That was my question. Those schools will then have to decide to just lose money on these programs, but keep them because they deem them worthy of adding to campus life, diversity, etc.. in other words, return to the original reason colleges gave athletic scholarships in the first place.
If football decides to leave, then all the other sports can be reorganized into more geographically compact conferences, and schedule most non-conference games against other schools in the region, to cut travel expenses. They can also make the NCAA regionals (or subregional and superregionals) to true "regions.
There is a lot of excessive travel in track and xc too. Teams from Texas fly to PA for paul short. Now teams fly to boston or washington a few times in indoors and ca and a couple other locations in outdoors. These meets should be like top 10 teams, a few from 15-25, and teams in the region, not the entire nation.
I’m impressed that baseball made any money at all. That’s great
I think people in general underestimate the popularity of baseball outside of the MLB across the country. Even minor baseball can be profitable, but they can't find a way to generate much interest in minor league basketball or football.
Here are some top AAA teams, with their attendance rank and average attendance per game.
1) Lehigh Valley IronPigs 7,990 (Yes, IronPigs is their team name) 8) Albuquerque Isotopes 7,048 (Yes, Isotopes is their team name) 11) El Paso Chihuahuas 6,772 (You get the picture) The total attendance in 2023 for the IronPigs was 567,322!!
If minor baseball can get that kind of attendance, it doesn't surprise me they could get enough attendance of college baseball to make it profitable.
At some point the major college football teams will leave and form their own league and keep most of the money. They will be University of____ Football Team, but only in name. The athletes will not attend the school (unless they want to) and the schools will receive a massive naming rights fee, but we will be done pretending that they are Student-Athletes.
Then the rest of the sports will face their day of reckoning. Will they go back to being more STUDENT-athletes? Will the schools just drop these programs and force them to be supported only as club level sports semi detached from the schools, or maybe completely detached?
College football at the D1 level is a farm system for the NFL. The colleges give teams a fan base the size of a small city. I think if that connection is gone, no one is interested any more than they are for any other minor league sport. NCAA football is bigger than any minor league.
Right now we're in this weird period where people expect football players are at least going to classes, even if they are majoring in something silly. With NIL payments, its going to be assumed that the players are back to made up football player/athlete only schedules that are just a check in the box. Why would it matter when their nil payments are more than the salary they'd get with a degree.
The next step would be to remove time associated eligibility requirements and players would just stick around until they are ready for the nfl or just too old and their skills are deteriorating. They could take pass/fail classes where they read a novel or write a paper on a youtube video a couple times a semester, if they want to be technically enrolled in classes.
This is happening already at some colleges. Since covid complaints are minimal.
At some point the major college football teams will leave and form their own league and keep most of the money. They will be University of____ Football Team, but only in name. The athletes will not attend the school (unless they want to) and the schools will receive a massive naming rights fee, but we will be done pretending that they are Student-Athletes.
Then the rest of the sports will face their day of reckoning. Will they go back to being more STUDENT-athletes? Will the schools just drop these programs and force them to be supported only as club level sports semi detached from the schools, or maybe completely detached?
College football at the D1 level is a farm system for the NFL. The colleges give teams a fan base the size of a small city. I think if that connection is gone, no one is interested any more than they are for any other minor league sport. NCAA football is bigger than any minor league.
Right now we're in this weird period where people expect football players are at least going to classes, even if they are majoring in something silly. With NIL payments, its going to be assumed that the players are back to made up football player/athlete only schedules that are just a check in the box. Why would it matter when their nil payments are more than the salary they'd get with a degree.
The next step would be to remove time associated eligibility requirements and players would just stick around until they are ready for the nfl or just too old and their skills are deteriorating. They could take pass/fail classes where they read a novel or write a paper on a youtube video a couple times a semester, if they want to be technically enrolled in classes.
I dont think anyone actually believes nor do they care if the players on their favorite team go to actual college classes. If you believe they are then you are very very naive.
Football is now where we were years ago with T&F, "shamateurism". Everyone knows what's going on, but they are too scared, or too set in their old ways to just go ahead and be above board. We finally got professional track, and professional road racing and the world didn't end. The athletes benefited, the events benefited, in hindsight the old way looks silly and ridiculous.
For years and years we were told you could never have a playoff in college football. Then suddenly it became the most popular thing ever and the old way of voting for the national champion looks idiotic.
That was my question. Those schools will then have to decide to just lose money on these programs, but keep them because they deem them worthy of adding to campus life, diversity, etc.. in other words, return to the original reason colleges gave athletic scholarships in the first place.
If football decides to leave, then all the other sports can be reorganized into more geographically compact conferences, and schedule most non-conference games against other schools in the region, to cut travel expenses. They can also make the NCAA regionals (or subregional and superregionals) to true "regions.
I think that would be such a huge improvement. These conferences have become a joke. Cutting travel benefits everyone. Nobody likes to make the long trips to compete throughout the season, and it's crazy expensive.
Good looking female athletes do well with NIL deals regardless of their ability. Is the same true for men? Truth is there are over 3X as many female models as there are male models. Why isn’t there a Title IX for male models?
Show me where an educational institution has a modeling team.
This is cool and all but the total cost for those teams are actually much much higher.
Usually these numbers don’t include scholarship costs and the biggest one. Facility costs/ maintenance. Those are covered by the main campus.
I worked at two different universities when the athletic department “leased” the facilities for home games from the main campus at almost no cost. Weird accounting nonsense
It’ll be very interesting to see what happens when football breaks away and takes their money with them.
Can we all be honest about what a sham NIL is in general?
Think about it: The concept is that a business can enter into a contract with a student-athlete to leverage their name, image and likeness for advertising purposes which, in theory, would lead to an increase in sales and profit, making the deal a positive for the business (ideally).
So, we have "businesses" (really just the boosters, in many cases) throwing money at players (to seduce them to or keep them at a university), so the team is more likely to win and to make the boosters happy.
How many NIL deals are really leading to increased profit for businesses that hold the NIL rights? How many advertisements are we seeing focusing on players at all? And beyond the stars, how many ads are we seeing focusing on the second-tier and bench players that are receiving NIL money? None?
I'm all for the players benefitting from their NIL, and always thought they should have been able to. But at this point it is not a legitimate business transaction in most cases. It is booster-funded pay to play.
This is a bigger question: How much does advertising increase sales or revenue at all? I think the bigger issue are the "collectives". They are non-profits, but I do not see a mission and suspect the IRS might come after them not for paying players but for not being a non-profit which would also mean that donations are not tax deductible.
The local car dealership getting a kid to me is the "pure" NIL model.
I don't really care about women's basketball in terms of watch-ability or popularity, but how could it cost $8M for one season of a basketball team? How many players are on the team? Even with full room and board, that's gotta be a LOT for travel, food, and lodging, no?
Coaches salaries, travel (they play a lot of games and fly to a lot), recruiting budgets, but yeah that still strikes me as high.
At some point the major college football teams will leave and form their own league and keep most of the money. They will be University of____ Football Team, but only in name. The athletes will not attend the school (unless they want to) and the schools will receive a massive naming rights fee, but we will be done pretending that they are Student-Athletes.
Then the rest of the sports will face their day of reckoning. Will they go back to being more STUDENT-athletes? Will the schools just drop these programs and force them to be supported only as club level sports semi detached from the schools, or maybe completely detached?
Deon Sanders mentioned that his son has not attended an in person class.
I teach some online courses in a masters program...none of the students ever attend an in person class. Not unusual today.
At some point the major college football teams will leave and form their own league and keep most of the money. They will be University of____ Football Team, but only in name. The athletes will not attend the school (unless they want to) and the schools will receive a massive naming rights fee, but we will be done pretending that they are Student-Athletes.
Then the rest of the sports will face their day of reckoning. Will they go back to being more STUDENT-athletes? Will the schools just drop these programs and force them to be supported only as club level sports semi detached from the schools, or maybe completely detached?
Nearly 100 of D1 schools do not have football teams. And I think the majority of FCS schools lose money on football. So how do they finance the rest of their athletic programs?
Often it is with student athletic fees. Each student gets hit for some amount per credit hour. 10,000 students at $100 per semester adds up.
Nearly 100 of D1 schools do not have football teams. And I think the majority of FCS schools lose money on football. So how do they finance the rest of their athletic programs?
That was my question. Those schools will then have to decide to just lose money on these programs, but keep them because they deem them worthy of adding to campus life, diversity, etc.. in other words, return to the original reason colleges gave athletic scholarships in the first place.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but these "net profit" calculations are made by ignoring generally recognized principles of accounting. The most glaring omission they make is ignoring the capital cost of their stadium and the opportunity cost of money of keeping that stadium available for 7 or 8 home games a year and empty most of the time. There was a fellow a few years ago who used publicly available data from hundreds of public D1 football schools and found that, using generally recognized accounting principles, there were 4 of them that made a profit on men's football.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but these "net profit" calculations are made by ignoring generally recognized principles of accounting. The most glaring omission they make is ignoring the capital cost of their stadium and the opportunity cost of money of keeping that stadium available for 7 or 8 home games a year and empty most of the time. There was a fellow a few years ago who used publicly available data from hundreds of public D1 football schools and found that, using generally recognized accounting principles, there were 4 of them that made a profit on men's football.
I wanted to see if an athletic program in a school without a football program made a profit. I chose St John's University, my local school. I noticed that the net profit/loss for the total program was 0 and every sport listed had 0. Interesting that every sport balanced their own expenses and revenues on such a way that they did not incur a loss or a profit. Men's basketball did not make a profit and no sport lost money.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but these "net profit" calculations are made by ignoring generally recognized principles of accounting. The most glaring omission they make is ignoring the capital cost of their stadium and the opportunity cost of money of keeping that stadium available for 7 or 8 home games a year and empty most of the time. There was a fellow a few years ago who used publicly available data from hundreds of public D1 football schools and found that, using generally recognized accounting principles, there were 4 of them that made a profit on men's football.
I wanted to see if an athletic program in a school without a football program made a profit. I chose St John's University, my local school. I noticed that the net profit/loss for the total program was 0 and every sport listed had 0. Interesting that every sport balanced their own expenses and revenues on such a way that they did not incur a loss or a profit. Men's basketball did not make a profit and no sport lost money.
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