(Excerpts from the Los Angeles Times)

• The NCAA on Monday set the stage for a dramatic restructuring of college sports that would give each of its three divisions the power to govern itself.
• The rewritten constitution focuses more on the NCAA’s broader goals of athlete welfare than the previous version, which took a more granular approach.
• Most important, it would provide Division I, the highest level of college sports that includes major college football and the 351 schools eligible for the lucrative men’s basketball tournament, the autonomy to reshape everything from how revenue is shared to how rules are made and enforced.
• “The ratification of a new constitution in January is the first step in the process of transforming NCAA governance,” said Jack DiGioia, chairman of the NCAA Board of Governors and the president of Georgetown. “A new constitution will provide the divisions the flexibility they need to act."
• The proposed new constitution still needs to go to the more than 1,200 member schools for feedback after next week’s scheduled special constitutional convention and could be amended before it is put before the full membership for a vote in January.
• The new constitution shrinks the NCAA’s highest governing body, the Board of Governors, from 21 members to nine and changes its duties.