BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Not surprisingly, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive isn't a fan of a football playoff proposal designed to protect the Rose Bowl.

One of the proposals discussed next week at the BCS meetings will be a model allowing the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions to play in the Rose Bowl while two national semifinals also would be held. After three games are played, two teams would somehow be chosen to play in the national title game.

"It's not one of my favorites," Slive said Monday at a roundtable of conference commissioners during a Associated Press Sports Editors meeting at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. "I think what we're trying to do is simplify in many ways, and I don't think that adds to the simplification of the postseason."

Another major question is how the revenue of a potential football playoff will be distributed to all conferences. Currently, the six BCS automatic-qualifying conferences each receive $22.3 million and the non-AQ conferences receive $13.2 million if they don't qualify for a BCS bowl.

Conference AQ status has "been one of the negative, really unintended consequences when the BCS was formed," Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky said. "What we've seen with the AQ is unranked teams leapfrogging teams of high quality in the system and putting a lot of strain on the events themselves in terms of the quality and ratings.

"In the meantime, I think it has created divisiveness among conferences and you've had universities doing things to associate themselves with BCS AQ conferences that have people scratching their heads because of distances and geography."

However, recently-retired Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters said losing AQ status for conferences suddenly makes access difficult for some schools to ever reach.

"For every action, there's an equal or opposite reaction," Waters said. "In a lot of cases, you're picking what part of the poison you want."

Banowsky said it's critical for the conferences to reach a consensus on the playoff process "or you'll get something that doesn't work." A decision on a playoff format and revenue distribution isn't expected until at least the summer.

In a wide-ranging discussion about a number of issues, the commissioners also discussed NCAA President Mark Emmert's suggestion to consider changing the NCAA's governance because of the financial gap between schools. Universities with more resources have tried unsuccessfully so far to provide athletes with an extra $2,000 stipend.

Slive said he hasn't been part of any conversations to dramatically change the NCAA structure or create another organization. "I think what we want to do is work within this organization carefully and thoughtfully with everyone's needs in mind," he said.

Atlantic Sun Commissioner Ted Gumbart said his league values remaining branded as Division I and wants to have a give-and-take with Football Bowl Subdivision schools, especially related to basketball scheduling with power-conference teams.

"But one of the hardest things to do when people are behind closed doors and speaking is to trust them," Gumbart said.

Banowsky said athletic spending related to higher education isn't sustainable at the current rate.

"Unless the revenue finds a way to some academic programming, you're just going to be replacing new locker rooms on an annual basis, building new suites every two years and your coaches' salaries will be astronomical," Banowsky said.

Waters believes the real question regarding schools losing money on athletics is what the expectations are for each university.

"If you're willing to take those kind of losses to remain part of the club, such is life," Waters said. "There are private clubs all over the country where people are spending money to be part of a club that they can't afford."

The commissioners defended the NCAA's amateurism model amid criticism that athletes can't benefit from the free market like their coaches.

"There's a very tender line," Slive said. "We are in the world of academia. One can get cynical. But we are in academics. therefore, universities are not interested in having professional athletes as a subset of its academic mission."

But Slive added: "We are talking about an academic enterprise that has culturally become a phenomenon in a way in which it probably never was designed to be as a form of entertainment, and significant entertainment in football and basketball."

Slive said if the day ever happens when college athletes are paid, they will be unaffiliated with the universities.

"Coaches are in their careers. They're teaching football instead of physics, instead of math," Slive said. "The market for them is somewhat higher than the math and physics professors. Is that right? No. But is that the way it is? Yes."

Slive said athletes aren't employees and pay-for-play would make it difficult to decide how to compensate players on the same team.

"That's not what college athletics are about," he said. "That's not what the fans are enjoying. The name on the front of the jersey and the name on the back of the jersey both have extraordinary value. If you took some of our teams and named them the Birmingham somethings instead of the University of Alabama or Auburn University, you'd have a very different kind of thing here."

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