by PDad » Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:11 pm
I don't agree with many of the article's conclusions and also think men's non-revenue sports (e.g. baseball) are at more risk than women's sports due to Tile IX.
First off, mid-major schools in strong baseball areas are able to compete with the big boys because the scholarship limit is 11.7 and teams usually have 30-35 players. It is very rare for baseball players to get a full scholarship, so players from families of moderate means tend to stay close to home to make it affordable. I don't see that changing unless the P5 is able to increase their scholarship limits.
There is already a big gap between the P5 and the other conferences due to the amount of money the P5 spends on facilities and other allowed benefits, so that's not going to change significantly. The P5 can expand the direct benefits to revenue athletes and it's unclear what effect that will have on their non-revenue sports. I've heard the bigger impact will be on the lesser programs within the P5 that were already under pressure to keep up.
I expect the main impact will be more shuffling of schools in and out of the P5 conferences.