Western Kentucky to Drop Men's Soccer

Interesting timing, particularly with the recent NCAA settlement over the limits of scholarship coverage for D1 sports. While I don't doubt that WKU's budget isn't particularly healthy, I can't help but wonder that they've eliminated the soccer program to offset the additional money it's now going to take to operate football and basketball, now that scholarship limits have effectively been increased. If that's truly the case, there's going to be a bunch more of these among mid-major state schools.

 

NCAA agrees to $10M settlement in antitrust lawsuit

The suit argued that restricting a scholarship to the cost of tuition, books, housing and meals was an unlawful restraint of trade because of the billions of dollars the NCAA earned through broadcast and licensing deals.

Is this a great country or what?

Shouldn't our federal government just figure out how much the NCAA makes less expenses and force the NCAA to give it all to the players? That would eliminate all of those annoying Olympic sports, and it could be replaced with the type of professional development that the rest of the world succeeds with.

 

It sure is. Apart from the NCAA's settlement, however, the implication of all this is that the schools ultimately will need to pay money-sport scholarship athletes about an additional $2500 per year to remain competitive on the recruiting front.

So, in the case of WKU, that would amount to nearly $250,000/year of costs for football and men's basketball alone, which is enough to cancel out any viability that a sport like men's soccer might have had. And that cost is going to hit every D1 school with a football program, which suggests that there will be a bunch of mid-major football conference types (the MAC comes to mind immediately) who will follow suit sooner or later. I don't see the university presidents ever agreeing to divvying up bowl and b'ball tournament revenue equitably enough to help these types of schools.

 

While this is not good for college soccer and the boys at WKU, there is now some 20-25 odd players looking for somewhere to play next season if they wish. I dont know exactly the quality of soccer at WKU but this could change some recruiting pictures for schools in the upper midwest region esp with signing day coming very soon. It will be interesting to see if some of the guys stick with WKU and get their free education without playing soccer or if they seek other places to play.

 

I don't think it's coincidence that Western Kentucky just upgraded from division I-AA football to I-A football. Gotta pay for those new scholarships somehow.

 

Real crime. Coach Holmes is a classy person that always did a professional job at WKU. Hope he stays in coaching. One of the good guys.

 

I don't see how the settlement of Jason White v. NCAA has anything to do with
Western Kentucky's decision to drop its men's soccer program.

Although the NCAA admited no wrongdoing in the settlement, the lawsuit was
successful in advancing the argument that NCAA DI schools should be able to
provide student-athletes with financial assistance beyond the grant-in-aid cap
for bona fide educational expenses.

The settlement provides $10M for qualifying former student-athletes who are
members of the Class Members. On a claim made basis these former student-
athletes can receive a one time payment of up to $500 for career development
services and up to $2,500 over the next three years for bona fide educational
expenses.

This $10M was a drop in the bucket.

As part of the settlement the NCAA put $218M into the Student Athletic
Opportunity Fund (SAOF) for NCAA DI members to use for the academic
years 2007-08 through 2012-12. NCAA DI members may distribute SAOF
funds to student-athletes for financial needs that arise in conjunction with
participation in intercollegiate athletics or enrollment in academic curriculum
or to recognize academic achievement.

This is not just for football and basketball players. The SAOF is available to
all student-athletes.

It seems that by funding the SAOF through 2012-13, the NCAA has given
DI members five years to figure out how they will fund and administer
financial aid to student-athletes beyond the grant-in-aid cap for bona fide
educational expenses.

The cost of every scholarship is going up.

Schools are free to continue to offer only the grant-in-aid cap if they wish.
However, the settlement appears to have opened the door for others to
offer financial aid that covers to full cost of attendance.

The separation between the elite programs in revenue generating sports
and the rest of the pack is likely to widen.

The lawsuit contended that the NCAA and its members had established a
horizontal agreement (in restraint of trade and violating Section 1 of the
Sherman Act) to limit or cap athletic based financial aid at the grant-in-aid
level rather than the full cost of attendance. While the Billions generated by
college sports made the headlines in articles about this lawsuit, the money
was not the legal issue.

This settlement entered on January 28, 2008 did not motivate Western Kentucky's
decision (announced on February 1, 2008) to drop the men's soccer program.

 

That is all well and good but why is it OK to have a "horizontal agreement" to limit financial aid to just expenses?

 

It's NOT OK - that is exactly what the lawsuit was about.

My point was that whether the NCAA makes billions or peanuts
from college athletics was not the issue driving this lawsuit.

The issue was that the NCAA and its member institutions had
agreed (agreements inferred by conduct) to limit athletic based
financial aid to the grant-in-aid (tuition, room, board, books).
The plaintiffs alleged that this agreement restraints trade in
violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act.

Based on the settlement it would appear that member institutions
would be free to award athletic based financial aid for the complete
cost of attending the school. It would also appear that schools could maintain the current grant-in-aid cap if they so choose.

They just can't get together and make an agreement to have
athletic based financial aid based on something less than the
complete cost of attending the school.

That's my take on the settlement. Nothing to do with WKU.

 

What should the cost of attending the school have anything to do with it? NCAA institutions are restraining trade by agreeing not to pay its players millions of dollars in salaries.

 

Of course, the details of the suit have nothing to do with WKU. But what it does mean for WKU (and schools like them), with a football program that is moving up to D1A, is that the allowable increase in scholarship cost has just permanently increased the university's cost of doing athletics business. Like it or not, every school now has to be able to deliver the additional compensation to it's 85 scholarship football players and 13 scholarship basketball players as a simple premise of recruiting.

Using the NCAA's own per player estimate ($2500/year), the additional cost to member institutions for D1A football and D1 basketball scholarships alone is at least $38 million/year. When you include D1-AA football, and D2 football/basketball schools, that $218 million set aside isn't going to last 5 years, and that's even assuming it's somehow equally distributed among all qualified institutions.

So, WKU is essentially confronted with the reality of having to compensate at least its football and basketball athletes, on an ongoing basis, about $250,000 more than using the earlier scholarship limits.

Perhaps dropping the men's soccer program was always on the horizon. But the timing sure does seem coincidental to simple-minded folks like me.

 

The NCAA is not prohibiting the players from playing professionally. Consider baseball, hockey, and soccer, where athletes who would prefer to earn money (usually, much less than millions of dollars) often opt to play for a professional league instead of in college.

 

But they do prohibit players from accepting compensation, or playing professionally, which is no less a rule than the one which arbitrarily established the financial limits. I actually think that the NCAA rolled over on this to avoid a court ruling that might ultimately expose the validity of its other rules - and primarily those that prohibit any sort of professional affiliation, compensation, or agency agreements.

It's one thing for a tax paying, single-entity operator like MLS to prevail in a federal court lawsuit on unfair labor practices. It's quite another thing for a loose affiliation of non-profit, tax-exempt organizations - systematically engaged in a highly lucrative sports entertainment business and who unfairly limit the earning ability of their primary revenue producers - to prevail in a similar lawsuit should it ever come to that.

 

Isn't this thread about WKU. A new thread should be started regading the NCAA suit. And for what it's worth - Coach Holmes did a great job for years. Good camps; competitive team and a fun guy to chat with on the recruiting trails. I hope he gets hooked on some place else.

 

The problem you have is Athletic Director's being too lazy/disinterested to find a way to continue sponsoring Men's Soccer as a Varsity sport. It is easy to look at the bottom line, and then use title 9 as a scapegoat for dropping Men's non-rev sports. (i.e., Illinois State U., Vanderbilt U., WKU)
I fear we will see a pattern of this in mid-major state universities with "up-and-coming" Football programs. Watch for Appalachian State (NC) to be
next.

 

Any news on any of the WK players moving to other schools ? It's a tough time to be scrambling to find a team and a school. Not much money left the week of LOI signing day.

 

Here is an article about a kid who has supposedly found a new place to play.....

http://recruitingbuzz.beloblog.com/archives/2008/02/soccers_demise_leaves_pearce_player_out.html

 

Check out College Soccer News, they have a good article on the WKU soccer dilema.