This will end up being a big nothing. The power conferences are that because of football. Every other sport is a money loser, save for a very few select teams in basketball. And in general academia overall, the only departments that contribute to the bottom line are the sciences, and that's only if your bio researchers come up with a lot of potentially marketable advances. With colleges hurting financially right now as attendance and applications decrease to a number of the mid-level schools, sports are an easy cut. It's not necessary to drop them, but simply reduce them to club status. In this time where university heads are under all sorts of political pressure from all sides, and especially the large donor pool, cutting an insignificant team or two is an easy budget fix. If Dartmouth were to cut basketball because of the union vote, university presidents around the country will be jumping for joy as a precedent is set.