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College Sportsball Will Soon Die

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John Thomas8
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College Sportsball Will Soon Die

#1

Post by John Thomas8 »

Here's a sports ball thread:

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1873

looking at the what is going to end up ending college athletics.

Football and for a lesser part men's basketball has funded a significant number of "non-revenue" sports: olympic-type, all of women's sports, and other teams who's gate/TV revenue doesn't cover their expense.

When players become employees (I'm not arguing whether they should be or not) then it will be economically impossible to support 20-30+ mens and womens teams and colleges/universities will be forced to close their athletic departments.

Kinda sad in a way. Youngins have been playing lacrosse or gymnastics or whatever sport and that opportunity will be ending sooner rather than later.
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#2

Post by mojosapien »

Partial to Charlie.....
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#3

Post by mojosapien »

Think like a fortune cookie. ©2022-Mojosapien
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#4

Post by mojosapien »

which sports?
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Sam the Centipede
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#5

Post by Sam the Centipede »

How common is the USA college sport system around the world? In other countries, tertiary education institutions have many sporting clubs for their students. A few take some sports seriously, so, for example being a really good rower or rugby player can help in getting a place in an Oxbridge institution, but it's not a formal process. But generally the sporting clubs are just part of a mix of activities and pastimes for the student community, along with, for example, orchestras, drama groups, hobby clubs.

A sporty kid in most countries that I have lived in will join an amateur community club, perhaps transferring to better performing clubs as s/he improves. S/he might approach a professional club, or be identified by a scout, and join their youth or academy team.

But the intimate tie-up between professional sport and educational institutions? The notion of a closed-shop style draft? That's unusual, isn't it?
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#6

Post by Volkonski »

I graduated over 49 years ago so my experience is out of date.

That said, my college offered over 30 intercollegiate sports options plus several clubs for sports like rugby which competed informally with other local clubs. There were no facilities for spectators and therefore no income from fans. There were no "revenue sports".

There were no athletic scholarships. (All scholarships provided by the college were based on need.) The college just thought that opportunities to play sports were part of being well rounded.

Now, I never was an athlete. :fingerwag: But I had to take four half semesters of PE in order to graduate. (I took two of sailing, one of volleyball and one of gymnastics). As an entering freshman I had to pass a swimming test. If I hadn't passed I would have had to take a half semester of swimming. Why engineers and scientists needed to know how to swim I never figured out but you couldn't graduate without being able to swim. (Of course if you had a disability that made swimming impossible that requirement was waived.)

It is possible to have collegiate sports without lots of fan money.
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#7

Post by RTH10260 »

Sam the Centipede wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 6:06 am How common is the USA college sport system around the world? In other countries, tertiary education institutions have many sporting clubs for their students.
"Sports" is not thought like that anywhere else outside of the US as far as I am aware of. Sport will be provided as an educational career path for teachers of Physical Education. They will learn about the effects on the human body, age appropriate. They will then have K12 grades to activate the pupils and students for fitness. Outside of the school hours schools will offer their facilities to sporting clubs for activities outside of any curriculum for non-profits.

Any professional style of sports will be done by clubs on their own dime and within their own facilities. I have seen some recruiting talents at early age, whyle still in mandatory education, and I have seen certain clubs get certification to provide the ongoing education on premises with extra time for PE and their sports speciality.
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#8

Post by mojosapien »

Congratulating Charlie in any sportsball case. He did put himself out there.
Meanwhile a former CEO of the Girls Scouts of America died at 107 last week.
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#9

Post by pipistrelle »

Volkonski wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 8:27 am It is possible to have collegiate sports without lots of fan money.
That's how I see college sports-people doing something for love, fun, and a little competition, not as a means to a bazillion-dollar contract. The minor sports are more interesting.
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#10

Post by Chilidog »

My nephew plays rugby as an undergrad at Loyola University in Chicago. It's a club sport. They had a great year and made it to the final four in Houston for D2 teams. They had to fundraise to pay their way down there.

They lost (rather badly) to a team from a college with 480 undergrad students, Principia University.

How did this tiny team get to be so good at Rugby?

They offered scholarships to students from Africa who just happened to be very good rugby players.

No judgement here. The Loyola team played well, but they were mostly white suburban, middle class boys.
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#11

Post by neonzx »

Chilidog wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 9:40 am How did this tiny team get to be so good at Rugby?

They offered scholarships to students from Africa who just happened to be very good rugby players.
Is that not how all of sportsball works? Recruiting from out of the country of skillful players of families who are not $$ well off. Seen it first hand.
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#12

Post by Chilidog »

Except that a school with fewer than 500 students has no business playing at D2.

The school offers no other sports opportunities
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#13

Post by John Thomas8 »

Chilidog wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 9:53 am Except that a school with fewer than 500 students has no business playing at D2.

The school offers no other sports opportunities
That does sound weird, part of being in the NCAA is offering "equal opportunity" access to funded sports. While there's no women's equivalent to football, the rest of the sports field teams for both men and women when applicable.

B1G (Big 10) athletic departments are set to received approximately $100 million/year from the football TV rights deal. The SEC (Southeastern Conference) is well north of $50 million per school, and the other "Power 5" conferences are at least approaching $50 million/year. "Power 5" conferences have 64 member institutions are considered "the best" at football. Men's college basketball media revenue is distributed differently, at least the portion covering "March Madness", via a convoluted formula that does take into consideration the number of teams from each conference involved and how far along they make it to the championship game.

The members/conferences aren't making things easier on themselves either as they expand their geographic footprints. The B1G now stretches from New Brunswick, NJ to Los Angeles: the SEC Gainesville, FL to Norman, OK. Such footprints make costs go up (travel, food and lodging) impacting already stretched budgets.

Now, add in the paying of players as employees and the costs associated with maintaining a 20 to 30 team athlete department are going to kill said departments.
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#14

Post by Sam the Centipede »

Mm. I inferred (correctly? not?) that the question posed related to the quasi-professional sportball teams in US colleges where the students are on athletic scholarships and the academic side is deeply secondary to performing well at sport and seeking a place at a professional team, via a draft if their sport has one. (I appreciate that many/most colleges try to get their jocks to genuinely learn some useful non-sport stuff, especially as most sport careers are short, and many fail before take off.)

I assume that the non-vocational sport, where students play for fun and exercise is not under threat, yes?

I think Volkonski's position (he doesn't state it's a US college, but I assume it is) of suffering compulsory (in his case physical) courses peripheral or irrelevant to his majors varies by country. I haven't been in tertiary education for a while; I know some institutions value a "rounded" education, such as requiring scientists to study some humanities subjects, or vice versa, even at postgraduate level; others are happy to let students specialize.

Of course colleges offering courses in physical education and sports science (which sounds like a euphemism for clever betting, but I believe it not to be!) are in a slightly different position.
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#15

Post by John Thomas8 »

Sam the Centipede wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 11:06 am
I assume that the non-vocational sport, where students play for fun and exercise is not under threat, yes?

The issue is the same athlete department that is in control of the men's football team also services the women's gymnastics team, the men's lacrosse team, the crew squad, etc, etc, etc. Some institutions field over 30 such teams. They all dip into the athletic department budget for coaches, travel expenses, and to a lesser extent venues to play. When Bobby Crew gets hired (no scholarships now, they're employees and not students) the money to pay them comes out of the same budget that feeds them and provides the shell.

I imagine that intramural sports will mostly remain unaffected, my understanding is that they're not funded out of the athletic departments.
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#16

Post by humblescribe »

It is correct that football and men's basketball provide most of the funding for all collegiate sports. The television contracts are obscene.

Title IX has to do with gender equality for sports teams; women have to have as many sports participants as men's if the institutions are to receive federal grants and funding for academic pursuits. (I did not check up on this, but I am pretty sure this is true.) Football offers 85 scholarships, so right there, women need a bunch of sports in order to equalize participation.

For NCAA football, colleges and universities are divided into several sub-categories of competition. The other sports just have I, II, III.

The highest level is Division I - Bowl subdivision. These are the larger schools, many of them land grant universities, and are the preeminent universities in their states. The schools play a 12-game regular season. Most of the conferences have two divisions so the top two teams then meet to determine the conference champion. The top four teams nationwide are selected through voodoo and other sublime methods to determine the semi-finalists for the mythical national championship. Any team that finishes with six or more wins is eligible for a post-season bowl game. There are something like 30-34 different bowl games across the country; in fact there are six games on tap for today.

Next is Division I - Championship subdivision. These schools are smaller in size but still offer scholarships to their athletes. Conference champions are determined and 24 (I think) teams qualify for a single-elimination tournament to determine the champion.

Beneath Division I is Division II. Schools are permitted to offer 36 scholarships for football. Scholarships can be split so that 64 players can receive a half-scholarship each. Twenty-eight teams qualify for the single elimination playoff in Division II.

Then there is Division III. I believe that these schools do not offer scholarships to their athletes. Division III schools also have a single-elimination tournament of 32 teams to determine the champion.

At the bottom is the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics organization. The NAIA offers a full complement of sports for its member institutions. I am unclear as to the scholarship rules for the NAIA. It does not receive much publicity. Most member schools are smaller religious or parochial type schools with a small enrollment.

Bottom line, outside of NCAA Division I - Bowl subdivision, there is not a lot of television money for the other groupings. I think that some of the Division I - Championship subdivision playoff games might be televised, and perhaps even the Division II final game. But the others labor away in obscurity.

One final comment: Before the ubiquitous televising of all Division I games, a college game would last about 2 1/4 hours. Sixty minutes of game time plus a fifteen-minute halftime. Clock stoppages for scoring, penalties, times out, incomplete passes, and injuries added about an hour to the game. With television times out games last over 3 1/2 hours, and approaching four hours if there is a lot of scoring or replay reviews on a questionable call by the officials.
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#17

Post by John Thomas8 »

Excellent write up.

It's a scale thing. D1, "Football Bowl Subdivision", your OSUs and Alabamas, that's the level that going to fail.

However, thinking about it, all the players are going to have to get paid, D1 to Juco*. The legal position is that a college athlete is an employee, not a student. Your 3rd string volleyball player is going to get a salary. Football players outside the 85 full scholarship players (most high end D1 teams dress around 100 for home games, 70 for road games) will probably get dropped as not being affordable. Walk ons will go away, too.

There's an obscene amount of media money coming in at the FBS level, but not near enough to employ 460,000~ NCAA college athletes under an athletic department perview.

* - Juco = junior college, institutions in between county technical colleges and full 4-year schools used by some players with inadequate grades to work to make the barely noticeable grade requirements to qualify for a 4-year college/university.
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#18

Post by Sam the Centipede »

Thanks for the explanations, appreciated.

I guess one's view on the student/employee conundrum depends on whether one sees the young people as being granted an opportunity through their scholarships, the possibility to succeed with the backup of a free education, or as being exploited by being underpaid for others to make money of their talent and hard work, with the prospect of dashed dreams for most.

I have no opinion on that!
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#19

Post by humblescribe »

As things stand today, Sam....

Major League Baseball is the only professional sport that has player development contracts with about 150 teams across the country. This is the fancy way of saying, "Minor League Baseball." Players can be drafted by the parent club right out of high school, after two years attending the aforementioned junior colleges or out of college after three years, if my memory serves. There are arcane rules about foreign-born players, but they are beyond the scope of this discussion.

Professional football and basketball do not have minor leagues. Instead, they exploit the collegiate ranks to draft players. Some make it; others don't. Basketball does have a developmental league of players on the cusp.

Anyway, the agreement between the football players' union and the National Football League permits collegiate players to become eligible for the draft three years after they graduate from high school, or at age 20/21 depending upon birthday. The NCAA has a rule that permits a player to sit out one season and remain on scholarship. This is the dreaded "red shirt" rule. So, a promising high school athlete might not be ready for full-time play as a freshman, or perhaps is lower on the depth chart than juniors and seniors. He will red shirt his freshman year. If this player sets the world on fire in his sophomore and junior years, he can opt into the football draft in April of his junior year and forfeit his remaining eligibility. So, a lot of skilled athletes are gone after three years if they are good enough. And if they took a red shirt year, they played but two seasons for their school.

Lately, real good football players who have remaining eligibility will sit out their team's bowl game because they do not want to risk injury and perhaps not get drafted in April. That's the old team spirit!

Basketball is worse. College players can be drafted after one season. Many college basketball teams have a revolving door of exciting and skilled freshmen who are gone after one year.

Perhaps if the professional football and basketball leagues paid the colleges under "player development contracts" with some of those funds directed to the players themselves, we wouldn't have this charade that passes as amateur sports.
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#20

Post by Sam the Centipede »

Thanks HS, I knew of the existence of baseball's minor (and little) leagues but not about their relationship with the major leagues. Baseball is a game that I can see might be adjusting to play but watching it seems achingly dull to me. Others are welcome to it.

The rules for young sportspeople certainly seem arcane! It must be especially tough for aspiring gridiron footballers with the intense competition and the ever present risk of serious injury that could end a career before it starts, or worse.

In Europe, a real problem is that many youngsters are super-keen on football (the shirt where you're allowed to kick the ball) and good players might join professional clubs' academy or youth teams, dreaming of playing for the top clubs, but they vastly over-estimate their chances of making it, finding themselves on the scrapheap with no backup plan.
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#21

Post by John Thomas8 »

It's gotten even more confusing for players as the transfer portal and NIL (name, image and likeness) have been injected into the conversation.

Every player is permitted to transfer schools once utilizing the transfer portal. Statistics on the usefulness of this mechanism are hard to come by. We see the player announcement they're entering, but finding out if they land somewhere is clouded by a lack of information. The school they leave has the option to end the scholarship at the time the player announces the transfer (and can take them back if the school chooses), but if the player doesn't find a destination, they're potentially out of school and without a scholarship if they can't find a school that wants their services.

Prior to 3 years ago, players were unable to sell their name, image or likeness for profit (or at all). Now that they can, schools can group donors together and offer guaranteed income. However, schools are not in control of these groups, neither is the NCAA. Nobody is, there are no actual rules governing NIL and anything is possible. Schools having donors with deep pockets can gain an advantage by having more money to offer highly rated players. There are no rules keeping donors from contacting players on other teams to entice them to transfer schools outside of team influence/control.

And that third string volleyball player or crew team member have little opportunity to access NIL dollars, NIL is another form of advertising.
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#22

Post by Sam the Centipede »

Irrelevant to the main point of this topic, but I wondered how a major non-US sport organizes itself, using football as the obvious major sport and England as a location (because it's large and I understand the language; my German and French are not so good). I found this page How the English Football Pyramid system works – step by step

It describes 11 levels, the first few of which are individual professional leagues, the top one including the famous clubs: Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, etc.

Then the pyramid widens: 2 leagues in level 6, 4 leagues in level 7 rising to 40+ leagues in level 11. It seems a club that wins its league can be promoted to a corresponding league (in the same geographical area) at the next level up and losing teams can be relegated to a league in the next level down.

And that clearly understates the depth and breadth of competition: picking a random bottom level league, Peterborough and District Football League Premier Division, it's only the top league (premier division) of that association which is at level 11, and it has several other more junior leagues (or divisions) below, hosting about 100 clubs.

So in theory Peterborough Rangers could progress from winning Division 5 to winning Divisions 4, 3, 2, 1 then going into the United Counties League at level 10 and eventually progressing into England's Premier League, and if they do well in that, playing in the European Champions League against teams like Inter Milan, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, etc.

"In theory" is carrying a lot of weight in that dream! That's about 14 or 15 seasons, winning every year!
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#23

Post by John Thomas8 »

Fans have batted around "relegation", dropping teams out of conferences for continued poor performance. Schools like Rutgers, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford and Vanderbilt come up often. Conferences are loathe to lose their academic performance and it's not something USians would put up with I believe.
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#24

Post by John Thomas8 »

Here's one of the new problems: "tampering", poaching players from other schools:

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