How is justsc (or any school) a “cash cow” for the ncaa? Or another question – how is the ncaa funded? Assune there are 119 teams in the ncaa now each of which generates $1,000,000 to be paid to the ncaa. If the ncaa actually did its job and gave justsc the death penalty, then the ncaa could get the same amount of money by charging each of the 118 other schools an extra $8,474.50. Is it TV revenues? If justsc were not shown on TV, would the ncaa somehow get hurt? Wouldn’t a replacement game generate the same money to the ncaa?

For a long time and from many sources, this whole “cash cow” business has been offered as an excuse for the ncaa’s institutional myopia and constitutional inability to act. But no one has yet demonstrated that a stiff penalty against justsc would have any effect on any revenue stream coming to the ncaa.

If we assume that in fact the “cash cow” theory is not the basis for the ncaa’s inaction, then what on earth could possibly be the reason? My opinion (based on no real facts at all) is that it’s an issue of institutional inertia – “Gee, we’ve never given justsc the death penalty, so we sure can’t do it now. So if we acknowledge that there are death penalty issues, then we look bad, so obviously we just pretend that there is no evidence.” And more opinion: There is in fact a revenue stream, but it’s going from justsc to the enforcers and their bosses.

I don’t want to be sued, so I made sure to express this thought as a matter of opinion. But why is it that neither justsc nor the ncaa have ever sued anyone for defamation? Could it be that they don’t want to do discovery and have someone poking around in their records with the power of fht court behind them?