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Any time a big time school is under investigation by the NCAA penalties decry the inequity of it all and suddenly you see statements by fans that say their team should leave the NCAA. Some of this is just frustration that their team is about to be hit with penalties but it's also because the whole system is set up on the backs of 20 year old men so bad decisions on their part are to be expected. The NFL doesn't have to worry about illegal payments, only that their players stay out of jail.
Most major college make tens of millions of dollars on the backs of their student athletes. Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Ohio State all make between $50-80mm from their football programs will spending about $20-30mm to support them. The profit for each of these universities is used to support the other programs at the school. The problem is that more and more people are coming after this money and while the total revenue for all schools continue to escalate that isn't going to continue forever. With costs continuing to rise it is only a matter of time before the big schools do something to protect this income.
Could the big schools leave the NCAA?
The first question is how they leave. Many suggest that it should be made up of the conferences with automatic qualifition in the BCS while others feel a more selective process should be used. I'm a big proponent of the second method but lets look at both:
BCS Conferences (B1G, Pac12, Big12, SEC, BE, ACC)
There are currently 66 schools in the BCS system with the SEC/B1G the strongest and the B12/BE the weakest. 68 schools is too many especially since so many schools have differing level of support. Here's the attendance numbers for each conference for the 42 schools with more than 50,000 in attendance (with teams over 65,000 in red):
Big Ten (8/7)
1. Michigan 111,825
2. Ohio St. 105,278
3. Penn St. 104,234
11. Nebraska 85,664
16. Wisconsin 79,862
19. Michigan St. 73,556
21. Iowa 70,585
38. Illinois 54,188
SEC (11/9)
4. Alabama 101,821
6. Tennessee 99,781
7. Georgia 92,746
8. LSU 92,718
9. Florida 90,511
10. Auburn 86,087
18. South Carolina 76,668
22. Arkansas 68,932
25. Kentucky 66,070
35. Mississippi 55,898
37. Mississippi St. 54,999
Big 12 (6/3)
5. Texas 100,654
12. Oklahoma 84,738
13. Texas A&M 82,477
26. Missouri 61,540
32. Texas Tech 57,108
41. Oklahoma St. 50,812
Pac 12 (6/2)
15. Southern California 79,907
23. Washington 66,264
28. UCLA 60,376
29. Oregon 59,398
31. California 57,873
36. Arizona 55,408
ACC (6/3)
17. Clemson 77,469
20. Florida St. 71,270
24. Virginia Tech 66,233
30. North Carolina 58,250
33. North Carolina St. 56,877
39. Miami (FL) 52,575
Big East (3)
34. West Virginia 56,325
40. Pittsburgh 52,165
42. Louisville 50,648
Independant (2/1)
14. Notre Dame 80,795
27. BYU 61,381
As you can see most conferences have a few dominant players with many others schools that don't have close to the same resources. This system is a bit symbiotic as the top schools get wins and the bottom schools get money. This has worked well in the past but the question is will it work if they break ties with the NCAA and the answer is mixed. It can for the big conferences but not for the smaller conferences.
That's why I think the answer is a combination of the B1G/SEC/B12/Pac12 along . You could make an argument that the B12/Pac12 shouldn't be included but both serve a geographic area with huge college football traditions. To these 4 conferences I'd add Notre Dame/BYU/Florida State/Miami/Virginia Tech.
There are many obstacles in the way but the biggest is political and I think it is impossible to exclude the ACC if you include schools like Indiana and Vanderbilt.
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