Gene Smith believes FBS football should have its own governing body because the NCAA is “trying to appease 352 schools that have different missions and are in different spaces.”
While Gene Smith is among the college athletics leaders working with the NCAA in its efforts to curtail the use of name, image and likeness deals as recruiting inducements, he doesn’t believe the NCAA can solve all of the problems in college sports – specifically in college football.
“We have the model with CFP, we have the umbrella so to speak, and need to just define the model,” Smith said. “The Knight Commission proposed this a couple years ago. It was a great report. Wasn't embraced. But they've done a lot of work in this space, and we need to lean on them a little bit. But I just believe the 130 should come together, create its own governance structure.”
From a legislative standpoint, Smith believes a football-only governance structure for the FBS could lead to modernizing rules around elements like the recruiting calendar, personnel rules and health and safety. One specific cause Smith has advocated is for all FBS football programs to offer medical benefits to players who have suffered injuries even after they have completed their college careers.
Unlike every other current NCAA sport, the championship for FBS football is not operated by the NCAA – the College Football Playoff is operationally and financially independent from the NCAA – yet FBS football programs remain subject to NCAA rules. On the flip side, FBS schools receive an exemption from the NCAA that enables them to receive a larger share of revenue distribution from the NCAA even though that revenue does not include CFP revenues.
“Ultimately, it comes down to a negotiation. And the FBS schools have the power to change the NCAA distribution formula any way they want to currently because they have more votes,” Perko told Eleven Warriors.
“What a difference Supreme Court decisions make,” Knight Commission co-chair Len Elmore said at a press conference earlier this week. “The proposal now that we made is being looked at in a new light.”