Incentive to be bound by the rules that schools like Virginia or Wisconsin would want to keep the competitive balance. There is no governing body that has the power to rein them in, because ultimately, they can always take their ball and go home — just play others schools that also want no rules. The TV eyeballs would go with them.

The only *possible* lever the NCAA could pull would be that schools which opt out of NCAA participation in football would be barred from participation in all NCAA tournaments in other sports, but there’s so much money in football, I’m not sure it mattters.