As the so-called “Power 5” conferences continue to gain autonomy and well, power, changes could be on the horizon for those who pick the annual NCAA Division I basketball tournament and for the payouts to the conferences represented as well.
USA Today is reporting that a survey has been sent out to garner feedback over two big potential changes to the selectors and the payouts involved in March Madness.
Those leading the charge for some changes appear to be those involved in the “Power 5” conferences, likely at the expense of those schools who are non-football playing members of D1 basketball.
It’s something that has alarmed athletic directors at the smaller schools and has led to the survey going out before any proposed changes are officially taken up in committee or the general vote that happens this coming January.
Perhaps the most slippery of slopes appears to be the thought of permanent membership on the selection committee to each of the “Power 5” conferences. According to USA Today, that has led to a survey coming out amongst all D1 members:
The Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee has asked Division I members to respond to a survey concerning possible changes to the composition of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, according to a presentation Monday by Hofstra athletics director Jeff Hathaway, a member of the oversight committee. The survey includes the notion of expanding the selection committee, which determines the men’s basketball tournament field, from its current 10 members to either 11 or 12 and/or giving permanent seats on the committee to one representative from each of the Power Five conferences.
Futher upsetting some conference commissioners and representatives of smaller schools is a second survey going out about potential changes to the distribution of revenue to all Division 1 member schools.
In that survey, there is talk of tying percentages of revenue not just to performance in the NCAA tournament itself but also potentially to things like Academic Progress Rating (APR) and Graduation Success Rate (GSR).
The merits of tying academics and athletics aside, many ADs of smaller schools and commissioners of smaller conferences in D1 seem to have found their fears of the autonomy model to be right from the get-go given these proposed changes.
One person really not happy with what is happening is MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor, who went on record against these proposed changes rather quickly.
“When we talked about the autonomy governance system, there were general assurances we were given – and some of it’s actually codified in the (NCAA) constitution – that the basketball system will be left alone and the revenue distribution system will be left alone.
“Yet, here we are 18 months into the new governance process and we have a survey asking us to look at the composition of the men’s basketball committee and a survey telling us we have a new revenue distribution amount (and) do we go into a required academic distribution.”
The hope of leaving things as they are is vitally important to schools in conferences like the MAAC or the Horizon League. Under the current model, schools are getting more even treatment on the revenue side and often times schools depend on the NCAA D1 distribution money to keep programs afloat.
All of it adds up to some very tricky math and some very tricky situations for a group of large and divergent needs and wants. Clearly the wrestling match between the haves and have nots of D1 basketball is far from over.
