NCAA's 'Big Five' conferences push for looser restrictions, rule changes
College football’s five power conferences are circulating a list of rules the group would like to see added or changed when the Division I Board of Directors meet later this spring.
The NCAA Steering Committee for Governance has proposed a voting structure that would give 37 percent of the Division I vote to the five wealthiest conferences — the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC — with 18.6% of the vote going to members of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt Conferences. The other remaining Division I schools would get 40.7 percent and student-athletes would have 3.7 percent.
According to a document obtained by CBSSports.com, the Big Five are using their voting power to usher through rules that would provide cost-of-attendance scholarships, loosen agent contact rules and change transfer rules among other regulations.
Here is the complete list of rules the Big Five will introduce during the Board meeting on April 24.
The steering committee also is proposing new additions to the board beyond college presidents. That group would include the highest-ranking Division I faculty-athletic representative on the Faculty Athletic Representative Association's (FARA) board, the student chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and an athletic director. The group would be called “The Council” and it would have voting power and oversee the legislative functions of Division I. However, the Board would continue to be college president heavy and college presidents would be able to go into a president-only executive session.
The initial proposal of adding non-presidents to the Board did not go over well during the NCAA Convention in January.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter Follow @YahooDrSaturday
