Pac-12 Has Issue With First For-Profit School In D-1

Grand Canyon University is a for-profit school: founded as a non-profit Christian school in the 50's, it's now a publicly-traded company that incorporated about ten years ago. For-profits aren't a new concept, as everyone's familiar with DeVry, ITT Tech, University of Phoenix, and UTI. But GCU is the first such school to play in the NCAA's Division I, with the Antelopes starting this year in the WAC, and they will be eligible for 2018's March Madness. But the Pac-12 conference has a problem with that. Commissioner Larry Scott has sent a letter of protest to NCAA headquarters, following complaints in his conference about a for-profit school joining the 340 tax-exempt non-profit D-I schools in the tax-exempt non-profit NCAA. From CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd:

“It's gotten on the radar of our schools and are trying to raise it as a policy issue as to whether for-profit schools ought to be playing Division I athletics, or not, before there are any,” Scott said. “It's always hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”

Among the Pac-12's issues is their belief that GCU will be “responsible to financial partners and shareholders. That's the bottom line of accountability.” They're also bothered by the fact that the school would receive money from the NCAA's financial distribution fund, which distributes the revenues from the March Madness tournament. There's even rumblings Pac-12 teams will refuse to play games against GCU in protest.
Grand Canyon University does not have a football team, and the WAC no longer sponsors the sport after all the conference realignments the past few years. According to What You Pay For Sports, the Pac-12 makes $30M per school a year from television deals.
Read more at CBS Sports. 
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