Originally posted by tsull
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IMHO - the NCAA needs to completely reorganize and rebuild from the ground up. The current division system is too outdated and clunky. Obviously the NCAA is too incompetent to do this properly, nor will it ever happen, but it needs too. It rewards underperforming, unsupported, financially unstable schools with a Division I classification. It punishes well-performing lower division schools. Worst of all, it's distorted the casual fan's idea of what quality college athletics is.
There are two changes I'd like to make -
1) DI non-football schools get their own basketball tournament, if not their own level of competition completely removed from FBS/FCS schools in postseason play across all sports.
2) The NCAA needs to adopt a better system of promotion/relegation to prevent rogue programs from jumping up and not contributing (and to prevent big schools from dominating smaller divisions, though that's not as big of a problem - if a problem at all).
Schools usually make the jump up to get a piece of the March Madness pie. Either because they want first round, one-and-done payoffs, or because they think they can make an FGCU run. It's a terrible plan financially, I'd imagine you'd have to consistently make the tournament for it to pay off. Cinderella stories are cool, but they don't provide the financial payoffs long term that being a competitor do. UMBC accomplished something great, but are they still relevant? Did anything change for them significantly long term? Are they drawing 5k-10k a night? There are also a bunch of football schools that would be a Cinderella story in the tournament - like North Dakota State or James Madison.
I'm not sure if I want other sports included in that as well - Cal-Fullerton is very competent at baseball, and baseball doesn't pay out anywhere near what basketball does, but having a completely separate subdivision is very tempting...
They'd still compete at a high level of basketball, ESPN would still broadcast some of the games - and schools willing to adopt a football program would be eligible for re-entry. They'd also be allowed to drop down to D2, and be given a 5-year timespan to decide.
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