The Power Five conferences in some way are likely to break away from the rest for one simple reason...money. If Big Ten schools have billion dollar media contracts, while Missouri Valley schools only have million dollar media contracts, how do you continue to deal with the paying players question? If a school makes no money, or actually loses money, on athletics should scholarships be reduced? Basically the Power 5 needs a different set of rules, whether in the NCAA or in its own group.
And the concept that players should be paid their worth is going to get real touchy...Baseball is a good example. Coming out of high school, baseball studs have multiple choices: 1) Scholarship to college of choice; 2) sign a minor league contract; 3) the independent leagues. Players beware...the minor leaguers who were living in their cars because they did not make enough money on their baseball contracts to afford housing may be the comparable. Tuition, fees, room board & books might be considerably higher than the rookie league contract...Of course, the partial scholarship might be comparable financially to the rookie league.
None of the lawsuits involve D3 schools, or Chicago State, or the vast majority of schools where athletics do not make money. The lawsuits are all Power 5 football & basketball where money is made...NIL will fix some of the problem, but the same rules will not work fairly for the Big Ten and the MAC financially...So the Power 5 needs to split for football & basketball...maybe a new basketball tournament where the Power 5 is one side of the bracket, and the 64 best of the rest of D1 basketball on the other side...Title game is the champion of each division. Football playoffs become division champions plus at large for probably a total of 16 schools...
