Posted on 12/05/2023 10:17:06 PM PST by Ultra Sonic 007
(Key stakeholders were intrigued by the possibility of a new FBS subdivision that could allow schools to pay players directly)
LAS VEGAS -- If there is a college athletics revolution in the near future, the NCAA is now admitting it wants to be part of it.
In a letter sent to membership Tuesday, NCAA president Charlie Baker proposed sweeping changes to his association's amateurism model that would essentially create pay for play between schools and athletes.
Baker proposed a new subdivision consisting of schools "with the highest resources" that would likely separate itself from the rest of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) -- as well as the rest of Division I -- with its own rules and regulations. The remaining schools in FBS would still have access to the College Football Playoff.
The new subdivision would give schools the ability to arrange NIL deals for athletes with no cap on compensation. That signals an unrestricted, direct pay for play model that is a nod toward current lawsuits that seek to remove regulations around compensation.
Schools would be required to invest at least $30,000 per athlete annually in an "enhanced educational trust fund" for "at least half" of its athletes.
The "highest resources" reference had stakeholders buzzing Tuesday morning as folks wondered whether such language could trigger another round of realignment.
While the Power Five conferences will go forward as the Power Four amid the collapse of the Pac-12, there is a general feeling that the Big Ten and SEC have, at least in theory, separated themselves from everyone else by virtue of their new media rights deals.
Baker's proposal would formalize a new major-college subdivision for the first time since 1978.
"This is the true break [from the rest of the FBS]," one athletic director said Tuesday.
Prior to Tuesday, the association had mostly been reactive to big-ticket issues it has faced. Now, it wants to at least control the narrative regarding player compensation and make a major admission: It can't cap compensation.
"I think, ultimately, if implemented, it is likely an interim stop [before] full employment," said David Ridpath, an official with Drake Group, a reform-minded higher education watchdog. "But it is a radical proposal, and I credit Baker for recognizing that change has to happen and the same old, tired amateurism and education sound bites don't work anymore -- if they ever did."
Baker will address the proposal Wednesday in Las Vegas during the Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletic Forum. NCAA stakeholders (ADs and commissioners) were not provided with the details of the proposal until the letter was released.
"We are all trying to process this right now and what it means," one Power Five AD said.
All of it signals a revolution, an admission that the collegiate model the NCAA so doggedly endorsed is dead -- for the first time at the suggestion of the NCAA. This sort of revolution is basically why Baker was hired in the first place.
It's a rarity that the NCAA is proactive on substantive issues of this measure. Baker, the former Massachusetts governor, was able to work quickly. He got this issue on the table nine months after taking office. It eventually means little if the membership doesn't jump on board beginning at next month's NCAA Convention.
There are still major lawsuits making their way through the system that may render any change moot. However, Baker's timing Tuesday was such that the NCAA could implement change before those lawsuits go to trial in 2025.
"Paying the players is a step in the right direction," said former USC star Reggie Bush. "Now, we've got to figure out a way to take care of these guys [medically] after their sacrifice."
There is already legislation in place for enhanced medical benefits. The NCAA is set to provide a health insurance plan that would provide coverage if athletes are injured. It would provide coverage for a period after their eligibility expired.
This is at least the NCAA admitting that a pay for play model is coming; whether it gets to oversee it is another question. The association wants to be on the record as in favor of such change. The proposal seems to indicate that those schools with the "highest resources" could adopt their own rules regarding transfers, scholarship limitations and recruiting.
If the new subdivision wants to offer, say, 150 scholarships instead of the current 85, that would be allowed. What will happen to the rest of the FBS is not clear.
"Whether that's the answer, I'm not sure," said Roy Kramer, the 94-year-old former SEC commissioner, of the proposal. "Some [part] of that is there because it's already built into the culture we have now. We've got to have a way to manage it. We've got to have some kind of national standard."
The proposal is so revolutionary because what previously would have gotten schools the death penalty would now be the way of doing everyday business. NIL benefits have been allowed by the NCAA since July 2021, but they cannot come directly from schools. With this proposal, schools would essentially become business partners with their athletes.
NIL was only implemented after the NCAA was admonished by the Supreme Court in June 2021 over fighting against a limited set of education-based benefits. Since then, NCAA has been on the defensive adopting a narrow set of NIL rules. It has been approaching Congress almost since that day requesting a federal law regulating NIL.
"I don't know if the proposal is much different from what we have now," said former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who entered the College Football of Fame on Tuesday. "I need to think through it with all the nuances. … Right now, it's NIL through the collectives to the players. … It's interesting."
The next issue -- actually the issue -- becomes determining who can afford it. The FBS currently consists of 133 schools that have athletic budgets ranging from $19 million to $250 million. Beginning next season, there will 68 schools among the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Notre Dame.
A new subdivision could conceivably include those schools. However, it could put budgetary strain on some of the lower-tier programs (financially), and other programs outside those 68 might be tempted to increase their budgets to join the new subdivision.
Cincinnati ($83 million) and Houston ($78 million) have the two smallest athletic budgets among current public Power Five schools, according to the USA Today database.
Wake Forest and Boston College, small private institutions, don't have to publicly disclose their budgets. However, both are estimated to have budgets right around those two Big 12 schools.
The last time Division I subdivided 46 years ago, it was over frustration that smaller schools could block NCAA legislation needed by larger schools. That's when Division I-A (now FBS) and Division I-AA (FCS) were formed. There are currently 362 Division I schools.
The same frustrations apply today. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey this year voiced his annoyance at the lack of engagement by the NCAA Council and the composition of top NCAA governing bodies.
Outgoing ADs at both Notre Dame (Jack Swarbrick) and Ohio State (Gene Smith) both said this year they favored a model that would more liberally compensate athletics.
College football ping.
It’s been a long time since you played in the NCAA without being compensated in some way, whether it be a sportscar or nice apartment and living benefits.
They are just being honest about it now.
Why should the NFL farm system be allowed to operate under the aegis of non-profit organizations?
Go the other direction. Return all college sports to the club model, with no athletic scholarships and coaches paid like adjunct faculty.
Tell the television networks to go pound sand. If they still want to pay for the rights to televise real student-athletes playing club level football and basketball, fine. But every penny should go to the universities’ general fund, not to the athletic department.
The direction div 1 sports has moved convinces me they do not belong on academic institutions. They are a business the same as the 49ers or other NFL teams. Academics are no longer part of the equation.
Just call the NCAA the NFL’s minor league farm system and be done with it. That’s what it is.
Whatever is in the players’ lives that is still academic in nature will surely either and eventually become a vague memory.
surely wither
NCAA following in the footsteps of the Olympics. Money rules..
Who exactly would argue for this? The players? The coaching staff? The broadcasting networks? University Board of Trustees? The NCAA?
Because I'm having a difficult time trying to imagine who would honestly prefer your arrangement to the one currently in place (much less what's being recommended by the NCAA).
“...I’m having a difficult time trying to imagine who would honestly prefer your arrangement to the one currently in place...”
I don’t think you give them enough credit for their efforts. Rule changes, advanced recruiting tactics, the literal removal of entire conferences to chase the money eastward (see PAC-12), and the manipulation of the rating system to get preferred colleges into the money game with bowl appearances, national television time, are just a few of the changing tactics to orchestrate a money making machine designed to spread the wealth to selected groups. And it’s been going on for over three generation at least.
I can remember a junior college I attended in the early 1970’s that went into the national championship as the northern California champion rated #2 in the state and nation behind Fullerton JC as #1. We played them in Bakersfield at the end of the season and beat the living skit out of them. It was so bad that at the end of the game, they were third and goal on the 2 and when their quarterback checked both backs said out loud they didn’t want it. So we hammered them but in the ratings by the AP on Monday they were still #1 both pieces. And to this day, I’m still not sure how the money for the teams from the game was split and where it went.
wy69
The universities absolutely do not want this. Look around the world. In only one country do you see universities associated with major sports teams. That also happens to be the only country in which people maintain fanatical loyalty to their schools and donate huge amounts of money to their schools.
Take away the school fight songs, the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the gold plated facilities and especially the football and men’s basketball teams, and the money spigot will be turned off. American universities are the envy of universities around the world for the fierce devotion and loyalty and generosity of their fans and especially alumni. Several European school chancellors, etc have come to the US seen how its done and tried to get that going in European countries. It has never worked there. This is a unique part of American culture. We should preserve it.
I agree. I think one could argue that has the most advantages to improving collegiate education.
Whatever proposal should promote competition among colleges to improve academics (and flush neo-marxist schools down the drain).
For example, TV money could go into a national general fund that goes into individual colleges funds, spread out according to the size of the student body, with an equal allowance to pay coaches, give athletic scholarships, and other operational costs. The best players would only be motivated by (hopefully non-woke) academics, the coaching quality, and school pride. Discuss...
Let the NFL and NBA develop their own minor leagues for non-students and make tons of money.
Translation: the NCAA wants to have control over how money changes hands.
Corruption follows money as night follows day. The NCAA is a voluntary organization and no schools are technically forced to join;however, as a practical matter they are. Things have gotten out of hand, but instead of the institutions doing something about it themselves, they are lobbying Congress to solve the problems for them. One can only imagine the calamity that will ensue if that happens.
Then again, Dick BloomingIdiot (Moron-CT) could put a dagger in UConn's Athletic Department and sue the NCAA for antitrust!
If this is required for all sports, between the money drained off from the two profitable sports and the added expense for the money losers expect college sports to drop to football, men’s and women’s basketball and enough other women’s sports to match football’s participation to comply with federal law.
Here’s the progression as I see it:
1. Biological men begin to dominate women’s sports and are awarded athletic scholarships in large numbers.
2. Women drop out of sports in large numbers.
3. Schools face a dilemma that they can’t fix when they can’t reconcile the decline of women’s sports participation with the stupid mandates they face under Federal Title IX requirements.
4. Schools eventually drop their sports programs entirely rather than face the untenable scenario of reconciling Title IX with the LGBTQWERTY idiocy.
5. Revenues from profitable sports — namely, just football and men’s basketball — are preserved by having these leagues set up as independent organizations, with no direct affiliation with colleges and universities, that pay licensing fees to NCAA schools for the use of their names and logos (Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Alabama Crimson Tide, etc.).
6. Minor college sports that are nothing but cost centers for NCAA schools are relegated to club sports that are financed by participants and their own sponsors.
Everybody gets what they want at the end of the day under this scenario.
The alumni that really care will eventually die off. Chinese and Indian students for the most part don’t give a crap about football or basketball. Since they pay full freight, the universities woo them like they’re pretty girls. In Canada, talented hockey players go into the junior ranks where they are given room and board and a stipend, just like American universities, but they don’t have to pretend they’re students. The same process goes on in Europe also. Universities have sports teams also. College hockey in Canada and college soccer in Europe is played at such a low level nobody really cares except friends and family. The Dallas U-15 soccer team that beat the women’s national team would beat Oxford or Cambridge in soccer, probably by the same margin.
It will probably be after most of us are dead and gone, but I believe college sports will eventually be adopting the club model, Young men just aren’t that interested anymore, especially football. At best, it will become geographically regionalized, like college hockey.
In Florida for example, universities can tax a maximum of 10% out of state students. 90% must come from in-state by law. Other states have similar laws for their universities.
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