Calipari?s plan to pay players living expenses: secede from NCAA

Of all the methods that have been proposed for how universities can generate the money needed to provide players greater living expenses, Kentucky coach John Calipari may have the most drastic one yet.

In an interview with Kentucky Sports Radio on Wednesday morning, Calipari unveiled a plan for either 64 or 72 schools to secede from the NCAA and form four, 16- or 18-team regional super conferences.

Every team would participate in the single-elimination postseason basketball tournament, which would be seeded similarly to how it is now. The football national championship would be determined by a four-team playoff pitting the winners of four divisional title games. And the new structure would generate enough additional TV and corporate money for schools to put millions into their general fund and still pay athletes roughly $3,000 to $4,000 a year for their participation.

"I'm just a basketball coach with a whistle around my neck," Calipari said. "But I can't think of another way to try to do what people want other than that."

The proposal from Calipari certainly adds a new dimension to the recent sniping between Kentucky and the NCAA. Calipari's plan essentially advocates the top athletic departments in the nation breaking away from the NCAA because the organization is currently putting a cap on their earning power by having them support lesser programs.

The football plan to create an eight-team playoff actually has merit since you'd essentially be excluding teams that have little chance of contending for a national title anyway, but the basketball postseason would be a flat-out disaster.

What makes the NCAA tournament successful is the possibility for Morehead State to topple Louisville in the first round or Butler and VCU to make improbable runs to the Final Four. Under Calipari's plan, the regular season would be rendered meaningless since every team would make the postseason and the postseason would be neutered since the potential for Cinderella upsets would be removed.

Asked about that flaw in his system after he unveiled his proposal, Calipari acknowledged the plan wasn't perfect but reiterated it was the only way he could envision universities generating enough money to increase the living expenses it pays athletes in every sport.

"There are some teams that are not going to have the opportunity to play in this tournament," Calipari said. "Doesn't mean you don't play those.

"But if you're asking me how do we pay for this, which people now are starting to say needs to happen. If it should happen, do you know how much it will be without this? It's a quarter of a billion dollars. Where would we get it? Should we ask the federal government? It's a quarter of a billion. This isn't a little bit of money. You'd have to do something drastic."

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