NCAA’s top conferences gain power

Power — everyone wants it, but only a select few can have it.

And on Aug. 7, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors voted 16-2 to grant the universities in the five most powerful conferences — the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 — the power to create their own rules and legislation, cementing their top-tier status.

The autonomy granted to the so-called “Power Five” will allow them to make rules within 11 areas, including cost-of-attendance stipends and recruiting restrictions for student-athletes.

“These changes will allow us to continue to prioritize how to better address the needs of our institutions, athletic programs and, most importantly, our student-athletes,” said John Swofford, the commissioner of the ACC, in a statement.

Areas that fall outside of the new autonomy include transfer policies and restrictions on scholarships.

But an override vote is still possible, and if 75 schools from outside the Power Five vote to override the decision by Oct. 6, the legislation would be sent back to the board.

Jay Bilas, an ESPN college basketball analyst, said he highly doubts the ruling gets overturned due to how much the schools outside of the Power Five rely on competing against big-name schools.

“The real test would be the override vote,” Bilas said, “but I think it will get through that, because so many of the schools are now legitimately fearful of the threat of major change that would put them in a totally different sphere in Division I basketball that they’re willing to go along with this.”

The 64 universities that compose the five conferences (along with Notre Dame, who is independent) can submit their own legislation by Oct. 1 and have it adopted at the January 2015 NCAA convention.

A new 80-member voting panel, compiled of the 65 schools and 15 current student-athletes, and the conferences themselves determine whether new rules are passed.

There are two ways for the Power Five to pass legislation. A rule requires either 60 percent of the votes from the voting panel plus three of the Power Five conferences, or 51 percent of the votes and votes from four of the conferences.

UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham said with this sort of power comes great responsibility.

“My concern is where autonomy is going and where it will lead us,” Cunningham said. “There’s value in creating rules for those 65, but we need to be pretty sure we’re accurate when we make decisions.”

The conferences outside the Power Five can adopt the same legislation, but they will be limited in doing so due to fewer resources.

According to Cunningham, the first matter of business for the Power Five appears to be offering full-cost-of-attendance stipends for athletes, which would cover the rest of expenses outside of scholarships.

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors passed legislation for such stipends in 2011, but it was shot down by the NCAA’s full membership.

Cunningham said full-cost-of-attendance stipends are vital to the University, but they also pose some difficulties.

“The cost-of-attendance will allow us to provide more resources to students to participate in sport, so I think that’s a good thing,” Cunningham said. “Finding those resources and allocating those equitably will be a challenge.”

While some speculate that many schools outside the Power Five won’t be able to afford the same stipends due to limited financial resources, American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco said the schools in his conference can hold their own.

“We don’t have their financial resources, and we’re not claiming we do,” Aresco said. “But we can deal.”

The new autonomy measures have the potential of causing the competitive and financial gaps to grow between the Power Five and the conferences outside of them.

But Bilas said even with the new autonomy the Power Five has, the current disparity in talent between the schools and conferences is large enough already.

“I think the chasm is gigantic now, because there’s no limit on what the schools can spend to attract players,” Bilas said. “And when you cannot provide anything to procure talent, but your resources are an issue in attracting talent — basically providing amenities to attract them — then the advantage is always going to go to the Power Five.”

But Aresco said he believes the recent performances by the schools in his conference (formerly the Big East Conference) should be enough for the American Athletic Conference to be mentioned in the same breath as the Power Five.

“We just won two national championships in basketball, and you don’t do that if you’re not a power conference. And we won the Fiesta Bowl in convincing fashion when we beat the Big 12 champion,” Aresco said. “So our feeling is we are a Power Six conference ... Power should mean you’re a powerful conference — that you win and you’re competitive.”

The new autonomy permitted to the Power Five comes at a time when the NCAA has been heavily under fire for its treatment of student-athletes.

A lawsuit regarding student-athletes receiving compensation in exchange for schools making money off their image and efforts by Northwestern University football players to unionize could shake up the landscape of college sports.

Bilas said these recent developments influenced the board’s decision, but more work still needs to be done.

“I think all of these challenges the NCAA is facing have lit a fire under everyone that they need to make some changes,” Bilas said. “I think the changes they are making are largely stopgap, compromise changes, and if they had done this 30 years ago, maybe it would’ve been acceptable.”

Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson said the new autonomy will improve the life of student-athletes, and the decision made by the Board of Directors was made with them in mind.

“At the end of the day,” Benson said, “I hope these changes will definitely have an impact and an effect — a positive effect — on all student-athletes.”

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