Supreme court rules for college athletes

KevFu

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I can see how at the lower levels, where there's far less oversight because of how small a staff is, that something like that could easily happen when you have people trying to climb the ladder and willing to do anything.

Although, D-III doesn't have scholarships, so I'm not sure why that would ever happen aside from a person just being a jerk and not getting along with the player? Makes no sense and the coach should probably be fired for that.


But Big Ten, Wisconsin... that's my point. The SEC "Grayshirts" kids. The reason the big schools can do crap like that is because the financial disparity based on conference TV dollars (and subsequent conference expansion) creates the have/have not situation where kids put up with way more than they should to go play at the school that's on TV, instead of going to the MAC or Sun Belt, where that crap doesn't happen in high volume.


If nothing else, this comes down to "supply and demand." And you guys think that the demand for the AVERAGE ATHLETE is higher than the price of a scholarship based on the revenues of the BCS. But the fact is, the SUPPLY of GOOD NOT GREAT PLAYERS is far greater than the "Supply of Roster Spots at the Competitive Football and Men's Basketball."

The supply of competitive teams has shrunk because of the TV money and consolidation of power, and it's going to shrink even more with the payment of players.
 

KevFu

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A)There is no competitive balance as it is, and B)considering there really never has been competitive balance, why do we care all of a sudden?.

There WAS competitive balance. It disappeared over time after the TV money led to conference expansion and the winners became a de facto cartel.

Last 36 Basketball Final Fours: 52 different teams, 13 schools outside the P5
Previous 36 Final Fours: 67 different teams, 34 schools outside the P5 -- and that's counting schools like Utah, Notre Dame and Baylor as P5 instead being WAC, Independent, or Southwest members.

There used to be 20 power conferences and 40 independents.

Who cares about an honest mission statement if the system is becoming more and more shady? Why is "Honestly Ruthless for a smaller number of people" better than "More fair for a greater number of people" ?
 

golfortennis

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There WAS competitive balance. It disappeared over time after the TV money led to conference expansion and the winners became a de facto cartel.

Last 36 Basketball Final Fours: 52 different teams, 13 schools outside the P5
Previous 36 Final Fours: 67 different teams, 34 schools outside the P5 -- and that's counting schools like Utah, Notre Dame and Baylor as P5 instead being WAC, Independent, or Southwest members.

There used to be 20 power conferences and 40 independents.

Who cares about an honest mission statement if the system is becoming more and more shady? Why is "Honestly Ruthless for a smaller number of people" better than "More fair for a greater number of people" ?

UCLA was winning 10 championships in 12 years. And, oh yeah, a guy named Sam Gilbert figured prominently in that. Kentucky owned the SEC("like taking 5 Canadians and starting a hockey league in Texas" was how that was described.) Not to mention back in those days, only conference champions went to the tournament. 1974 Maryland is likely a power 5 FF team if they are allowed into the tournament. So it's a bit misleading stat, especially since nearly all conferences sent their tournament winner, so upsets knocked a few out over the years. But there was just as much

The system has been shady all along. Why do you think gamblers were able to get to players how many times over the years for point shaving? Because everyone but the players shared in the money.

An honest mission statement needs to start with the fact these schools are spending millions on facilities that only 2% of the student body will ever be allowed to use. Frankly, that is the tip of the iceberg of how dishonest it is.
 

golfortennis

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I can see how at the lower levels, where there's far less oversight because of how small a staff is, that something like that could easily happen when you have people trying to climb the ladder and willing to do anything.

Although, D-III doesn't have scholarships, so I'm not sure why that would ever happen aside from a person just being a jerk and not getting along with the player? Makes no sense and the coach should probably be fired for that.


But Big Ten, Wisconsin... that's my point. The SEC "Grayshirts" kids. The reason the big schools can do crap like that is because the financial disparity based on conference TV dollars (and subsequent conference expansion) creates the have/have not situation where kids put up with way more than they should to go play at the school that's on TV, instead of going to the MAC or Sun Belt, where that crap doesn't happen in high volume.


If nothing else, this comes down to "supply and demand." And you guys think that the demand for the AVERAGE ATHLETE is higher than the price of a scholarship based on the revenues of the BCS. But the fact is, the SUPPLY of GOOD NOT GREAT PLAYERS is far greater than the "Supply of Roster Spots at the Competitive Football and Men's Basketball."

The supply of competitive teams has shrunk because of the TV money and consolidation of power, and it's going to shrink even more with the payment of players.

No it's not about the demand for the average athlete. It's about the fact the elite athlete is looking at a professional career, and rather than a)going through the charade of attending class, and b)everyone else making money except them, even though I don't believe people pay money to watch the coach and AD, they should be not having anything to do with a school, at least as far as athletic development is concerned. If they wish to attend school on their own time(like actors or musicians might), that is fine, but this whole current system just reeks of "we know what's best for them, we do this for their own good," which becomes quite difficult to say with a straight face even when you know it's a fraud.

A guy shouldn't be getting into a school because he can get to the quarterback, and more importantly, he shouldn't have to go through that process if his chosen profession is athletics. Sports shouldn't be tied to schools. That's the problem.
 

KevFu

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An honest mission statement needs to start with the fact these schools are spending millions on facilities that only 2% of the student body will ever be allowed to use. Frankly, that is the tip of the iceberg of how dishonest it is.

1. You're arguing about dumb stuff that doesn't matter and isn't going to change.

2. Please explain how paying athletes actually fixes THAT. And please explain how if the problem with college athletics is that it's out of control capitalist ownership, making MORE unregulated capitalism in college athletics fixes anything?
 

KevFu

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No it's not about the demand for the average athlete. It's about the fact the elite athlete is looking at a professional career.

That's the point: If the problem is that college sports are TOO PRO, and all about the elite athlete who doesn't care about education.... WHY HAVE RADICAL CHANGE BASED ON THE ELITE ATHLETES?!

You base change on the AVERAGE athlete, and the top 1% can go play in the G-League or overseas!
Base your rules around the field hockey players and water polo teams. Make rules that make sense for sports with no pro options, and encourage those who can go pro to do so.

All of your complaints are about MONEY, so why INTRODUCE MORE MONEY into system that's been broken by money?

That's the logic that makes no sense whatsoever.

It reminds me of the history of the national parks. The national parks are idealist, the idea that nature belongs to everyone (like sports are pure) and the natural beauties of our land (beauty of sports) should encourage people to enrich their lives (like getting a college education).

National Parks were created in America because Niagara Falls was so overrun with capitalists trying to make money that it completely ruined the experience for many who just wanted that idealist, pure, enriching thing; and they had to throw out the capitalism from those places and protect them from being corrupted.


That's my view on college sports. Everyone else's appears to be "There's so many tourist trap capitalists there, let's just SELL Niagara Falls to corporate interests."

NO ONE is talking about REAL REFORM to make things better. They're just saying F*** it, let it burn.
 

golfortennis

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That's the point: If the problem is that college sports are TOO PRO, and all about the elite athlete who doesn't care about education.... WHY HAVE RADICAL CHANGE BASED ON THE ELITE ATHLETES?!

You base change on the AVERAGE athlete, and the top 1% can go play in the G-League or overseas!
Base your rules around the field hockey players and water polo teams. Make rules that make sense for sports with no pro options, and encourage those who can go pro to do so.

All of your complaints are about MONEY, so why INTRODUCE MORE MONEY into system that's been broken by money?

That's the logic that makes no sense whatsoever.

It reminds me of the history of the national parks. The national parks are idealist, the idea that nature belongs to everyone (like sports are pure) and the natural beauties of our land (beauty of sports) should be open to everyone and encourage people to enrich their lives (like getting a college education).

National Parks were created in America because Niagara Falls was so overrun with capitalists trying to make money that it completely ruined the experience for many who just wanted that idealist, pure, enriching thing; and they had to throw out the capitalism from those places and protect them from being corrupted.


That's my view on college sports. Everyone else's appears to be "There's so many tourist trap capitalists there, let's just Niagara Falls."

NO ONE is talking about REAL REFORM to make things better. They're just saying F*** it, let it burn.

I would have thought the poster's point about they should just be club sports was real reform.

You believe in the fairy tale that has been peddled for many years. If a college education enriches people's lives, why do sports need to be a part of it? Go to college if you need to. But unless people are willing to pay you to play your sport, time to get on with life. You had high school for the sports. People in Europe don't seem to be distressed about the fact they didn't play a sport for their school.

My complaints are about where the money goes, not that there is money. And money has gone to players, but everyone has tried to pretend it doesn't.
 

KevFu

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I would have thought the poster's point about they should just be club sports was real reform.

You believe in the fairy tale that has been peddled for many years.

Okay, number one... "Should just be club" isn't reform, and certainly isn't REAL REFORM. And if you knew anything about this topic whatsoever, you'd realize that instantly.

There IS a massive system that's embedded into the budgets of states and would require acts of 50 separate state legislatures to change, and has multiple TV conglomerates throwing billions at it annually... and you're asking this system to voluntarily disappear.

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? As I said the first time it was pointed out: that's like asking the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, WNBA and NWHL to switch from being individual franchises to being Sport Clubs like in Europe, where the Montreal Canadians field a hockey team, a baseball team, a basketball team, a women's basketball team, and a football team.


Secondly, I don't believe a fairy tale that's been peddled for years. I've spent my adult life at "mid-major" Division I athletic departments. My life was the "fairy tale," except for the fact that we all worked 80 hours a week, the support staff made slightly above the poverty line, and yes the middle administrators are incompetent morons and you're trying to play on a field that's been titled by TV money in favor of the BCS... but everyone's doing the right thing, prioritizing school over sports, graduating their kids, and above all, the teams are part of your family. Players aren't exploited slaves, they're people who's weddings you go to.

I have a buddy who quit 4 months into a job at Texas because "those are the people we need to get out of college athletics, I wouldn't want my kids to go there." And it's because the stakes are so high for them, it's like cut throat corporate America, which isn't what college sports is supposed to be.


So if I'm delusional, the only thing I'm delusional about is "We can save it." Because we might not be able to anymore. And that's going to ruin it for about 85% of the athletes at 78% of the schools. Which is a shame.
 

PCSPounder

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"We" cannot save it, maybe even for those parents who have the money to build their kid a backyard softball pitching shack or hired multiple professional coaches or bought an RV to travel to EVERY important junior meet or, more likely, a combination of the above. Never mind that many to most of those sports have "Olympic Development Programs," and those programs are the ones identifying talent for the college coaches in the first place. In the sports where this is less true, pro leagues are developed or developing anyway and are, if not primed to take over, at least keeping that eventuality in the back of their minds. In the meantime, the football coach at schools like those is jealous that everyone else has a budget at all when they aren't likely to be making any real revenue.

In the meantime...

Major League Soccer's draft might get a couple prospects per year, but they're relying more and more on their in-house youth development programs. Their supporters, more often than not, are demanding their teams be more like the rest of the world, not less. To that end, MLS is starting or restarting what's sort of a professional U-23 league next year with the idea of either moving players up or selling them on.

Major League Baseball may have processed a downsizing of minor league baseball, but they've been buying up independent league players this year due to a bit of COVID and a lot of arms being lost. This kind of activity can spark more leagues to be created if they can get a hold of kids to sell on.

The G-League does sometimes make money selling players to overseas leagues. Some other minor basketball leagues try hard to be in that business.

I will say this... if there were as many D-1 hockey teams as D-1 football teams, Major Junior would play a far larger role in developing NHL players. This discussion is not so easy for hockey due to the costs involved. The reason I say that... while Major Junior is a bit bloated, at least it taps into the largest vein of talent. 200 college hockey teams would dilute the pool... and that number is probably unsustainable compared to the number of good players anyway.

It's American football that needs college athletics. Depending on whether they can soothe the health insurance industry, it may be 25 years before it becomes unsustainable.

Never mind that you're insisting on state legislatures to fund a full boat of college athletics AND demand a more equal playing field, meaning subsidizing schools not in your state. That's how you end up not appealing to state legislatures.
 

KevFu

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I'm not advocating state legislatures do anything. I'm merely pointing to the fact that college budgets are governed by state governments, making it not just a "common sense organizational reform" but a political issue.

Do you guys know that the Big 12 had no intentions of inviting Baylor in the 1990s, or the ACC had no intentions of inviting Virginia Tech in the early 2000s?

The Governor of Texas was a Baylor grad and Baylor was going to be left behind when Texas and Texas A&M left the Southwest Conference for the Big 8/12. The governor called the president of the University of Texas and told him that if they left without Baylor, the UT budget would be slashed. UT called the Big 8 and said "We can't go without Baylor." To get Texas, the Big 8/12 took Texas, A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech and left the others behind. Baylor would be in Conference USA right now if the Governor went to Rice.


Same thing happened when the ACC tried to add Miami, Boston College and Syracuse. The Virginia politicians didn't want Virginia Tech to be left behind, so UVA told the ACC they were not authorized to vote for any expansion that did not include Virginia Tech. The NC State President was on vacation and abstained from the vote via phone because she didn't have all the info on VT.

Because of that, Miami and Virginia Tech had the votes, the reluctant Syracuse was never voted on, and Boston College was one vote short. That put them all in an awkward position: BC had to play one more year in the Big East but because the Big East filed a lawsuit against the ACC, Miami and Boston College while all that was happening, Boston College spent a couple months suing themselves.


And there's dozens more. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette fought for decades with the board of regents to be called "Louisiana" but the LSU grads were against it until just recently when they realized the P5 cartel was big enough that they can call themselves anything they want and it won't hurt LSU as long as the Tigers get that SEC Network check.


Now, we don't need to get into everything that's wrong with American politics that entrenches college athletics so deep that change is difficult. I'm just saying that "just make it all club sports" is not a realistic option as it requires a magic wand or a time machine.


And again, all those conference expansions/realignments occurred because the NCAA lost the Supreme Court case about TV rights and once TV rights were bundled by conference, the conferences went from "geographic rivals" to "TV packages" and THAT consolidation of power/Power 5 TV cartel is why there's no competitive balance.

If the NCAA won the court case in 1984, partnered with Ted Turner to make an NCAA Sports cable TV station in 1985, and shared the revenue evenly, the Big Ten would actually have 10 teams, the SEC would have 10, the ACC 9, and Southwest Conference would still exist. And the term "Mid Major" would not exist. College sports would be competitive and wide open and awesome.


What's really funny is that I've been talking about conference realignment boring my friends and family and multiple message boards to death about it for so long.... But my first job I was literally thrown in front of the AD as a shield by my bosses, because they didn't want to hear him talk about it and I thought it had extreme significance. Our first convo was about the WAC, and I asked "why the hell are there 16 of them trying to be one conference? That can't work" and he said it was doomed, just wait. Three weeks later: ultra-covert Mountain West announcement (Great story, ask me if you don't know it).


That dude and I used to debate perception versus performance and the right blend of good programs and bad programs in good TV markets and we had a dream conference he was trying to build in 2001, but couldn't get the ADs to abandon their ties to their football conferences. That dream conference was a 12-team league, and 10 of those teams are now the Big East.

And if you want more "decades in advance, Back to the Future II Sports almanac content" - The "Power 5" won't leave the NCAA alone. When they leave, and they will or form a new level of NCAA, they're going to take most of FBS with them and probably a group of non-football teams as well (Big East, plus like an equivalent number of non-Big East teams from the WCC, MVC, A-10 and select markets).

The reason is simple: The "Power 5" is only the "Power 5" because they buy guarantee games and win at home. If they left on their own with just them, they wouldn't all have great records. Arkansas football needs to take Arkansas State, Troy and Georgia State with them so Arkansas is 7-5 and not 4-8.
 

joelef

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Kevfu none ofthat matters as long as ncaa and college sport propagandist continue to try have there cake and eat it to. You cant get millions in sponcersips and tv deals and it expect to be some holier then art thou amateur sport.
 

PCSPounder

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Because I lived in Boise for 11 years as they jumped from the Big Sky to the Big West to the WAC (post-16) to the Mountain West (to which they tried to leapfrog straight to the Big East before that fracture), which led to finding a realignment message board (and, for some time, Boise had its own rather active realignment message board)… so I suspect I’ve heard 95% of the stories Kev hints at. And I have a couple more.

I’ve also experienced how Boise’s former Single A baseball team decided they wanted to get out of their affiliation because the Anaheim Angels decided (as an offshoot of Moneyball) that they wanted to draft more high school kids and less college kids, and Boise’s math involved the college players winning more Northwest League championships (the math eventually didn’t hold).

I’ve also climbed onto light rail after a Portland Winterhawks playoff game and tried to explain to some drunk lad (headed to get drunker in Old Town) that the Winterhawks were Major Junior when all the guy wanted to know was whether it was college or minor league. It was funny if nothing else.

I’ve also experienced how Major League Soccer tends to have developmental programs “in name only.” How Mexican clubs have a habit of going to the Galaxy academy and literally signing players from there because there weren’t (and maybe still aren’t) contracts with the Galaxy to tamper with. At the same time, I read an interview (the link is sadly broken) with a scout for one of (at the time) one of the better Mexican clubs that, at one point, touched on a player who has become a career MLS player, noting how his time at UCLA means he may come up against 2-3 good players a SEASON, while Liga MX clubs have morphed to a system where their U-18 and U-21 sides travel with the first team and play the host team’s youth clubs.

This is all in my blog, which the management here frowns upon linking, perhaps understandably; it is what it is.

I have some fond memories watching college athletics. I’ve also been exposed to at least three superior systems and several inferior ones. That is what it is, too.
 

SnuggaRUDE

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These are fun stories that have absolutely nothing to do with the legality of not paying people who work for you.
 

KevFu

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These are fun stories that have absolutely nothing to do with the legality of not paying people who work for you.

Like I said, if college athletes violate the law, than so do every GA, TA, internship, and medical residency. I'd be looking up class action lawsuits for backpay myself.

The Law industry has the money to compensate their interns, clerks, etc. They're just evil greedy people who don't want to.

The Medical industry does not. You would have a health care catastrophe in the United States if the common opinions on college sports applied to every human (And maybe that would be for the best because the government would have to bail it out and institute universal health care. Different debate).
 
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KevFu

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Because I lived in Boise for 11 years as they jumped from the Big Sky to the Big West to the WAC (post-16) to the Mountain West (to which they tried to leapfrog straight to the Big East before that fracture), which led to finding a realignment message board (and, for some time, Boise had its own rather active realignment message board)… so I suspect I’ve heard 95% of the stories Kev hints at. And I have a couple more.

You may know me as a different name.
 

SnuggaRUDE

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Like I said, if college athletes violate the law, than so do every GA, TA, internship, and medical residency. I'd be looking up class action lawsuits for backpay myself.

The Law industry has the money to compensate their interns, clerks, etc. They're just evil greedy people who don't want to.

The Medical industry does not. You would have a health care catastrophe in the United States if the common opinions on college sports applied to every human (And maybe that would be for the best because the government would have to bail it out and institute universal health care. Different debate).

I don't know what information you're working with. Summer associates for law firms are paid equivalently to 1st year associates. The pay is excellent. Clerks aren't paid well, but they're certainly paid. Residents are all paid as well.

Every GA/TA/Internship I've ever had was paid, but I do know some internships aren't and some TA positions given school credit. If an internship or research position is unpaid, it must conform to certain rules or the institution is open to action by the government. The position must be for the benefit of the intern, and about them learning not producing things of economic value for the firm. This does get violated, but not flagrantly on national TV.
 

Big Z Man 1990

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Conference realignment could be very well headed our way.

Report: Oklahoma, Texas Potentially Headed to the SEC

Oklahoma might have an easier path of getting into the SEC than Texas. A&M does not want the school that forced it to leave the Big 12 in the SEC. This, along with the desires of Oklahoma politicians, could open the door for Oklahoma State to be OU's partner in moving to the SEC.

I knew that future realignments would be heavily affected by the legalization of paying college athletes. This appears to be the start of it.
 

North Cole

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I'm sure I bored everyone to death in the other thread.

People don't realize that the NCAA's rules are what they are because they were made decades before anyone gave a damn about the marketing of athletes.

The goal of the rules was never to prevent players from making money. The goal of the rules was always to prevent SCHOOLS from BUYING PLAYERS as a competitive advantage. The rules are not to keep the players in check financially, but to keep the SCHOOLS in check recruiting wise.

How do they not already buy players? Just because you aren't buying something with straight cash doesn't mean you aren't buying something, it's just non-monetary.

Instead of giving the players money, they just give them insane facilities, round the clock food, nutrition, personal trainers, state of the art technology, sports psychology, mental practice and drills, and the allure of the best feeder system in the league where your coach is paid 10 mil a year and your bowl games are basically bought and paid for (which showcases you the pro leagues).

"No one is talking about 80% of schools aren't on TV, and NO ONE EVER talks about the SPORTS that aren't on TV. No one cares what happens to those kids. "

This is a contradiction. So no one cares about the other schools because their programs are not as good so they don't get on TV, but the monopoly of near pro-level college teams at the top is somehow not buying players and hoarding talent; because the current system is 'working' and 'fair'.

The good teams will still get all the good players, like they do now. The bad players who are actually in it for school will go to school and get a free ride as they do now. If there is 278 irrelevant schools aren't currently competing with the big programs, allowing the big programs to pay players have zero affect on this dynamic. Just because the best of the best get paid, doesn't mean the bad guys will get paid - market pays what it will bear, if you suck and get no cash offers from good programs then you will take the free ride at a lesser athletic school. You make it sound like suddenly those 278 schools will have no students to choose from anymore.

If these rules were invented so that teams couldn't abuse monetary competitive advantage, they clearly failed. The result is they pour millions into ancillary benefits lesser programs can't compete with and thus abuse the recruiting system.
 

PCSPounder

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Like I said, if college athletes violate the law, than so do every GA, TA, internship, and medical residency. I'd be looking up class action lawsuits for backpay myself.

The Law industry has the money to compensate their interns, clerks, etc. They're just evil greedy people who don't want to.

The Medical industry does not. You would have a health care catastrophe in the United States if the common opinions on college sports applied to every human (And maybe that would be for the best because the government would have to bail it out and institute universal health care. Different debate).

There is a journalist who was commenting several months (or maybe more than a year) ago about a firm trying to hire an intern... no pay, but the firm wanted 5 years experience in the field and references and the like. If you want to believe these things are NOT connected, better think again.
 

PCSPounder

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One of the premises laid out here was that college sports were somehow kind of egalitarian. As if UCLA didn't win 10 men's basketball championships in the space of 12 years or so (which made the "Lost Weekend In Oregon" especially sweet, I guess), as if Tennessee and UConn didn't own women's basketball for decades, and so on, and so on...

...so I've been having a laugh at times here.

Thing is, when we get to the viability of the structure of the thing (tenuous at best), and the argument is called "dumb" because someone really wants to bring about something that college athletics never was... fart noise. That's all that argument was.

Let's face it. College athletics is closer to systems of Europe than to American sports, just without automatic promotion and relegation. But there are spades of "every club for itself."

The 70s were full of talk of the impending "Superconference" before realignment started taking hold in the mid-80s. Even now, this isn't an environment for a lot of Boise States to go social climbing.

And Boise State's academic hurdles are really speed bumps, even compared to Oregon. But that's another matter. You know, that silly thing called academics that might happen to be the reason universities and colleges exist.

EDIT- Did you see the report about Texas and Oklahoma reaching out to the SEC? If the SEC accepts, good luck rest of the Big 12. Curious to see how much sway Texas A&M has in this little situation.

Update: Oklahoma, Texas Had 'Already Taken Steps to Facilitate a Move' to the SEC
 
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KevFu

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Let's face it. College athletics is closer to systems of Europe than to American sports, just without automatic promotion and relegation. But there are spades of "every club for itself."

The 70s were full of talk of the impending "Superconference" before realignment started taking hold in the mid-80s. Even now, this isn't an environment for a lot of Boise States to go social climbing.

And Boise State's academic hurdles are really speed bumps, even compared to Oregon. But that's another matter. You know, that silly thing called academics that might happen to be the reason universities and colleges exist.

EDIT- Did you see the report about Texas and Oklahoma reaching out to the SEC? If the SEC accepts, good luck rest of the Big 12. Curious to see how much sway Texas A&M has in this little situation.

Right, you and I are seeing the landscape of college athletics and how it has changed over the last 40 years, and we see the exact same things:

"Every club for itself"
Schools placing athletics at a higher import than academics and the principles it's SUPPOSE TO BE ABOUT
Schools leaving their geographic rivals to chase the MONEY of a bigger TV contract and better "access" to the the money from the post-season via conference realignment (which also makes their athletes miss more class because the opponents are crazy further away).

Those things are all negatives.

And the way we got here was the Supreme Court ruling that "College Sports SHOULD BE every club for itself" by saying the NCAA's TV model was anti-competitive (Even though it was the same as pro sports. The Yankees don't get their Tier 1 TV rights, MLB gets to sell those!). That is what turned CONFERENCES into TV cartels.

A court decision opening up one aspect of college athletics to Darwinist capitalism is how we have Syracuse-UConn, Missouri-Kansas, Utah-BYU, Maryland-Virginia, Dayton-Xavier, Saint Louis-DePaul, dozens of others and probably Oklahoma-Oklahoma State soon, separated from each other by conference realignment after hundreds of years of rivals; it's how undefeated teams like Boise State, Tulane, UCF were blackballed from a football championship game; and it's how West Virginia athletes have to go Iowa State for a conference road trip during a school week; or BC to Miami, Tulsa to Temple.

The side effects of that decision, 40 years later, look terrible compared to what we used to have: Hundreds of teams spread out over 20 conferences, if you had a very good year, you were getting an NCAA tournament bid, Geographic conferences where rivals played each other. -- All of the people in THIS SITE who will do a thousand pages on realignment and why PHI-PIT have to be together, what would they do trying to make a perfect alignment of conferences be from a fan perspective if it wasn't for the TV cartels?


And a new Supreme Court decision, opening up a new avenue of college sports for Darwinist Capitalism to enter, is going to have more horrible side effects. Even if the principle of both decisions was "legally correct." There needs to be massive reform/legislation for the greater good of college sports; but it's too freaking late for that, the cat is out of the bag.

The only real way to stem the tide was to eliminate the provision on "conferences of 12 or more may divide into divisions and play an unbalanced schedule." If there was a hard rule that conferences MUST play a full round robin schedule, period, then you'd effectively cap the number of schools per conference at 10. And while realignment for TV purposes would still happen, you wouldn't end up with the ACC, SEC, Big Ten having literally all the power, all the money and 53 total schools. In 1984, they had 28 total schools.

It's just getting worse and worse the more it's corrupted by unchecked capitalism. And I don't think "Let's add more" is the way you solve the problems that exist. It's essentially a luge situation now. We're this far down the course, there's no going back. I just don't like what's at the bottom.
 

SnuggaRUDE

Registered User
Apr 5, 2013
8,946
6,480
Forcing employers to pay their employees wasn't on my unchecked capitalism bingo card. Seems like a pretty straight forward check.
 

cutchemist42

Registered User
Apr 7, 2011
6,705
220
Winnipeg
I cannot believe the new realignment.....definitely big enough for it's own thread but likely on the football board already.

I think the B12 is 100% dead at this point.
 

KevFu

Registered User
May 22, 2009
9,007
3,239
Phoenix from Rochester via New Orleans
Big 12 won't be dead.

The Big Ten can consider Kansas and Iowa State, but if they decide to expand, then their primary targets will be (Texas if the SEC deal isn't done!) and Virginia and North Carolina first. Duke a possibility. Then Notre Dame. Then maybe Kansas or Iowa State.

Sure, the ACC could conceivably add Oklahoma State, TCU, Baylor. But probably have no interest in Texas Tech, Iowa State, Kansas State over the upper teams of the American (Memphis, Cincinnati, UCF, USF) which are in bigger TV markets.

The Pac-12 with new leadership and the benefit of geographic isolation protecting them from a raid, really doesn't have a massive reason to add any of those schools. TCU/Oklahoma State would be decent additions, but they kind have to go 16, 14 doesn't work for them, and they'd be lowering their academic standards which they are loathe to do. The Pac-12 would probably look for a merger with the Big Ten before taking four Big 12 teams.

People have this mindset that "4 super conferences of 16!" because they like orderly neat boxes, but it's every one for themselves and there's just no reason for the Pac-12 to go to 16. If the Pac-12 gets to 16, it'll be after the Big Ten/SEC are at 18 or 20. Just like it's always been.

Whomever isn't offered an invite to another conference from the Big 12 will simply replenish from the American or Mountain West as they see fit. Memphis was offering the Big 12 a FedEx bribe a couple years ago, but the AAC thinks they can "be proactive" and add their members? The WAC tried that with the Mountain West, and look how that went.

The Big 12 has been a P5 conference for decades while the AAC/MWC have not. All of those remaining schools have a huge leg up on the Group of Five schools as they've had big TV money building their programs and the others haven't.
 

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