It would not surprise me if the big pointy-ball programs eventually leave the NCAA within 5 years, and form 2 pro/semi-pro conferences anchored by the SEC & the B10. This would all be made possible by the $$$ waved at them by murdoch and the mouse network. CFB is a more profitable property for the networks, as the networks see their hold on NFL broadcasting is being invaded and eroded by non-traditional media, i.e. amazon, livestreaming... CFB leaving the NCAA will have dire consequences for ALL non-rev programs. Suddenly, 85 male scholarships vanishing into thin air need to be have an equivalent cut on the women's side. I'm sure some big schools are rubbing their hands in glee at the possibility of culling most, if not all, of their non-rev sports.
I do not think so. It is the schools that are subject to Title IX, not the NCAA. If a school has X male scholarships per male athlete, then it must have X female scholarships per female athlete. (That is a bit of an oversimplification, but you get the idea.)
I think it means that the 64 tournament is on borrowed time. I think within 5-10 years (current developments may make it closer to 5 or earlier) D1 will split into 2 across the board. The only caveat being basketball as they won’t want to lose that money. This split, if and when it happens, will actually be a good thing in my opinion on 1 front as it has always been a bit ridiculous that over 300 teams compete for the same national title (Santa Clara’s of the world may disagree). The split would give teams that maybe only dreamed of winning 1 game or reaching a sweet 16 an opportunity to win a Natty. As for Title IX, the P2 (sorry for the joke) schools will have no problem dishing out the cash for womens sports and as @cpthomas said, will still have to. Scholarship limitations are going away at the top level. The Supreme Court and Congress ensured that and we are heading to a world of minimum requirements in D1 not maxes. Players interest in actually playing in games versus wearing the track suit will get put to the test as the P5 may have a huge number of scholarships to work with. You could see things like player #25 or GK #3 being on a full and never seeing the field.
Here's a question, based on Title IX, if the football teams and/or basketball split from the NCAA (or the athletic department completely) to start a pro/semi-pro football league...wouldn't the schools have to provide the same professional opportunities and financial equivalency for female sports? I'm guessing that turning the football or basketball teams pro wouldn't mean the women get scholarship equivalency, they'd have to be paid just like the men. If they aren't in the NCAA, they could, in theory, drop all the rest of their athletic programs as there wouldn't be any regulations regarding programs the schools would have to run, apart from the teams they run to comply with Title IX, or am I missing something?
The big misnomer with Title IX is that it is athletic legislation only. Athletics is a biproduct of the legislation. If a a public or private school receives government funding, they are under the Title IX umbrella and it applies to the school in every aspect of their school. Academic, living and athletics. The NCAA has nothing do with their need to be compliant under Title IX. Even if these college started a “pro league”, they would still have to comply with Title IX because the football team is still being “sponsored “ by an institution that receives federal funding. Just saying they are pro wouldn’t change their legal obligation under Title IX.
By the way, it is worth mentioning that many athletic departments have already “split” from their schools. They have separate entities that handle the athletic money. For example, Army and Navy have athletic arms that enable them run their athletic programs without it costing taxpayers any money. Those programs still have to comply with Title IX. People often talk about Nick Saban’s salary, but miss the part where the university pays him less than $300k. The rest comes from the Crimson Tide Foundation. (Different discussion, but a strong case could be made that he is underpaid) Back on point, many athletic programs are already separate entities. Trying to separate football and not have to comply with Title IX wouldn’t work. The government would see through it.
Let the Big 10 take Stanford and the rest of us can have a chance. UW, Arizona, and Cal fighting down to the wire for the 2026 title.
While I agree that the Power 5’s (or however many are left) will break off to form their own conferences in football and basketball, I think you will see the non rev sports stay more local with their conference play. Similar to the way hockey operates now. The cost of operating non rev sports with the travel involved would offset any gains they’d make. I believe the next step will be football and basketball conferences only. By the way, Title IX doesn’t work that way. The idea is to help balance Women’s opportunities. And there are three different ways to meet the requirement. They wouldn’t necessarily need to drop any female sport or scholarships.
Was reading my local sports page yesterday, Cal and Stanford may eliminate football. High costs plus USC and UCLA leaving conference might just not be worth it anymore.
Isn't it possible that instead of cutting women's sports to keep things balanced, they would accomplish that balance by bringing back some of the men's sports that were cut in past years to keep up with Title IX requirements? The thing that forced those cuts was, more than anything else, the huge number of football scholarships. With that problem gone, maybe the cuts that were taken to cope with it could be reversed.
Two things I heard this weekend: UCLA was told by a w soccer recruit that she will not consider them if they stay big 10 and a prominent Bball recruit said same. Ucla Olympic sport coaches are not happy with this decision. They feel it will completely undermine their ability to compete (cross country travel is notoriously brutal even with charter flights). And big ten told their existing coaches “don’t worry you won’t have to make LA trip every season” which has gotten back to ucla and usc coaches. One ucla coach even made a chart with flight time and time change information and a mock schedule and emailed it out asking admin how could you do this to our team? Could all be rumors and maybe one or two coaches and not all of them but heard that’s going down at ucla.
I think about some practical NCAA-Tournament-related considerations. (1) There is one automatic qualifer per conference. For expanding conferences, this is bad. For shrinking conferences, this is good. (2) The more conference games teams play, the more their RPIs are pulled towards 0.500. For weak conferences, this is good. For strong conferences, this is bad.
I fully believe this. My first thought when I heard this was that UCLA and USC will lose out on the draw of playing in So Cal. You are playing the majority of your games now in cold weather climates for most of the season. The sunshine and nice weather were major draws nationally for outdoor sports at those schools. It is no longer a plus (other than training). And, the travel is a nightmare. It is just like U of Hawaii traveling to the west coast for all of their competitions. As I have mentioned before basketball and baseball/softball have so many more games. Nightmare travel. I would use the Big Ten membership against USC and UCLA if I were an opposing coach in a recruiting battle.
I think everyone is on the same page that this move is being done for one 1 reason only: money. It is pretty much bad on every other level even their competitiveness in football. They are walking in to a much more difficult conference. Lincoln Reilly’s idea to win the conference virtually every year just went out the window. As an Olympic sport coach, this is a horrific move on all levels. Not surprised they are angry, but also won’t be surprised when the AD doesn’t give a s&$#. I guess maybe it will be good on a salary level (have to imagine that most/many will get raises), but will find it hard to believe that the $$$ increase will outweigh the decline in quality of life.
This take is pretty over simplified. College athletics is changing rapidly and if AD's don't get proactive they will get left behind. The cost of running an athletics department is growing quickly. Salaries are sky rocketing, we are going to be paying players, the arms race in facilities. If some company offered you life changing money but you had to move your family, you would have a difficult decision to make. The projections for TV revenue alone are upwards of $100 million per school per year. So next time that SA or coach complains that they lack the budget to keep up, remember the phrase, its all about the Benjamins. The real losers won't be UCLA and USC Olympic sports. The real losers will be the schools who get left out in the cold.
You compare an athletic department that has over 500 people to a single family decision and I am oversimplifying. Thank you for proving my point that it is all about the money. The Olympic Sports and their coaches will be losers in terms of quality of life, but, you are correct, that someone at say Washington St. feel they are losers because they get left behind. For 95% of other schools out there, they were left behind long ago. The split of Division 1 that these moves will quicken will actually probably benefit schools. They can stop the facade of trying to keep up and rebalance themselves. Where I did oversimplify things is saying that everyone thinks the move is bad. That is a fair argument.
I think my point was less whether this is about money (it obviously is) and more about whether that is a good or bad thing. Had UCLA and USC not made the move, they would have been forced into serious decisions (cutting sports, lowering budgets, not providing resources that SEC and BIG 10 schools were offering.) Both of those schools seemingly went the cheap route when hiring soccer coaches. Add in the impending paying athletes (which btw the PAC 10 schools were the ones fighting for.) and money is necessary. I think my point, apparently made poorly, was that this was inevitable and possibly necessary if they were to keep providing certain opportunities and resources for their non rev athletes. The plane rides will stink, and it does change their experience. You could argue, as some on here have, that it will affect recruiting. The alternative seemed incredibly bleak. Maybe the lesser of 2 evils?
I typically embrace change. I'm all for NIL and I think the transfer portal is fine. But I am having trouble thinking that the conference shakeup is anything but a good thing for all but a dozen football programs. A lot of kids at a lot of schools are being sacrificed for 85 players on the pointy ball teams.
The split is largely a Potemkin affair. At University of Oregon, where the State constitution prohibits athletic funding through taxes, the retirement benefits are paid from taxpayer money. The salaries of active coaches aren’t taxpayer funded, but their PERS benefits are, since they were State employees. The two largest recipients in the State are former football coaches, who get more than what their astronomical salaries were through PERS increases - all taxpayer funded. The basketball arena is 100% underwritten through taxpayer bonds, even though the 200 million dollar Mathew Knight Arena was supposed to be underwritten by Phil Knight. The football stadium expansion, indoor practice Arena, and “athlete performance center” ( Moshosky and Casanova centers) all built at similar stratospheric costs are deemed University Capital expenses and not athletic costs, so they are also taxpayer funded. They run a few basket weaving courses for athletes only so they can call the performance center an academic facility and therefore taxpayer funded. It’s mostly lavish coaches digs and venues to wine and dine the likes of Phil Knight. if, (when?) the Uof O and Udub follow The California schools to the B1G i guarantee the taxpayer will get hit up again for further expansions to “keep up” with the competition.
USC and UCLA would seem to have some leverage to pull some west coast schools with them to the Big Ten. Which I would think they would want for travel convenience reasons. They have leverage because they have the TV market that the Big Ten is after.
Saw a tweet from KSL 5 in SLC that Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State are set to meet with the Big12 tomorrow (Tuesday).
Big12 would get Denver, SLC, and Phoenix TV markets. Not bad. Utah - BYU in the same conference would also be a great rivalry. The location fits make sense for Big 12 too.
This from The Chronicle today from a couple Higher Ed academics. Seems obvious to most readers here but this is a highly read national publication. https://www.chronicle.com/ This move does make the change to once a week soccer and full year scheduling seem much more logical for those schools. https://www.21stcenturymodel.org/ Commenting on fatigue, class attendance, and mental health concerns from cross country/time-zone travel: Weaver said these effects will be felt deeply by athletes participating in nonrevenue sports — but that conversation is “flying under the radar.” And that’s all too common a phenomenon in college athletics, Jackson said: “This decision was likely made with football in mind. I mean, that’s how most decisions are made in college sports, especially in the Power Five and especially in the Big Ten. And this decision made with football in mind is going to potentially have a more detrimental effect on athletes in other sports, who are always like an afterthought.”
I heard one coach use the LIV golf example. PGA pretty much ran the show and then there was a break off group created. He thinks it is going to be the same with the NCAA and then a separate group coming in and changing / competing.
Apparently add Oregon and Washington into the mix too. Smart from the Big12 IMO BREAKING: The Big 12 is in “deep discussions” to add 6 teams to their conference, per @dennisdoddcbs. The 6 teams include Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. pic.twitter.com/LcTndUbAAO— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 5, 2022