I agree the team breakdowns suck but that can be changed and ultimately they will work themselves out through promotion/relegation. The framework of the idea I find appealing.
I have gotten the impression from listening to a lot of interviews with athletics administrators that virtually nobody is willing to buy in to a Euro soccer relegation model.
1 Like
Except those 24 or so P5 teams that will be left out of the Meglomania Division……
lol
How can you say that college football is ruined. Did you not love and enjoy our season this year?
Three team, four pod chess
2 Likes
Well played
Dick, what’s not to love for a Miami fan? You’ve got that right.
Elsewhere like here in Columbus I’m trampled with OSU players selling cars, HVAC services and who knows what else? Million dollar NIL deals? They’re making more than Coach or President C? That’s absurd. That’s why the talk of ruin.
These kiddies are on full ride scholarships. They get monthly expense stipends. They get other benefits out the wazoo that kids cleaning dishes in the cafeteria and piling up student debt would kill for.
And yet they cry it’s not enough. Some of these kids grew up on mean streets. Now they have it better than they ever did growing up and yet they cry for more. For others it’s just entitlement. It’s never enough.
Big time isn’t ruined but it’s getting kind of stinky.
Thankfully we have Miami and most all of our G5 peers to root for. I consider ourselves lucky.
L&H!
4 Likes
I call it negotiating for a price the market will bear, not crying.
4 Likes
I’m pretty certain going to this level of professionalism in college athletics is bound to raise some eyebrows in BoDs of many private schools and in state legislatures of states where their universities are impacted.
Academics administrators are bound to start asking the hard questions: Why are universities operating professional sports franchises? Is this truly within the scope of their mission?
5 Likes
I simply cannot understand this perspective. Why is it so dreadful to you that players might be compensated based on the demand for their services?
I don’t think the current path of professionalism is going to result in the ideal college football ecosystem for me, but I certainly can’t fault the athletes at the top tier of schools for wanting to make money commensurate with what they bring in to the school in revenue.
It’s no less “fair” or “unfair” to the students who do have to pay tuition than it being “fair” or “unfair” that the average worker earns far less than an NFL star. I’d argue what’s much more unfair is that a top athlete in a revenue sport at a P5 school might be bringing in hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue, but is being compensated with roughly the same package as an athlete in a non-revenue sport that might break even or lose money.
3 Likes
Your correct as is For Dick why on earth are the Ohio State Buckeyes running a pro football team they are an education center funded by the state. Now OSU isn’t the best example because a large number of these teams even in the P5 operate athletics at a loss subsidized by tax dollars that’s not fair to many of my co workers who only care about the NFL or don’t watch football at all. And for me personally I watch G5 football games on Saturday and the NFL on Sunday why the tradition and environment and cost is great for G5 football they get all of that right and the NFL simply the best in field product money can buy. If we want these kids to be compensated properly we should encourage the NFL to allow for a developmental league rather than putting that on colleges and guess what no one would watch itl Why because we know that it wouldn’t be as good a product as the NFL puts out on Sundays if the P5 wants to kill college football let em we will keep alive every fall Saturday in Oxford
Even for the big dogs this is still a massive number. Let’s do some math here. The NCAA proposal says that the select universities should “invest at least $30,000 per year into an enhanced educational trust fund for at least half of the institution’s eligible student-athletes”
Let’s talk about the almighty Georgia. They have 522 student-athletes according to Google. Basic math: 0.5 * 522 * $30,000 = $7,830,000 a year. BUT, Georgia had an “overall surplus of $287,352 in fiscal year 2022” (University of Georgia Athletics). So, where will the money come from?
As HawkLBacker said, maybe donations. But this is a crazy amount of money to raise EVERY single year. The above profit calculations already include $74,315,945 from donations. So, the athletics folks would have to increase donations by 10% (!). And even if they succeed, these donations tend to be the first ones gone in periods of financial crisis. So, relying solely on donations is risky.
Yes, there are sweet ESPN deals coming up soon, but there are also rising coach/staff costs, pending COVID consequences (search for the recent ASU budgeting fiasco, or Nebraska and MSU huge deficits), etc.
Now my major concern: If NIL policies and regulations are not done appropriately, many sports like tennis, field hockey, volleyball, etc. are at the risk of disappearing because student-athletes may become too expensive.
I might be missing something here, but this NCAA new division suggestion seems a bit off.
1 Like
Tax exemptions may be removed as well.
1 Like
I mean it was always going to happen the fact that Miami has an IPF and locker room facility better than that of the Bengals is not sustainable with pay for play the economics don’t work Georgia will cut costs and be able to afford it that of an Auburn or South Carolina idk
Right now, schools spend freely on everything besides directly compensating players. If you remove that restriction, money will be redirected towards players. For one major example, since 2015, Georgia has spent 31 million on an indoor practice facility, 63 million on a stadium expansion including a new locker room and 80 million on a football operations facility.
Yes, most of that is donation funded but the reason those donations went to it is because facilities is a major way to attract recruits. If you can just play them directly, I don’t think a recruit cares that they can’t practice indoors in Georgia. I think you’ll also see a gradual decrease in coaching salaries, or at minimum a decrease in the rate of growth.
There are two things currently that will prevent this to an extent, title 9 and that there are minimum sport sponsorship numbers for both division 1 membership and FBS membership (6 mens teams and 8 women’s). Long term, title 9 isn’t going anywhere, but I could see the minimum sports numbers changing. Honestly, while it would be terrible for the teams eliminated, I’m not sure there’s a good argument that schools should be forced to subsidize with student fee dollars so many sports.
3 Likes
I wonder if the long term answer is if the big time football and maybe basketball teams function like university hospitals where they have the name (maybe through license) but are really separate entities from the university
2 Likes
You can make a good argument that the tippy top tier already do, to a large extent
MooreHawk–I would say they’re getting well compensated with the scholarship and monthly stipend they’re getting. Plus therre’s other benefits as well.
Posted in another thread–cost to attend Miami plus monthly athletic stipend total about $39k. If you’re paying average 35% in taxes in Ohio you need to make about $58,000 before taxes to have enough left to pay the cost to attend + stipened total. If you’re out of state the number is about $93,000.
I’ve lived those numbers with 3 kiddies that we put thru college and paid parental loans for 14+ years because we didn’t have an extra $110+k laying around to pay out for the 4 years I had 2 kids in school at the same time.
$58,000 is more than HALF the people in this country make a year.
I kind of look at like they’ve got a $58k/year part-time job–that’s more than enough for what they do.
Maybe not at Miami, but at any number of schools, a lot of these kids wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to attend college if it wasn’t for a full ride. What else do you want? When is enough enough?
The first time some Miami athlete busts out his 250k NIL deal and shows up in his comped Mercedes on an ad on espn broadcast I’m really going to have to think hard about what I want to do on Saturday afternoons. Just not my vision of what college athletics is about. (Old guy shouting at clouds?) Maybe I’ll just go fishin’ or re-mow the grass?
I think it all depends on the blended revenue disbursement. Today departments can’t drive NIL to SA’s. In the new model they will, however donor fatigue is setting in at many collectives, forcing a revenue diversification (toward original NIL intent = IP). Top collectives are driving $10-15M/yr, about 80-90% of which is donor $. With this diversification you’ll see that donor $ go back to the AD and the AD driving more brand partnerships (IP) to SA’s. With the addition of incremental TV rev it will be sustainable for most P5 schs. Lower lvl P5’s may have to make hard decisions about cutting sports to accommodate Title IX. Also part of the proposal is autonomy regarding scholarship limits, etc. I can foresee ADs with a total of 8-10 sport programs in the future (at lower lvl P5’s) to keep playing at that tier. Crazy - IF this comes to fruition which I’d handicap at about 20%
1 Like
Certainly hope the end result of this isn’t a reduction in scholarships and the cutting of athletic programs, but that is definitely a plausible outcome.