FBS Football split proposal could affect BE in many ways

[SJU87]

I hate football with all my heart. I wish I could block all football games on my TV. The sport disgusts me ! It's October and the playoffs and world series is upon us and all the local sport radio is talking nonstop about football. What's the facination listening to them talking about an out of town team ???

[Bill Marsh]

This potentially represents a seismic shift and the implications are massive:

The big issue is paying athletes. And they're not talking about stipends. The numbers they're talking about amount to what anyone would think constitutes a salary. Time magazine did a major story in this recently and they were throwing around very big numbers. I don't know how they do this legally within the Title IX framework, but they were talking about only paying players in revenue sports, which means only a handful of women's basketball programs.

If indeed they achieve the ability to pay players major dollars, I can't envision the NCAA tournament as we have known it surviving. How can programs with true amateurs compete in a tournament with paid ringers?

Without the NCAA tournament as the great equalizer, top caliber players won't ever consider attending schools that don't pay their players. That means that college basketball will be turned up side down.

One thing to consider is whether this new format will include a non-football league like the Big East. However, even if they do, would the Big East presidents ever compromise the mission of their schools to accommodate this kind of approach to amateur athletics. Start with an Ivy League caliber school like Georgetown. I don't know the answer to that question, but it's the question that they will all have to answer. It's not hard to envision a number of them finding it totally unacceptable.

The reason why UConn upgraded football is because they love basketball. 20+ years ago, the AD Lewis Perkins foresaw this kind of thing happening. He said that without football, UConn would not be able to accomplish what it aspired to in basketball. Looks like he was right.

[SJU87]

When they ruin the college game I'm tuning out for good and never watching any sporting event ever again.

[redmen9194]

They will never be allowed to only pay revenue sport athletes. Title IX will never allow such disparate treatment, especially when football rosters are so large compared to all other sports.

[Bill Marsh]

They will never be allowed to only pay revenue sport athletes. Title IX will never allow such disparate treatment, especially when football rosters are so large compared to all other sports.

I would have thought so too,but then I'm not a sports attorney. Apparently that's not the case. Read the attached and/or click on the link at the bottom for the original Time article of 2 weeks ago:

Http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013 ... onize-now/

[redmen9194]

They will never be allowed to only pay revenue sport athletes. Title IX will never allow such disparate treatment, especially when football rosters are so large compared to all other sports.

I would have thought so too,but then I'm not a sports attorney. Apparently that's not the case. Read the attached and/or click on the link at the bottom for the original Time article of 2 weeks ago:

Http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013 ... onize-now/

All that article talks about is the need for players to unionize. Title IX prevents disparate treatment of athletes based on gender and also mandates equal access. So if a University pays its football players and basketball players, it will have to pay everyone. Title IX is federal law that applies to all divisions, all schools, college, high school, middle school, etc. The BCS school may have a lot of power, but not as much as they would need.

[Dave]

All that article talks about is the need for players to unionize. Title IX prevents disparate treatment of athletes based on gender and also mandates equal access. So if a University pays its football players and basketball players, it will have to pay everyone. Title IX is federal law that applies to all divisions, all schools, college, high school, middle school, etc. The BCS school may have a lot of power, but not as much as they would need.

I agree with that completely. Don't know if you saw my post on how this trickles down to women's sports, but because of that I think it sets up for the completely separate division for all sports, not just football. The proposal jumps to that conclusion (separate division for all sports), but does not explain how Title IX gets us there. I have not seen any reporting on this Title IX aspect, matching the 85 stipends on the women's side.

[DumpsterFireA10]

I don't know if the NCAA would go along with that. I realize that the tourney is where they get all their money, but I'm pretty sure there would be very strong legal challenges to overcome in order for the P5 to be able to play under different rules (Georgetown puts out some pretty good lawyers, I hear, and Marquette has the best sports law program in the country). If they keep their other sports under the same rules as the other NCAA schools, then we have a possibility. If not, then we are looking at a scenario where the P5 will have to have a complete brake from the NCAA. In that event it would be necessary to take along several non-football conferences in order to fill out their non-revenue sports, and the Big East is probably the top of that list. Hopefully the college sports bubble bursts before they have a chance to fully go through with this either way. Without the massive influx of tv dollars, this all becomes moot.

Well said. That's exactly why I hate SLU's involvement in the Dumpster Fire so much. If they split, there is no way the Atlantic 10 goes with the bigger schools. If that happens, every school not in the Big Division becomes nationally irrelevant.

You need to relax a bit man. If anything, this will compel the key basketball-only leagues to ally with each other. WCC, MVC, Horizon, A-10, and the Big East will vote with each other and lobby for their interests.

You know I can't do that.

[marquette]

You know I can't do that.

That's why we love you. And no worries, SLU will be joining us before long (let's face it, we belong together).

[Xudash]

871 schools sponsored varsity level Football teams during 2012. NCAA I - FBS accounted for 124 of them. In that category, 14,525 men participated in football. The athletic scholarships limit per school equalled 85; average team size was 117.

We know, with some degree of certainty, that a large portion of these schools do not operate on a positive EBITDA basis, even with the new television money they receive. The truly profitable schools, like Ohio State, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Michigan, etc. make the money they make via large - down right huge - consistently filled stadiums and strong marketing (i.e. apparel sales, etc.) along with their conference distribution, NCAA Unit Money, bowl money, etc.

Now take the 85 number. Assume a salary of $50k per player on average (for giggles). That equates to $4.25 million per year per school. I want to see the look on, say, the Wake Forest's AD when he contemplates that number.

Frankly, I still can't see them wrecking the basketball tournament. I can see them weeding out the conference champion from conferences like the Southeast Northwest Middle School conference comprised of schools most people couldn't pinpoint on a map if their lives depended upon it. But some amount of breadth and David/Goliath flavor had better be a part of it, or it will go stale, which means it will lose some of its economic value.