NCAA proposing new college athletics subdivision rooted in direct athlete compensation
The NCAA will introduce a proposal that would grant certain schools more power to compensate athletes in a new way.
sports.yahoo.com
Report: NCAA proposing college athletics subdivision rooted in direct athlete compensation
- Thread starter RyanSnyder
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As per usual, the NCAA is 20 years behind - with a "plan" that is, to be kind, dysfunctional and ill-conceived.
He does accurately capture the essence of one of the largest long-term issues.
I wrote this bit below a while back, but at least a few folks in the cloister are finally taking a slight and fleeting glance in the mirror:
"For sure, everything surrounding the "game" of college football has changed a lot - in a short time.
Throughout big money college sports, as usual, it comes down to money (All of it: Conference "Realignment", Scheduling, "Playoffs", Coaching merry-go-rounds, "Facilities", Free-Agency of players, NIL, etc)
1) Over the last 15-20 years there was an explosion of $$$ coming into college football programs - largely from media contracts, and largely to the P5 programs. To a lesser degree, the revenue was also enhanced by some fans being willing to turn buying tickets to college football games into a significant budget item.
2) For the most part, certainly among the upper tier (top 40 or so) programs, there was so much money coming in that they could barely keep up with shoveling it into the furnace - largely because they (The NCAA and member schools) were not going to share any with the guys who play the game (net to those guys is a few pennies of the revenue dollar - less of a share, even now, than it was 20-30 years ago)
So where would it all go?
1) It certainly could have been transferred - in part - to the Universities at large. There have been some drips and drabs of that at certain schools. But not enough to amount to rounding error. It is still more common that University funds are used to further fund athletics - which is absurd at any major conference football program.
2) Some could have been "tucked away" - a rainy day fund if you will. That didn't happen, because athletic departments have the fiscal restraint of a teenager at the shopping mall. Sure would have been nice to be in better fiscal position when COVID hit - but, alas.
3) It could have contributed to meaningful improvements to the student-athlete experience and outcomes, or specific fiscally responsible long-term investments
4) Or, they coulda' started racing one another to see how much they could spend - regardless of the need or benefit - primarily to benefit the coaches and admins, and to build ego-empires.
Guess which one they picked?
(Hint, it is not item 1, 2, or 3)
- Most publicly (but just one of many): Payments to coaches that would gag a horse, including assistant coaches. regardless of achievement or even competency.
- Absurdly fiscally irresponsible contracts (and, more and more often, shoveling giant piles of cash onto bonfires in the form of payments to coaches to NOT coach anymore, as a result of those contracts)
- Gigantic increases of "critical staff", hordes of staffers - most of which no one really even knows what they are supposed to do that would enhance the mission - creating mini-fiefdoms in athletic departments
- Turning perfunctory positions, like athletic directors, conference commissars, and NCAA poohbahs, and various and sundry empty suits, into Class B Royalty positions - even for those who's track record ranges from "Did they ever do anything positively impactful?" to "How do they have a job?"
- Creating "tulip bulb craze" needs. Gotta' have Taj Mahal office complexes (for all those critical staffers ), Ritz Carlton locker rooms, and lord knows what else gets put on the shopping list. None of which wins more games, or enhances the experience for the folks paying the bills, or meaningfully impacts the lives of the folks actually playing the game.
Often financed by boosters, but (frighteningly) often financed with loads of long-term debt.
And NO accountability.
No accountability.
That is the key item that greases the wheels.
At some point - and it may be quite some time - the chickens will come home to roost.
I expect that very few athletic departments will be able to deal with the fallout effectively."
What will happen - especially to those schools who have already spent all/most of those future dollars, by taking on obscene amounts of long-term debt (which will drain revenues for generations) - when the revenue-sharing chickens come pecking on the door?
Time will tell.
He does accurately capture the essence of one of the largest long-term issues.
I wrote this bit below a while back, but at least a few folks in the cloister are finally taking a slight and fleeting glance in the mirror:
"For sure, everything surrounding the "game" of college football has changed a lot - in a short time.
Throughout big money college sports, as usual, it comes down to money (All of it: Conference "Realignment", Scheduling, "Playoffs", Coaching merry-go-rounds, "Facilities", Free-Agency of players, NIL, etc)
1) Over the last 15-20 years there was an explosion of $$$ coming into college football programs - largely from media contracts, and largely to the P5 programs. To a lesser degree, the revenue was also enhanced by some fans being willing to turn buying tickets to college football games into a significant budget item.
2) For the most part, certainly among the upper tier (top 40 or so) programs, there was so much money coming in that they could barely keep up with shoveling it into the furnace - largely because they (The NCAA and member schools) were not going to share any with the guys who play the game (net to those guys is a few pennies of the revenue dollar - less of a share, even now, than it was 20-30 years ago)
So where would it all go?
1) It certainly could have been transferred - in part - to the Universities at large. There have been some drips and drabs of that at certain schools. But not enough to amount to rounding error. It is still more common that University funds are used to further fund athletics - which is absurd at any major conference football program.
2) Some could have been "tucked away" - a rainy day fund if you will. That didn't happen, because athletic departments have the fiscal restraint of a teenager at the shopping mall. Sure would have been nice to be in better fiscal position when COVID hit - but, alas.
3) It could have contributed to meaningful improvements to the student-athlete experience and outcomes, or specific fiscally responsible long-term investments
4) Or, they coulda' started racing one another to see how much they could spend - regardless of the need or benefit - primarily to benefit the coaches and admins, and to build ego-empires.
Guess which one they picked?
(Hint, it is not item 1, 2, or 3)- Most publicly (but just one of many): Payments to coaches that would gag a horse, including assistant coaches. regardless of achievement or even competency.
- Absurdly fiscally irresponsible contracts (and, more and more often, shoveling giant piles of cash onto bonfires in the form of payments to coaches to NOT coach anymore, as a result of those contracts)
- Gigantic increases of "critical staff", hordes of staffers - most of which no one really even knows what they are supposed to do that would enhance the mission - creating mini-fiefdoms in athletic departments
- Turning perfunctory positions, like athletic directors, conference commissars, and NCAA poohbahs, and various and sundry empty suits, into Class B Royalty positions - even for those who's track record ranges from "Did they ever do anything positively impactful?" to "How do they have a job?"
- Creating "tulip bulb craze" needs. Gotta' have Taj Mahal office complexes (for all those critical staffers
), Ritz Carlton locker rooms, and lord knows what else gets put on the shopping list. None of which wins more games, or enhances the experience for the folks paying the bills, or meaningfully impacts the lives of the folks actually playing the game.Often financed by boosters, but (frighteningly) often financed with loads of long-term debt.
And NO accountability.
No accountability.
That is the key item that greases the wheels.
At some point - and it may be quite some time - the chickens will come home to roost.
I expect that very few athletic departments will be able to deal with the fallout effectively."
What will happen - especially to those schools who have already spent all/most of those future dollars, by taking on obscene amounts of long-term debt (which will drain revenues for generations) - when the revenue-sharing chickens come pecking on the door?
Time will tell.
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Good stuff.As per usual, the NCAA is 20 years behind - with a "plan" that is, to be kind, dysfunctional and ill-conceived.
He does accurately capture the essence of one of the largest long-term issues.
I wrote this bit below a while back, but at least a few folks in the cloister are finally taking a slight and fleeting glance in the mirror:
"For sure, everything surrounding the "game" of college football has changed a lot - in a short time.
Throughout big money college sports, as usual, it comes down to money (All of it: Conference "Realignment", Scheduling, "Playoffs", Coaching merry-go-rounds, "Facilities", Free-Agency of players, NIL, etc)
1) Over the last 15-20 years there was an explosion of $$$ coming into college football programs - largely from media contracts, and largely to the P5 programs. To a lesser degree, the revenue was also enhanced by some fans being willing to turn buying tickets to college football games into a significant budget item.
2) For the most part, certainly among the upper tier (top 40 or so) programs, there was so much money coming in that they could barely keep up with shoveling it into the furnace - largely because they (The NCAA and member schools) were not going to share any with the guys who play the game (net to those guys is a few pennies of the revenue dollar - less of a share, even now, than it was 20-30 years ago)
So where would it all go?
1) It certainly could have been transferred - in part - to the Universities at large. There have been some drips and drabs of that at certain schools. But not enough to amount to rounding error. It is still more common that University funds are used to further fund athletics - which is absurd at any major conference football program.
2) Some could have been "tucked away" - a rainy day fund if you will. That didn't happen, because athletic departments have the fiscal restraint of a teenager at the shopping mall. Sure would have been nice to be in better fiscal position when COVID hit - but, alas.
3) It could have contributed to meaningful improvements to the student-athlete experience and outcomes, or specific fiscally responsible long-term investments
4) Or, they coulda' started racing one another to see how much they could spend - regardless of the need or benefit - primarily to benefit the coaches and admins, and to build ego-empires.
Guess which one they picked?
- Most publicly (but just one of many): Payments to coaches that would gag a horse, including assistant coaches. regardless of achievement or even competency.
- Absurdly fiscally irresponsible contracts (and, more and more often, shoveling giant piles of cash onto bonfires in the form of payments to coaches to NOT coach anymore, as a result of those contracts)
- Gigantic increases of "critical staff", hordes of staffers - most of which no one really even knows what they are supposed to do that would enhance the mission - creating mini-fiefdoms in athletic departments
- Turning perfunctory positions, like athletic directors, into Class B Royalty positions - even for those who's track record ranges from "Did they ever do anything positively impactful?" to "How do they have a job?"
- Creating "tulip bulb craze" needs. Gotta' have Taj Mahal office complexes (for all those critical staffers
Often financed by boosters, but (frighteningly) often financed with loads of long-term debt.
And NO accountability.
No accountability.
That is the key item that greases the wheels.
At some point - and it may be quite some time - the chickens will come home to roost.
I expect that very few athletic departments will be able to deal with the fallout effectively."
What will happen - especially to those schools who have already spent all/most of those future dollars, by taking on obscene amounts of long-term debt (which will drain revenues for generations) - when the revenue-sharing chickens come pecking on the door?
Time will tell.
The challenge the NCAA will have is in terms of the definition of an "employee" and various govt laws regulating "employees." In the past, the NCAA got around this. But with direct compensation, there will be a minimal argument that compensated college football players are employees. So that also leads to unionization. Once unionized, the powers that be will need to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. at that point, college football is just a minor league to the NFL. But this is what is going to have to happen and there is no turning back.
The CBA will be good and bad for college football. The players will get better representation for salary, healthcare, education, and other benefits. While the colleges will need better guidance on transfers, NIL, salary and issues regarding funding of the sport as well as dependent sports. In other words, football and basketball fund a large part of other sports. And that brings in Title IX issues. Will this new arrangement obfuscate the Title IX obligations? Stay tuned.
This proposal is absolute crap (would one expect anything else from the NCAA?). Pay the kids outright. No strings, no deferral.
NCAA proposing new college athletics subdivision rooted in direct athlete compensation
The NCAA will introduce a proposal that would grant certain schools more power to compensate athletes in a new way.
I don't disagree but then the players are "employees". As employees, they will be entitled to the full gambit of employment law. College football will really turn into any other pro league. Think salary caps, unions, collective bargaining agreements, free agency, and the rest.
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Yep.....College will become full blown minor leagues for the NFL. At some point I would expect the D1 schools to break away from the NCAA and form leagues with subsidies from NFL teams a schools falling in line as affiliates of NFL teams. For example, Penn State and Rutgers might have a minor league affiliation with the Eagles.....or Pitt with the Steelers.
Largely agree, but I don't see the NFL subsidizing a developmental league they have been getting for free.
Yep.
No way on God's green Earth the NFL would subsidize anything similar to current college football system.
Some of those guys can get pretty stoopid with their money from time to time, but no way they subsidize something that would be so wasteful relative to what they (the NFL folks) need.
Yep. As @Catch1lion said, I don't think the schools will directly affiliate with the NFL teams but will continue to be a separate feeder system to the NFL as kids bodies mature and they are ready for the physical punishment of the NFL regimen. I also agree on the NCAA. As we are seeing, there are going to be two super conferences next season: B1G and SEC. When you look at the top 20 teams NOT in one of those two conferences you just see a few. And you can drop out these schools that are NCAA "pretenders" like Liberty, SMU, and Tulane. Given that, the B1G and SEC will dominate the CFP and, for the most part, the NCAA when it comes to football. I can certainly see, and would think will come to pass, a separate for football without the NCAA's oversight (or greatly diminished). The NCAA may stay intact when it comes to Basketball (they own the tourney). The non rev sports like box lacrosse and water polo will probably stay with them.
That is why I found it cringe-worthy when I read that it was the NCAA president submitting this proposal. Seems like an business attempt to stay relevant as a governing body over major college football.
Agree. But he's pulling down, what, $3m a year? Makes sense to draw that for as long as you can before the board comes a knockin' and says
So what do we have in this proposal: the NCAA unilaterally putting a cap on comp and insisting that it be taken in the form of company scrip. Jeff Kessler won't break a sweat shredding this in court.
another semi pro league? why bother when we have the real deal in the NFL?
Agreed.
One might be hard-pressed to come up with a more impossibly idiotic "plan".
Under Baker’s proposals, payments to athletes would be subject to Title IX rules and would help level what is fast becoming a very unlevel playing field between men and women student athletes .
-Yeah, this is so not going to work out .
-Yeah, this is so not going to work out .
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