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I think, that a good way to get an idea of what may happen in the future, is to look at a track record of things in the past. I'm very happy with the way things are turning out for UConn. We've got a network of institutions from coast to coast now, that are all like minded, in the largest athletic conference in the country.
The most important thing at this point in time, (beyond our own interests) is the revenue sharing agreement that is to come along with the new college football division 1-A 4 team playoff.
I expect that our new conference leader, is going to make that a very big priority, for all of college athletics, once the immediate business is done for the Big East conference.
Read on - and learn from the past, and the past 25 years of college football, and what the revolution of a new college football playoff system can mean. It can mean stabilization of the intercollegiate landscape, that was rocked by a Supreme Court decision in 1984.
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.
University of Connecticut Athletic Director.
Former University of Connecticut Football Coach
Excerpt from:
TELEVISED COLLEGE FOOTBALL
0 1,079,211
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION
JULY 31, 1984
Serial No. 98-169
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Testimony of:
Crouthamel, John J., director of athletics, Syracuse University
Davison, Fred C., president, University of Georgia
Delany, James E., commissioner, Ohio Valley Conference
Eckart, Hon. Dennis E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio
Hallock, Wiles, former chairman, NCAA Football Television Committee
Neinas, Charles M., executive director, College Football Association
Paterno, Joe, head football coach, Pennsylvania State University
Pilspn, Neal H., executive vice president, CBS Broadcast Group
Robinson, Eddie, director of athletics, Grambling State University
Toner, John L., president, National Collegiate Athletic Association
Watson, Arthur, president, NBC Sports
Wormington, Robert J., vice president, KSHB Television, Kansas City, MO
Wussler, Robert J., executive vice president, Turner Broadcasting System,Inc
Young, Charles E., chancellor, University of California at Los Angeles
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...84&page=root&view=plaintext&size=100&orient=0
The most important thing at this point in time, (beyond our own interests) is the revenue sharing agreement that is to come along with the new college football division 1-A 4 team playoff.
I expect that our new conference leader, is going to make that a very big priority, for all of college athletics, once the immediate business is done for the Big East conference.
Read on - and learn from the past, and the past 25 years of college football, and what the revolution of a new college football playoff system can mean. It can mean stabilization of the intercollegiate landscape, that was rocked by a Supreme Court decision in 1984.
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.
University of Connecticut Athletic Director.
Former University of Connecticut Football Coach
Excerpt from:
TELEVISED COLLEGE FOOTBALL
0 1,079,211
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION
JULY 31, 1984
Serial No. 98-169
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Testimony of:
Crouthamel, John J., director of athletics, Syracuse University
Davison, Fred C., president, University of Georgia
Delany, James E., commissioner, Ohio Valley Conference
Eckart, Hon. Dennis E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio
Hallock, Wiles, former chairman, NCAA Football Television Committee
Neinas, Charles M., executive director, College Football Association
Paterno, Joe, head football coach, Pennsylvania State University
Pilspn, Neal H., executive vice president, CBS Broadcast Group
Robinson, Eddie, director of athletics, Grambling State University
Toner, John L., president, National Collegiate Athletic Association
Watson, Arthur, president, NBC Sports
Wormington, Robert J., vice president, KSHB Television, Kansas City, MO
Wussler, Robert J., executive vice president, Turner Broadcasting System,Inc
Young, Charles E., chancellor, University of California at Los Angeles
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...84&page=root&view=plaintext&size=100&orient=0
