US Soccer has sent the following proposal to the NCAA to get rid of conferences in college soccer and institute a relegation system similar to European pro leagues.
Posting because 1. This would be a fascinating proposal that would actually be fantastic for that sport at developing athletes. 2. I can see something similar eventually coming to football. Maybe not relegation, but dissolving the conference alignments.
I think what would get folks on board is being able to keep your conference association for marketing, branding, media rights, etc. So the conference would still exist, and maybe over the course of the year you get a conference "title" game against the two teams with the best records but you aren't necessarily playing a conference schedule.