“Michigan” plays “Indiana” in Mangalore, India as part of the NCAA’s pilot outsourcing program.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - In an announcement that shocked the world of college athletics and sent pundits scrambling for their keyboards, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) revealed today that it is considering outsourcing its sports programs to other countries, and has already started pilot programs in college basketball to test the move.

“Outsourcing has been on our agenda for over four years,” said Brand, noting that the NCAA undertook extensive studies of the topic before starting the pilot programs this year. “In the beginning, we were really just thinking about merchandise and information management, but the more we explored the issue, the more we thought: why not the sports themselves?”

The pilot programs began play a few months ago in Southern India, as students from small colleges in Mangaluru, Bengaluru, Chalakudi, Goa and Chennai took on the monikers of similar schools from the Big Ten Conference, who willingly participated in the experiment. Bengaluru’s venerable law school became “Michigan”, while an engineering school in Goa became “Purdue”.

The outgoing commissioners of the Big East and Pacific 10 Conferences, Mike Tranghese and Tom Hanson, co-chaired the committee exploring athletic outsourcing. Though both commissioners admitted to being skeptical of the concept at first, both feel the move could improve college athletics.

“Let’s face it - as much as we like to say that college sports is about amateur athleticism, for the revenue sports like men’s basketball and football, it’s a business,” said Hanson from his office in Los Angeles. “Unfortunately, it’s a failing business.”

Hanson claims that, while many believe that ill-advised new stadiums built without sufficient private funding are the source of many school’s financial woes, labor costs are the actual culprit. Costs associated with players, including scholarships, tutoring, travel, hookers and hush money, have risen sharply over the past decade, suffocating all but the largest college athletic programs.

“If we could raise more money at the retail end, it would be one thing,” said Tranghese, famous for serving as the initial chair of the Bowl Championship Series that dramatically increased conference revenues from the end games of the college football season. “But we’ve bled that turnip to the point where we’re starting to get uncomfortable questions about torture practices. So we need to slash costs, and frankly, it’s got to come from the players. They’ve been getting the better end of the bargain for years now.”

After determining that player costs could not possibly be lowered domestically due to conference constitutions regarding athletes’ rights and United States labor law, the NCAA sought to understand the outsourcing phenomenon so popular in other businesses today.

“Northwestern”, actually a medical college in Mangaluru, battles “Ohio State”, a large industrial institute based in Chennai.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany was glad to volunteer his conference as the first to attempt outsourcing its teams.

“Our stockholders - and by that, I mean myself and the university presidents benefiting from this crap - want us to explore any avenue possible to increase profitability,” said Delany. “We’ll work out the details down the end, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to put the Big Ten at the forefront of innovation.”

If the pilot program is adopted, each conference will pick a developing Asian country’s college to host its teams. The teams will then dress in the uniforms of their American counterpart, while playing each season’s regular season schedule in stadiums on their home campus. Scholarship athletes in the United States will only participate in post-season play.

When asked if he believed the move would hurt the fan experience, Tranghese pointed to the Bowl Championship Series as a sign that fans will follow a sport no matter what the NCAA does.

“Brand loyalty is lock-stock certain at this level - so, does it really matter who is wearing the brand?” said Tranghese. “Fans of college athletics have already shown a willingness to see past a player’s backgrounds - be it their race, where they are from, or their criminal record - if they can perform on the field. We see no reason why fans won’t adopt these foreign students as their own.”

“Besides,” added Hanson, “what dedicated fan wouldn’t look at a regular season game in Pusan, South Korea, and think that it was time for a road trip?”

The NCAA is expected to decide whether to adopt the outsourcing program in the next six to six hundred months.