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College Football Recruiting, Opinion, and Analysis

Fire The NCAA? Sure, But For What and How?

The NCAA is seen as outdated and ineffective, but is there a better alternative?

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Inside NCAA Headquarters located in Indianapolis on Friday
Inside NCAA Headquarters located in Indianapolis on Friday

By Rock Westfall

The NCAA is widely viewed as outdated and ineffective, but is there a better alternative? If so, there are a multitude of roadblocks and legal landmines that will make change difficult, if not impossible. And would a new governing body be any better and less selective on enforcement than the NCAA?

Of Course, the NCAA Deserves To Be Fired 

The best case for getting rid of the NCAA is that it is one of the most loathsome organizations in sports. It is virtually worthless yet destructively greedy. Consider that its former president, Mark Emmert, did so little in his tenure that ran from November 1, 2010, to March 1, 2023, that the final result was more impactful than if he tried.

The NCAA sat and did nothing as NIL and the transfer portal emerged as hot-button issues that overwhelmed the governing body and college football. Emmert and his organization were either caught napping or arrogantly thought they would prevail in court. Likely, it was both. Instead, they lost in a rout, and the dog has been chasing its tail ever since.

New president Charlie Baker, the former Massachusetts governor, is not doing much better. The NCAA and Tennessee are in a dispute over inducing a recruit with NIL. Seriously. Uh, excuse me, but isn’t that part of the purpose of NIL? Just as Chip Kelly what life is like without NIL incentives to offer prospects.  

That situation, in a nutshell, epitomizes what the late great UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian would say about the NCAA. To paraphrase Tark the Shark, “The NCAA is mad at all its members using NIL to attract recruiting prospects, so it took it out on Tennessee.”

College football leaving the NCAA is the easy part. The atom splitting begins with planning what would replace it. 

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Congrats, You Fired the NCAA! Yeah! Now What? 

College football breaking away from the NCAA is an enticing fantasy that has existed for decades. So, too, has the dream of having a czar of the sport that would oversee all of the individual conferences.

With the proliferation of billions of dollars of TV contract money, conference realignment, NIL, and the players’ rights movement winning in a romp at the Supreme Court, the NCAA has never been more irrelevant.

However, the formation of a new college football super conference would be highly complicated. The devil is in the details.

First, the four power leagues themselves are split with different strengths, cultures, and priorities. Think of it as four different nations. The Super Power Two (Big Ten, SEC) is already separating from the other two (Big 12, ACC) with an alliance that claims to be a commission to study the future of the sport.

The Super Power Two are much richer and boast most of the major college football brands. All four leagues have major TV contracts that run the rest of the decade or beyond. Also, ESPN just inked a new deal with the College Football Playoff that runs through the 2031-32 season. Good luck at untangling all of that.  

Next, there is a question regarding the number of teams joining a proposed new governing body. The common numbers thrown out are 32, 48, or 64. That would leave the rest of the schools behind and put strong upper-middle-class programs such as Kansas State, Iowa State, Utah, North Carolina, North Carolina State, TCU, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State in potential peril.

Such programs are an essential part of the fabric that makes college football what it is. The game would be less for abandoning such schools. Such a separation will likely trigger lawsuits by those left out. 

Then, there are perpetual and potential legal landmines of women’s and non-revenue sports. And what about academics? Will there still be college in college football? Would the Big Ten finally get over itself and its haughty AAU fetish as part of the formation of a new Super League?

Thus, the endless possibilities and pitfalls could end up saving the NCAA as the best of bad alternatives.

Finally, there is another major factor that serves as an obstacle for a new super conference. Good old-fashioned ego is at stake. 

The Clash of the Egos 

Does anyone think that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would hand over power to someone else above him? The same holds for Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, who runs the richest of the four leagues. Sankey is often mentioned as the man who should become commissioner of the entire sport. But would he be effective or supported by all members of the new organization?

Then you have Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who lacks an upper-class neighborhood after losing Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC. The Big 12 is now a middle and upper-middle-class setup. Yormark has an attractive league but one that lacks a headliner. Thus, he has no stroke with the Super Power Two, and his league is at their mercy.

ACC warden, or make that commissioner, Jim Phillips, inherited a terrible TV contract that runs through the 2036 season, essentially handcuffing all members.

Phillips does have two power brands in Clemson and Florida State, with a current wannabe and former national power that still has brand cache in Miami. 

Florida State hates the ACC and its TV deal and is exploring all avenues for an escape from what is a virtual maximum security prison. Like Yormark, Phillips has a bad set of cards. Only Sankey and Petitti hold aces.

But two outside organizations hold the ultimate trump cards. 

ESPN and FOX Gain Power and Influence 

When you take somebody’s money, especially billions of dollars, you take the terms that come with that. Nobody, not even Greg Sankey, has more power over college football than ESPN and FOX. And whatever college football becomes will likely be based on what those two behemoths demand.

ESPN and FOX are most responsible for the extended schedule, the new CFP format, and the oddball idea of playing the national championship game on January 20, 2025, on a Monday night.

As pro sports have learned, you play when and where the TV networks command. You extend your season and sell your soul. Hockey and basketball in June, the World Series in November, and the Super Bowl in February are the result.

It is realistic to consider these networks forming a Super League for the selfish reason of live sports programming being the most coveted and valuable offering to advertisers.  College football could break away as a private entity under this arrangement and perhaps avoid Title IX and other related lawsuits and obligations. 

A Fork in the Road  

College football does have a decision to make in the effort to end its era of lawlessness with a senseless calendar. The sport is driving away great coaches who are fed up with being on crisis call 24/7/365.

College football can form a new governing body of which the possibilities would fill a lengthy book or two. Otherwise, dare we say, it can reform the NCAA from within.

The easiest idea is that football would be a separate entity from all other sports and have a czar within the NCAA framework with updated rules and bylaws. Furthermore, a sensible calendar could be developed within the NCAA today. Additionally, the concept of quickly devising a system of multi-year player contracts to prevent endless transferring is possible.

Recently, in America, there have been calls to defund the police and abolish the FBI and CIA, among other governing entities. But then, when alternatives are considered, it is concluded that improvement from within might be the most realistic alternative.

Firing the NCAA, while justified, becomes a horror of complicating factors that may save the NCAA from itself. Thus, a reformation may be the best course.

In the immortal words of Winston Churchill, “All the alternatives are bad, but the best of the bad alternatives is capitalism.” Such a philosophy could be apropos when considering the NCAA vs. a new and undefined governing body for college football. 

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