NCAA proposing new college athletics subdivision rooted in direct athlete compensation

[shizzle787]

100k per basketball player = $1.3M

466 scholarship athletes at UConn, at least half of which have to have $ set aside for them to participate in the new sub-division

466/2 = 233

Subtract the 13 basketball players = 220

Set aside the minimum for these athletes (220*30000) = $6.6M

Add the $1.3M in for the men’s hoops team = $8M total we‘d need per year to participate in this following what you just laid out.

Hope we have some generous donors ready to foot that bill annually. The last time we needed to pay someone $10M in a year we had to file a lawsuit to try to bring the amount owed down.

An extra 8 million to play major college sports is a worthwhile investment.

 

[Greedo]

100k per basketball player = $1.3M

466 scholarship athletes at UConn, at least half of which have to have $ set aside for them to participate in the new sub-division

466/2 = 233

Subtract the 13 basketball players = 220

Set aside the minimum for these athletes (220*30000) = $6.6M

Add the $1.3M in for the men’s hoops team = $8M total we‘d need per year to participate in this following what you just laid out.

Hope we have some generous donors ready to foot that bill annually. The last time we needed to pay someone $10M in a year we had to file a lawsuit to try to bring the amount owed down.

Wouldn't it be even higher because the women's teams need to collectively be making the same amount as the men's teams collectively? So an additional $1.3M would need to be distributed among women's teams as well? I could be misunderstanding this.

 

[Greedo]

An extra 8 million to play major college sports is a worthwhile investment.

Right, but if every SEC and B1G school is dropping $20M on their basketball teams compared to our $1.3M, where does that leave us? Not competing for championships.

 

[Drew]

An extra 8 million to play major college sports is a worthwhile investment.

You and I don’t disagree on that but that doesn’t answer the question of how we’re going to find it annually to participate.

 

[shizzle787]

You and I don’t disagree on that but that doesn’t answer the question of how we’re going to find it annually to participate.

The school will eat it.

 

[Drew]

Wouldn't it be even higher because the women's teams need to collectively be making the same amount as the men's teams collectively? So an additional $1.3M would need to be distributed among women's teams as well? I could be misunderstanding this.

No because the total of $4M needs to match on both sides so that means of the remaining 220 athletes’ $6.7M (excluding the 13 basketball players making $1.3M), $2.7M would be allocated to men and $4M would be allocated to women

 

[Drew]

Right, but if every SEC and B1G school is dropping $20M on their basketball teams compared to our $1.3M, where does that leave us? Not competing for championships.

This is the winning question that nobody wants to address

 

[hoopsfan22]

Since the Big 10 can't win championships, get rid of all the competition...

You know what they say: if you can't beat 'em... kick 'em out.

 

[businesslawyer]

Right, but if every SEC and B1G school is dropping $20M on their basketball teams compared to our $1.3M, where does that leave us? Not competing for championships.

It's going to be more of an issue with women's hoops then men's hoops. In men's hoops, every dollar above the minimum you pay a player is a dollar less you have to spend on football. As much money as the P-whatever is generating, it is being almost all plowed back into football and we haven't been dominated in hoops spending. However, if you pay $200k a year to your QB, that's $200k you have to pay above the minimum to women athletes. And most of that is going to go into women's hoops. If this passes, it's hard to see how anyone will be able to compete with traditional football powers in women's hoops (as bizarre a conclusion as that is).

 

[superjohn]

It's pathetic how all this has played out with the Big 10 and SEC doing everything to destroy college sports. Now a bunch of athletes playing sports nobody cares about, while generating zero dollars and actually losing money for their schools are going to get paid a ton of money in addition to their free college.

 

[CL82]

Hope we have some generous donors ready to foot that bill annually. The last time we needed to pay someone $10M in a year we had to file a lawsuit to try to bring the amount owed down.

True, but that lawsuit had nothing to do with ability to pay.

I haven't looked at the proposal extensively but it appears that the requirement is merely that $30 K per athlete be set aside in trust and how that money is distributed is up to the school. So, in theory, a school could set aside 30,000 per year per student but require that students complete their degree in order to get paid. That would result in forfeitures that would increase the amount of money in this fund. Keep in mind that this 30,000 is a negligible amount of money compared to what high major athletes in revenue sports will receive via NIL. They may not be particularly concerned about a prospective forfeiture if they say leave early to become pros.

 

[CL82]

It's pathetic how all this has played with the Big 10 and SEC doing everything to destroy college sports. Now a bunch of athletes playing sports nobody cares about, while generating zero dollars and actually losing money for their schools are going to get paid a ton of money in addition to their free college.

There isn't a lot of logic to it. The former NCAA president lost control of the thing and now it's spiraling out of control, being largely driven by the P-Star schools looking to phase out the have-nots.

 

[shizzle787]

This is the winning question that nobody wants to address

They are not going to be dropping that on their basketball teams. They aren’t going to pay 1 million per basketball scholarship. That’s ridiculous and it’s not sustainable even for them.

 

[CL82]

It's going to be more of an issue with women's hoops then men's hoops. In men's hoops, every dollar above the minimum you pay a player is a dollar less you have to spend on football. As much money as the P-whatever is generating, it is being almost all plowed back into football and we haven't been dominated in hoops spending. However, if you pay $200k a year to your QB, that's $200k you have to pay above the minimum to women athletes. And most of that is going to go into women's hoops. If this passes, it's hard to see how anyone will be able to compete with traditional football powers in women's hoops (as bizarre a conclusion as that is).

There's a lot of guesses in this, but they aren't unreasonable. Basically every school that participates, which in all likelihood are basically the schools that are successful at revenue sports, will now be able to incentivize athletes in non-revenue sports away from non-participating schools which will in time cause a gap in the level of play between the participating schools in non-participating schools.

Does that sound like a recipe for laying the groundwork for a complete split off to anyone else?

 

[Chin Diesel]

It's pathetic how all this has played out with the Big 10 and SEC doing everything to destroy college sports. Now a bunch of athletes playing sports nobody cares about, while generating zero dollars and actually losing money for their schools are going to get paid a ton of money in addition to their free college.

'Murica!!!!

 

[Drew]

They are not going to be dropping that on their basketball teams. They aren’t going to pay 1 million per basketball scholarship. That’s ridiculous and it’s not sustainable even for them.

A million is not happening (yet). But when the B1G is making $100M in TV money if they allocate 30% of it to players ($30M) you could start saying upwards of $300k+ per hoops player isn’t crazy. Especially if title IX compliance means # of athletes compensated and not $ (today it is # of scholarships not $ of those scholarships).

 

[Drew]

And also… every school determines their own $ allocations. Entire leagues don’t have to allocate money the same way. I bet you the way say Ohio State and Kansas allocate their $ will look drastically different

Plus, you still have the “current” NIL opportunities that will exist on top of this payment from the schools

 

[shizzle787]

A million is not happening (yet). But when the B1G is making $100M in TV money if they allocate 30% of it to players ($30M) you could start saying upwards of $300k+ per hoops player isn’t crazy. Especially if title IX compliance means # of athletes compensated and not $ (today it is # of scholarships not $ of those scholarships).

The more they spend on men’s sports, the more they have to spend on women’s. They will only spend so much. What that number is is anyone’s guess. I expect the Big East schools and Gonzaga, Memphis, etc. to pay their basketball players in line with what P4 schools will spend. The rest of the sports, not so much.

 

[upstater]

This is idiotic in the extreme.

And all the people arguing about giving people their market value have ceased talking about markets.

I might be reading things incorrectly but the $30k athlete minimums are solely for NIL or compensation. This isn't investment per athlete, but payout per athlete.

The vast vast majority of schools can't afford this. We're not talking about cutting coaches pay here anymore. This is $20+m a year. It far outstrips what a cut in coach's pay will save you.

 

[Scrutineer]

If they don't require schools to keep football, and schools start dropping football & women's sports, it's going to be a political nightmare.

Requiring that some athletes get paid when they don't bring any money to the school is so stupid. This whole thing has jumped the shark.

The 'ole dreaded "law of unintended consequences" is front and center with this type of "solution". Jim Thorpe surely must be rolling over in his grave.

This "solution" will do nothing except accelerate the arms race among the top 20 or 30 schools (who believe if they spend enough money they can win a NC), but do nothing for the average athlete, student, fan, and school administration. On the contrary, if this goes through your prediction about chaos and the impact on women's sports will come true.

As the timeshare expert advertises, "this has to end".

 

[CL82]

I might be reading things incorrectly but the $30k athlete minimums are solely for NIL or compensation

I haven't looked at it hard, but I thought this was money coming from the schools versus NIL which is money coming from outside the schools.

 

[upstater]

I haven't looked at it hard, but I thought this was money coming from the schools versus NIL which is money coming from outside the schools.

The article said both.

I don't understand why they can't fund it all with the revenue they make.

For the NCAA to dictate this in such a fashion creates a huge problem for UConn.

UConn is at a $40m deficit already. This adds to it. A lot. While tuition is rising.

If athletes are making $30m per year minimum on average (the distribution can be different, apparently), then that can only mean a huge subsidy from the pocket of average students to athletes.

They've done gone messed the whole thing up.

Go pro, use the revenues you make, don't give any to the university. Make it clean. This arbitrary minimum is destructive and for the birds.

Especially now when they are slashing and burning all over academia. Imagine West Virginia students hearing this news. They shut down Computer Science, English and Mathematics over there. Now they're going to pony up more $$ for sports? Absurd. Cutting the football coach's salary isn't going to make up for this.

 

[HuskyHawk]

It's pathetic how all this has played out with the Big 10 and SEC doing everything to destroy college sports. Now a bunch of athletes playing sports nobody cares about, while generating zero dollars and actually losing money for their schools are going to get paid a ton of money in addition to their free college.

The only rational solution is to do something like this, but just for football. We used to be division 1-AA. In reality, we still are. So are half the FBS schools. Create a new tier above FBS. At the minimum it would be just football and basketball. Applying this to other sports will just lead to schools not sponsoring as many sports, which is a lose - lose for college athletes.

This could force Congress to step in, because it's really pretty dumb.

 

[shizzle787]

The only rational solution is to do something like this, but just for football. We used to be division 1-AA. In reality, we still are. So are half the FBS schools. Create a new tier above FBS. At the minimum it would be just football and basketball. Applying this to other sports will just lead to schools not sponsoring as many sports, which is a lose - lose for college athletes.

This could force Congress to step in, because it's really pretty dumb.

They are creating a new tier for football. That is what this is. You have to opt-in to play 1-A football.

 

[JohnnyJr]

This doesn’t really make much sense, so the NCAA is still gonna control all postseasons except for football but if you’re in this new subdivision you can set your own scholarship limits and transfer rules. Is that only for football or all programs? You’d have some teams in the tournament with more scholarship players and different transfer rules.

 

[freescooter]

I think this is a disaster and I doubt it survives very long. It might be the end of the NCAA. To some extent I agree with superjohn (I know. I’m surprised too). It won’t work.

I also have my doubts about who will or will not opt in. I suspect there will be some surprises on both ends. Within the BIG 10 you have Rutgers and Maryland. 1 drowning in debt. The other prohibited from using state money for athletics. Might they relook stop things? Vanderbilt? BC? Northwestern? How about if you are one of those schools that hasn’t won a league title in a generation? Do you really want a semi-pro team? And if you have a semi-pro team do you really want to have them having to worry about passing World History?

As far as the NEWBIE goes you need to wonder about Georgetown perhaps over academics, but what about schools that have had pretty marginal success over the past 10-15 years? Seton Hall, Butler, DePaul? St John’s?

My sense of this is that 2 leagues will spin off. Maybe a single “super conference” with 20-30 semi-pro affiliate teams. Everyone else goes back to life much closer to what it was 5 years ago.

 

[auror]

I wonder if they can change it to total number of athletes paid by school be the same by gender, not necessarily $ amount.

 

[superjohn]

The only rational solution is to do something like this, but just for football. We used to be division 1-AA. In reality, we still are. So are half the FBS schools. Create a new tier above FBS. At the minimum it would be just football and basketball. Applying this to other sports will just lead to schools not sponsoring as many sports, which is a lose - lose for college athletes.

This could force Congress to step in, because it's really pretty dumb.

Agreed, it's all so ugly and anti-competitive. Big 10 and the SEC have decided they want to destroy college football and be the minor leagues for the NFL and it looks like nobody is going to stop them. They shouldn't be allowed to destroy the rest of college athletics.

 

[CL82]

The article said both.

I don't understand why they can't fund it all with the revenue they make.

For the NCAA to dictate this in such a fashion creates a huge problem for UConn.

UConn is at a $40m deficit already. This adds to it. A lot. While tuition is rising.

If athletes are making $30m per year minimum on average (the distribution can be different, apparently), then that can only mean a huge subsidy from the pocket of average students to athletes.

They've done gone messed the whole thing up.

Go pro, use the revenues you make, don't give any to the university. Make it clean. This arbitrary minimum is destructive and for the birds.

Especially now when they are slashing and burning all over academia. Imagine West Virginia students hearing this news. They shut down Computer Science, English and Mathematics over there. Now they're going to pony up more $$ for sports? Absurd. Cutting the football coach's salary isn't going to make up for this.

The problem is that this is all reactionary by the NCAA to try to hold itself together. It is a Band-Aid at best. Further, they should be honest with their motivations. By suggesting that this minimum amount is for all student athletes they put a "noble" gloss over What this really is, namely, the bigger schools pushing the smaller schools out of the market.

The good news is that smaller schools having the ability to "opt out" will take some of the pressure off them to maintain viable athletics. For many small private schools, athletics may go back to what it originally was, an extracurricular activity that has student support at games.

 

[Scrutineer]

If I'm reading it correctly, this proposal makes Charlie Baker look like a shill for the P4 so they'll let him keep his organization relevant. See SEC Commissioner's threat about the NCAA and their potential for leaving it. Questions follow.

1. Why $30,000 minimum? In whose interests is that? How much are minor league baseball players paid? And they don't get a full scholarship to gain the knowledge and/or skills necessary to be successful in a job.

2. Is the proposal simply designed to kill off schools outside the P4? If they do so they'll miss out on the many kids who are late bloomers who will not get an athletic scholarship because there'll be fewer schools playing particular sports. (Steven Ashworth and Baylor Scheirman are just two examples)

3. Won't the rush to kill off lots of schools for football radically reduce opportunities for women?

4. If you kill football can you join for basketball and/or other sports at that level but sponsor some at a lower level?

My prediction is this won't fly as proposed but, if it does, you can kiss off many fans' interest in college sports.