Not quite time for this, normally, but there is significant news that impacts college football.  The Big 12 chancellors and presidents approved the proposed settlement in the NCAA's House case...the big one that was a class action lawsuit seeking back pay.  The settlement is for $2.7 billion...because the potential liability was several times that amount, due to triple damages as an antitrust case.

 

The other terms also mean the schools may optionally set up direct revenue-sharing payments...we're talking $20 million per school for the big boys.

 

The Athletic noted, in a story from earlier this morning, that this is also going to broaden the divide between the haves and have-nots, because finding $20M is a heck of a lot easier when you're getting $50M from TV revenue alone.  There are many other potential issues and consequences.  We won't see how this finally plays out for quite some time.

 

And now that the first power conference has signed on, it seems MUCH more difficult for anyone else to say no.

 

EDIT:  ACC becomes conference #2.

 

And elsewhere, part of the reason the NCAA wants to settle, is to get this phase behind them, and hopefully craft NIL rules that might actually work.  We'll believe it when we see it, to be sure, but the current situation is a disaster.  Case in point:  Jaden Rashada, whose NIL issues have been massively reported.  Now?  He is suing the Florida Gators and head coach Billy Napier for fraudulent practices.  He asserts Napier promised to pay his father $1M as a partial, advance payment on signing his letter of intent...and never got it.  This *may* also get Napier and Florida into trouble...but enforcing NIL rules is in abeyance due to the Tennessee case.  The whole thing is a ruptured sewer line of a mess.

 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40190447/jaden-rashada-florida-gators-nil-lawsuit-next

 

 

 

 

And now all 5 power conferences...yeah, even the Pac-12, it doesn't collapse until the end of next month...and the NCAA have all agreed to the settlement terms.  Of course, given that this is a US legal case, it's not even close to a done deal.  The presiding judge has to approve;  ESPN notes, that'll take some months.  Compensation is not expected to start being distributed until fall of '25.

I found this analysis helpful:

 

House vs. NCAA settlement winners and losers: Athletes take monumental step, non-revenue sports at risk

 

Honestly, I don't see how this is sustainable long term. Eventually the money is going to dry up, and the whole system will collapse like the house of cards that it is. 

 

But I could be wrong.

I don't see the money drying up any time soon, because so much of the revenue is from the TV deals.  It's the same as the NFL.  There is a cap to how high those rights can go...but that cap is nowhere in sight at this time.  I agree that yes, it IS there, and it may well bite college and pro sports.  Both the NFL and college football are vulnerable to the increasing splintering effect of Too Many Outlets...both of the NFL Christmas games are on Netflix ONLY, and it's Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans.  That's 4 potential playoff teams.  

 

As the article notes, the biggest losers are 

--competitive balance.  But we already knew that was going out the window

--Everyone not in the power 4.  The settlement says the big guys will be forking out about $20M...the entire NMSU athletics department's budget is about $28M.

--Very likely, several non-revenue sports.  

 

I did find the point about bloated athletics department staffs very interesting.  I knew coaching staffs, at least for football, were ridiculous...but the story says 139 Ohio State athletics department staffers made $100K+?  WOW.  Nice gig, if you can get it.

As long as you keep winning, anyway.

The NCAA has basically completed the process of rendering itself pointless.  From The Athletic this morning:

 

Quote

The U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the NCAA that will permanently bar the organization from restricting athletes’ transfer eligibility, it was announced Thursday.

 

 

<sigh>  This is, I suspect, going to fail miserably...but not very quickly.  The only people that will enjoy this are the lawyers.

 

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/les-miles-sues-lsu-claiming-vacated-wins-have-eliminated-him-from-college-football-hall-of-fame-consideration/

 

At issue...LSU agreed to vacate 37 wins due to a Level I recruiting violation that happened under Miles.  That slams his winning percentage, of course, particularly given that his college head coaching tenure wasn't *that* long.  

 

The WEIRD part here is...the NCAA only announced this move in June of 2023.  The violation was from a player's father receiving substantial money from a booster...who embezzled it from the booster's employer.  That's why it took so long...the story came to light in 2019, then the legal process had to be completed.  

 

I hate vacated wins, particularly so many years after the fact, but they're VERY common when an ineligible player's involved.  ESPN has some comments from Miles' attorney:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40370510/les-miles-suing-lsu-vacated-wins-drop-hof-threshold

 

but this still feels like a temper tantrum, especially in light of the fact that none of the universities at which Miles was a head coach, even nominated him for the HoF.

Oh yeah, those guys are in the ACC now.

 

Here's how Cal, Stanford and SMU changed everything to prepare for the ACC

And those travel issues, other than the equipment trucks and needing a 767, will hit pretty much every one of the schools' sports teams.  

 

I think the story's a good reminder...and won't be the last we hear of this, because I still feel that the western schools are going to regret these moves.

The BYU football program dealt with a lot of this during their decade of Independence. I particularly remember the story from the covid season about how they had the equipment people load up the truck and told the drivers to start driving. When they asked where, they just said "Towards the Mid-Atlantic. We will update you later." That was the game where they signed the contract to play at Coastal Carolina on a Tuesday as I recall and played the game on Saturday. 

 

Having more than a week's notice of who and where you're playing will certainly help, but a road trip from Palo Alto to Boston or Miami is still no joke.

It probably can't be proven should I be right, but...

 

I suspect the travel will cost the West Coast schools 1-2 games a year, just from the wear and tear.  Games they might've won in better circumstances because they might've been a half-step quicker, or faster/more accurate reading of the offense or defense.  And more in basketball, just because there's more games.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/40649389/ncaa-antitrust-lawsuits-settlement-filed-federal-court

 

Football coaches are bemoaning an impact:  no limit on # of scholarships, but also likely roster size limits, will kill walk-ons.  What this will tend to do, is tighten the grip of the sports camps.  When you hear all the "5 star" or "4 star" or "3 star" recruits...that's from the Nike et al camps that players pay to attend...and it can be *expensive*.
https://www.imgacademy.com/sport-camps/football-camp

 

If a kid's family can't spring for these?  It's a whole lot harder to get a major-conference scholarship.  There's only so many a year.  The stakes are also large;  the ESPN story notes that the average major-college football or basketball NIL payment is estimated at $135,000.  Plus room and board.

That payment is roughly twice what an assistant professor makes.

20 hours ago, Cancer said:

That payment is roughly twice what an assistant professor makes.

 

Well, duh.  Assistant profs can bring in money from grants and such, but that's pocket change.

Looks like the NCAA's investigation into the Michigan sign-stealing scandal may be wrapping up.  ESPN got a draft of the allegations, which are quite serious.

 

Jim Harbaugh  is mentioned as having obstructed the investigation, and may be subject to a show-cause restriction should his NFL time not be particularly successful.  (Which I expect, personally.)  

 

More immediately, the new HC may have deleted multiple texts/emails to Connor Stallions, the fall guy so far...and he's looking at suspensions AND show-cause.  

 

These are Level 1 violations, and the nature of them is such that the NCAA tends to drop a heavy hammer.

 

On the flip side, this is the NCAA, so nothing will be resolved before the playoffs are long over.  Note, I'm not saying WHICH year's playoffs.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40764152/ncaa-hands-jim-harbaugh-4-year-show-cause-recruiting-violations

Finebaum's comments, if they play, are hilarious.

 

 

 

and this too

 

 

Have you realized yet, that....

 

week 0 of the college football season is THIS WEEK?

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

 

There are only 4 games this year, mostly non-entities, and a made-for-$$$$ conference game (FSU vs. Georgia Tech) in Dublin.

 

Looking at the Athletic's ranking of all teams...the national whipping boys known as the MAC appear to be bound to repeat their fiascos of, IIRC, the last couple years.  Starting with NIU at 105 (of 134) and moving DOWN...there's Bowling Green, Eastern, Central, and Western Michigan, Ball State, and Kent State at 133...the only team lower is a D-I newcomer, Kennesaw State.  

 

NMSU is ranked above New Mexico.  That's always fitting.

They're not even pretending any more:

 

Oklahoma State football helmets to have QR codes for fans linking to NIL donation page

 

From the article:

Quote

The [QR] codes will link to a web page organized by "Pokes With A Purpose," the program's NIL fundraising arm. There, fans will be presented with multiple donation options ranging from $100 to $5,000 to "other." They'll also have the option of making their donation one-time or monthly. At the bottom of the page, fans can "credit a team member" by choosing from a list of players' names.

 

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

They're not even pretending any more:

 

Would you rather go back to the 70s and 80s when the same thing was happening...just under the table?

 

And you can't say you're even a little surprised.  The complete capitulation by the NCAA...at least for now, I think everyone expects rules of some type have to be enacted...means "get it while you can."

 

Here's another first.

https://uni-watch.com/2024/08/14/and-so-it-begins-grace-lancers-become-first-college-to-have-uniform-ads/

 

Got to figure this'll trickle up to D1 sooner, rather than later.

 

Universities have basically proven there's little or nothing they won't do to cash in on football.  The dissolution of the Pac 12, the West Coast schools committing to the *obscene* travel schedules that will be onerous as heck.  The motto is "money isn't everything, it's the only thing" now.

There isn't a good reason right now for the NCAA to have its members do what the Pac-12 did: throw in the towel completely and dissolve the organization, and let the high-leverage schools negotiate their own media contracts.

 

Being a communist and retired university faculty myself, I'd like to see intercollegiate athletics abolished as an institution, and let the NBA and NFL run their own d****d minor leagues with the attendant expenses, but they have successfully dodged that sinkhole and foisted it off onto higher education in what is one of the great parasitic victimizations of the last hundred years.  But I'm also in the camp of being in favor of killing off all the billionaires and taking their stuff.

I won't totally blame the NFL. Remember. college football was bigger than the NFL until the Super Bowl era and held equal status until the 80's. By then the universities had fully grasped the value of the grossly uncompensated labor that athletes provide.

 

The universities sold their souls chasing the sports dollar. But one of my more philosophical college roommates who became a professor say he doesn't mind the NIL. " If my department pulled in as much money as the football program, I'd want a 6-7 figure income too."

I'll grant what you say about money (and I have had a colleague who ran a research institute brought in about millions a year in external funding).  But revenue-sport athletes absolutely corrupt whatever they touch on the academic side of the enterprise.  I cannot say from sure knowledge that the athletic departments have secret deals to edit recorded course grades, but I rather believe something like that does occur.  Not universally, but I will not believe it never happens.

Edited August 22, 2024Aug 22 by Cancer

I can't speak to editing grades. I do know that my university had several departments that offered majors tailored for athletic ease. The most blatant of these was Recreation and Parks in the otherwise quite serious Wildlife and Fisheries department. It was an open joke to call it Romp and Play.

From time to time, yeah, I've heard much the same.  Editing grades is risky;  it might leave traces, and if it does, well, the school's in deep doodoo.  OTOH, offering a raft of easy classes is somewhat harder to challenge.  Plus, it wouldn't surprise me if the athletes don't necessarily be on a graduation track all the time...not sure what the minimum course load is like.  

 

And why should any grad care about the academic rep of the school that gave em a degree, right?  I mean, what's more important, academic ranking or AP ranking?

And the college football season is underway in ernest.

 

Georgia Tech 24, #10 Florida State 21 as the Yellow Jackets hit the game-winning field goal as time expires in Dublin.

 

Great game.