Sportico article on how to fix college football
- Thread starter Obliviax
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Create a minor league football system for athletes that "ain't want to come here to play school", and make college football teams all D-III with the players there simply playing for fun while actually being students and preparing for a career outside of sports. The quality of play will go down, but the school loyalty will remain.
If a sport can't sustain itself why should it exist at the college level?
Do you consider colleges to be charities?
Why should football players enable all other sports to exist instead of getting their fair share of the revenue?
You continue to believe that the players are generating the revenue and the institution fans, alumni, etc have little to do with it.
So here's an idea you might like. The USFL & XFL merge and move to 25 teams. Then they can rent college stadiums and get rid of any direct affiliation with the university.
The UFL (the merged name) isn't college football nor part of the discussion.
The players enable the revenue to exist. Just like in the NFL. They should be getting part of that money and we're seeing that.
Others sports need to figure out a way to drive revenue. Those same fans, alumni, etc aren't supporting them-why?
The original concept of college sports was that athletics were a valuable part of the overall educational experience (the old Greek notion of the healthy mind and healthy body), that they were useful for building community on campus, and helped maintain alumni connections. That concept, while debatable, was the argument for the existence any college sports and there was no expectation that the programs would be massive money makers. The same concept is the justification for high school sports, none of which make money. The massive influx of revenue we now consider normal really didn't start to come about until the mid to late 70s. Prior to that, the availability and size of media contracts were limited - three major networks able to broadcast one or two games per week and the NCAA controlled all of it limiting the number of televised games to protect ticket sales for all schools. The large schools saw the revenue potential of television and formed the CFA in 1977 and took control of TV rights. That and the growth of cable opened up the money flood gates that bring us to where we are today.
The US is not alone in having competitive college athletics, but it is alone or close to it in the use college athletics as a revenue generator and gateway to professional sports. Having a school sports team that doesn't sustain itself isn't seen as an act of charity, it's something the school sees as beneficial to students and the school that carries some cost.
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Did you go to college or just a strap hanger? Why are 4 credits of phys ed required to graduate (at least used to be) from PSU.
The more you post the more you sound like a mich strap hanger, jock strap hanger.
And growth causes things to change, right?
And I agree with your last statement. The schools can then eat the cost without penalizing football players or asking them to support it.
Interesting article and I think McCann is smart.sportico is run by Michael McCann who is one of the leading minds regarding sports law. I've been following him for 15 years. If you want to see where "sports" is going, follow him. I attended a seminar at Harvard many years ago and posted on it. As far as I know, it was the first post on CTE. This was due to what I learned in this seminar (which spent half of its time on CTE). I think my predictions on college football (mostly, the lost civil cases) have been spot on. In this article, he advocates something I've said for two decades: give the kids access to education after their careers are over. They can supplement their college education or get a post-graduate degree. And this would cost the universities next to nothing.
Play College Football, Then Go to College
Imagine if college football players could pursue their studies without having to worry about football. It's possible, one player advocate argues.www.sportico.com
But I have some issues with it.
1) The Coco Gauff comparison isn't a good one because she is not affiliated with any university. I do not begrudge anyone have any job they want, but so long as these teams are representatives of the colleges, they need to be student athletes first.
2) Having the players not be students while playing also violates the above. But how about this proposal:
Players are allowed not to be enrolled (or enrolled for a few credits) during the fall semester. They take the vast majority of their credits during the spring and summer. This should lighten their load during the fall, but still stress them being students.
Also, if we are moving towards a revenue sharing model (which I generally oppose), I'd love to see off the field performance based metrics required to receive those payments. For example:
Revenue share of X so long as you remain eligible
Revenue share of 1.5X if you have more than a 3.25 GPA
Revenue share of 2X if you make Dean's List
and have a portion of that share be held in trust until you successful graduate.
Agreed, and schools can scale back football programs to something that can reasonably be associated with their educational mission and wish the players not looking for a college degree the best of luck in their pursuit of a professional sports career. I get the players side and the belief that they deserve a share of the revenue. I also get that the schools have to act in their best interest and doing what best advances them as an educational entity. That may not be operating a pro football franchise, and any discussions should focus on how operating such a franchise would help the school serve its purpose. A case can be made that the schools got greedy, went down a path they shouldn't have gone, and created something that has them moving into areas they never intended. Continuing down the path is certainly an option, but so is acknowledging the mistake and reversing course.
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I just don't believe it's realistic to think schools will allow the cash cow to be reduced in the name of education
Of course I don't consider colleges to be charities but your proposal is preposterous. You're essentially saying that we should eliminate all college non revenue sports unless the players want to pay for their own coaching, practice facilities, travel expenses, etc. Want to be on the track team? That will be $250k per year.
agreed. college players must take some kind of minimum course load with a legit major while playing.
I'm saying the school needs to find a way to fund it other than strictly football revenue. They can either fund themselves or the University has to figure out if they want to support it moving forward.
It's only a cash cow if the revenues aren't consumed by the programs themselves. When everyone associated with the program gets done taking what they can reasonably contend is their fair share what is going to be left and where will it go? It's not going to non-revenue sports, if there was money for that it would be going to the football players or it wouldn't be unfair, right? Most of the professionalization proposals turn the programs from cash cows into self-licking ice cream cones - the revenue from the football team is folded back into the football team so we can get more money that we can spend on the football team.
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And if football is only funding itself, where is the incentive and roi to put the resources toward it. Not to mention the risk if a recession hits and the new model loses money.
It is not sustainable
After reading all oof the above suggestions, I still believe the better solution is minor league football along with a return to scholar athlete model of the Ivy and Patriot leagues.
I agree. And I believe the larger schools who follow this model will have student athletes who still play at a high level of football. In twenty years it will be a model, kinda like a grand experiment 😀
No, they aren't. Football and basketball players are getting far more perks than other athletes for non-revenue sports. The scholarship value might be the same but the rest of the benefits for the big time sports exceed those received by someone on the swim team for example.
Well, state schools are at least in part government funded. Government programs aren't necessarily supposed to be profitable, this isn't corporate America. Many government services are to offer a publicly beneficial service, such as educating the general population which is an overall societal benefit.
So if it's not supposed to be profitable isn't that more reason for money to go to the players?
Who said there was societal benefit or they care about that? I surely didn't.
Penn State has been "minor league football" for the NFL for decades
The University like the free publicity that comes with it.
Even when Joe was here all we ever were was minor league football with no societal benefit.
Go back to the question you were responding to. The poster said that the schools didn't look always look to making money and did some things for societal benefit. To that you suggested that the lack of need for profit was "more reason for money to go to the players," but didn't address the important aspect of his post about societal benefit. If paying the players doesn't play out as some societal benefit, than you and the other poster are addressing different issues. Personally, I see some educational benefit to student sports and thus societal benefit. If you take away the educational aspect, it's just entertainment, and we have plenty of that without schools getting involved.
The universities certainly like the publicity, but it isn't "free" by any stretch - not in dollars and not in effort. The schools make massive investments with the intent of getting a return on the investment in the form of revenue from the sport, student interest, and alumni engagement that leads to donations for things other than football. There's nothing "free" about any of it.
Your comments on PSU under Paterno are partially correct, but ignore the efforts that he made to ensure that his players received an education - that whole "grand experiment" thing. Kids that weren't interested in getting an education weren't going to do well under Joe and few were even going to pursue it. Sure, some guys showed up with interest in nothing but football, majored in eligibility, and never graduated, but PSU always had very good grad rates. Like most programs, the percentage of players who had NFL careers was very small, and the guys who left with an education to go with their football experience were better of for it. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I don't see Paterno having much interest in college football without an educational aspect. If he wanted to coach pro football, he would have gone to the NFL.
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I took that as him saying the other sports were for "societal benefit" not football which means they shouldn't be worried about the money and were it goes. Do you think football at Penn State (or any other major program) is anything other than a source to fund many different things? Primarily athletics?
You're right. It's not free--it's profitable when discussing football.
Paterno pushed for a lot of what we're seeing today including a larger playoff. I don't pretend everyone that came here to play for Paterno cared about school. Schools was just a means to the end. The "Grand Experiment" IMO was never real. It was just done to get those around the program to accept down years without putting pressure on him. He played it well. Paterno was a great man and a great coach but people tend to make him out to be something he wasn't.
You're certainly welcome to your opinion. I spent a lot of time in the AD in the early 80's and saw it quite differently, but I'm not going to waste your time or mine trying to convince you. Thanks for an interesting discussion - cheers.
Of course there were players who came to PSU who prioritized football over academics. That doesn't mean Paterno didn't stress academics. He was outspoken against "using" players for 4 years of football then have them leave as unproductive members of society. I was lucky enough to be invited into the Lasch Building for a tour about 20 years ago. "Success with honor" was everywhere and we spoke to both players and advisors about academic expectations. That wasn't made up.
25M watched the title game last night with a high of 28M but people think people are just going to stop caring? You're all trying to hard to believe change that you dislike will destroy the sport hoping it stops but those numbers are insane for 2024 TV.
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