NCAA Announces Radical Realignment of College Sports

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is set to announce a solution to the land grab fiasco of recent athletic conference re-shuffling by universities and colleges as they frantically grasp for a bigger slice of the economic pie, according to sources deep within the NCAA. It's rumored that the Pac-10 will become the Pac-36, the Big East and the Mountain West will merge to form the Big East West, and the ACC joining the Northeast Conference to form ACNE. Rabid college sports fans have gone from confused to furious, while an angry Congress has called for meetings with the governing body of intercollegiate sports to try and restore some kind of order.

"This here deal's outta control!" said an NCAA official, on the condition of anonymity, "We're gonna grab ahold of the teat of that cash cow and we're not letting go until we've milked her for all she's worth."

Accordingly, the NCAA has decided on a new ranking system that evaluates each school according to how much money their athletic programs bring in. These rankings will be divided into four divisions. Platinum. Gold. Silver. Aluminum Foil. Officials envision fluid movement between divisions as colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning accumulate or lose wealth through their athletic departments.

"Hey," said another official from the NCAA, "this makes it all black and white. The numbers don't lie. No more polls, no more dumb*ass writer's opinions. Your program brings in $84,000,000 and mine brings in $83,999,999.99, you win, you're a better man than me, God love you, we'll get you next year. This here's America, buddy boy, money talks and b*llshit walks."

This plan will coincide with creation of a plethora of new bowl games, ensuring that every team in every division will play in a bowl every year. These bowls will also be rated according to their financial profitability. Thus, the Rose, Fiesta and Orange Bowls, for example, will all be Platinum Division events. The Capital One Citrus, Valero Energy Alamo and Konica Minolta Gator Bowls will be Gold Division bowls. The NCAA is apparently excited about penetrating new, as yet unexploited demographics, especially in the Aluminum Foil Division, which will feature, among other innovative corporate pairings, the Tidy Bowl Bowl, the Trojan Condom Bowl, and the Girls Gone Wild Bowl.

"Can you imagine," gushed one enthusiastic NCAA higher-up, "the Girls Gone Wild Bowl? We'll have it during spring break in Fort Lauderdale. How great of a deal is that there gonna be? All the booze you can drink, wall-to-wall half-naked drunk coeds, and football! That's just good, old-fashioned, family value all-American fun. And can't you just hear the cash registers? Ca-ching, ca-ching, baby. What college or university doesn't want a piece of that?"

In an unrelated note, the NCAA will also soon be instituting new rules and regulations prohibiting players, or "student-athletes" as they're sometimes called, from being monetarily compensated in any way for their talent and hard work, thus preserving the "sanctity of amateurism", according to another source near the top of the NCAA hierarchy.

When contacted, the NCAA refused comment.