Why the Days of Notre Dame’s Independence Are Numbered … Along With Any Semblance of Amateurism

The NCAA is at a crossroads. If you don’t believe me, it’s time to smell the roses (unfortunately for the Bowls, not those Roses). And mired within the final evolution of “big-time” college athletics — football and men’s basketball — is the ultimate symbol of the NCAA’s quaint, barnstormin’ heritage: The independent status of the University of Notre Dame’s football team.

For the sake of brevity, our tale begins Aug. 30, 2007. The first domino was the launch of the Big Ten Network, the first nationally-distributed channel devoted to one athletic conference. It currently reaches 40 million households, beaming Penn State-Northwestern basketball games into Los Angeles living rooms and Wisconsin-Minnesota football clashes into Deep South dens.

The Southeastern Conference, the O’Bannion of athletic conferences, predictably responded to the Big Ten’s gambit. What wasn’t predicted, however, was the SEC’s Jules Winnfield-esque reaction.

Voila, the ESPN-SEC television deal worth $2.25 billion. Yup, 2.25 BILLION DOLLARS. Instead of starting from scratch, SEC boss Mike Slive merely borrowed the omnipotence of ESPN to guarantee weekly coverage … and pocket enough money to leap even further ahead of the competition in terms of revenue. Your move, Big Ten.

*Sidenote: How the hell can the Big East, with its $200 million TV deal, even sniff its southern brethren? (Though admittedly the contract isn’t permanent, it doesn’t end until 2013).

The Big Ten has long discussed expanding, but this off-season witnessed an intensification of those talks. And the conference’s Pac-Man way of doing business greedily eyed cherries like Notre Dame, Rutgers and/or Texas (the latter housing the most profitable athletic department in the country, surely a coincidence as far as the Big Ten is concerned).

The Big Ten’s aggression set off a feeding frenzy. Take the Pac-10, long regarded as one of the most traditional of the “Big Six” conferences (see: Stubborn defense of the Rose Bowl). Now threatened by the Big Ten’s gluttony and the SEC’s fiscal supremacy, the Pac-10 is seriously talking about becoming the Pac-11 or Pac-12, with TV and media contracts expiring after 2011-2012.

Away from the gridiron, the feng shei of the men’s basketball 64-team NCAA Tournament is endangered. The culprits: More TV revenue, more tickets sold … in essence, the “bigger is better” belief. We’ve already seen that attitude enlarge bowl season to 34 freakin’ games … with playoffs beckoning in the not-too-distant future.

So let’s turn to Notre Dame, whose basketball team plays in the Big East but whose footballers (along with Army and Navy) still exist outside conference bounds. ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick understands that times are a-changin’:

I’ve been around this business for 29 years, and this is as unstable as I’ve ever seen it. … We’re trying like hell to maintain our football independence. I think it’s good for college football and it’s good for Notre Dame.

As the gap widens between the NCAA’s haves and have-nots, Swarbrick understands ND’s traditional stance doesn’t work like it did 40 years ago.

You have such an interesting media environment here. It’s having such an impact on people. You have two conferences who have separated themselves economically. And you have all the other conferences lined up in successive years for broadcast negotiations. That’s a tough situation for everyone in that position. The bar has been set so high, and the media market is so tepid, that it creates tension.

This “tension” can lead to all sorts of crazy ploys for more moolah, such as Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples’ proposal for “full-blown conference realignment.” Staples was (presumably) half-joking, but does anyone doubt that at least one university president felt inspired by the idea? Does Joanna Newsom play a wicked harp?

This post may scream naivety … college sports probably lost its amateur sheen years ago. But if Notre Dame football ditches the independence train, consider it the symbolic la goutte d’eau qui fait deborder le vase. College athletics has jumped down the professional rabbit-hole (and like that development, yes, the movie kinda sucks).