. and you try telling Penn State's wrestling, LSU's women's   
   gymnastics, and pretty much    
   all of the Big Ten's men's (and a number of women's) ice hockey programs that   
   they're no longer eligible to compete for a national championship because the   
   conference's football programs threw a hissy fit.   
   > Yahoo article. But what stops the SEC and Big Ten from making their own new   
   NCAA with all these other sports? Now that UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon   
   are in the Big Ten, and Oklahoma and Texas are in the SEC, which schools are   
   they going to miss?    
   The Big Ten can still run their own ice hockey league, and are they really   
   worried about all the D3 schools that have D1 ice hockey programs and not   
   being part of that? Plus, the newly formed SEC/Big Ten alliance could invite   
   whatever schools they wanted    
   from the ACC or Big 12.   
      
   One thing that stops them: CBS's contract with the NCAA for the men's   
   basketball championship, which runs through 2032.   
   After that, I wouldn't be surprised if the Big Ten / SEC conglomerate gets big   
   enough to take in enough football and "basketball-only" schools to be able to   
   conduct legitimate national championships in those sports, at which point the   
   NCAA (which will    
   still be in business) can cut a deal with it; the NCAA will get rid of its   
   current rule where if a team is invited to an NCAA championship and declines,   
   it cannot compete in any nonconference postseason event (the only thing this   
   really applies to now is    
   the Heritage Bowl, and even at that, the Division I Football Committee jumps   
   through flaming hoops to make sure that no team that even has a chance of   
   being in the Heritage Bowl will be in the FCS tournament), and the NCAA will   
   allow these "breakaway"    
   schools to compete in its other championships.   
   Another advantage: in the sports where the Big Ten/SEC does not call the   
   shots, conferences can be regionalized, seriously reducing costs - does Duke   
   really have to travel to play field hockey, or tennis, at Cal and Stanford, or   
   Penn State at Washington    
   and Oregon (and then again, at USC and UCLA)?   
      
   One problem: do the two conferences invite schools that are good in baseball,   
   but not in football or basketball, to prop up the baseball situation? What   
   about women's volleyball, or men's ice hockey? If you add enough ACC schools,   
   what about lacrosse? If    
   you keep having to add teams, eventually this becomes the NCAA all over again,   
   complete with the NCAA's problems.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)