NCAA President to propose New Division

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I just surfed over to the Strib.com for my daily dose of nonsense. The headline for the article reads "NCAA president calls for Division I model where schools pay athletes". I can't read comments (paywall), but you know a majority of their visitors won't even read the article but will leave their biased opinions at the bottom of the page.
The anti-sports people are not going to like this.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
This thing will get out of control. Once you open Pandora’s box, oh boy. Good luck restraining a race to the bottom and attendant carnage and wailing from non-rev.
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I hope you're wrong and instead feel like we're seeing the privatization of a sudo-government entity.
 

Didn't read all the posts so sorry if this has been talked about already:

This feels like a move to not get left behind. The new NCAA president was brought in for a reason and sees the writing on the wall with regards to NIL. This allows for some of the "best of both worlds" in that the schools that don't want to get into the spending arms race paying players (and that ones the literally can't afford it) don't have to compete with the schools that are paying players directly. Yes, your star player may get poached to go play at one of those schools, but at least all the schools you are competing with are one relatively level ground.

And then the schools that can and want to pay players directly can all compete with each other, while also tailoring the rules (and enforcement I would assume) to their new paradigm. This could lead to things like "salary" caps on how much a player can be paid directly from the school, or a total spending cap per team, etc. Also likely transfer rules that better fit the new division, maybe players will have more formal "contracts" that make it so that if another school wants to poach one of your star players, they have a "buyout" they have to pony up the cost for, while also having more formal protections for players if a coach gets fired, etc.

Do I like it? Uncertain. And maybe it turns out very different than what I laid out as possibilities.

I can see the P5 conferences wanting to keep existing in this new subdivision, rather than lose all their best schools, so maybe that comes into play somewhere along the line and influences how things proceed. Maybe conferences will start giving schools money specifically for NIL in an arms race against the other conferences, who knows. Or maybe that will be something that is explicitly disallowed.
 

If it were up to me, I'd have the NFL pop the bubble by creating a minor league.
 

RodentRampage said:
If it were up to me, I'd have the NFL pop the bubble by creating a minor league.
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I think that's where a licensing arrangement comes into play. Let the NFL obtain licenses from the P4 schools to use the names, mascots, traditions, etc. to operate their minor league development system. I don't think minor league football otherwise works as a business model without the fan loyalty. Look at the very many iterations of USFL, XFL, IFL, etc. Even the CFL is less than robust that relies on players playing for very little.
 


fmlizard said:
If they stopped using money from the football program and TV contract to subsidize a bunch of non-profitable sports Minnesota is a top 25 resource football program and can definitely afford to buy lots of expensive football players

This is really where it’s heading. Winner take all, like everything else in America. In this case football wins over all other sports. Sports are just about the only place left where America deeply cares about competitive balance but that too will fade.
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I need a third thumb to give this whole post three thumbs up.
 

The issue eventually will be.....does your school's team/league more resemble the NFL (or CFL/USFL, etc) than it does the rest of FBS (and even FCS)? At the rate it is going, with no leadership in the process, about 25-30 colleges appear to be steering towards a new pro league, and the schools and mascots are simply part of the naming.

I also believe that many FBS (even P5) schools truly wish to remain a college football enterprise because they deep down know they cannot compete with what will be de facto professional teams.

Minnesota already has the Vikings. It doesn't need a second pro football franchise, so my guess is the U will stay in the collegiate ranks with many of our peers. This would likely lessen the comparative differences between remaining BIG schools and Group5 and FCS schools. Maybe that becomes one big Division I down the road.

I kinda like having college football, so long as its college football. Once it becomes another pro league (and don't you just know that the Nick Sabans of the world will love that) than its appeal to me and many others diminishes significantly.

Because of the competitive fires of many of the coaches and alumni, the fact remains that college football, in order to be viable into the future, REQUIRES oversight with adults in the room.
 

Taji34 said:
This could lead to things like "salary" caps on how much a player can be paid directly from the school, or a total spending cap per team, etc. Also likely transfer rules that better fit the new division, maybe players will have more formal "contracts" that make it so that if another school wants to poach one of your star players, they have a "buyout" they have to pony up the cost for, while also having more formal protections for players if a coach gets fired, etc.
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Salary caps require collective bargaining.
 




fmlizard said:
If they stopped using money from the football program and TV contract to subsidize a bunch of non-profitable sports Minnesota is a top 25 resource football program and can definitely afford to buy lots of expensive football players

This is really where it’s heading. Winner take all, like everything else in America. In this case football wins over all other sports. Sports are just about the only place left where America deeply cares about competitive balance but that too will fade.
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Maybe this is why the NCAA is trying to provide some reform...to stay relevant. If top FBS teams were to break off from the NCAA and its regulations, I believe Title IX might become irrelevant to football. It would be no different from ACHA club hockey which (I don't think) is subject to Title IX restrictions.
 

metrolax said:
Minnesota already has the Vikings. It doesn't need a second pro football franchise, so my guess is the U will stay in the collegiate ranks with many of our peers.
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Nope. There's no way Minnesota drops down. The amount of TV money is WAY too great.
 

fmlizard said:
If they stopped using money from the football program and TV contract to subsidize a bunch of non-profitable sports Minnesota is a top 25 resource football program and can definitely afford to buy lots of expensive football players

This is really where it’s heading. Winner take all, like everything else in America. In this case football wins over all other sports. Sports are just about the only place left where America deeply cares about competitive balance but that too will fade.
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I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s more likely that interest in competitive sports falls if we lose competitive balance. The NFL, NBA, and NHL are all setup to provide balance via a draft and salary caps. There are some teams in that make more and spend more than others but it’s hardly a guarantee for organizational success. The pro leagues have set things up like this because they know people won’t care about the sport if their local teams are setup as bowling pins for the Cowboys, Yankees and Lakers.

I think its more likely that people quit caring about college football and the networks that bought broadcast rights are left scratching their heads about why they overvalued the contracts so much.
 




If the minor league was getting the best athletes out of high school people might show up to see the future NFL players. Most of the players in these other leagues aren't going to play in the NFL.
 

RodentRampage said:
If the minor league was getting the best athletes out of high school people might show up to see the future NFL players. Most of the players in these other leagues aren't going to play in the NFL.
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They wouldn't.

Peoples' loyalties are to teams and almost as much, to leagues. It's why even when a new "major" league is created, it inevitably fails. The WFL, WHA, ABA, original USFL. They all tried to compete with the established leagues and failed. Only the AFL succeeded in a full merger with the NFL.

People root for college teams because of the team, not because of random players.
 

Ron Johnson Super Fan said:
I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s more likely that interest in competitive sports falls if we lose competitive balance. The NFL, NBA, and NHL are all setup to provide balance via a draft and salary caps. There are some teams in that make more and spend more than others but it’s hardly a guarantee for organizational success. The pro leagues have set things up like this because they know people won’t care about the sport if their local teams are setup as bowling pins for the Cowboys, Yankees and Lakers.

I think its more likely that people quit caring about college football and the networks that bought broadcast rights are left scratching their heads about why they overvalued the contracts so much.
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Exactly. The only reason I'm somewhat interested in the play-off this year is because of Washington. If Georgia was in their place, I doubt I would watch any of it.
 

disco said:
They wouldn't.

Peoples' loyalties are to teams and almost as much, to leagues. It's why even when a new "major" league is created, it inevitably fails. The WFL, WHA, ABA, original USFL. They all tried to compete with the established leagues and failed. Only the AFL succeeded in a full merger with the NFL.

People root for college teams because of the team, not because of random players.
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Correct

Which is why it is such an interesting question of how much money players should get.

If the exact same big ten rosters played the exact same games but the games were unaffiliated with the universities, how much would the contract be worth.








The only 100% true answer is: less


me reason the college World Series is on national tv but the triple A playoffs isn’t. The triple A teams would kill the college teams.
The G league would kill all of college hoops.
 

RodentRampage said:
If the minor league was getting the best athletes out of high school people might show up to see the future NFL players. Most of the players in these other leagues aren't going to play in the NFL.
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Does the G-League prove that theory?
 


disco said:
Salary caps require collective bargaining.
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I think it's implicit in any idea to pay players. If the idea is to get control of what is now chaos, there needs to be buy in from the players, too. The schools are in a great bargaining position now - there is a huge some of money potentially making its way to players rhat the schools presently don't share, don't have to share, and are able to dictate terms of when they share.
 

Some guy said:
Correct

Which is why it is such an interesting question of how much money players should get.

If the exact same big ten rosters played the exact same games but the games were unaffiliated with the universities, how much would the contract be worth.








The only 100% true answer is: less


me reason the college World Series is on national tv but the triple A playoffs isn’t. The triple A teams would kill the college teams.
The G league would kill all of college hoops.
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I always find it amusing when people claim that a really dominant CFB champion would beat the worst NFL team. Not. A. Chance. The NFL team would steamroll them 100-0 if they wanted.
 

matt said:
This is a terrible idea. This takes the lack of parity between the haves and the have-nots and pours gas on it.

I would like to see a solution that makes student-athletes employees of the school. That’s the only way that I see to get a handle on regulation in this environment.
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FredCoxRocks said:
The super-league is happening.
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There’s too much cash for the Super Duper Pooper 💩 🚽league not to happen.

To wit -

 

RodentRampage said:
If it were up to me, I'd have the NFL pop the bubble by creating a minor league.
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This is actually what he may be trying to do, or what it's inevitable end game is. Break off those power schools and simply form another professional league and drop the collegiate pretense.
 

Why are you all surprised .. seriously.. this has been coming for awhile
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Depends how you define competitive balance. I'd like competitive balance among the college football teams. I don't give a crap if the non-revenue sports get the same attention as football. They've been living off of football revenue for decades now and I don't think they've said "thanks" even once.
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That is definitely not how it works.
 

Panthadad2 said:
Maybe this is why the NCAA is trying to provide some reform...to stay relevant. If top FBS teams were to break off from the NCAA and its regulations, I believe Title IX might become irrelevant to football. It would be no different from ACHA club hockey which (I don't think) is subject to Title IX restrictions.
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If FBS schools broke off they would still need to comply with Title IX unless they are willing to forgo federal dollars as a university. That will never happen especially in the Big Ten.

(unless I have read the rule wrong all these years which is always possible)
 

disco said:
Nope. There's no way Minnesota drops down. The amount of TV money is WAY too great.
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Yeah there is a 0% chance any P5 school drops down especially a Big Ten school. You would be burning tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
 

Question.

What happens to schools that are national powers in other sports, but play FCS football? Thinking of North Dakota hockey, or Villanova basketball? Obviously they will want to continue playing hockey and hoops at their current top level, but won't be able to pay to play FB$ football.

What about schools like Mankato or Bemidji that play top level hockey at the D1 level because there is no D2 hockey?
 

The Yahoo article proposal is short on specifics but mentions the portal without proposed changes, NIL agreements between the school and athletes, and trust agreements of at least 30K but without caps and the option to contribute any amount. I don’t see any guardrails at all here. Are we ready for football players to earn more than University presidents? Buckle your seatbelts.

Rather than returning to a more level playing field this throws gas on the fire with unpredictable results. In other industries without proper guardrails the results are predictable. I hope Charlie wrote this on a bender, like Jerry Maguire.

Great memo, man (claps).




sports.yahoo.com

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 sports.yahoo.com
 

What did I say? The only real answer is to ban payment of any kind and to do it through Congress and the courts. Payment means unions, which means more and more money to amateurs - and not only in football. Payment could kill sports as we have known them, even at the high school level.
 

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