NCAA President Wants To Remind You Conference Realignment Not About The Money

And if you believe that, Texas has some late-night ad space on the Longhorn Network they'd like to sell you.

Tired of reading interview after interview of university presidents and ADs touting the financial gains of conference realignment, NCAA President Mark Emmert is on the offensive to remind you that conference realignment isn't about the money. It's about love of the game...or some PR nonsense like that.

"I think what came across (with realignment) is that all we care about is money and what we can do that is to our advantage," Emmert said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Nobody was talking about what this is going to do for student-athletes or intercollegiate athletic programs. It was all about let's make a deal."

Between conference expansion, TV contracts, regional and school networks, the BCS, bowl games and the newly-expanded NCAA Tournament, I'm not really sure where people are getting the idea major college athletics is all about money. 

As far as Emmert is concerned, it's more important to understand the specifics of the business model he's working with. Or at the very least, understand exactly how many FBS schools there are.

There are 32 teams in the NFL. We’ve got 125 or whatever FBS schools, so it’s a very, very different model.