What will the story be 30 years from now?

[billybud]

LOL guys.

I AM 68. A three trip night is heaven.

Stuff does change....look at where we were pre 1984. The NCAA regulated TV broadcasting of football games until that 1984 Supreme Court decision. Since that decision, the number of games televised has zoomed upward, the amounts of money involved have multiplied many fold....and studies have stated that the move ultimately favored "power football" teams.

Where were we in 1984?

BYU was the national champ...without playing a final AP ranked teams (they beat a five loss Michigan in the bowl to give the Wolverines their 6th loss).

Washington finished #2 and Boston College finished #5 and no SEC team finished in the Top 10....

 

[FriarJ]

30 years from now Football is about as popular as boxing is today.

That is an interesting comment. I too think college football is in trouble. With so many HS's not being able to field teams because parents not letting their son's play. Short of new helmet technology or rules changes I think the bubble will eventually pop. It appears the thing involving parents not wanting kids to play fall completely along socio-economic lines which is a whole other can of worms.

 

[uconndogs]

Folks think I'm crazy when I mention this, but I do think football could be in big trouble. The concussion is huge and no helmet will take away that risk to any significant degree.

 

[CL82]

Folks think I'm crazy when I mention this, but I do think football could be in big trouble. The concussion is huge and no helmet will take away that risk to any significant degree.

I know it's not what you meant, but I agree that "no helmet will take away that risk to (a) significant degree." Go back to soft helmets so that players get tactile feedback from risky behavior. Maybe then we see kids actually go back to proper (wrap em up and knock em down) technique intead of making themselves a human projectile.

 

[RMS25CT]

I know it's not what you meant, but I agree that "no helmet will take away that risk to (a) significant degree." Go back to soft helmets so that players get tactile feedback from risky behavior. Maybe then we see kids actually go back to proper (wrap em up and knock em down) technique intead of making themselves a human projectile.

If you want to maintain the safety of a hard shell helmet but incentivize safer behavior just remove the face mask. It may not eliminate all aggressive behavior but I have to believe it would result a very significant change in tackling behavior.

 

[Adios]

They have concussions in hockey, too. Think hockey is going to die? Really? People used to die playing football. It was almost outlawed. Where is it now in popularity?

 

[uconndogs]

I think it's well within the realm of possibility that in the next couple of decades US football looks very much like rugby. No hard head gear with similar tackling restrictions.

Knowing what I know today, I would have discouraged my son from playing HS football and would have ignored the youth football tryouts in favor of soccer or something else......and I don't care for soccer. I doubt I am the only parent that feels this way.

 

[Durks07]

What will the news be 30 years from now?

NCAA terminates it's 30 year old investigation of UNC due to the fact that it happened 30 years ago and we should all let bygones be bygones.

Don't forget the 5 year tournament/bowl ban for Uconn because, well, someone has got to pay for what happened.

 

[CL82]

If you want to maintain the safety of a hard shell helmet but incentivize safer behavior just remove the face mask. It may not eliminate all aggressive behavior but I have to believe it would result a very significant change in tackling behavior.

I've heard that too and I think it is a step in the right direction. But, and I'm not an MD, I think concussions are more typically a result of sudden deceleration rather than skull trauma. The hard shell maybe less important that one would think a first glance.

 

[CL82]

Don't forget the 5 year tournament/bowl ban for Uconn because, well, someone has got to pay for what happened.

Goes without saying.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

When watching Ali/Frazier/Foreman who would have thought 30-40 years later boxing would lose the popularity (ratings). It was the greedy promoters (see P5 commissioners) that destroyed the sport

Boxing hasn't lost popularity. It has lost star power. People often say Boxing is dead, yet Mayweather or Pac-Man dominate pay-per-view sales. Give the public a fighter or 3 they car about and the money flows. Boxing s problem is the athletes who could fill that role are playing football or basketball.

Projecting the future of college sports is more about what television will be 30 years from now. I agree with Frank. However, I believe television as we know it is dying. The idea of have 5 or 6 people in a room watching one TV us virtually on life support now. Can you imagine what "watching something" will look like in 2045?

 

[CL82]

I think it's well within the realm of possibility that in the next couple of decades US football looks very much like rugby. No hard head gear with similar tackling restrictions.

Knowing what I know today, I would have discouraged my son from playing HS football and would have ignored the youth football tryouts in favor of soccer or something else.and I don't care for soccer. I doubt I am the only parent that feels this way.

After becoming involved with soccer for my kids, I've come to appreciate the game to the point that I watch games now without a rooting interest. There's a lot of subtlety to it that I think is lost on casual fans.

I agree that football could be tweaked a bit but sport is inherently risky. My son has been drilled in the head with a soccer ball and plunked on the helmet in baseball plenty of times. He had a teammate who maxed out on concussions. (Great kid btw. He was a good goalie and just hysterical when he was the bench. With sports out the picture, he drifted into theater and ended up doing a few Broadway plays while in HS. He's now attending Harvard.) My daughter's HS BBall team has a kid who is one concussion away from shutting down and another whose missing two weeks due to a concussion (and there probably had been more than one.)

 

[pj]

Soccer players get brain injuries from heading the ball. It's not unique to football.

 

[Calamitous]

The ACC was more interesting before the first raid. The Big East was great at 16... but was better at 9. Nebraska gets paid in the Big 10 - but they are more interesting playing Oklahoma and Colorado than they are playing Minnesota and Michigan State.

The BTN rakes in cash today, but in the long term does Maryland really make any sense playing Iowa instead of Virginia.

Does the P5 cash grab work out
in the end if the cable model collapses? Why would Michigan want Rutgers in their league if the Big Ten needs develop a direct to consumer model?

I love the idea of conference contraction. 14 or more schools per conference is just too diluted. I'd love to see (30 years from now if I'm alive), the contraction of the B1G, ACC and SEC back down to 12 teams or fewer. It would be great to see a new 10-team Eastern Conference created with some ACC schools, AAC schools, WVU and some B1G schools. I'd like to see a revised Big XII similar to today's minus WVU. I'd also like to see the MWC on equal footing with the other P5s.

30 years seems like a long time, but it wouldn't surprise me to see contraction.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Soccer players get brain injuries from heading the ball. It's not unique to football.

Waaay OT: For obvious reasons, kids and adults get head injuries, brain included, more frequently due to knocking heads or hitting elbows, shoulders, knees, or even feet than from balls.

 

[pj]

The key to breaking cable is to have competing providers of Internet access. As long as there's a huge capital cost to wiring up homes so that only one provider is there, and as long as they are free to control product and price (this is what Net Neutrality was about, stripping them of this freedom), they will bundle content because that is the revenue-maximizing approach, and regulators will let them since they need the revenue to pay for the capital costs.

But if there is cheap internet access, and this was the point of Google WiFi, then consumers can be pulled away with cheaper a la carte models.

So you're really making predictions about the economics of internet access when you predict an end to bundling which is what makes cable networks so lucrative.

Maybe in 30 years the Internet infrastructure will be cheap, but that's not obvious.

 

[pj]

Waaay OT: For obvious reasons, kids and adults get head injuries, brain included, more frequently due to knocking heads or hitting elbows, shoulders, knees, or even feet than from balls.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/GeneralNeurology/35928

 

[CTBasketball]

One of our best hopes for conference realignment is that an enemy nation launches an EMP strike over the contintental United States, thus destroying the power grid and all electronics. Then and only then will college sports resort to regional conferences, where basketball will be played outside and teams will travel via horse-drawn carriage or steamboat.

Imagine a conference with UConn, BC, Providence, Syracuse, St. Johns, Georgetown, Maryland, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Penn State. All accessible by carriage. Games played on Saturdays in the night. Cold, but doable.

 

[Calamitous]

One of our best hopes for conference realignment is that an enemy nation launches an EMP strike over the contintental United States, thus destroying the power grid and all electronics. Then and only then will college sports resort to regional conferences, where basketball will be played outside and teams will travel via horse-drawn carriage or steamboat.

Imagine a conference with UConn, BC, Providence, Syracuse, St. Johns, Georgetown, Maryland, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Penn State. All accessible by carriage. Games played on Saturdays in the night. Cold, but doable.

Georgetown and Maryland might be too far away. Philly, State College and Syracuse will be special multi-day trips with stops for supplies in Trenton or Albany depending which direction you are traveling. Maybe replace GTown and UMCP with Army and Rutgers.

Some other regional conferences along the east coast when the EMP strike occurs....

UF, Miami, USF, UCF, FSU, Fla Int, Fla Atlantic, UGa, GT and Ga Southern

Clemson, USC-e, Furman, ECU, App St, UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake and UNC Charlotte

ODU, UVa, VT, JMU, WVU, Marshall, UMCP, Navy, Temple and Pitt

All the football teams will wear leather helmets, basketball will get rid of the shot clock and 3-point line and the under-hand free throw will be back. It's difficult to type all of this with my straight-jacket.

 

[billybud]

We could go back to 1899...where a football team from the south had the greatest road trip on the records...

The "Iron Men" , as they became known, were one of the south's strongest football programs and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship...12-0.

The Iron Men (with just 13 players) went on a six day road trip by train and shut out Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU, and Ole Miss...and on the 7th day, they rested.

 

[Ldandy]

One of our best hopes for conference realignment is that an enemy nation launches an EMP strike over the contintental United States, thus destroying the power grid and all electronics. Then and only then will college sports resort to regional conferences, where basketball will be played outside and teams will travel via horse-drawn carriage or steamboat.

Imagine a conference with UConn, BC, Providence, Syracuse, St. Johns, Georgetown, Maryland, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Penn State. All accessible by carriage. Games played on Saturdays in the night. Cold, but doable.

If this was the potential outcome of an EMP strike, sign me up for a nuclear blast instead.

 

[Ha Who]

One of our best hopes for conference realignment is that an enemy nation launches an EMP strike over the contintental United States, thus destroying the power grid and all electronics. Then and only then will college sports resort to regional conferences, where basketball will be played outside and teams will travel via horse-drawn carriage or steamboat.

Imagine a conference with UConn, BC, Providence, Syracuse, St. Johns, Georgetown, Maryland, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Penn State. All accessible by carriage. Games played on Saturdays in the night. Cold, but doable.

I'm Going to start seeing Hannah Davis

 

[B1GOSU]

Regarding contraction, do you really believe any B1G school would ever leave the B1G? Same with the SEC. Those schools aren't going anywhere.

 

[Calamitous]

Regarding contraction, do you really believe any B1G school would ever leave the B1G? Same with the SEC. Those schools aren't going anywhere.

Schools have left the SEC before, albeit quite some time ago. Have any schools ever left the B1G besides Chicago? Honest question.... I really can't think of any.

You may be right on no one leaving the B1G, but I could see the SEC lose Mizzou and Arkansas if some other morph of the SWC/Big 8/Big XII were created many years down the road.

You're right, it probably would never happen, But I liked the B1G when it really was the Big Ten, and the ACC when it had 8 schools before adding FSU. I really wish we could go back in time and created a then new Eastern Athletic Conference with Miami, FSU, USC-e, ECU, VT, WVU, PSU, Rutgers, Syracuse and then made room for UConn later when they stepped up to BCS level football. My only beef is that only 5 of those are land grant schools, but at least FSU, USC-e and ECU are larger state schools.

 

[pj]

Schools have left the SEC before, albeit quite some time ago. Have any schools ever left the B1G besides Chicago? Honest question.... I really can't think of any.

You may be right on no one leaving the B1G, but I could see the SEC lose Mizzou and Arkansas if some other morph of the SWC/Big 8/Big XII were created many years down the road.

You're right, it probably would never happen, But I liked the B1G when it really was the Big Ten, and the ACC when it had 8 schools before adding FSU. I really wish we could go back in time and created a then new Eastern Athletic Conference with Miami, FSU, USC-e, ECU, VT, WVU, PSU, Rutgers, Syracuse and then made room for UConn later when they stepped up to BCS level football. My only beef is that only 5 of those are land grant schools, but at least FSU, USC-e and ECU are larger state schools.

Take away ECU and add BC and UConn and you have a nice 10-team conference. But you'd have to think FSU would still jump to ACC which would be looking for a Florida presence, and USC would still go to the SEC. I don't see that lineup as stable.

A northeastern conference with BC, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, PSU, Pitt, WVU, Va Tech, Cincy, Louisville would be more stable. And it actually could have happened, if Penn State had been brought into the Big East.

 

[Seaa Blue]

have any schools ever left the B1G besides Chicago?

Michigan took a break 1908-1917.

 

[Calamitous]

Take away ECU and add BC and UConn and you have a nice 10-team conference. But you'd have to think FSU would still jump to ACC which would be looking for a Florida presence, and USC would still go to the SEC. I don't see that lineup as stable.

A northeastern conference with BC, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, PSU, Pitt, WVU, Va Tech, Cincy, Louisville would be more stable. And it actually could have happened, if Penn State had been brought into the Big East.

Oh, I thought I had UConn in my list as #10 when they bumped up to FBS in the early 2000s. Your list is good except for Louisville. Now that they're in the ACC, I feel like I need to look over my shoulder again.

 

[billybud]

I had no idea of what schools were land grant and which were not...surprised me to find that Michigan was not..nor South Carolina...Michigan State and Clemson are...Alabama is not, Auburn is..Oregon is not, Oregon State is...Oklahoma is not, OK State is...

 

[storrsroars]

30 years from now there won't be colleges or universities as we currently know them. So there won't be college sports as we know them. Simple as that.

Reasons are aplenty and they're pretty obvious:
1. Rising education debt and inability to pay off said debt.
2. Irrelevance (real or perceived) of traditional curricula.
3. Availability and affordability of on-demand, pay-as-you-go, personally-customized learning programs.
4. The nature of "one career path for life" will have mostly disappeared, with few exceptions (e.g. medicine).
5. There will no longer be a need for physically "attending" a university. So there will no longer be an impetus to use sports to attract students to a campus. "Collegiate" sports will cease to exist, replaced by organizations that offer a career path to those who wish to participate, and will sponsor those kids and teams. Think something like AAU on steroids.

So, enjoy college football while it lasts. It's not going to last that much longer.

 

[frankthetank]

30 years from now there won't be colleges or universities as we currently know them. So there won't be college sports as we know them. Simple as that.

Reasons are aplenty and they're pretty obvious:
1. Rising education debt and inability to pay off said debt.
2. Irrelevance (real or perceived) of traditional curricula.
3. Availability and affordability of on-demand, pay-as-you-go, personally-customized learning programs.
4. The nature of "one career path for life" will have mostly disappeared, with few exceptions (e.g. medicine).
5. There will no longer be a need for physically "attending" a university. So there will no longer be an impetus to use sports to attract students to a campus. "Collegiate" sports will cease to exist, replaced by organizations that offer a career path to those who wish to participate, and will sponsor those kids and teams. Think something like AAU on steroids.

So, enjoy college football while it lasts. It's not going to last that much longer.

I know that it seems to be fashionable to turn college credits into fungible widgets that can be consumed anywhere these days, but this makes the mistake that people and businesses consider all colleges to be equal. Much of the business world has become *more* snobby on educational credentials these days. The company that I work for doesn't care that you can get the same substance from an Intro to Microeconomics class whether it's taken at a top tier school, community college or online course. The "brand" of graduating from a top tier school is the selling point as opposed to vocational training - we want people with the combination of intelligence and work ethic that comes from getting a degree from a top tier school.

The very worst offenders of overloading students with debt are NOT traditional universities. Instead, they are the online college credit mills (you can't even call them "diploma mills" since so few people graduate) like the University of Phoenix that charge private school tuition prices for a substandard educational experience. What's even worse is that affluent and educated know this, so they're more competitive about steering their own children to top tier schools than ever. You don't see wealthy people trumpeting the greatness of online education - they're ensuring that their kids go to the schools that give them the best shot at upper income jobs, so the income cycle continues. If you think power centers like Wall Street, Silicon Valley and DC will suddenly start becoming *less* snobby on *where* you went to school, I don't know what to tell you. Meanwhile, the people attending the University of Phoenix are disproportionately the ones that can least afford it, so they're saddled with insane debt without even graduating in most instances.

Too many people have the perception that "online" means "cheaper". That clearly isn't the case (especially if you don't ever graduate).