1. The next big governance change is less than a decade away.
The history of major governance reforms in the NCAA is that they happen relatively frequently. The last big change before the autonomy era, the creation of the Legislative and Leadership Councils, was only adopted in 2007. Prior to that, the move to a more defined legislative calendar happened around the year 2000. That means autonomy and the increased voting weights for the power conference schools have likely not solved these issues forever or for even a generation. Agitation for another round of major changes, including separating from the NCAA altogether, should start before the end of this decade.
2. There will never be a fourth NCAA Division or fourth Division I Subdivision.
The next round of governance reform may include full autonomy (either real autonomy or what they have now, which is control) for the power conferences over the entire Division I rulebook. It might involve the creation of an entirely new association for the power conferences. What it will not involve is further dividing the NCAA or Division I up into new divisions or subdivisions. Dividing the NCAA up further has all the disadvantages to the rest of Division I as if the power conferences simply left the association, with the added salt in the wound of having to still pay for the services and programs those power conferences want. The power conferences and the rest of Division I might have separate rulebooks, but the next step after that is a complete split.
3. Congress, not the courts, will have the last say on NCAA rules.
Federal courts have recently proved to be unparalleled avenues for putting outside pressure on the NCAA to reform its rules. And the Kessler lawsuit appears to have a real chance of completely destroying the NCAA’s rules especially around amateurism and academic eligibility. But it will not come to that. College athletics is important enough to enough states that Congress will step in with some sort of solution. The reason is another success of the reform movement: unions. Unionization of student-athletes creates a number of practical problems and takes college athletics from have a political subtext to being an overtly political debate, rather than a legal one. The only question is given the odd mix of political ideas at work, what sort of strange bedfellows will emerge in a coalition that reshapes college athletics.
4. College athletics’ biggest problem is not political or legal but demographic.
Much has been made of pressures put on college athletics by the combined trends of cord cutting, second screens, social media, and the effect of all three on young Millennials. The result is declining student attendance, which threatens the ability of athletic departments to cultivate the next generation of fans and (more importantly) donors. Far from being solved with highlights on the Jumbotron or better wifi and cell service at the stadium, this trend will be kicked into hyperdrive by the generation that comes after the Millennials. More and more these children are growing up not just without a cable connection but without television, watching more YouTube than anything else. Video is moving from a cable box to a streaming service to cell phones and tablets, poor vehicles for three hour sporting events. And barring major political and social changes, it seems likely that residential enrollment at flagship four-year campuses is in danger of serious declines.
5. Professional leagues will compete directly with college athletics.
One of the comforting assumption for college sports fans, coaches, and administrators is that the position of college athletics as the gateway to the NFL and NBA will never be challenged. Why would professional leagues ever invest money in something they get for free?
The answer is of course that there is profit to be made. Like any company, to continue growing revenue the NBA and NFL need to invest in new product lines at some point. And the most logical new product lines are developmental leagues which tie more closely to the identity of NBA and NFL brands (i.e. not teams in Europe or in small markets with different mascots than the major leagues). For this NBA this would be relatively cheap, thus easy to turn a profit. For the NFL it would be a way to further expand football into a week-long, year-round sport without diluting the core product.
6. Division I college athletics has two generations left, at most.
I believe these trends are irreversible. The demographic trends will eventually begin to serious impact the revenue of every athletic department, including the richest and most historic. Regulatory changes, wherever they come from, will make college athletics more expensive to operate. More direct competition is coming from professional leagues. And governance and organizational changes will erode the base of support for subsidizing college athletics.
The result is that major college athletics, which has been around for 145 years since the first football game between Rutgers and Princeton, might have less than 50 years left. When a child born by the end of this decade arrives on a college campus as a freshman, I would not be very surprised if Division I athletics is unrecognizable. And by the time that child’s children go to college, I would be stunned if it was.
