route. If the P5s decide to go the all sports route, then it might need to go to a number like 100 in order to have enough programs that already participating in some of the non-revenue sports (i.e. ice hockey, water polo, lacrosse, skiing, fencing, etc.) that are considered niche sports in order to help conferences justify adding these programs. For example, I don't see conferences like the SEC, PAC-12, ACC, or whatever other new conference form from the breakup of a super conference to suddenly agree to add men's and women's ice hockey, men's and women's water polo, and men's and women's skiing when its fanbase may not be interested in the sport or the conference is located in a part of the country that isn't very conducive to playing the sport. As it stands right now, Arizona State and AL-Huntsville are the only schools in the southern half of the US that currently participates in DI ice hockey.

WRT competition among the networks, I do believe it could still exist even if the P5 schools pool their resources. Assuming there are 4 power conferences with 16-20 members, then the schools could be shuffled around so the 4 conferences essentially become regional conferences:

ACC- East Region
Big Ten - North Region
SEC - South Region
Pac 16-20 - West Region

Each conference could receive the same amount from the networks. The competition may come in the form of the selection order among the networks for a particular region. CBS may decide it wants to retain the #1 slot for the SEC and is willing to bid less in order to have the #3 or #4 slot for the ACC, Big Ten, and/or Pac #??. Since the OOC games will be amongst themselves, then there should be no issue equally dividing up the pie.

I know people have advocated expanding the conferences to 20 members and/or implementing rotating divisions. I am not sure the schools will be so quick to embrace rotating divisions. If they don't, then a 20 member conference is most at risk for the conference to break up since there would be 9 divisional games (in football) and the only time a team would play someone from the other division is in the CCG (aka Quarterfinal Round). At one time the ECAC tried to implement something like that in the 1970s - 1980s for some of the sports. It even tried to organize itself so it has representation for all 3 division levels at the same time. Eventually it succumbed to its own weight from overreaching and dropped its involvement for most/all of its DI sports. So you might see the power conferences stop at 16 full members because there is still some level of stability if a conference decides to continue with the permanent division format.