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In various threads it has been argued that all of this shuffling would lead to a semi-pro breakaway association.

I have argued that Congress would intervene in that case. From the bottom of the orangeblood.com story on Nebraska, is this tidbit:

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION?

It has been expressed to Orangebloods.com by a top collegiate executive that any movement toward four, 16-team super conferences will be met with resistance by Congress.
The executive said that could be bad news for college athletics because Congress has already taken some cursory looks at the fact athletic departments enjoy a tax-exempt status as part of their universities.
The executive said if it appears the rich are getting richer in college athletics, there will be a hard look at whether to take away the tax exempt status of athletic departments.
"And it won't just be Orin Hatch (a member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee from Utah and longtime BCS critic) looking into this," the source said.

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Pretty powerful hammer Congress holds in regards to tax-exempt status...

If they break away from the NCAA I could see Congress doing it... and they should.

I hope they do it. They will be fucking over all teams not in the super conferences.

They should be looking at this, but it ultimately won't matter. With or without taxes, the $$$$ will be too great to turn down.

Does it matter? Colleges have been getting filthy rich over massive tuition hikes over the past decade or two, and as we seem to be trying to increase student loans as much as possible to meet these tuition hikes, it's just more and more money to the colleges. I don't think they're really worried about taxation legislation at this point.

No tax exemption, no tax deduction for donors. No tax exemption, IRS comes looking for their cut. I think this is a bigger issue than you are realizing.

And with the economy, tuition isn't as elastic as it was a few years ago.

dbackjon wrote:No tax exemption, no tax deduction for donors. No tax exemption, IRS comes looking for their cut. I think this is a bigger issue than you are realizing.

And with the economy, tuition isn't as elastic as it was a few years ago.

So who's going to sponsor all these tax hikes? There's way too much money going into Congress from all these entities (Universities, conferences, donors, and boosters) for such a thing to come to pass. And the economy going bad has just helped tuition hikes - the bad economy has only spurred the call for more student loan financing and pools of money since we (rightfully to a point) see education as a way to improve the economy. There are just way too many states and way too many people that are involved in BCS level sports and what could be these megaconferences for this to come to pass.

Heck, they couldn't even make the BCS play a playoff - now you think they can somehow find the wherewithall to take tens of millions of dollars, if not more, per year from this system? That's wildly optimistic if you ask me.