The Rest of College Football

[Jeff Buchanan]

Jay Hopson resigned as Memphis' DC today. They gave up 648 yards against Arkansas State on Saturday.

No need for me to editorialize.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Atlantic with a dead-on annhilation of the NCAA. Well worth the read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...sports/8643/1/

Took me over an hour to read this exhaustive piece.

Worth every minute of it.

With all the potential for the NCAA to get literally blown out of the water in the next 3 or 4 years, it is not surprising to me that the major conferences are maneuvering to reorganize.

Gives one a greatly expanded perspective on the undercurrents behind the reorganization efforts. Besides the TV contracts, I suspect what is about to go down in the courts that will make the NCAA powerless and without reason for their continued existence (a good thing) is going to be a factor in how college sports are governed and what institutions will arise to govern them.

Exciting times.

[lineygoblue]

But will it be just for football, or all college sports?

[WM Wolverine]

With the possible death of the Big XII, what happens to all of the Big XII bowl tie-ins? Utter chaos? Big XII currently has a tie-in to:

*Fiesta Bowl, Cotton, Alamo Bowl, Insight, Holiday, Texas & Pinstripe Bowls...

Obviously with the possible death of the Big XII, lots of things could potentially change (playoff) but in most scenarios I see most all the bowls staying around much as they are. The tie-ins however could change dramatically, I'd assume most conferences would try and keep the tie-ins to bowls that play the Big XII and the contracts for most of these bowls (that were recently signed a year ago or so) end in 2013.

[Jeff Buchanan]

But will it be just for football, or all college sports?

I'd like to hear talent's take on this but, the case that is winding its way through the courts now is challenging the long standing practice of the NCAA that requires athletes to give up their property rights in perpetuity then claiming, when challenged in court, that the athlete has no property rights because he has nothing to give away as an amateur athlete (student athlete).

This is not going to stand. Its absurd. The net result will be to restore the right of student athletes to a share of what is made off of them by their respective universities. It is seismic in impact .... across all sports and is going to change the face of college sports when it goes down.

There seems to be the prevailing view that the NCAA will cave - they cannot defend their position in a challenge of this nature which has never been brought quite like it is being brought before. It is completely unpredictable what powers they will retain if they cave or come to some sort of settlement but the relationship between member institutions and the NCCA is going to change in rather large ways. How those changes pan out is anyone's guess.

[iam416]

First, it is a really long piece, but it's a good read. I knew most of the pre-1950 stuff, but I wasn't fully aware of how the NCAA ginned their way into relevance.

Liney's question is an extremely good one and raises a real tension. I think the power conferences would (and could), in the long-term, pry March Madness from the NCAA. The problem with that, though, is that the NCAA is dependent on those revenues for its existence. And if the NCAA withers, who will sponsor 25 or so non-revenue championships? I guess the power conferences could great their own, very small, organization to run those events.

As to Jeff's question on athletes owning their likeness. I think the result ought to be that they're entitled to proceeds . But, it's a tougher question. The NFL owns all of those films (which mostly what the NCAA sells) and other licensing stuff. But the players get paid. Of course, there's an argument that the "student-athletes" get compensated, too, with free education. I wish I had a better answer, but it touches on areas of law that I'm not too familiar with. But, I do agree that the NCAA generally finds itself on precarious legal footing any time it sets foot in a courtroom because of its monopoly-esque nature.

One of the most interesting things about the article is the way the NCAA grabbed power. I knew that CFB players were almost uniformly paid pre-1940, but I didn't know that, e.g., Pitt underclassmen went on strike b/c they weren't getting paid as much as upperclassmen! The NCAA's stunning ability to grab authority--where they had absolutely none--based on their "student-athlete" ploy and glorified notions of amatuerism is amazing. And then, to have all the schools cede TV rights to them for 30 years -- truly stunning. Thank god for the CFA.

And the above gets to the NCAA's real problem. They are useful so long as we buy their story about "protecting student-athletes" and maintaining "amateuism" and as long as we care that they do that. But the notion of amateurism is morally neutral. That is to say, without the rule in place, there's zero reason to care if someone gives an athletes $10 or $100K (unlike, obviously, murder). But the NCAA needs to champion this as some morally superior notion to justify its very existence. So you get these shit rulings on player eligibiity (from AJ Green to the Okie State WR to, yes, the Tat-5 to, hell, Reggie Bush). Some are viewed with more crediblity (Bush) than others (Green, tats). But every time they do this, they call into question the validity of amateurism -- and I can tell you, I think it's losing ground in a big way.

So I see the NCAA confronted with this: they have to enforce these rules to remain necessary, but every time they enforce them, especially in a trivial way, they undercut the very notion they've relied on to justify their existence. Emmert probably appreciates this, and that's why he's probably very much on board for re-writing the rulebook down to a set of rules the public is at least willing to accept as justified.

That's my take. As always, your mileage may vary. But it's a good article. Worth the time to read it.

[Hannibal]

I read the Atlantic article -- okay, I guess. It's got a lot of the same old tired arguments about why players should be paid. Doesn't address the fact that they already are. It idiotically refers to the athletes as "unpaid labor" when the full ride scholarships that athletes receive for some universities is worth more than the after-tax pay of lots if not most first year college graduates. If the degree that they earn ends up being worthless, then that is the athletes' fault entirely. It makes vague statements about how bad the big money is for the sport, but fails to mention that athletic departments are non-profit entities that funnel a lot of that big money back into sports and to other athletes. When I see something nowadays talking about this topic I have trouble digesting it if the author will not at least concede these points.

Also, I keep reading about how video games use players' likenesses. Am I missing something? I have played NCAA football lots and I haven't seen a single player likeness. The only thing that they match up is the race.

To me, the big money problem is not TV contracts or video games. It's the ridiculous sums of money that boosters are willing to pay athletes to keep them happy. Seeing their favorite team win is so important that guys like Nevin Shapiro wil spend millions doing it. And I'll bet he's not alone. Lots of people have more money than self-esteem. People want to see their teams win and they will pay big money to do it. And this trend seems to be growing. As our lifestyle turns increasingly from needs to wants, we have more money and spare time to spend on sports. I think that this is the main reason why just about every sport's revenue has exploded over the past 30 years. It is impossible to make this demand go away. I think that it can be policed somewhat, but maybe we should just accept it.

I don't think that paying players is an unreasonable position in and of itself. What bothers me today is not the fact that some athletes get cash. What bothers me is that the playing field is not level. Some programs take the rules seriously. Some do not. The programs that do not have a huge competitive advantage over the ones that do. I am starting to come to the conclusion that the massive advantage that the SEC has in CF nowadays is due to differences in cultures and attitudes towards cheating. Maybe it's time that we ditch amateur athletics (or what some people would say is the illusion of amateur athletics) and accept our favorite sport for what it is. I am not in favor of it, but it wouldn't be the end of the world either. This superconference thing worries me more than that. I do truly believe that this is the biggest threat to the quality of college football in our lifetimes.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think there was some over dramatization of the "unpaid labor" thing ..... I did, however, agree with the characterization of the dual entities that are the NCAA and its member institutions as colonialists.

The point of the unpaid labor stuff was to point out the several cases that have come before the courts that have challenged a specific college program when it denied workman's compensation claims for an injured player; the winning argument based on the claim the NCAA advanced that college athletes are not workers despite the fact that they meet just about every criteria that they are workers under the Workman's Comp act besides paying taxes ..... and it was pointed out in one case that if athletes paid only a small amount of taxes on the scholarship money they receive that is all they would have to do to meet every criteria under the Workman's Comp act.

You're right where I am in all of this. I don't want to pay college athletes. But when I read the horror stories that absolutely indict the NCAA as ruthlessly protective of the huge amount of power they have over the lives of student athletes, the end game of that power to keep their dirty hands filled with cash (despite what they claim they do in protecting the amateur status of these athletes), has severed me, as the author noted happened to him in doing this piece, from any previously held views that paying college athletes would bring the end of college sports. It wouldn't. What it would do is castrate the NCAA, turn it on its ear, and I am all in favor of that.

[entropy]

Florida's new uniforms

[Jamie H]

I would laugh, but after what I've seen this season, I'm not sure that is a joke.

[iam416]

I agree, Hanni, that the article falls a bit short on the paid/unpaid stuff. What I thought was interesting was the historical rise of the NCAA and the dilemmas which challenge their authority presently.

I also thought the FSU shenanigans were amazing. I never really read much about that -- just sort of took things at face value as reported. I think FSU got totally asshosed by the NCAA now.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Latest rumor du jour: Syracuse and Pitt have applied to join the ACC

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6980644/pitt-syracuse-apply-join-acc-ranks-source-says

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Big10 may well decide that 12 is fine and there's no need to expand any further...however, if these other conference do blow up to 14 or 16, we are going to be left with poor options 5-10 years down the road if we change our minds.

[Dr. Strangelove]

ACC also increases its buyout from $13 million to $20 million

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/29051/acc-received-applications-buyout-increased-exponentially

[Dr. Strangelove]

BE Official says it's likely both schools are gone

http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/32035225