That is an interesting concept that brings up some interesting discussion topics. To me, the first of which is, is that a football only conversation or an athletics discussion in general? If it's football, it's fairly easy and I can see a model like the ND/ACC relationship becomes more a norm. A situation like the Big12 stops having football, but remains for the remaining sports and the teams join other football only conferences built around the remaining P4. The conference people would fight it, but the institutions would likely see it as more money and thus support it. Then what happens to cupcake/balance the budget games where we play JMU/Richmond/Wofford, etc to get a supposedly nice easy win and they get a nice payday? Do those go away if they are under different "sanctioning bodies".

The other option is a true separation. That's the one with the most questions related to overall revenue. The NCAAs two biggest revenue producers are MBB Tourney and the College World Series (I imagine WBB Tourney brings in some nice change as well since it's televised).

Obviously those events don't exist any more for the NCAA if the P5 breaks away from the NCAA. Question is, do they still exist at the same revenue level if it's only the P5? How much interest and therefore revenue is lost if you take away the cinderella aspect of UMBC at 16 getting a shot at the hoos as a 1 seed? A lot of smaller schools have dominant baseball teams, does losing those hurt the value of the CWS as a media property? What happens to schools like the Big East who don't have football or it's such a low level as to not be even an option for P5 level competition? Are they gone from the NCAABT and the CWS? Obviously no talented player is going to Villanova if they don't get a shot to play in the tourney, some of the legendary and historic teams of CBB are for all intents gone.

I guess the tournaments could be independent, but with the massive revenue and thus scholarship money differential, how long would non P5 teams be able to come close to being competitive?

All the remaining sports for the most part cost money (baseball and WBB cost money at many schools too). In the end, IMO, the decision will be made based on how big a total revenue pie the P5 can create to divide among a smaller pool. Baseball could be a big winner, especially baseball players as the P5 schools could expand the available scholarships while adding the required women's scholarships to remain title IX compliant which is currently blocked by smaller D1 schools that can't afford the added women's scholarships. ND's economic question could change, similar to Texas who realized that the additional revenue from the SEC is worth more than their personal TV deal.

Of course there is a massive political question as well. A bunch of G5 schools are going to be left out and their athletic budgets will be destroyed by losing their share of all those revenue streams. There will be anti-trust threats left and right to get keep their piece of the pie. Think about how state politics in VA factored into us getting into the ACC, now expand that to 60 or 70 schools where those left out lose 80% of their athletic dept revenue (made that number up, but the number is huge).

At the end of the day, it will be about money and politics (which in reality is money to politicians). At some point those producing the money start to ask why they have to keep supporting the others. Seems like that is beginning to be asked now. The question is, how much of their ball do they take with them when they leave?