Posted on 02/03/2024 11:45:17 PM PST by Enterprise
The SEC and Big Ten delivered a coded, read-between-the-lines message to college athletics in a 259-word release on Friday: We got this.
Essentially, the two most powerful conferences on the planet told everyone else to step aside. They're going to figure out the future of college athletics themselves. They're done waiting for Congressional intervention or NCAA action.
The future of college athletics will be at least influenced -- but probably dictated -- by the SEC and Big Ten. They have most of the money, talent, recruiting, facilities and brands at their disposal.
(Snip)
In essence, the two leagues are aiming to remodel what is left of the collegiate model. Don't like it? Well, you don't have to. If NCAA membership doesn't agree to their reforms, the SEC and Big Ten have the leverage to take their 34 teams and stage their own national championship. The networks and the market itself have told them that is possible, and it's a path which SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has already hinted at in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbssports.com ...
What's left of NCAA should ban $$$ for the players. And limit the salaries of coaches to $100,000 per year.
Would the Sec and Big Ten rival the NFL?
NCAA=Not Caring About Athletes
You could go the route of European universties....no support of the sports business. If you want amateur sports....you go to the local town itself. But then you’d drain the cash flow to the present system.
Makes sense to me. As I tell my daughter know the Golden Rule “He with the gold rules”. The NCAA is not in control, the SEC and BIG10 are.
It might be a good idea but will never happen, after the Federal Courts ruled college athletes were owed royalties from their Name, Image, and Likeness, that effectively ended any notion of not paying the players. When companies and universities were selling merchandise with the image of college players on them, it’s only right the players get royalties.
they want to make college sports a business and big money and they have just about completely done that.....
what's enjoyable to me now is watching Div 2 football or basketball....these guys play for passion....
I quit watching spectator.sports, and it pisses me off that it is subsidized with taxpayer money.
In my household, The Golden Rule is ‘He who makes the gold, makes the rules.’
How long will the Big Ten and SEC football programs continue to saddle themselves with all the non-revenue sports?
How long will they continue to allow their academic subsidiaries to interfere with the smooth operation of the football programs — you know, all that nonsense about enrollment, classes and grades, and the need to fake it with tutors and laborious efforts to camouflage academic fraud?
How long will they allow the NCAA to impose silly limits on recruiting — as opposed, for example, to just signing middle and high school kids to professional contracts, the way European professional soccer clubs do?
Will the basketball programs stay linked to the football programs or go separate? Here and there, we already have football-only or basketball-only schools in conference play. Why shouldn’t this be the norm?
Do the football programs really need to continue to hold out at least some seats for students? Ticket prices can be jacked up at will; at least at the top ten schools, the alums and corporations doing business entertainment will pay. The real money is in tv contracts and gambling. Isn’t it time to dispense with the low-dollar student market entirely?
As long as university presidents, very senior administrators, and trustees are guaranteed premium seating in return for the rights to the logo, which may still be important for branding purposes, what’s not to like?
Do the gambling interests and tv networks really need “student athletes” on the field as well? Why not just go with AI and CGI imagery, maybe linked to fantasy sports leagues? Properly developed, this could permit mid-season and even mid-game player transfers? If Alabama or Michigan is getting hammered in the first half because of some matchup problem on the offensive line or secondary, why shouldn’t they be able to trade at halftime and get some help? The bettors would go nuts. The possibilities are endless.
The only major programs outside of those two giants are in the ACC and that conference is going to be ripped apart by the SEC and B1G. fsu is already looking for the exit and several more are looking closely to see if they can get out without paying a king’s ransom. If so, they’ll be gone too. If not, they’ll wait a few years until the ACC’s Grant of Rights is not so expensive to get out of. That Grant of Rights is the only thing holding the ACC together as is.
The two big dogs will determine what’s what in college athletics. The rest will have to follow along - or risk being left out in the cold if the SEC and B1G decided to secede from the NCAA in which case they will take all the fans and money with them.
A couple reasons why that won't happen:
Firstly, college sports generates a substantial profit for the truly major programs that have legions of fans (and these two conferences have lucrative TV contracts).
Secondly, the sports programs at a lot of these schools keep the alumni engaged with their alma maters in a way you simply do not see in any other country. Look at the level of contributions by alumni to their schools. You don't see that anywhere else. These universities have endowments worth billions of dollars each because of it. Kill of the sports and you will kill off the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the mascots, the fight songs.....the fierce loyalty of literally millions of people....and ultimately the donations to these universities. Nobody wants that - not the alumni and not the universities themselves.
Good question. If this is really much more hard nosed business and we are to dispense with the whole academic/amateurism model which is the way its going.....why pay for what I call the money losing sports? Right now the major schools can afford it but the fact remains that aside from football and men's basketball...and maybe men's baseball, every other sport loses money because there just isn't much interest. Of course that means women's sports all become non scholarship club teams. I can hear the screaming and the wailing now.........
How long will they continue to allow their academic subsidiaries to interfere with the smooth operation of the football programs — you know, all that nonsense about enrollment, classes and grades, and the need to fake it with tutors and laborious efforts to camouflage academic fraud?
I would bet they keep this requirement in place. The fig leaf of academics looks good and no doubt does some good for a lot of these players who are never going to play in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc I'm sure plenty of players get college degrees who otherwise would never have gotten one. The school presidents, the alumni and Congress all like that.
How long will they allow the NCAA to impose silly limits on recruiting — as opposed, for example, to just signing middle and high school kids to professional contracts, the way European professional soccer clubs do?
Another good question. In the mid 80s, the NCAA cut college football scholarships from 95 to 85. This was driven by the smaller schools wanting to hamstring the bigger programs to drag them down to the smaller schools' level AND to make more of the top tier talent available to the smaller schools. Before the limit was 95 it was even more than that. The programs in the SEC and B1G can afford to give out more scholarships. Why continue to allow smaller schools to hold them to the lower limit?
Will the basketball programs stay linked to the football programs or go separate? Here and there, we already have football-only or basketball-only schools in conference play. Why shouldn’t this be the norm?
Yes, they will stay linked. Some smaller schools can't afford a major football program but can afford a much cheaper basketball program. The major state universities which comprise the vast majority of the members of the SEC and B1G can easily afford both - and both are included in the lucrative TV contracts both conferences have signed with various broadcast networks.
Do the football programs really need to continue to hold out at least some seats for students? Ticket prices can be jacked up at will; at least at the top ten schools, the alums and corporations doing business entertainment will pay. The real money is in tv contracts and gambling. Isn’t it time to dispense with the low-dollar student market entirely?
That's a bad idea. That's like eating the seed corn. You need to keep the next generation of fans and especially alums engaged. Several major universities keep ticket prices for students and even recent alums below market rates. Its like a gateway drug. Get them hooked. Then you can raise prices later as they get older and start earning more money.
Titily IX regulation says if a college gives scholarships to male players it has to do the same with female players. So colleges with money making sports have to have the sports for women too.
In this age of inflation, that's just about penury!
Money has ruined college football. In the past it has something to do with the school. The financialization of every single thing in America ruins our culture.
I have noticed on sports talk radio, the discussions of college football have become mostly about gambling odds.
In many states, college football coaches are, by far, the highest paid public employees and it is not even close.
The total corruption of college football is a metaphor for the total corruption of our entire society.
With the “transfer portal” shuffle, college athletes are really not students at all. They are all free agents chasing the big money. The athletes continually transfer to the highest bidder college.
College football is nothing a big fraud, is no longer “amateur” at all and even the coaches are becoming fed up with how rigged is the system.
as long as the football and basketball programs are associated with ultra-woke colleges with millions of dollars to support DEI/DIE departments, the programs will continue to be expected to provide funding for non-revenue sports. After all, the NBA can't support every girl college team. And, how would Lia Thomas get his "stipend"?
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