Showing posts with label Summit League. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summit League. Show all posts

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Denver's Peg Bradley-Doppes on the Big Five

English: National Collegiate Athletic Associat...
University of Denver Vice Chancellor for Athletics and Recreation Peg Bradley-Doppes had this to say about the big five conference rules. Obliviously, DU is a small school in the Summit League, but is considered a big school in division I hockey and lacrosse.
Marc Tracy, New York Times -- The new model would codify the college sports world as one “much more, perhaps, of haves and have-nots,” said Peg Bradley-Doppes, the vice chancellor for athletics at the University of Denver, which is not in a Big 5 conference. “It may make the competitive experience more challenging.”

Both supporters and detractors of the new model see the vote as pivotal, even as outside developments threaten to force more drastic reform.

“This is a game-changer,” Ms. Bradley-Doppes, of the University of Denver, said.
And I think you can see a theme starting to emerge here. If the Big Five doesn't get their way, these big schools are going to leave the NCAA. This is why N.C.A.A. President Mark Emmert is behind this move. The NCAA doesn't want to lose the big money that the big five conference schools generate.
If the board rejects the model, it could prompt a more severe break. Big 5 commissioners have suggested that in that event, they would consider much more drastic measures: departing from the N.C.A.A. and taking their teams — and the billions in revenue they produce — to a so-called Division IV.

N.C.A.A. President Mark Emmert, the former president of Washington and chancellor of Louisiana State — both Big 5 universities — has appeared to support autonomy. In 2011, he pushed for a proposal to allow Division I colleges to offer athletes additional $2,000 stipends. (The board passed the proposal, but the membership overrode it.)