Underneath Playoff glitz, a warning: College football could be headed into a ditch

BleedGopher

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per USA Today:

But underneath the glitz of Monday night’s Atlanta extravaganza, it’s hard to shake the feeling that college football is unwittingly being driven into a ditch.

The supposed guardians of this sport — from the conference commissioners to the athletics directors to television executives — have long acted like arrogant frat boys on a long weekend in Vegas, pretending as though every reckless decision will be free of consequence.

And now it might be finally catching up to them.

As good as the business of college football might seem on the surface on Monday night, the cracks are forming.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-money-coaches-not-players-me-too/1011059001/

Go Gophers!!
 



And he didn't even mention the new facilities going up each year.
 



In the pros the leagues put together rules that help balance the competition. For example, in the NFL the worst team gets the best picks in the draft, the mandatory salary caps, and the like. In college it's become the opposite, the rich get richer and the gap is growing. Schools with a big fan base can afford the best facilities and coaches, which attracts the best recruits, which leads to winning seasons, which keeps the fan base interested, which keeps the upward spiral going. Schools that are on the downside of that trajectory keep dropping. This was always true, but today it's a much larger discrepancy. The TV contracts are much larger, the corporations that pay for stadium names are giving bigger dollars, etc. And, if anything, the rules are changing to further increase this gap. To try to compete a lot of schools, including the Gophers, have taken on significant debt to fund facility construction. The current model isn't sustainable. If the NCAA doesn't do something to help balance the competition I think in the next ten years you'll start seeing a lot of universities drop football as it's just too expensive to try to compete, and a lot of schools will have large debts overhanging their athletic departments that they'll have a real difficult time paying off. Some simple ideas (simple in concept, but hard to get in place) is revenue sharing from the bowl systems, true staffing limits on coaching staffs (Alabama has an unreal number of "consultants" that do the prep work of studying film and putting together game plans), and limits on the total budget for a team.
 

Alabama and other P5 powerhouses with deep pockets are like the New York Yankees in baseball.
 

MLB baseball has more parity than the NFL


The nfl draft and salary cap isn’t to make the bills, Browns, and lions win championships...they are there to hold wages down and increase profits
 

MLB baseball has more parity than the NFL


The nfl draft and salary cap isn’t to make the bills, Browns, and lions win championships...they are there to hold wages down and increase profits

Every single thing you stated is nearly completely the opposite of reality. No, MLB doesn't have more parity (NFL revenue sharing and draft picks as the primary way to get talent are the primary levers, with a salary cap ensuring a rich owner can't overcome that system through free agency). The Browns and Lions lose despite the leveling mechanisms (you're mentioning the Bills after a season when they made the playoffs?). If there wasn't a revenue share to salaries component within the cap, you might have a point on that, but there is (if you had argued that the rules are biased toward moving more salary money to veterans vs draft picks, you'd be correct). And the profits side is directly related to the revenue component of the salary cap; more revenue means more money toward salaries. The part that increases the profits (realized mainly by owners when selling equity in the teams, but also in stadium revenue that goes to both ownership and players) is taxpayer funded stadiums that inflate the value of the teams in a monopolistic league that allows teams to blackmail their cites.
 



In the pros the leagues put together rules that help balance the competition. For example, in the NFL the worst team gets the best picks in the draft, the mandatory salary caps, and the like. In college it's become the opposite, the rich get richer and the gap is growing. Schools with a big fan base can afford the best facilities and coaches, which attracts the best recruits, which leads to winning seasons, which keeps the fan base interested, which keeps the upward spiral going. Schools that are on the downside of that trajectory keep dropping. This was always true, but today it's a much larger discrepancy. The TV contracts are much larger, the corporations that pay for stadium names are giving bigger dollars, etc. And, if anything, the rules are changing to further increase this gap. To try to compete a lot of schools, including the Gophers, have taken on significant debt to fund facility construction. The current model isn't sustainable. If the NCAA doesn't do something to help balance the competition I think in the next ten years you'll start seeing a lot of universities drop football as it's just too expensive to try to compete, and a lot of schools will have large debts overhanging their athletic departments that they'll have a real difficult time paying off. Some simple ideas (simple in concept, but hard to get in place) is revenue sharing from the bowl systems, true staffing limits on coaching staffs (Alabama has an unreal number of "consultants" that do the prep work of studying film and putting together game plans), and limits on the total budget for a team.

Replying to my own quote (kind of odd), but here's another one that I thought of that illustrates my point (that its in the best interest of football for the NCAA to create mechanisms that help lower teams complete with higher teams). They implemented the early signing period this year which in a real sense benefits those teams that didn't make it to a bowl game. This is basically the bottom half of teams in each conference. By not having to prep for a bowl game, these teams had a slight advantage in recruiting in that they could focus all their time on getting recruits to visit and sign a NLI. Fleck & company took that opening to the extreme in doing house visits and having the "all in" recruiting visit just prior to NLI. Saban on the other hand was and is trying to kill the early NLI period as he says it was unfair to him that he had to focus on preping for a bowl game and couldn't do as much recruiting as non-bowl teams (makes me shed a tear for how unfair it is for 'Bama, like he's really competing with lower conference teams for his recruits). Watch to see how this plays out. The early signing day is one of only two mechanisms I can see where lesser teams get a helping hand to better compete on the field (the second one is TV contracts for the most part are equally shared across the entire conference, and thus a team with high viewership in a sense revenue shares with a team that doesn't have a large fan base).
 

The thing that makes this relevant to GopherHole is that revenue sharing like the B1G (that is similar to what the NFL does) is going to make the entire league better able to withstand the impact of the points made in the article. Leagues like the Big 12 that operate under rules that look a lot more like MLB are going to have major issues with competitiveness and quality of product.
 

Replying to my own quote (kind of odd), but here's another one that I thought of that illustrates my point (that its in the best interest of football for the NCAA to create mechanisms that help lower teams complete with higher teams). They implemented the early signing period this year which in a real sense benefits those teams that didn't make it to a bowl game. This is basically the bottom half of teams in each conference. By not having to prep for a bowl game, these teams had a slight advantage in recruiting in that they could focus all their time on getting recruits to visit and sign a NLI. Fleck & company took that opening to the extreme in doing house visits and having the "all in" recruiting visit just prior to NLI. Saban on the other hand was and is trying to kill the early NLI period as he says it was unfair to him that he had to focus on preping for a bowl game and couldn't do as much recruiting as non-bowl teams (makes me shed a tear for how unfair it is for 'Bama, like he's really competing with lower conference teams for his recruits). Watch to see how this plays out. The early signing day is one of only two mechanisms I can see where lesser teams get a helping hand to better compete on the field (the second one is TV contracts for the most part are equally shared across the entire conference, and thus a team with high viewership in a sense revenue shares with a team that doesn't have a large fan base).

What will happen is those schools with the financial means to do so will hire even more people in non-coaching positions to do the recruiting for them while the coaches are prepping for their bowl games/playoffs. The $500,000 that Georgia is spending will pale in comparison to what schools will spend on recruiting in the future. This first year gave an advantage to those who didn't make a bowl game, but now that schools see how it works, they will figure out a way to eliminate that advantage by spending even more money on recruiting staffs.
 

What will happen is those schools with the financial means to do so will hire even more people in non-coaching positions to do the recruiting for them while the coaches are prepping for their bowl games/playoffs. The $500,000 that Georgia is spending will pale in comparison to what schools will spend on recruiting in the future. This first year gave an advantage to those who didn't make a bowl game, but now that schools see how it works, they will figure out a way to eliminate that advantage by spending even more money on recruiting staffs.

... and the gap between the haves and have nots will continue to grow. Here's a stat for you as to the "haves"...

-- For the past 17 years every recruit that signed a NLI with Saban (either at LSU or Bama) and stuck with the program at least 3 years, has won a national championship.
 



FWIW, as I read the article, one of the author's big points was that players deserve to be paid or compensated at a higher level to reflect the revenues which are generated, based on the players' efforts.

Frankly, I am highly skeptical that players will ever be "paid" for playing college FB. I could see some added spending money above and beyond room, board and tuition, but a salary for playing - no way.

if it ever came to that, I think the P5 conferences would just pull out of the NCAA and form their own organization.

Ultimately, the big difference for FB is the lack of options. A baseball player or hockey player can go right into the minors. A basketball player only has to play one year of college before jumping to the pros. But a football player has to play college football for at least 3 years. And a true minor league for football would be very expensive while generating little revenue, making it very unlikely to happen.
 

FWIW, as I read the article, one of the author's big points was that players deserve to be paid or compensated at a higher level to reflect the revenues which are generated, based on the players' efforts.

Frankly, I am highly skeptical that players will ever be "paid" for playing college FB. I could see some added spending money above and beyond room, board and tuition, but a salary for playing - no way.

if it ever came to that, I think the P5 conferences would just pull out of the NCAA and form their own organization.

Ultimately, the big difference for FB is the lack of options. A baseball player or hockey player can go right into the minors. A basketball player only has to play one year of college before jumping to the pros. But a football player has to play college football for at least 3 years. And a true minor league for football would be very expensive while generating little revenue, making it very unlikely to happen.

It'll be interesting to see if that's the path Vince McMahon's new league goes down. The UFL made a huge mistake not taking college age kids. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of has-beens and never-will-bes. If instead it's a true developmental league not only might people watch, but they could potentially make money on the NFL buying out the contracts.

But that's assuming the league isn't just XFL part 2: even more outrageous than last time! :)

I also think the NCAA will do everything possible to kill it if they go after college age kids. From frivolous lawsuits to not allowing teams to rent stadiums to telling TV partners not to cover the league. They hold a lot of power and if they see the league as a threat they will not hesitate to wage war.
 

FWIW, as I read the article, one of the author's big points was that players deserve to be paid or compensated at a higher level to reflect the revenues which are generated, based on the players' efforts.

Frankly, I am highly skeptical that players will ever be "paid" for playing college FB. I could see some added spending money above and beyond room, board and tuition, but a salary for playing - no way.

I don't think we're likely to see it be a true minor league, but we're already seeing changes based on the P5 demands. A great example is CD from IMG explicitly stating he's going to use part of his stipend (much increased from before stipend) to help his mom come and see games. B1G schools will likely continue to expand the stipends (PPP-adjusted evenly, league-wide if the conference leadership is smart) and that will help us as a group.
 

The author is reaching for anything he can. The salary issue is legit, but eventually, most colleges won't stay with it because they can't afford it - and very few coaches are sure winners, anyway. The concussion issue, if it continues and shrinks the pool of players at grade school and high school level, may be more of a threat to football than anything else. Also, the massive demographic shifts toward soccer-playing immigrants may have an influence.
 

Americans love their football, and all that might happen, long term, is that the # of people out there playing football will decrease, which may lead to the smallest of schools dropping football. But those schools rarely, if ever, send players to the NFL. And the few good players they got, well, those players will just go to the remaining schools, so the talent won't be so spread out, it will just slowly become more and more concentrated. But the P5 schools will probably be the schools that never have to drop football. Will parents keep their young children from playing football? Some will, of course, the smarter ones especially, but as their sons grow up, some of those young men will choose on their own to play. It's a big money maker for the NFL and for the big colleges, so money will be invested in equipment to protect players, and rules will be inserted into the game to help protect players as well. And some big dumb guys will simply not care about the risks and will want the fame and money.


If Ice Hockey can do as well as it does, as a much of a niche sport as it is, then cfb will do just fine for a very long time.
 




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