1. Project 5: What’s at our core?
NCAA Division I Voting Patterns
vs. Student-Athlete Well-Being,
Academic Standards, and the
Amateur (Collegiate) Model
Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto
Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law
University of Nebraska
Connie Dillon, Professor Emerita of Adult and
Higher Education, University of Oklahoma
David E. Clough, Professor of Chemical and
Biological Engineering, University of Colorado
This slide will be displayed as we are introduced. As soon as Jo begins, we will move to the next slide.
Knight Commission On Intercollegiate Athletics
Washington, DC, October 9, 2012

2. Questions Addressed By This Study
NCAA Core Values
Amateur (Collegiate) Model
Student-Athlete Well-Being
Academic Standards
Questions Addressed By This Study
Does NCAA Division I vote these core values?
Does Division I all-division voting combined
with subdivisional diversity impede the
advancement of these core values?
Jo will speak. This should be a brief discussion to set the context of our study. Jo will transition to Connie at the end of the slide.

3. The Legislative Database for the Study
Years of Study: through
Two Governance Structures
– “Management Council”
– “Legislative Council”
Legislative Proposals
1013 proposals, 587 reviewed
345 proposals coded for analysis
Non-controversial and emergency proposals
were excluded from review
NCAA Division I [ 31 conferences / 340 institutions ]
Football Bowl Subdivision [ 11 / Notre Dame ]
(“BCS FBS” and “nonBCS FBS”)
Football Championship Subdivision (“FCS”) [ 11 / 122 ]
No-Football Subdivision (“noFB”) [ 9 / 98 ]
Connie will discuss this slide. Note: For context, there are 1,066 member institutions in the NCAA, 340 in DI, 290 in DII, and 436 in DIII. There are 6 BCS FBS conferences and 5 nonBCS FBS conferences. We don’t have an exact count of the number of institutions in this breakdown of FBS. I estimate in the former, in the latter.

4. Analyzing and Coding the Legislative Proposals
Why we excluded certain proposals:
non-controversial
emergency
Coding methodology
based on relevance to core principles
researchers coded independently then
resolved differences
Difficulties encountered
proposals unrelated to core values
complicated proposals with subparts
understanding other influential factors
Connie will take the lead here, and Jo will offer a comment or two. The two of them will interact.

5. The Database and Statistical Analysis
Legislative proposal characteristics vis-à-vis
NCAA core values and economics coded and
combined with Division I subdivision and
overall voting records.
Database created in an Excel spreadsheet and
transferred to a Minitab project worksheet.
Extensive analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the
database using the general linear model.
Exploration of relationship between variability
in voting patterns and NCAA core value
characteristics.
Dave will present this.

6. What We Learned From the Statistical Analysis
It is not apparent that the core values of
student-athlete well-being and academic
standards significantly affect Division I
overall or subdivisional voting patterns.
The economic impact of proposals is
significant in determining the voting outcomes,
except for the FBS BCS conferences during the
earlier “Management Council” years of the study.
There were not enough proposals that were
relevant to the amateur (collegiate) model
to allow statistical analysis.
Dave can present the results of the statistical analysis.

7. What We Learned From the Statistical Analysis
(continued)
Legislative proposals that advance student-athlete
well-being or academic standards and have no
economic nor competitive impact are supported
throughout Division I with greater majorities than
other proposals.
Other factors, not analyzed, that may affect
voting patterns:
Institutional autonomy
Compliance concerns
Impact on other NCAA core values
Perceptions that a proposal cannot achieve goals
Difficulty in understanding the import and impact
Dave will continue with the first part. Jo will discuss Other factors ...

8. What We Also Observed There were 21 proposals related to the
amateurism (collegiate model) principle.
7 of these were adopted unanimously or nearly so
Of the remaining 14,
9 were related to professional opportunities
5 had to do with promotional activities
adopted proposals were limited in scope
all subdivisions supported expanding
promotional activities
subdivisions generally supported expanding
professional opportunities
some support shown to liberalize the
amateur (collegiate) model
Connie and Jo will team up here.

9. Observations and Questions Regarding Division I Governance
Lack of rigor and consistency in the NCAA
legislative process
Should this be addressed in a new
governance structure?
FCS and noFB subdivisions do not
have distinguishable voting patterns
Should these subdivisions be merged?
Jo will do the first bullet. Connie the second. And Dave the third.
We will then entertain questions.
Jo can direct questions to be answered by Connie or Dave, as appropriate; otherwise Jo will handle them.
We can provide references to the full report, as needed.
BCS FBS and nonBCS FBS conferences are
significantly different
Should or will a “super conference” subdivision
be formed from BCS FBS?