Once upon a time, college administrators convened their stuffy business in stuffy rooms among stuffy peers, lobbing around oxymoronic terms like “student athlete” without the slightest condescension.
Before they realized what expanded playoffs could be worth, before athletes had the temerity to sue for a piece of the action, before a Supreme Court justice wrote this week, “The NCAA is not above the law,” presidents made this argument against expansion all the time.
Just the same, administrators may try to tap the brakes a little.
28, which is when the 11-member board of managers are scheduled to convene again to vote on a proposal submitted by the 10 FBS commissioners, the committee must work out what Keenum called “the legal entanglements” with bowl and media partners.
“The presidents have stayed very open-minded, very open to the idea,” said Larry Scott, outgoing Pac-12 commissioner.
What about Monday’s Supreme Court decision siding with student athletes and against limits to educational benefits? Keenum said it won’t have any bearing on the presidents’ decision this fall.
And that’s a pretty big caveat, because the takeaway from the news of the day on Tuesday was that maybe Sept.
Still a lot of interested parties to be heard from, including everyone who’d like a piece of the pie sooner rather than later.