What has happened to college athletics? Well, perhaps I should be more specific? What has happened to the big sports in Division I — football and basketball?
Of course, the bottom line starts and ends with the money. Quite frankly, I don’t know how average people can afford to go to games or to buy the entertainment packages to watch on television. I can’t, but I sure love to watch the game on network television when they’re available.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
I played some ball, and I was a volunteer assistant football coach in Division III years ago. I watch the game for the beauty of well-executed plays and to see how strategies unfold throughout the game — to see how teams adapt, and the skill and strength of the athletes. I represent Division III on an NCAA committee in Indianapolis.
Darryl Sims starred in Division I football at the University of Wisconsin, played four seasons in the NFL and now serves as an athletic director at Division III University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. As a member of the NCAA Constitution committee, he explained that the NCAA was formed in significant part to help student-athletes keep on track to earn their degrees. The NCAA helps to maintain equity as much as possible and level the playing field.
It continues to govern and to manage its rules and regulations. He warned, however, “The NCAA is dangerously close to losing its usefulness and relevance at the Division I level.”
A large number of Division I athletes receive scholarship money to play, and oftentimes it’s a full ride. No Division III student-athletes receive scholarship money, by rule. That has always been a pretty sweet deal to me — to get full college tuition plus room and board to play ball. Of course, without a doubt, they put in extensive hours, blood, sweat and tears to earn those scholarships.
With ticket sales and television rights, Division I schools are raking in the money. It’s truly beyond comprehension. Do you think it will moderate? Neither do I.
A confluence of events has recently created this Wild West in big-time college athletics. The athletes have seen all this money and have said, “What about us?” Even more so, the big athletic conference commissioners have said, “Greed is good.” And the NCAA leaders have sat on the sidelines and said, “Who do you think you are? We’re the NCAA.”
Those commissioners told the NCAA exactly who they are. “You’re nothing. We don’t need you. You can come along for the ride.”
What happened? Follow the money.
The NCAA gets most of its revenue from its tournament fees and broadcast licensing. That revenue supports all three divisions. And it’s big money. The big athletic conferences get much of their football revenue from television, and that money is colossal.
The big-time athletic conference commissioners have been afraid of competition for that money. They don’t want smaller conferences competing for these dollars. They collapsed conferences into the “Power Five” — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC. Smaller conferences are choked out — they just can’t compete.
This conference realignment isn’t over. Does anyone believe it will stay at the Power Five? Will conferences even exist in five years? The plan continues to unfold.
With TV money heavy in their pockets, schools can actually start giving some money to the athletes. They created this huge unlimited pot of money called NIL — for name, image and likeness rights — that can pay the athletes to play for them. A University of Georgia quarterback is set to receive $1.9 million in NIL money this year. A University of Colorado quarterback received $6.2 million. (It probably helps to have a famous dad.) These kids still get their full ride scholarship on top of it.
These Power Five commissioners have created another avenue to crush the competition for schools with less money. It is a mechanism that supports the NIL: the transfer portal. Now the big schools can use NIL money to lure athletes to transfer, which hurts smaller schools that don’t have the financial wherewithal.
Athletics is supposed to be about competition, but this chokes out competition. The NCAA is powerless because it refused to adapt. The best teams adapt, and the NCAA did not. Doesn’t this all seem crazy?
The big universities now hire general managers to keep on top of NIL. The beast always needs more though. So now these universities are asking their student bodies to pay additional fees to offset costs. I wonder what they are naming these fees.
Is this happening at the small Division III level? Nope.
Sponsors aren’t knocking on the doors of these student-athletes. DIII athletes don’t get scholarships, but they might get T-shirts or a couple of hundred dollars a year, if they’re lucky. The NCAA and Division III sports continue with their original integrity.
Former Division III baseball player Blake Bolen told me, “The NIL doesn’t have a real impact at the DIII level. DIII players transfer for more playing time, not money.” Bolen believes a cap on how much individual athletes can receive from NIL would make the system more competitive.
Piedmont University Athletic Director and former baseball coach Jim Peeples told me that athletes can receive more money in NIL than they would through the Major League Baseball draft. Some athletes might stay in college longer because of it.
Does all this money affect high school athletic programs? Absolutely.
These universities dangle big NIL money. Anecdotal reports tell me that some of these kids start getting an attitude with their high school coaches because of it. Bolen explained that when colleges come recruiting, the athletes will ask them how much they can receive in NIL support.
Without a system of checks and balances by the stoic NCAA, the free market runs amok at the Division I level.
I can’t afford game tickets, so I’ll have to watch from afar.
Perry Rettig is a distinguished professor and former vice president at Piedmont University. He has spent more than 40 years as an educator, including stints as a public schoolteacher and principal.
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