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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Let's be clear -- there are two proposals gaining momentum -- one is to let the five power conferences form their own division within the NCAA ... the other is for the five power conferences to break off and form a separate organization.

    Of the two proposals, I much prefer the first option. I think the second option would be a disaster. I'll tell you why.

    I am a basketball guy. I like and follow college football, but I live and die with college basketball. I glory in Duke's basketball history -- our four national -- read NCAA! -- championships. Our 15 Final Fours, the best NCAA Tournament winning percentage of any program.

    You want to leave that behind and be part of the new College Football Association basketball tournament. So we'll have schools for the five power "football" conferences competing for one national championship. We'll have such traditional powers as St. John's, Villanova, Gonzaga, Cincinnati, Butler, Temple ... etc left to compete in the NCAA Tournament.

    With two competing national tournaments, we'll never get a real champion. I'd be skeptical about how much money this would bring from the TV Networks -- CBS certainly wouldn't like losing all the power conference schools -- Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Michigan, UCLA, Louisville ... but the new CFA couldn't command top dollars without the drama of the Cinderellas-- the Butler's the VCU's, the Florida Gulf Coasts.

    I'm sure that doesn't matter to the administrators. This -- like the ACC's 2004 expansion -- is all football driven. Basketball is an afterthought. But the sport will never be the same if this happens. Remember the AIAW that used to determine the women's national title. Our NCAA legacy would go the way of Old Dominion or Immaculata's AIAW legacies. This would be a basketball; reboot.

    Oh, we'd still have our NCAA banners in the rafters, but imagine the future when schools start mix and matching their nation titles -- let's see, we have one Helms title, five NCAA titles, two CFA's titles ...

    I also think that if the power football conferences break away, you're going to see a lowering -- a drastic lowering -- of academic standards. It's going to be the lowest common denominator.

    Any body who thinks playing players will prevent corruption is living in a fool's world. In the first place, payments are going to limited somewhat for Title IX requirements (for even dollar you give a male athlete, you have to give a dollar to a female athlete -- that's not an NCAA rule, that's federal law). In the second place, even if kids are paid $10,000, many will have their hands out to boosters for another $10,000 or free rental cars or bling. If it's $20K or $50K, it's the same ... greed never sleeps.

    I'm glad I'm an old guy. I'd hate to see this landscape change in my lifetime.
    I fully agree with this post and will quote it in its entirety. By my count, 14 of the final 32 teams in the 2013 NCAA tournament were from outside the so-called power conferences. If these 5 conferences break away to form a league outside the NCAA, I'd have to think that college basketball's "one shining moment" would be lost forever.

    How in the world did college football get so much clout and power over all the other collegiate sports? As a Duke fan who grew up in the Northeast, I just don't get it.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by g-money View Post

    How in the world did college football get so much clout and power over all the other collegiate sports? As a Duke fan who grew up in the Northeast, I just don't get it.
    I'm going to go with, football is a better excuse to drink all afternoon.

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by toooskies View Post
    I'm going to go with, football is a better excuse to drink all afternoon.
    We start our tailgates at 0700 or 0800 sometimes (miltary time for the benefit of Bob Green who is part of our group). Why are you waiting until the afternoon to start?
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by g-money View Post
    I fully agree with this post and will quote it in its entirety. By my count, 14 of the final 32 teams in the 2013 NCAA tournament were from outside the so-called power conferences. If these 5 conferences break away to form a league outside the NCAA, I'd have to think that college basketball's "one shining moment" would be lost forever.

    How in the world did college football get so much clout and power over all the other collegiate sports? As a Duke fan who grew up in the Northeast, I just don't get it.
    There would be significant backlash against the power conferences if they broke away from the NCAA, held their own basketball tourney and excluded mid-major conference winners. That doesn't mean there couldn't be a middle ground of breaking away, holding their own tourney and inviting certain conference winners or other merit-based participants just as it's done now.

    The thing is, leaving at least some of the tournament revenue on the table for NCAA use is probably a fair trade in return for not having to administer all the other sports championships, coordinate eligibility, police amateurism issues and recruiting practices, etc. And don't get me started on the ridiculous size of D1 basketball (are we pushing 350 schools?).

    Keeping the NCAA around to administer non-revenue sports makes sense. But, I'm sure the power conferences are wondering where the margin is between the full tourney revenue and the NCAA's real costs of administration and what could and should be cut out of the NCAA to bolster power conferences' take, while not gutting the NCAA.

  5. #45
    I have not read any of the recent statements coming from the big conferences to have expressed an interest in blowing up the NCAA basketball tournament and the $$ that go with it.

    Big 12 chairman Bowlsby spoke of a "federation by sport" concept - so I guess the concept is the big time football schools could form the federation of Footballistan to keep the footaball TV $$$ while the Northern Iowas and George Masons of the world could continue to be part of a separate basketball federation that would participate in the current NCAA basketball tournament. If the big schools were to seek to secede completely from the NCAA my guess is the attorneys from CBS and Time-Warner might want to chat about who writes the check to unwind the current 14 year contract to broadcast the basketball tournament.

    The federation by sport concept is something that Coach K appears to have supported, albeit for reasons other than a deep love for big time football running the show.

    I think one of the main things that has to happen is college basketball has to have a relationship with the NBA. There should be someone in charge of college basketball who on a day-to-day basis sets an agenda for our great sport.

    http://sportsradiointerviews.com/201...sketball-duke/

  6. #46
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    NCAA's Emmert at crossroads

    The Penn State announcement was supposed to be the defining moment of Emmert's tenure. But instead of signifying his and the organization's status as tough on NCAA crime, it has become Emmert's Waterloo moment. Employees are headed for the exits in droves, and instead of helping to alleviate the NCAA's problems, the man at the top may be compounding them.

    Since the Penn State sanctions announcement a year ago, NCAA president Mark Emmert's leadership style, combative personality, and most of all, his decisions, have directly intersected with an NCAA in deep crisis.
    "It's been one misstep after another," said a longtime administrator and former NCAA staffer, echoing the statements of several sources who have spoken to "Outside the Lines."

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Bluedog View Post
    It's also worth noting that if something like Noll's proposal of "per athlete damages" were to be put into practice, costly schools like Duke would be at a disadvantage because the scholarship amount would be deducted from the total. That is, if somebody's compensation is calculated as $60,000 and the Duke full ride is worth $54,000, the football player "only" gets paid $6,000/yr whereas if they went to a state school, they'd get paid significantly more, perhaps as much as $50,000 conceivably. That's major incentive not to go to Duke. On top of that, Noll has differing amounts per conference, meaning athletes would again be more likely to choose the high paying conferences like the SEC. It gets overly complicated in a hurry. Although I find it very hard to believe that the "pay the players" methodology would ever go as far as Noll suggests. I sure hope not.
    I think this is his proposed basis for a settlement with past players, not for future stipend/"full cost of attendance" payments to players. If it were the latter, I agree it would be pretty much a disaster for all the division IA private schools and, to a lesser degree, the state schools that have high out of state tuition. I can't think of who would be for that. Even state schools with lower in state tuition than the private schools would have trouble competing for recruits out of state if the recruits could immediately monetize the difference. (They are only seventeen years old).

    Every article I've seen about this stipend idea talks about a capped few thousand bucks a year in "walking around money" on top of the already covered tuition, books, housing and meals. It would cover the costs of things like transportation to and from home on holidays and for the summer, having some fun without having to hang out with people nicknamed "Fats" or random dentists, and maybe flying the family in for a game or two (without having to find them fake jobs that involve travel to all of your games but that they get fired from right after you graduate), and stuff like that.

  8. #48
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    64 team playoff in December/january would be cool. Seeding would matter, so earlier games count, but all those big team vs big team matches would take away the currently suboptimal system in which a September loss can wreck a season. I don't care whether cincy or the service academies get in. there would always be an underdog who wins a couple of games (tho their names might be Mississippi or Duke, and the teams left out could set up their own tournament. Such a tournament could lead to teams playing only 10 regular season games (eliminating the 2-3 games that are typically mismatches for the top 20 schools--and hard-earned wins for Duke post 2010), which would reduce some of the physical trauma.

    If football rules were being enforced by the teams rather than the ncaa, I'd imagine simplification and enhanced enforcement. Nobody knows who's cheating better than the other coaches/teams, most of whom don't report on each other because of the code and the likelihood they'll need a job within a couple of years,a search complicated if known as a rat. Let the sec enforce the rules, however, and I'd think Georgia, for example, would be all over Tennessee, etc, in a way that the ncaa as despised outsiders, could never be.

    if teams had to pay players, perhaps they'd recruit fewer players per team. This would help Duke by redistributing some 3 stars who are no longer offered at their preferred top 15 program.

    I can imagine football failing, but I don't think there's a shortage of really big 17 year olds who view themselves as invulnerable and who are willing to do what it takes to make it in one of the two marquee sports. and even if you are an elite athlete and prefer basketball, if you're built like a lineman or linebacker, or if you're really fast but under 6'3, basketball options are limited at the college and definitely the pro level. it's true that I don't see kids in my neighborhood playing football, but they aren't the kids who get offered at Oklahoma and Alabama.In a lot of the country, my understanding is that football star still equates with success. And the guys who populate the rosters of big-time football teams were not, at age 14, debating football vs lacrosse, football vs crew, football vs cross country. Or is that wrong?

    basketball is different. no reason to eliminate all the small schools from tournament eligibility (small in basketball but often huge in regards to alumni or regional fans). and basketball is much cheaper, I should think.

    I'd also like to think that enhanced technology will lead to the ability for fans to watch the non revenue sports, possibly converting them into revenue producing. If given a tv choice between an average PGA golf or pro tennis tournament and a golf or tennis match that involved Duke, I think I'd generally watch duke. And just as I watch Duke lacrosse without knowing the rules, I'd be happy to sit on my couch and watch virtually any other duke sport including the ones that I'd simply never watch without the connection. And as everyone knows, we tend to be in the top 10 in just about all the sports in which we offer scholarships, so this development--which seems inevitable--also seems good for duke.

  9. #49
    If the top division of NCAA is limited to the Big 5 conferences, I wonder if we can expect litigation from the more ambitious members of say, the American, the MWC or C-USA. Since we are talking a big institutional (read $) advantage, could it even be deemed an anti-trust violation?

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Capn Poptart View Post
    If the top division of NCAA is limited to the Big 5 conferences, I wonder if we can expect litigation from the more ambitious members of say, the American, the MWC or C-USA. Since we are talking a big institutional (read $) advantage, could it even be deemed an anti-trust violation?
    I think the likely change is about as clear as mud. The Pete Thamel story linked on the Front Page writes of about 12 conferences and 150 schools making up a new division within the NCAA. Since there are only about 130 teams playing Division 1 football, this seems at odds with Slive's and Swofford's comments last week. And Thamel reports that there is general agreement that the NCAA hoops tournament should be just as broad as currently, with excitement provided by the Florida Gulf Coast teams and others.

    I suppose what this accomplishes is a narrower voting base for scholarship and other benefits to athletes. The benefits mentioned were (a) stipends for players in revenue sports and (b) year-around training tables for athletes, not just in-season tables.

    Anyway, stay tuned. This seems to be on a fast track.

    sagegrouse

  11. #51

    Interesting tweet by Bilas

    Dabo Swinney paid for school, so no athlete should be allowed pay: http://t.co/TewPX5mfqA Many are unemployed, should Swinney work for free?
    -Jay Bilas (@JayBilas)


    Will be interesting to see how the potential stipend for football and basketball players fits into a breakaway from the NCAA.

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by ns7 View Post
    Dabo Swinney paid for school, so no athlete should be allowed pay: http://t.co/TewPX5mfqA Many are unemployed, should Swinney work for free?
    -Jay Bilas (@JayBilas)


    Will be interesting to see how the potential stipend for football and basketball players fits into a breakaway from the NCAA.
    Dabo is reminding every coach in America that the biggest single expenditure for each of these programs is the head coach's salary, so don't be so hasty to back the players all the way here. If I'm a coach, I'm not commenting until the whole thing plays out. During recruiting, I'm prone to say anything to get smart athletes to come play for me, but I don't want to be at the head of any charge to change anything right now.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Dev11 View Post
    Dabo is reminding every coach in America that the biggest single expenditure for each of these programs is the head coach's salary, so don't be so hasty to back the players all the way here. If I'm a coach, I'm not commenting until the whole thing plays out. During recruiting, I'm prone to say anything to get smart athletes to come play for me, but I don't want to be at the head of any charge to change anything right now.
    To be fair, Dabo actually earns less so that his top assistants can make more. But I still think it's somewhat hypocritical for him and other coaches to earn boatloads of money off their players hard work and then turn around and say that those players deserve to work for free.

    And before anyone says they get paid in scholarships, etc., it's not entirely true, because under-performing athletes, especially in football, are forced to transfer or leave the school to make room for new recruits.

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by ns7 View Post
    To be fair, Dabo actually earns less so that his top assistants can make more. But I still think it's somewhat hypocritical for him and other coaches to earn boatloads of money off their players hard work and then turn around and say that those players deserve to work for free.

    And before anyone says they get paid in scholarships, etc., it's not entirely true, because under-performing athletes, especially in football, are forced to transfer or leave the school to make room for new recruits.
    I agree with you, and I was thinking that assistants' salaries would get slashed along with head coaches' salaries for the player payments. Just thinking selfishly, if I was a coach, I would play the waiting game on this issue. The only thing to be gained in the short term is a very slight recruiting bump for being 'player-friendly,' but as I alluded, I think there are easier ways to get that message out.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by ns7 View Post
    And before anyone says they get paid in scholarships, etc., it's not entirely true, because under-performing athletes, especially in football, are forced to transfer or leave the school to make room for new recruits.
    I wouldn't say this is universally true. Perhaps at some institutions and not at others. Can you recall a Duke football player who was forced to leave to make room for a new recruit? I can't. Duke football and basketball players are treated extremely well and get an obscene number of perks. To say that these Duke athletes are "working for free" and that the scholarship is contingent upon their performance seems disingenuous to me. I was actually pretty amazed at how much they get with their scholarship when I saw it firsthand - definitely things that are worth a considerable sum of money in addition to the fact that some would not be admitted to such a great academic institution without their athletic success in the first place (I'm not saying they're not deserving of admission, just that they get a full-ride scholarship on top of a potential HUGE boost in admittance even if academics are somewhat lacking comparatively).

    Of course, athletes put in a tremendous amount of work and effort on the field and I certainly acknowledge and respect that. But I just think people saying they get nothing in return aren't being entirely truthful - I realize you ns7 didn't say that, I'm speaking more generally. (Incidentally, I'm still undecided as to whether football players should be paid.)

  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by ns7 View Post
    And before anyone says they get paid in scholarships, etc., it's not entirely true, because under-performing athletes, especially in football, are forced to transfer or leave the school to make room for new recruits.
    The same is true of employees in most fields, though football and basketball coaches do have the protection of contracts.

  17. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    The same is true of employees in most fields, though football and basketball coaches do have the protection of contracts.
    OK, but if the poor performer on the football field is a stellar performer in the classroom, are they a student or an employee? Why force such a student-employee to transfer if he is excelling at the (alleged) mission of the institution of higher education?
    "Quality is not an option!"

  18. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Turk View Post
    OK, but if the poor performer on the football field is a stellar performer in the classroom, are they a student or an employee? Why force such a student-employee to transfer if he is excelling at the (alleged) mission of the institution of higher education?
    he's not forced to transfer. he's forced to give up his scholarship, and he's kicked off the team.

    my issue with this is not really about duke players. many of them do not really need the monthly stipend.

    in the first duke/Vegas championship game, the parents of every duke player attended the game. from unlv, the only parents who could afford to go were the parents of a player who did not get off the bench (and who was, incidentally, their only white player). there is simply a huge family income gap between many football/bball players and even the average "poor" college student.

    My angle on this has shifted, however, from one of justice (recognizing that it's a minor sop to equalizing experiences and opportunities) to one of power. I think this will go through the courts, and they'll force the issue, and it'll become akin to Title IX, free agency, and other variations on civil rights legislation...

  19. #59
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    Maybe Not Just Greed

    It occurred to me before today's lead story, that the reason for the big conferences potential move their football programs out from the NCAA's umbrella might have less to do with pure greed than a reasonable concern that significant rule changes might be mandated by the NCAA in light of what I have long believed are the inevitable class action lawsuits regarding the NCAA's failure to adopt and enforce rules to lessen the likelihood of significant and often life altering injuries and to at least help defray not only long term, but also short term, health, rehabilitative, and living-assistance costs associated with injuries that statistical analysis shows were made far more likely due to the NCAA's failure to take such action.

    In other words, NCAA member schools with no meaningful revenue stake in maintaining the status quo with respect to all sports, a status quo that allows for play that is producing significant and life altering injury, might just be driven to do the right thing and vote for significant rule changes prophylactically without putting up a protracted fight.

    The portent that those schools might drive the NCAA to adopt rules that significantly tone down the violence and danger of football as we know it might well be playing a part, perhaps a significant one, in this drive to create mega conferences, to drive even the great Notre Dame to join a conference, to secede from the Union, the NCAA, and fight the battles on their own. If football is made significantly safer it also will be far, far less the show that it is today, which means that the revenue that the sport produces will take a dramatic hit. Can we say Lucky Strike, boys and girls.

    Mods, feel free to fold this into the separate thread I created that focuses on the broader implications of the portent of such lawsuits. My thought, however, that it has a direct bearing on the subject matter of this thread in particular.

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