Speculating on the future of college sports

[Irishman]

Texting some friends this evening, and the convo is about what will happen to college sports going forward. Saban has been a harsh critic of the NIL money and transfer portal. The future picture may have been a driving force for him to step down.                                                   

Is the current path sustainable? If it is not sustainable, how long will it last before it falls apart? What are the unintended consequences?     

How long will the NCAA survive? 

Does it happen at the expense of the non revenue sports?                                                                                                                               

Anyone here excited about the direction college sports is heading? 

What is the impact going to be on HS sports? 

I am not confident at all that this is sustainable. I think what Saban sees with the portal is that coaches will have to recruit every scholarship player every year. I have mentioned before, programs like IU and other non competitive programs in the big conferences will just be conduits for programs that do compete. 

If a program misses the top 12 in football for a couple years, how difficult does recruiting become? 

I think the NCAA or some remnant of it can remain to govern D2 and D3 sports and a handful of DI sports like baseball and hockey. I pick those two because the minor league system for both is well developed and many of the athletes playing those sports are really there to get degrees first. I don't see NIL money impacting those sports much at all, even though they do generate some revenue for schools, and their post season playoffs are pretty popular. 

If it does impact the non revenue sports, and I think it will, at what point does Title IX become a factor? The money generated by football and basketball in the past will now go to NIL money instead of sustaining other programs. 

My guess is it will quickly fall apart; something like less than 10 years. 

Maybe some level of nostalgia will remain; teams will maintain (or pay rights fees to keep) the name of the schools on their uniforms and playing in the college stadiums while being independent from the schools themselves. There are already a number of players in college basketball that may be registered for classes this semester, but are not going to be attending. If I remember right, the Kentucky teams that last won titles had the starting 5 not attending 2nd semester classes. Maybe they were not the first to do that, but it was notable since UK went back to back with 2 completely different starting lineups. 

Other thoughts?

 

[Komets2727]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:45 PM, Irishman said:

Texting some friends this evening, and the convo is about what will happen to college sports going forward. Saban has been a harsh critic of the NIL money and transfer portal. The future picture may have been a driving force for him to step down.                                                   

Is the current path sustainable? If it is not sustainable, how long will it last before it falls apart? What are the unintended consequences?     

How long will the NCAA survive? 

Does it happen at the expense of the non revenue sports?                                                                                                                               

Anyone here excited about the direction college sports is heading? 

What is the impact going to be on HS sports? 

I am not confident at all that this is sustainable. I think what Saban sees with the portal is that coaches will have to recruit every scholarship player every year. I have mentioned before, programs like IU and other non competitive programs in the big conferences will just be conduits for programs that do compete. 

If a program misses the top 12 in football for a couple years, how difficult does recruiting become? 

I think the NCAA or some remnant of it can remain to govern D2 and D3 sports and a handful of DI sports like baseball and hockey. I pick those two because the minor league system for both is well developed and many of the athletes playing those sports are really there to get degrees first. I don't see NIL money impacting those sports much at all, even though they do generate some revenue for schools, and their post season playoffs are pretty popular. 

If it does impact the non revenue sports, and I think it will, at what point does Title IX become a factor? The money generated by football and basketball in the past will now go to NIL money instead of sustaining other programs. 

My guess is it will quickly fall apart; something like less than 10 years. 

Maybe some level of nostalgia will remain; teams will maintain (or pay rights fees to keep) the name of the schools on their uniforms and playing in the college stadiums while being independent from the schools themselves. There are already a number of players in college basketball that may be registered for classes this semester, but are not going to be attending. If I remember right, the Kentucky teams that last won titles had the starting 5 not attending 2nd semester classes. Maybe they were not the first to do that, but it was notable since UK went back to back with 2 completely different starting lineups. 

Other thoughts?

 

Good topic. Here are some thoughts:

1. I believe we are headed to a similar format as England soccer, which uses relegation to move teams up and down. The haves and have nots with NIL money playing a huge factor will only make the separation worse

2. I believe 20-30 teams are now relevant at the highest level, most of which are either in the Big 10 or SEC. Who wants to see Indiana vs Ohio State, Vanderbilt vs. Georgia, etc…

3. I am of the belief now that the bowl games need to go away other than the 12 teams that qualify to play for a national title. So many players are opting out of playing in a meaningless bowl game, prime example is the Georgia 63-3 shellacking of Florida State. There were other bowl games that were affected as well

4. I believe the current system will fall apart within 5 years and who knows what will occur going forward. NIL payments are the final coffin in our current system

[Bash Riprock]

8 hours ago, Komets2727 said:

Good topic. Here are some thoughts:

1. I believe we are headed to a similar format as England soccer, which uses relegation to move teams up and down. The haves and have nots with NIL money playing a huge factor will only make the separation worse

2. I believe 20-30 teams are now relevant at the highest level, most of which are either in the Big 10 or SEC. Who wants to see Indiana vs Ohio State, Vanderbilt vs. Georgia, etc…

3. I am of the belief now that the bowl games need to go away other than the 12 teams that qualify to play for a national title. So many players are opting out of playing in a meaningless bowl game, prime example is the Georgia 63-3 shellacking of Florida State. There were other bowl games that were affected as well

4. I believe the current system will fall apart within 5 years and who knows what will occur going forward. NIL payments are the final coffin in our current system

Regarding relegation and promotion, the model you reference from the EPL is a professional league.  Where would a team be relegated to?  FBS to FCS? FCS to Div II?  Power 5 to a mid-major conference?  Such a model would destroy conferences and the conferences are for sports beyond football. Curious as to your thoughts.

Regarding the teams that are currently relevant...doesn't that in many cases change over time?  How many years prior had Georgia won a national championship prior to them winning a couple of years ago?  Alabama was on a drought before hiring Saban.  Washington hadn't been at this level in a long time before DeBoar.  

No bowl games?  So mid-majors are just out of luck?

I agree with you about NIL....or at least what it has evolved to.  I though NIL was to compensate athletes for using their name, image and likeness.  Somehow, its ran to upfront $$ like a contract, regardless if the institution uses their name, image and likeness.  To me, its went way beyond what we were all sold about NIL.

[Coach Nowlin]

6 minutes ago, Bash Riprock said:

 

I agree with you about NIL....or at least what it has evolved to.  I though NIL was to compensate athletes for using their name, image and likeness.  Somehow, its ran to upfront $$ like a contract, regardless if the institution uses their name, image and likeness.  To me, its went way beyond what we were all sold about NIL.

you can thank the fine folks asleep at the wheel downtown Indianapolis 

I truly think the suits at the NCAA thought that the schools of the P5 would still just keep the upholding traditions of EDUCATION first athletics....   HA freaking HA 

Truly some real ignorant stuff there.    Day late and a $ short they say with this mess.  and once again, the all mighty Dollar rules (or ruins, depending on your stance) the day 

[Coach Nowlin]

https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-ncaa-levies-significant-penalties-on-florida-state-for-nil-recruiting-violations-002044975.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFclcYAcQBepbTU2PjmqjUVl6vHXuTdHb6It_JkZQVQUYnm3K2E0hUTkm0PSjy9Us0w-51OYZS81WSalNG_1TV1jB1N0C72RKNo_T8eFYz1EAR9Waw8uM_yCB3z8gGwFGGYyxCL2n5KM2uFqpGR886utU-KRCjBn7V-QlaNbTzEo

 

Looks like Florida State gets to be the first to fall on the lame NCAA sword 

[Komets2727]

2 hours ago, Bash Riprock said:

Regarding relegation and promotion, the model you reference from the EPL is a professional league.  Where would a team be relegated to?  FBS to FCS? FCS to Div II?  Power 5 to a mid-major conference?  Such a model would destroy conferences and the conferences are for sports beyond football. Curious as to your thoughts.

Regarding the teams that are currently relevant...doesn't that in many cases change over time?  How many years prior had Georgia won a national championship prior to them winning a couple of years ago?  Alabama was on a drought before hiring Saban.  Washington hadn't been at this level in a long time before DeBoar.  

No bowl games?  So mid-majors are just out of luck?

I agree with you about NIL....or at least what it has evolved to.  I though NIL was to compensate athletes for using their name, image and likeness.  Somehow, its ran to upfront $$ like a contract, regardless if the institution uses their name, image and likeness.  To me, its went way beyond what we were all sold about NIL.

Conferences as currently constituted need to go away. It is beyond ridiculous how the Big 10, which was a Midwest conference, now goes from one end of the United States, Rutgers, to the other end, UCLA and USC. When I say conferences go away, I mean just for football. Football needs to be operated separate from other sports.

As far as relegation works, take the top 25 teams in the country and put them in the top league, take the next 25 teams and they are in a league, and so on. Bottom 5 move down a tier, top 5  in each tier move up. For example, let’s say there are 5 tiers and Indiana is in tier 3, if they finish in the top 5 of tier 3 they would move up to tier 2 next year. If they finish bottom 5 they would move down to tier 4. 

As far as bowl games go, 25 teams are in your tier and you can only play 11 of them in a season just matchup the top 8 teams, 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4, 5 vs. 6, and 7 vs. 8, and that is their bowl game. Honestly, the bowl games are now about who has the least amount of attrition with players opting out.

NIL has destroyed college football, period. Anyone that doesn’t see it is ignorant to the reality. The transfer portal is a close second in the destruction of college football 
 

[Impartial_Observer]

All it’s going to take for the NCAA to fold, is for two of the P5 decide to start their in BB tournament.

Call me a romantic, I will never apologize for being a supporter of education based sports. Granted big time FB and MBK are a far cry from that. But let’s look at college sports as a whole. March Madness pays the tab for everything. When the NCAA loses their MBK tournament so long to the NCAA LAX, wrestling, WBK, SB, BB, VB championships in D1, D2, and D3. The vast majority of college athletes aren’t one and done and skipping classes come spring semester. How many of those kids don’t even get a college education were it not for athletics?

NCAA is gone, nothing more than a pro minor league. I see big changes looming on the horizon. If you don’t think it’s coming to a HS near you, you need to get your head out of the sand. 

[Irishman]

10 hours ago, Bash Riprock said:

Regarding relegation and promotion, the model you reference from the EPL is a professional league.  Where would a team be relegated to?  FBS to FCS? FCS to Div II?  Power 5 to a mid-major conference?  Such a model would destroy conferences and the conferences are for sports beyond football. Curious as to your thoughts.

Regarding the teams that are currently relevant...doesn't that in many cases change over time?  How many years prior had Georgia won a national championship prior to them winning a couple of years ago?  Alabama was on a drought before hiring Saban.  Washington hadn't been at this level in a long time before DeBoar.  

No bowl games?  So mid-majors are just out of luck?

I agree with you about NIL....or at least what it has evolved to.  I though NIL was to compensate athletes for using their name, image and likeness.  Somehow, its ran to upfront $$ like a contract, regardless if the institution uses their name, image and likeness.  To me, its went way beyond what we were all sold about NIL.

1. The NCAA President has suggested as much as far as a relegation level. It would split DI into separate levels. How many? who knows. But the top tier is suggested to be 32. Conferences are destroyed now any way. I really believe what the B1G and SEC are aiming for is separate pro style leagues, where they can hire their own commissioners and break from the NCAA. 

2. That is where the relegation and promotion would factor in. Somewhat similar to the success factor we see in Indiana HS sports.

3.  the 12 team playoff alone kills the bowl season. Advertisers and sponsors lost their asses on the bowl games this year with the opt outs. Regardless, mid majors were SOL any way.  What I believe we will see is several programs like IU, Purdue, Vanderbilt, etc. more closely resemble mid majors than they do power conference programs. They may be in worse shape honestly now. Many kids who will start at IU going forward will look to those top tier programs after they can show what they can do against college level opponents. AJ Barner comes to mind immediately. And kids that don't start at IU will look to other current mid major programs to transfer to. 

4. Absolutely right about NIL. Where there is some benefit....talking to our baseball coach whose sons played at Purdue. They wanted to work/start Summer camps and private lessons, but they could not use their pictures in Purdue uniforms or mention the school at all. They also could not take any money for running their lessons/camps. the NIL deal allows current players to do those kinds of things now. 

I agree with Komets one one point especially. The current path lasts 5 years before falling apart. 

Who will be the first school to say....For a fee we will let you use our school name, nickname, mascot, logo, stadium, etc for a piece of the revenue earned? 

[Irishman]

One aspectI had not even considered in this….the leeches coming after these kids who just graduated high school. The NFL has a VERY tight grip on agents…nd even becoming one for the players. I have not heard of any regulation for the NIL era. 18 year old kids will see dollar signs and not the bigger picture…..case in point…

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/penalty-flag-thrown-former-florida-gators-sues-to-void-controversial-nil-contract