December 5th, 2023, will go down as the day that NCAA President Charlie Baker finally realized what so many people have known since the early 2000s, student-athletes are more athletes than students.
FBS Football and Division I Men's College Basketball players should be paid for the revenue they bring into their respective colleges. Men's football revenues for the Power 5 conferences far outpace the second-leading sport men's basketball. According to financial data from the 2022 fiscal year, the average college football program generated 31.9 million dollars of revenue while men's college basketball brought in 8.1 million dollars. Thirty-five non-revenue sports combined average to bring in 31.7 million dollars that year, two hundred thousand dollars less than football alone.
Baker's proposal would create a new subdivision in college athletics that would be allowed to set its own rules for recruiting, roster sizes, transfers, and other policies. This would let the Power 5 secede from the rest of the FBS and create a feeder league to the pros for football and men's basketball. To be a part of this division schools would have to put millions of dollars a year into an educational trust for the athletes to use either during the summer or after their playing careers are over. The schools would be required to pay athletes a minimum of 30 thousand dollars a semester per athlete for at least half of their athletes. Schools could provide more athletes money and more than the minimum if they want to. It would also not require athletes to graduate to receive the money. That's all and great but another part of the proposal is where a lot of trouble will come from.
Due to Title IX regulations, women's sports would have to be compensated at the same rate as men's sports including money from NIL according to Baker's proposal. Women's sports do not generate the money that men's sports do especially the sports of football and men's basketball. Should sports that fail to generate ticket sales or TV deals of the big two sports still be allowed to get an equal share of the money?
This murky area is where the NCAA will have to work on this proposal with Congress and federal regulators. A 15-year study by the NCAA showed that most schools' athletics departments are operating on losses. This model is not sustainable for all the schools especially schools in the Group of 5 conferences. (The Group of 5 conferences are the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.) The new Power 4 (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, and SEC) can afford these new payments because of the revenue they generate with conference TV deals and bowl payouts.
The lines are being drawn that will forever change college athletics. The model we grew up with will be on the trash heap of history. Student-athletes will receive thousands if not millions of dollars before they even go pro. The model proposed by Baker is only the beginning. It is not the end of the journey of financial compensation for athletes. A long road is ahead of everyone to work out a model that will officially make parts of college athletics professional.
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