End of Amateurism and P5 Conferences Split from NCAA

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

.
College basketball is broken and here's the only way the NCAA can fix the sport - Gary Parrish, CBS Sports - February 23, 2018

Big changes need to happen in order to save big-time college athletics

Let me make this clear: As long as the NCAA holds tight to the concept of amateurism, and denies student-athletes the ability to secure representation, or accept fair-market value, this black market that could potentially sully the names of multiple Hall of Famers, and theoretically lead to blue bloods playing with reduced rosters as early as this weekend, will never go away no matter how many smart people are placed on a committee. That's a fact. And until Emmert, and the people who control Emmert, acknowledge this fact, and address it in a meaningful way, student-athletes -- especially those with identifiable talents that suggest they could soon be worth millions of dollars -- will forever have people trying to give them things in violation of NCAA rules for any number of reasons. And, obviously, lots and lots of them will be happy to accept those things.

Mark Emmert refuses to acknowledge NCAA’s fundamental issue: The sham of amateurism – NBC Sports - February 23, 2018

On Friday morning, hours after Yahoo Sports published a bombshell report that included documents and spreadsheets detailing the recruitment strategy of former NBA agent Andy Miller, NCAA president Mark Emmert released a statement addressing the evidence presented.

“These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now,” Emmert, who made at least $1.9 million in 2015, began in the statement, and he is absolutely, 100 percent correct.

If, as Emmert put it, “we want college sports in America,” we need to do away with amateurism rules. We need to do away with the archaic notion that these athletes do not have any value. We need to do away with the idea that these athletes — athletes with the potential to earn, quite literally, hundreds of millions of dollars in their playing career, mind you — having access to professional representation before they turn 19 years old is some sort of problem.

You can already hear the train coming down the tracks. College sports is broken commodity and the NCAA has neither the will nor power to fix it.

Big-time college basketball has been outed, and big-time college football is on-deck, nervously awaiting its day of reckoning. It will come.

As the corruption in more and more big-time college sports programs is publicly exposed and NCAA sanctions are meted out, the inevitable result will be the P5 conferences quitting the NCAA umbrella and forming their new athletic association in which they write all the rules (for their own benefit).

College Athletic Scholarship Limits 2017-18 – Scholarships Stats.com

The new athletic association will increase football scholarships from 85 to 100 per school, and basketball scholarships from 13 to 15 per school.

TV-contract revenue will be enormous.

Student-athletes who play football or basketball will openly be paid from $10,00 to $100,000 per season (depending on their ‘eliteness’), and the quality of sports for schools left behind in the NCAA will suffer as a result. The salary offered to a given student-athlete will be the key to his recruitment.

The big split from the NCAA is the only way the P5 conference schools can avoid future NCAA sanctions, and with their athletic future and fortunes at stake, they will not hesitate to pull the plug on the NCAA and go their own way. If that happens next year, and Sean Miller avoids prison, he may even be able to remain Arizona’s head coach.

But this is not all bad news for the Big East, who will permanently become the best basketball conference in the NCAA. Five Big East teams in the Elite 8 and three Big East teams in the Final Four could become the norm, as well as BE schools winning the NCAA Basketball Tournament more often than not.

[DeltaV]

.
But this is not all bad news for the Big East, who will permanently become the best basketball conference in the NCAA. Five Big East teams in the Elite 8 and three Big East teams in the Final Four could become the norm, as well as BE schools winning the NCAA Basketball Tournament more often than not.

Yeah, except for two things:

1) In that instance, the NCAA Tournament becomes less relevant than the NIT is now
2) There's a decent chance we could go with them, especially if they need enough teams to fill out their scheduling. There's currently only what, 65 teams in all of the major football conferences?

[Xudash]

.
But this is not all bad news for the Big East, who will permanently become the best basketball conference in the NCAA. Five Big East teams in the Elite 8 and three Big East teams in the Final Four could become the norm, as well as BE schools winning the NCAA Basketball Tournament more often than not.

Yeah, except for two things:

1) In that instance, the NCAA Tournament becomes less relevant than the NIT is now
2) There's a decent chance we could go with them, especially if they need enough teams to fill out their scheduling. There's currently only what, 65 teams in all of the major football conferences?

How about the biggest issue of all: good luck to "the 65" as CBS tries to figure out how to monetize that deal.

[kmacker69]

The problem I see with this idea is that there is already a product of professional players getting paid to play for teams. What I think drives the college money is that players choose to play for "your school."

You take away the amateurism and you take away the drawl and it becomes a minor league to the NBA without the rabid fans, but one with minor league interest. That is not going to generate the kinds of money it does now and will kill what I love about it now. IMHO

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

In that instance, the NCAA Tournament becomes less relevant than the NIT is now.

You're obviously correct, but I was trying to be polite by not mentioning that.

There's a decent chance we could go with them, especially if they need enough teams to fill out their scheduling.

I respectfully disagree, and for the following reasons:

(1) It is my belief that the P5 conference teams who form the “new athletic association” will continue to fill out their non-conference schedules in football and in basketball with home “buy games” with NCAA teams. Most of the college basketball teams who are not in the Top 10 or 12 basketball conferences (i.e. the other 20 or 22 conferences) depend on the revenue they get for being a ”buy game” team to pay the salaries of their basketball coaches and related expenses. Without their “buy game” revenue, their basketball programs could quickly go bust. Ditto for their football teams.

(2) The NCAA will not prohibit its member schools from being “buy game” opponents for P5 conference schools for the simple reason that they need this revenue stream in order to survive. P5 conference schools will not want to play 30 basketball games per season against other P5 conference teams, because they will absorb too many non-conference losses. I would expect that the November exempt tournaments (Maui Invitational, etc.) will continue as is, with a mixture of P5 conference teams and NCAA teams.

(3) Football is king of the P5 conferences, and always will be.

2016 College Basketballl Value Rankings - Prof. Ryan Brewster, Wall Street Journal – March 30, 2017

1 - Kentucky - $342,607,000
2 – Louisville - $320,112,000
3 – Indiana - $277,834,000
4 – Duke - $190,266,000
5 – Kansas - $181,447,000
6 – Wisconsin - $178,896,000
7 - Ohio State - $177,892,000
8 – Maryland - $154,629,000
9 – Syracuse - $153,942,000
10 - North Carolina - $143,015,000

2017 College Football Value Rankings - Prof. Ryan Brewster, Wall Street Journal - September 21, 2017

1 - Ohio State - $1,510,482,000
2 - Texas - $1,243,124,000
3 – Oklahoma - $1,001,967,000
4 – Alabama - $930,001,000
5 - LSU - $910,927,000
6 – Michigan -$892,951,000
7 - Notre Dame - $856,938,000
8 – Georgia - $822,310,000
9 – Tennessee - $745,640,000
10 – Auburn - $724,191,000

(4) With a few notable exceptions, the P5 conference schools are primarily huge state-funded universities who have nothing in common with the all-private (and 90% Catholic) Big East schools. The Big East does not sponsor football. The P5 conferences view the Big East as a minor pain in the ass, because they keep signing college basketball players that P5 conference schools would like to have, but that doesn’t really matter, because football is king.

(5) The P5 conference schools can use their football revenue to subsidize the salaries of their 15 basketball players. The Big East cannot.

Please accept that I am a genuine Big East fan, and I am not making this post to antagonize or annoy any Big East fans. But if you look at the situation from the perspective of a P5 conference school, there is absolutely no reason to include the Big East in their “new athletic association”.

[UD Flyer Fanatic]

kmacker, I think (hope?) your on to something and I agree. If the big football schools end up signing quasi-students in name only to business contracts I hope the business model blows up in their faces. Who's really interested in seeing the Penn State paid starting 5?

I don't think the BE is dirty in this, perhaps the occasional rogue coach desperate for success. Even a public school like Arizona was likely not aware of Miller's intent. I'm curious how the transaction would work? Miller gets paid 4 Million a year (just to say) and he digs into his pocket to come up with the $100K? It certainly would be a good investment I guess. If he's spending the school's $$ how does he explain the accounting during an audit?

2 other rambling points- While I really do not like the school 45 mins to our south , I just cannot imagine their current head coach being dirty in this. I think he's a class act- though a character flaw being a part of that program . Finally (and I do not think this is the case) call me pissed if my school hasn't been able to get thru to the next level due to our friendly competitors buying players.

[EMT]

.
But this is not all bad news for the Big East, who will permanently become the best basketball conference in the NCAA. Five Big East teams in the Elite 8 and three Big East teams in the Final Four could become the norm, as well as BE schools winning the NCAA Basketball Tournament more often than not.

Yeah, except for two things:

1) In that instance, the NCAA Tournament becomes less relevant than the NIT is now
2) There's a decent chance we could go with them, especially if they need enough teams to fill out their scheduling. There's currently only what, 65 teams in all of the major football conferences?

How about the biggest issue of all: good luck to "the 65" as CBS tries to figure out how to monetize that deal.

65 teams... about 1/2 with a losing record.

TV loses all the human interest stories in the 1st two rounds...

Sign me up!

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

.
Jay Bilas insinuates college football just as corrupt as college basketball – SEC Country – February 23, 2018

So far, the investigation has been contained to college athletics and has focused on the relationship between players and agents and shoe companies.

But ESPN’s Jay Bilas says college football is just as dirty.

“We’ve had this for a long, long time and if people don’t think this is going on in football right now they’re either painfully naive or willfully blind,” Bilas said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I don’t know any reasonable person that would sit here and tell you that basketball is corrupt but football is pure as the driven snow, selling Girl Scout cookies and helping little old ladies across the street.”

Bilas might have a point. Several top football programs have been cited for recruiting and academic violations in recent memory (USC, Ole Miss and North Carolina, to name a few) but that’s somewhat beside the point. The investigation at hand involves whether college basketball programs broke the law — not whether football programs broke NCAA rules.

[Savannah Jay]

.
Jay Bilas insinuates college football just as corrupt as college basketball – SEC Country – February 23, 2018

So far, the investigation has been contained to college athletics and has focused on the relationship between players and agents and shoe companies.

But ESPN’s Jay Bilas says college football is just as dirty.

“We’ve had this for a long, long time and if people don’t think this is going on in football right now they’re either painfully naive or willfully blind,” Bilas said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I don’t know any reasonable person that would sit here and tell you that basketball is corrupt but football is pure as the driven snow, selling Girl Scout cookies and helping little old ladies across the street.”

Bilas might have a point. Several top football programs have been cited for recruiting and academic violations in recent memory (USC, Ole Miss and North Carolina, to name a few) but that’s somewhat beside the point. The investigation at hand involves whether college basketball programs broke the law — not whether football programs broke NCAA rules.

Isn't Bilas stating the obvious? For starters, there have been plenty of instances where schools/players have been caught, most notably SMU. But when the story broke about players' parents potentially getting cash or benefits, I immediately thought of Cam Newton. His Dad literally shopped his services. Dad told Mississippi State that it would take $100,000 to $180,000 to get his son to transfer to MSU. Of course, when he ended up at Auburn the talk in SEC-land was that they paid more than $180k. Of course, nothing was ever proven relative to Cam getting cash, so they win the natty, the Heisman, and no sanctions.

There are plenty of examples of football schools getting sanctions for the kind of stuff being reported about basketball now...the only real difference that I see is college basketball has a higher level of AAU coaches and agent involvement. I believe this is because, with fewer athletes on each team making a bigger impact on a game's outcome, it's easier to digest which ones will ultimately be NBA players.

[BEhomer]

P5 breakup and paying the athletes wont solve the problem. there will always be schools looking to gain advantage by paying over the agreed upon limit. and without stiff regulation (from which they are running away), it will truly be a free agent bidding war between schools. so limited public interest in the tourney (which equals less revenue) and the cost of operation sky rocketing, you do the math.