While House v. NCAA dominates headlines (and for good reason), a different but equally seismic change is quietly moving through the NCAA’s governance structure—and it’s not getting the attention it deserves. Maybe that’s because House is sucking all the air out of the room. Maybe it’s because athletic departments are too exhausted fighting one legal battle to focus on another.
But let’s be clear: if this new governance proposal was happening in isolation, it would be front-page news across the industry.
Here’s the nutshell version: the NCAA’s Division I Governance Working Group recently floated proposals that would give the Power 4 conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC) up to 65% of voting power in Division I governance. No independent directors on the Board. No parallel autonomy for FCS or Division I-AAA schools. And perhaps most galling, the Division I Board of Directors would approve this governance shift—not a full vote of Division I membership.
In other words: the Power 4 is poised to consolidate control. And the rest of Division I? You’re invited to foot the bill for lawsuits and governance costs…but not really to shape the future.
Let’s call it what it is: a slow-motion hostile takeover.
The Amoeba That Consumes All
What’s striking about this moment is how openly everyone seems to accept the Power 4’s expanding role as inevitable—like watching an amoeba engulfing everything in its path.
Think about it:
House settlement enforcement? Not the NCAA anymore. The Power 4 is building its own “College Sports Commission” to run the clearinghouse and revenue-sharing cap.
National governance of Division I? Power 4 is angling for weighted voting dominance.
NIL regulations? The Power 4 is lobbying for their own federal carve-outs.
Playoff control? Already fully outside NCAA purview.
It’s as if the entire system is rearranging itself around the needs of the richest conferences—leaving everyone else clinging to outdated assumptions about shared governance and collective identity.
Are We About to Kill the College Sports We Love?
And here’s the hard question: are we really going to let them do it?
Because here’s the thing—college sports as we know and love it isn’t just 40 football factories. It’s 300+ D1 schools, many of them building community, providing access to education, and offering opportunities to athletes who will never play professionally.
It’s the swim team that brings in first-gen students. The tennis player who earns a degree and becomes a coach or teacher. The small-conference basketball Cinderella we all cheer for every March.
If we let the Power 4’s governance model become the default, we’re on a path where that broader college sports ecosystem collapses.
Why?
Because the Power 4 is the only group capable of sustaining the high-roller lifestyle they’ve chosen: million-dollar coaching salaries, arms-race facilities, media-driven revenue splits. The rest of Division I can’t, and shouldn’t, try to live that way.
But if the governance model forces everyone to compete under the same assumptions—or worse, if it marginalizes smaller schools entirely—we’re going to see an accelerating wave of program cuts, lost opportunities, and campus disengagement.
And once those opportunities are gone? They don’t come back.
The Seduction of “I Could Be Next”
Why aren’t more schools fighting back already? The article I’m riffing from (shout out Extras Points) offered a brilliant cultural insight: many ADs and administrators cling to the fantasy that they will land a Power 4 job someday. They don’t want to rock the boat that might carry them to the top.
But here’s the math: there are 72 of those jobs, give or take. Thousands of administrators, hundreds of schools, and very little actual upward mobility.
Meanwhile, if you’re at a Big West, Southern Conference, MAAC, or America East school? You’ve got far more in common with the other 290 D1 schools than with the P4 giants. If the Power 4 succeeds in hardwiring governance to their advantage, you’ll be the one left holding the bill.
What Needs to Happen Now
If there’s ever been a moment for smaller D1 schools to band together, this is it. The article’s authors laid out some great starting points:
If Not Now, When?
Right now, the college sports world is teetering between two futures:
1. A national, meritocratic, educationally-rooted system where big and small schools coexist—and where athletes of all levels have opportunities.
2. A de facto professional minor league run by 40 schools, with everyone else reduced to an afterthought or forced out entirely.
It’s easy to see which direction we’re sliding toward. The question is: who’s going to stand up and say, “Not so fast”?
Because once this governance shift locks in, and the Power 4’s grip becomes permanent, it won’t matter how many flowery mission statements the NCAA publishes. The reality will be clear: college sports, as a broad-based national enterprise, will be dead as we know it.
And it will be because too many people saw the amoeba coming—and chose to stay quiet, hoping they might get lucky and be eaten last.
