On Televised College Football - and primetime.

[Carl Spackler]

For the esteemed Business lawyer..:I started writing this in response to your comments about being on tv at noon vs. weeknights....etc.

In all seriousness,, pay attention. I just spent a few minutes trying to find something, and I got it. It's a slow moving website, but the entire text is here.maybe somebody else can find a better, faster link, but it's old stuff.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...028584&page=root&view=image&size=100&orient=0

1984. Testimony before the United States House of Representative Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce ...regarding TElevised College Football.

Look at that list of people that testified that day - and this was what was all going on while the Oklahoma Board of Regents anti trust case against the NCAA was in the supreme court.

All of it - was about college football primetime on TV. 3:30pm EST on TV. It's always been saturday afternoons. FOr well over a 120 years now. SAturday night has crept it's way in on top of it, as more and more games have been televised in the past 25 years.

Look at this list of people that testified that day.

Nienas, Neil Pilson (CBS), Uconn's own John Toner, Jake Crouthame (Syracuse) Joe Paterno, Eddie Robinson (Grambling), Jim Delaney....(not yet Big 10), Wussler (Turner Broadcasting), Watson (NBC) , etc.

"College football is a uniquely American game. It was originated by the colleges (in Connecticut - I added that), it is one of our Nation's great traditions. College football has been part of the fabric of our society for more than 100 years. It is a unique, demanding game for young people to play, and the more colleges that sponsor the sport, the people play the game. Until recently (Okla v. NCAA - I added that), it was never conceived as a money making tool for college administrators. who unable to raise money through their legislature, or through their alumni, turned to football teams to build libraries, and generate dollars. My dismay, stems from the fact that there is no one now, looking after the welfare of college football as a whole. " - John Toner

THere's a LOT of history, and tradition in Connecticut around football. TOner's testimony is in section 2.

It's about ducking time that the big east conference take the bull by the horns and do what's right for college football that's been missing since the 1980s.

 

[Carl Spackler]

For those that are really interested. John Toner's prepared statement full text is in this link starting on page 11. This was about a month after the Supreme Court ruling in Oklahoma Regents. vs. NCAA. Toner was the UConn Athletic Director at the time, and former football coach, for those that might not know.

That former UConn athletic director, was a key player in the circumstances, that have led to ESPN being able to acquire all the rights to college sports broadcasting that they now have. Whatever you want to take that for. The revenue sharing plans for all of college football that Kramer built up with teh BCS in the 1990s, origniated with the plan oultined on page 23 of Toner's prepared statement.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015032028584;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=15;num=11

 

[Carl Spackler]

so glad I found this - read pages 44-49 in that link.

Please - all of you out there that love college football. Need to know your history, if you plan to do anything in the future differently.

"almost inevitably lead to the severe erosion of the conference structure which for many years has been the hallmark of college football"

You want to find the original source of the "super-conference" term? Page 47 - paragraph 1. John Toner. Football coach at UConn. Athletic director at UConn.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Did anybody read Toner's conclusion in that prepared statement? Bueller? Bueller?

Here it is easy to get to and won't take more than two minutes to read.

Section E: The future of college football.
starts at bottom of this page, and the right arrow button at the top right move to the next page.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=mdp.39015032028584;page=root;seq=47;num=43





i think it's pretty ducking profound. Oh well.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Here it is again - even easier - just read: pay attention to the discussion on the difference b/w basketball and football, and how it was presented to the supreme court, and how that entire frigging argument was central to chaos that exists right now in the intercollegiate landscape.

Interested in the football recruiting world? REad this.....

E. The future for college football.
So where do we find ourselves today? For me personally, it is a time of personal sadness, because I am concerned about the welfare of college football, a sport with which I have been personally associated for most of my adult life. Despite what the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia may say, that football is a property right to be used as a business tool to make money
for their universities, it is my view that the vast majority of football-pla/ing members of the NCAA and, indeed, the public-at-
large disagree with that highly commercial perspective.

College football is a uniquely American game. It was originated by the colleges and it is one of our nation's great traditions. People may use the expression "American as apple pie," but I submit to you that college football on Saturday afternoon is as much an American tradition as anything that has persisted in this country, and college football has been a part of the fabric of our society for more than 100 years. It's a unique, demanding game for young people to play and the more colleges that sponsor the sport, the more young people play the game. Until recently, it was never conceived as a money-making tool for college administrators who, unable to raise money through their legislatures or through their alumni, turned to their football teams to build their libraries or to generate general funds. My dismay and sadness stem from the fact that I sense that there is no one now looking after the welfare of college football as a whole.

Television is a unique, powerful tool that dramatically affects sports. The judicial system of the United States may not appreciate that, although Mr. Justice White understands it because he played the game from high school through college and professional football: "[T]he restraints [of the NCAA plan] on Georgia and Oklahoma . . . insure that they confine their programs within the principles of amateurism so that intercollegiate athletics supplement, rather than inhibit, educational achievement."

The plaintiffs and their lawyer contend that college football is just like college basketball, for television purposes, and since there are no national controls in college basketball, we do not need any in college football. The trial court, the 10th Circuit of Appeals and the Supreme Court all accepted or noted that argument. I will not go into the vast distinctions between the two sports other than to say that college football plays 95* of its games on Saturday in open air stadiums, is an expensive sport because of the number of participants, dollar income is much more governing to football than to basketball and the publicity factor in college football television is critical in the recruiting process, regardless of how the money may be divided among the conferences and other organizations. Mr. Justice White appreciated all of that, but the antitrust experts, caught up in the plaintiffs' arguments and the jargon of antitrust business terms and application, ignored the fact that national controls on football television are as essential to keeping a relative balance in college football as' are limits on grants-in-aid, limits on coaching staffs and, for that matter, limits on the number of games institutions may play.

The Supreme Court extolled many of the rules and the activities of the NCAA, but somehow missed the point that unrestricted television on the one hand will give added momentum to prominent institutions to build all winning teams at whatever the cost, in order to maximize the television dollars they can obtain. On the other hand, the decision has turned over to the networks unlimited power to negotiate and obtain college football TV rights and dictate the terms of the plans colleges may develop and -- it has been my experience — the major television networks generally use their power in a most aggressive manner.

I am dismayed and saddened because I feel that college football is in disarray because a minority of institutions believe they should have unlimited opportunity to use their "property" to maximize their profits and, on the other hand, because a small number of television networks that now can manipulate the college football market the way they wish.
One may also inquire in this context whether individual institutions, in their desire to increase the viewer popularity
of their "property right", will not be forced eventually to focus on developing consistent winning percentages and increasingly to attempt to schedule games with other teams which have also demonstrated the capacity to win consistently. If these objectives begin to dominate the game, I suggest,'they will almost inevitably lead to a severe erosion of the conference structure which for many years has been a hallmark of college football.

I think it not unreasonable in these circumstances to visualize the eventual development of some sort of "super- conference" for the titans of the game — a result I am sure the networks would find attractive but one which will redound to the tenet it of only a small minority of NCAA (or indeed CFA) members. There is no doubt that even under the now-voided NCAA television apparatus, we have had a difficult time in attempting to keep the game within the confines of our constitutional purpose — to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program. We confront never-ending battles within our membership to establish reasonable and enforceable academic standards as pre-conditions to participation in athletics, we have been required to increase our enforcement staff from 10 to 38 in the past five years to keep track of and police recruiting violations, the graduation rates for our student-athletes is by any measure unsatisfactory, and the pressure to win tends more and more to dominate the game.

Sadder yet, perhaps, is the fact that with loss of the mandated revenue-sharing aspects of our plan, numerous less prominent institutions with fine football programs are now essentially shut out of any significant participation in the market for television. Nothing in the CFA or Big Ten/Pacific Ten plans makes any provision for them and indeed unless and until Judge Burciaga modifies his order, serious doubt exists as to our own capacity to provide revenue to smaller colleges through the marketing of Division I-AA, II and III championships. It takes no economist to foresee with any accuracy what lies ahead. The networks are now in control of the market, and as would any business enterprise, these networks will seek to sell the most attractive product, commanding the highest prices, at the lowest acquisition cost. Their power in an uncontrolled football television market is already manifest: the CFA and Big Ten/Pacific Ten colleges, comprising most of NCAA Division I-A, have succeeded in selling their "packages" to the networks at prices far below those which they would have realized under the now-voided NCAA plan, or what they could have expected under the NCAA's modified national plan involving the entire Division I-A membership that was developed following the Supreme Court decision.
What also obviously lies ahead, in response to this network power, is an effort among those major institutions seeking to operate football as a business, to aggrandize the value of their product by creating a more attractive product, that is, by recruiting only the most talented athletes to their institution with possibly less than necessary regard for the educational capacity and welfare of those athletes.

Saddest of all to me is the potential impact of this situation on the student-athlete. Although the "new environment"
may redound to the benefit of that handful of college football players destined to become professionals, where does it leave the college player who participates because of his love for the game, and as a part of his overall educational experience? For many, I suggest, it will mean a panorama of diminishing opportunity, as many of those institutions — previously sharing in the revenues from the NCAA plan or enjoying live gate protection because of the plan -- find themselves increasingly unable to make ends meet. And this is not to speak of the thousands of student- athletes, men and women, who participate in non-revenue producing sports and championships funded, at least in part, by football revenues.
Although I find no humor in this situation, I am reminded as I view the now-successful effort to dismantle the NCAA's television controls, of the line made famous by Gertrude Stein: "And when you get there, there isn't any there there."
The "there" that is now upon us is a not promising.

John Toner. July 31, 1984.


Revenue sharing in the playoff system money - is going to be incredibly important - TO ALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL.

 

[CTMike]

Holy crap this is the most epic Spackler thread in existence...

 

[Carl Spackler]

BTW - the SEC, as outlined in a recent post around here that went horribly off track into a Civil war discussion......has become that super-conference for the television networks that Toner predicts in this statement, and most definitely through ESPN, is a major driver of corporate profit, to the detriment of the entire concept of student-athlete.

TIme has proven, that the supreme court screwed up on this one. I'm not a lawyer - I don't know how to change it.

But there is a business lawyer around here.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Holy crap this is the most epic Spackler thread in existence...

Take a minute to read the stuff I wrote. Let it sink in. Checking out now. I haven't read this stuff in a long, long time. But everything you need to know about the current state of affairs of not just UConn, the Big East, of all of college football in general is right there.

The fact that a playoff system, as fragile as it is right now, has been approved to determine a national champion?

The system can be stabilized, but because of the supreme court in 1984, it can't be the NCAA to do it. It's got to come from the universities themselves.

The big east conference, can lead the way.

That's all folks.......(bugs bunny reference)

Gotta go running before my head explodes.