(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

This could happen tomorrow if the non-B1G, non-SEC schools wanted it to. Heck, the Big East basically did this, and UCONN joined them and went football independent.

Nothing legally stopping a conference from existing to only promote one sport, there's a bunch of these for hockey, and one of them (the CCHA) had Michigan and Michigan State before the B1G decided to sponsor hockey and demand those teams (plus Minnesota and Wisconsin from the WCHA) join the B1G hockey league.

The Pac 12 and B1G could decide to allow USC and UCLA to keep Olympic sports in the Pac 12 if they wanted to, but they don't want to. Heck, the ACC could tell FSU and Clemson they can go play SEC football if the SEC will have them but remain ACC in all other sports, which is the deal they gave ND. Alternatively, the ACC could give FSU and Clemson yearly $$ shares that match what they'd make in the SEC and thus keep them full time.

I'm trying to think of a conference move where the school didn't upgrade or at least remain neutral on each of academics, athletics, and institutional fit, and I cannot think of one. This would still be happening if football wasn't driving revenue, it's just that some of the moves would probably be different for the schools that have moved already - e.g. it's Pitt instead of Penn State in the Big Ten, Kansas or UCONN instead of Nebraska, Texas + A&M to the PAC or ACC, UCONN to the ACC, FSU probably joins Florida in the SEC instead of worrying about competing for football titles, etc.

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

Look at boxing, for a similar example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Boxing_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_C...ssociation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta...ssociation

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

I advocated for this a few years ago.

10 football only FBS conferences of 10 teams each. 9 conference games 3 OOC. PRO-REL and TV rights negotiated collectively yearly. Programs get paid base amount and a multiplier by league.

A true meritocracy.

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

An overnight success, 10+ years in the making.

And we still don't have the Rose Bowl situation worked out for the next CFP deal, and nothing is signed.

Quote:When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

That's some PAC 12 Larry Scott type thinking. Not working out well for them.

Quote:What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run.

What stops it, for one thing, is the very real fact that different college athletic programs have very different economic weights.

As the old joke ran, when Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by a billion zillion Apaches or Comanches (whichever one Tonto wasn't)
Lone Ranger: We're in trouble, old friend
Tonto: What you mean "we", white man?

Alignment and consensus is tough enough at the pro level. The economic gap betwen Buckeye sports and Boilermaker sports may be comparable to the Yankees-Cardinals gap. But college sports, even with just the P5 you're talking about 70 institutions now. And if you're okay throwing Marshall and Miami-Ohio over the side, what about Washington State and Syracuse?

Quote:By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

The next CFP isn't signed yet, so almost anything can happen. but the indications are a bias towards continuity, and the current one is a contract between Notre Dame and the 10 FBS conferences.

Quote:What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out?

For one thing, the media deals dont run out at the same time. That's probably a manageable detail of the transition though.

Quote:The media people will wait outside

This is where everything falls apart, as far as I'm concerned. The media companies aren't paying billions of dollars a year to wait outside.

I mean, *IF* the college presidents had a consensus, and presented a unified front, then they could negotiate advantageously with the media companies. (Maybe, if you don't trip antitrust tripwires). But that's a big if.

Quote:and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.
The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

If you're talking about a de novo breakaway, then there might be somethign to what you're saying. An invitation-only College Sports Association of the top 20 or 40 or 100 programs, breaking away from the NCAA and existing-conference baggage.

I don't know how well that goes over with the fans and boosters, in an industry built on tribal loyalty and on devotion to traditional rivalries and hatreds and sense-of-place.

But I feel like this seems like a great idea to a Florida State fan, whose position in the current firmament is pretty screwed. I don't know how great it sounds to the Ohio States and Alabamas and LSUs and Texas's and Floridas and USCs. "The ACC situation" is actually several situations--FSU and Clemson being locked out of their "natural homes" in the ACC, North Carolina as a pivot player with options, and the majority of the ACC trying to hang on to a pretense of equality with the Big Ten and SEC and avoid relegation.

A bromance between Sankey and the next Big Ten commish seems more likely and less complicated.

(02-23-2023 10:03 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

An overnight success, 10+ years in the making.

And we still don't have the Rose Bowl situation worked out for the next CFP deal, and nothing is signed.

Quote:When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

That's some PAC 12 Larry Scott type thinking. Not working out well for them.

Quote:What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run.

What stops it, for one thing, is the very real fact that different college athletic programs have very different economic weights.

As the old joke ran, when Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by a billion zillion Apaches or Comanches (whichever one Tonto wasn't)
Lone Ranger: We're in trouble, old friend
Tonto: What you mean "we", white man?

Alignment and consensus is tough enough at the pro level. The economic gap betwen Buckeye sports and Boilermaker sports may be comparable to the Yankees-Cardinals gap. But college sports, even with just the P5 you're talking about 70 institutions now. And if you're okay throwing Marshall and Miami-Ohio over the side, what about Washington State and Syracuse?

Quote:By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

The next CFP isn't signed yet, so almost anything can happen. but the indications are a bias towards continuity, and the current one is a contract between Notre Dame and the 10 FBS conferences.

Quote:What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out?

For one thing, the media deals dont run out at the same time. That's probably a manageable detail of the transition though.

Quote:The media people will wait outside

This is where everything falls apart, as far as I'm concerned. The media companies aren't paying billions of dollars a year to wait outside.

I mean, *IF* the college presidents had a consensus, and presented a unified front, then they could negotiate advantageously with the media companies. (Maybe, if you don't trip antitrust tripwires). But that's a big if.

Quote:and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.
The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

If you're talking about a de novo breakaway, then there might be somethign to what you're saying. An invitation-only College Sports Association of the top 20 or 40 or 100 programs, breaking away from the NCAA and existing-conference baggage.

I don't know how well that goes over with the fans and boosters, in an industry built on tribal loyalty and on devotion to traditional rivalries and hatreds and sense-of-place.

But I feel like this seems like a great idea to a Florida State fan, whose position in the current firmament is pretty screwed. I don't know how great it sounds to the Ohio States and Alabamas and LSUs and Texas's and Floridas and USCs. "The ACC situation" is actually several situations--FSU and Clemson being locked out of their "natural homes" in the ACC, North Carolina as a pivot player with options, and the majority of the ACC trying to hang on to a pretense of equality with the Big Ten and SEC and avoid relegation.

A bromance between Sankey and the next Big Ten commish seems more likely and less complicated.

It sounds like the time is right for the Atlantic-Pacific Athletic Conference to emerge.

(02-23-2023 10:03 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  ....
If you're talking about a de novo breakaway, then there might be something to what you're saying. An invitation-only College Sports Association of the top 20 or 40 or 100 programs, breaking away from the NCAA and existing-conference baggage.

I don't know how well that goes over with the fans and boosters, in an industry built on tribal loyalty and on devotion to traditional rivalries and hatreds and sense-of-place.
....
A bromance between Sankey and the next Big Ten commish seems more likely and less complicated.

I am pointing out a reality: university presidents can do this. They have the power and it's an option for them. Of course there's something to it. There usually is to reality.

When you think about it, pretty much every aspect of a coordinated action could be managed. It's not as if the situation we have now is so clean and neat.

Pointing out that coordinated presidential action is possible is not the same thing as prognosticating. How likely are presidents to take the wheel around, say, 2032? That depends on how they feel the current P2-M3-G5-Fox-ESPN-contract-haggling hodgepodge is meeting their schools' needs between now and around 2030. They're watching.

And their schools have big new needs. University presidents are increasingly being told by courts that they are about to be in the business of managing a pro sports league. A lot of demands go with that—legally, educationally, financially—that sports writers and fans don't have to think much about and university leaders do.

The inertia of 'tradition'? That could easily end up as fuel for, not an impediment to, such action. How much 'tradition' are tribalists getting now, in a Big Ten that stretches from LA to New Jersey? Presidents stepping in to create geographically logical blocks enabled by a more share-the-wealth approach would meet a lot of traditionalists' needs.

A presidents' conference hardly means that media money and broadcast needs wouldn't be considered, and it doesn't require that all of the animals in the room be equal. They engage advisors and consultants. All those considerations are still there and they get discussed. No one is complaining about their kick-starting the CFP.

At the end of the day, the media organizations still want games to show. The audience is there. As we saw with the CFP, they adjust and start bidding.

University presidents decide things anyway. Ultimately every buck stops with them. It's just a question of at what point they decide that it's best for all if they take the wheel as a group and say 'Look, gang, here's how we want to organize this.'

(02-23-2023 11:34 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 10:03 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  ....
If you're talking about a de novo breakaway, then there might be something to what you're saying. An invitation-only College Sports Association of the top 20 or 40 or 100 programs, breaking away from the NCAA and existing-conference baggage.

I don't know how well that goes over with the fans and boosters, in an industry built on tribal loyalty and on devotion to traditional rivalries and hatreds and sense-of-place.
....
A bromance between Sankey and the next Big Ten commish seems more likely and less complicated.

I am pointing out a reality: university presidents can do this. They have the power and it's an option for them. Of course there's something to it. There usually is to reality.

When you think about it, pretty much every aspect of a coordinated action could be managed. It's not as if the situation we have now is so clean and neat.

Pointing out that coordinated presidential action is possible is not the same thing as prognosticating. How likely are presidents to take the wheel around, say, 2032? That depends on how they feel the current P2-M3-G5-Fox-ESPN-contract-haggling hodgepodge is meeting their schools' needs between now and around 2030. They're watching.

And their schools have big new needs. University presidents are increasingly being told by courts that they are about to be in the business of managing a pro sports league. A lot of demands go with that—legally, educationally, financially—that sports writers and fans don't have to think much about and university leaders do.

The inertia of 'tradition'? That could easily end up as fuel for, not an impediment to, such action. How much 'tradition' are tribalists getting now, in a Big Ten that stretches from LA to New Jersey? Presidents stepping in to create geographically logical blocks enabled by a more share-the-wealth approach would meet a lot of traditionalists' needs.

A presidents' conference hardly means that media money and broadcast needs wouldn't be considered, and it doesn't require that all of the animals in the room be equal. They engage advisors and consultants. All those considerations are still there and they get discussed. No one is complaining about their kick-starting the CFP.

At the end of the day, the media organizations still want games to show. The audience is there. As we saw with the CFP, they adjust and start bidding.

University presidents decide things anyway. Ultimately every buck stops with them. It's just a question of at what point they decide that it's best for all if they take the wheel as a group and say 'Look, gang, here's how we want to organize this.'

There's a lot of tradition between the LA schools and the Big 10. Also Washington Cal and Stanford. The Big Ten tribalists can celebrate this coast to coast conference much more than they could the adds of PSU, Maryland, or Rutgers.

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

Caveat: When the wealthiest donors flex, presidents hop to or get replaced, especially at State schools. How could that be? The wealthiest donors are almost always politically active.

And another point. Heretofore, most presidents, other than voting in new members, have remained focussed on the academic aspects of their jobs and choose to remain aloof from athletic minutia. My money is that when the courts professionalize college sports that these presidents will be relieved to assign all of sports to a newly created business model of the conference where the legal and administrative priorities are wholly different and separate from the academic administration, and where the academic side simply anticipates a % of the athletics to cover the university's trademark and image projection. The academic side will merely make a full academic ride available to those who seek it, when they want to seek it. Their obligation to athletics ends at that point. And not having to keep players eligible means that should an athlete seek an education it won't be in bogus or dumbed down classes. And his/her degree will actually mean something beyond a booster supplied job.

(02-23-2023 01:56 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

Caveat: When the wealthiest donors flex, presidents hop to or get replaced, especially at State schools. How could that be? The wealthiest donors are almost always politically active.

And another point. Heretofore, most presidents, other than voting in new members, have remained focussed on the academic aspects of their jobs and choose to remain aloof from athletic minutia. My money is that when the courts professionalize college sports that these presidents will be relieved to assign all of sports to a newly created business model of the conference where the legal and administrative priorities are wholly different and separate from the academic administration, and where the academic side simply anticipates a % of the athletics to cover the university's trademark and image projection. The academic side will merely make a full academic ride available to those who seek it, when they want to seek it. Their obligation to athletics ends at that point. And not having to keep players eligible means that should an athlete seek an education it won't be in bogus or dumbed down classes. And his/her degree will actually mean something beyond a booster supplied job.

I think the university presidents would love to think what you've just painted could occur. If you gave them truth serum, there are plenty of them that wish that they could completely outsource the management of their athletic teams NOW (including at the P5 level).

Here's why I don't think it will occur in practicality: as long as athletics are the single highest profile front porch publicity avenue for a school, which is going to be the case for every P5 school from Stanford to Alabama to Oregon State, then the university president is going to need to exert control over the athletic department.

It doesn't matter if the management of an athletic department is technically outsourced to some other legally separate entity that you've mentioned: perception is always reality in life, and the perception is that the university president is in control of whatever their university is associated with.

A classic example is the Alabama basketball player situation this week. The president of U of A can't just sit back and say, "We've outsourced our athletic functions to a separate legal entity that merely licenses the University of Alabama name and trademarks for a fee. Not my problem!" He could try doing that, but you're not getting very far with that approach. If there's something that is so critically important to the image and perception of the school - and athletics is going to qualify on that basis for everyone in the P5 - then by nature, no university president is going to give up control even when they *wish* that they could do so. It would be like a CEO that never liked accounting classes saying that the actions of the CFO aren't his responsibility or some subsidiary that he doesn't care about goes rogue and starts breaking a bunch of laws. That would be ludicrous - the CEO is ultimately responsible and, as result, *has* to provide oversight whether they actually personally want that responsibility or not!

Likewise, the university president is going to be responsible no matter what type of legal structure you would try to put athletics into here. Ironically, as a lawyer, I find this to be attempting to apply a legal solution to what is really a business/management problem. This is a classic "form over substance" situation. A separate legal entity for an athletic department might shield a school from certain liabilities, but it's not going to shield any school from the public perception that it still controls that athletic department... and the last thing that any university president wants is to be held responsible for something that he or she doesn't actually control. If a university president is going to get the blame for how the athletic department acts no matter what, then they're ultimately going to insist upon controlling it themselves.

(02-23-2023 03:09 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 01:56 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:19 PM)esayem Wrote:  All this blathering could be simplified by the sport of football breaking off into an independent classification with no ties. Bundle schools media rights however it makes the most money, who cares?

Leave sensible regional conferences for Olympic sports and take your oblong ball and do with it as you will.

You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

Caveat: When the wealthiest donors flex, presidents hop to or get replaced, especially at State schools. How could that be? The wealthiest donors are almost always politically active.

And another point. Heretofore, most presidents, other than voting in new members, have remained focussed on the academic aspects of their jobs and choose to remain aloof from athletic minutia. My money is that when the courts professionalize college sports that these presidents will be relieved to assign all of sports to a newly created business model of the conference where the legal and administrative priorities are wholly different and separate from the academic administration, and where the academic side simply anticipates a % of the athletics to cover the university's trademark and image projection. The academic side will merely make a full academic ride available to those who seek it, when they want to seek it. Their obligation to athletics ends at that point. And not having to keep players eligible means that should an athlete seek an education it won't be in bogus or dumbed down classes. And his/her degree will actually mean something beyond a booster supplied job.

I think the university presidents would love to think what you've just painted could occur. If you gave them truth serum, there are plenty of them that wish that they could completely outsource the management of their athletic teams NOW (including at the P5 level).

Here's why I don't think it will occur in practicality: as long as athletics are the single highest profile front porch publicity avenue for a school, which is going to be the case for every P5 school from Stanford to Alabama to Oregon State, then the university president is going to need to exert control over the athletic department.

It doesn't matter if the management of an athletic department is technically outsourced to some other legally separate entity that you've mentioned: perception is always reality in life, and the perception is that the university president is in control of whatever their university is associated with.

A classic example is the Alabama basketball player situation this week. The president of U of A can't just sit back and say, "We've outsourced our athletic functions to a separate legal entity that merely licenses the University of Alabama name and trademarks for a fee. Not my problem!" He could try doing that, but you're not getting very far with that approach. If there's something that is so critically important to the image and perception of the school - and athletics is going to qualify on that basis for everyone in the P5 - then by nature, no university president is going to give up control even when they *wish* that they could do so. It would be like a CEO that never liked accounting classes saying that the actions of the CFO aren't his responsibility or some subsidiary that he doesn't care about goes rogue and starts breaking a bunch of laws. That would be ludicrous - the CEO is ultimately responsible and, as result, *has* to provide oversight whether they actually personally want that responsibility or not!

Likewise, the university president is going to be responsible no matter what type of legal structure you would try to put athletics into here. Ironically, as a lawyer, I find this to be attempting to apply a legal solution to what is really a business/management problem. This is a classic "form over substance" situation. A separate legal entity for an athletic department might shield a school from certain liabilities, but it's not going to shield any school from the public perception that it still controls that athletic department... and the last thing that any university president wants is to be held responsible for something that he or she doesn't actually control. If a university president is going to get the blame for how the athletic department acts no matter what, then they're ultimately going to insist upon controlling it themselves.

The bolded part is a better argument for my position. In that world the athlete would be put on paid leave until the merits of the case were decided and if guilty, he would be terminated. That's the beauty of contract vs scholarship, and yet another reason the two entities would be separated.

Are you seriously telling me that professional sports aren't image conscious? Any entity dependent upon advertising is image conscious. The president doesn't need to micromanage this at all. He/She needs to let the corporate wing, which is much more efficiently policed, handle its side of the equation and protect the brand and its sponsors. I'd argue the Miller issue would have already been handled under that model.

(02-23-2023 03:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 03:09 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 01:56 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(02-21-2023 04:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  You're not wrong, but that would entail all FBS schools to cut off their conference ties, get into a room, and reorganize amongst themselves.

Top-down coordination simply has never been a hallmark of conference realignment. Everyone has such different self-interests (and that's even *within* the most powerful leagues like the Big Ten and SEC) that conference realignment is inherently messy and not simple and/or straight-forward at all.

So, sure, if we all knew 100 years ago that this is what the college sports landscape would look like, maybe we wouldn't have structured all-sports conferences in the way that we do now. However, realistic solutions are very likely going to assume that all-sports conferences are the norm and, even if we move away from that model, certain leagues like the Big Ten and SEC would still have their own all-sports conferences, anyway, so none of the power dynamics change.

True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

Caveat: When the wealthiest donors flex, presidents hop to or get replaced, especially at State schools. How could that be? The wealthiest donors are almost always politically active.

And another point. Heretofore, most presidents, other than voting in new members, have remained focussed on the academic aspects of their jobs and choose to remain aloof from athletic minutia. My money is that when the courts professionalize college sports that these presidents will be relieved to assign all of sports to a newly created business model of the conference where the legal and administrative priorities are wholly different and separate from the academic administration, and where the academic side simply anticipates a % of the athletics to cover the university's trademark and image projection. The academic side will merely make a full academic ride available to those who seek it, when they want to seek it. Their obligation to athletics ends at that point. And not having to keep players eligible means that should an athlete seek an education it won't be in bogus or dumbed down classes. And his/her degree will actually mean something beyond a booster supplied job.

I think the university presidents would love to think what you've just painted could occur. If you gave them truth serum, there are plenty of them that wish that they could completely outsource the management of their athletic teams NOW (including at the P5 level).

Here's why I don't think it will occur in practicality: as long as athletics are the single highest profile front porch publicity avenue for a school, which is going to be the case for every P5 school from Stanford to Alabama to Oregon State, then the university president is going to need to exert control over the athletic department.

It doesn't matter if the management of an athletic department is technically outsourced to some other legally separate entity that you've mentioned: perception is always reality in life, and the perception is that the university president is in control of whatever their university is associated with.

A classic example is the Alabama basketball player situation this week. The president of U of A can't just sit back and say, "We've outsourced our athletic functions to a separate legal entity that merely licenses the University of Alabama name and trademarks for a fee. Not my problem!" He could try doing that, but you're not getting very far with that approach. If there's something that is so critically important to the image and perception of the school - and athletics is going to qualify on that basis for everyone in the P5 - then by nature, no university president is going to give up control even when they *wish* that they could do so. It would be like a CEO that never liked accounting classes saying that the actions of the CFO aren't his responsibility or some subsidiary that he doesn't care about goes rogue and starts breaking a bunch of laws. That would be ludicrous - the CEO is ultimately responsible and, as result, *has* to provide oversight whether they actually personally want that responsibility or not!

Likewise, the university president is going to be responsible no matter what type of legal structure you would try to put athletics into here. Ironically, as a lawyer, I find this to be attempting to apply a legal solution to what is really a business/management problem. This is a classic "form over substance" situation. A separate legal entity for an athletic department might shield a school from certain liabilities, but it's not going to shield any school from the public perception that it still controls that athletic department... and the last thing that any university president wants is to be held responsible for something that he or she doesn't actually control. If a university president is going to get the blame for how the athletic department acts no matter what, then they're ultimately going to insist upon controlling it themselves.

The bolded part is a better argument for my position. In that world the athlete would be put on paid leave until the merits of the case were decided and if guilty, he would be terminated. That's the beauty of contract vs scholarship, and yet another reason the two entities would be separated.

Are you seriously telling me that professional sports aren't image conscious? Any entity dependent upon advertising is image conscious. The president doesn't need to micromanage this at all. He/She needs to let the corporate wing, which is much more efficiently policed, handle its side of the equation and protect the brand and its sponsors. I'd argue the Miller issue would have already been handled under that model.

I'm not saying that the president has to micromanage.

What I'm questioning is how the actual day-to-day management is different than what is already outsourced to an athletic director.

Sure, there might be certain financial, legal and tax advantages for the athletic department to be legally separated from a school. That may very well make all of the sense in the world if/when pay for play becomes a reality. I actually agree that all of those *legal* structures could come into place. Universities having legal subsidiaries are already common in a lot of ways - research parks, land developments, medical centers and hospitals, etc. So, an athletic department could certainly become a similar type of subsidiary.

What I'm saying is that this doesn't remove that, at the end of the day, the athletic brand IS the school brand and vice versa. As long as that's the case, then the university president is going to be responsible in the eyes of the public and, in turn, that university president is going to still have to exert the same amount of control as they do over athletic departments now. The fact that the athletic department changes from a direct unit of the university to a separate legal subsidiary doesn't remove the university president responsibility for that subsidiary from their purview any more than other types of university subsidiaries that already exist.

(02-23-2023 03:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 03:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 03:09 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 01:56 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-23-2023 07:40 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  True, top-down coordination has not been a hallmark of American college sport. But we all just saw it make the new 12-team CFP structure happen in one day. Quite the revelation it was, after months of people screwing around.

When presidents flex, commissioners hop to it and sports networks deal with it.

What stops presidents, circa 2032, from saying they're sick and tired of the ongoing institutional trauma over which schools 'move the needle' for this or that media company? They've got new court rulings to comply with, new expenses, new liabilities involving labour—and they still have schools to run. By then they will be benefiting from CFP revenues that exist pretty much independent of conference membership and will still be there whatever they decide.

What stops presidents from forming a commission that redraws the map? One that takes effect as soon as all the media deals run out? The media people will wait outside and the conference commissioners will re-apply for re-defined jobs when the meeting is over.

The thing that tips the scales could turn out to be the ACC situation, coming on the heels of this LA mayhem. If the usual way of doing things can't resolve some long-standing problems on the east coast by that date, what stops presidents from calling other presidents and saying 'Hey, why don't we just meet and decide how we need it to be?'

Caveat: When the wealthiest donors flex, presidents hop to or get replaced, especially at State schools. How could that be? The wealthiest donors are almost always politically active.

And another point. Heretofore, most presidents, other than voting in new members, have remained focussed on the academic aspects of their jobs and choose to remain aloof from athletic minutia. My money is that when the courts professionalize college sports that these presidents will be relieved to assign all of sports to a newly created business model of the conference where the legal and administrative priorities are wholly different and separate from the academic administration, and where the academic side simply anticipates a % of the athletics to cover the university's trademark and image projection. The academic side will merely make a full academic ride available to those who seek it, when they want to seek it. Their obligation to athletics ends at that point. And not having to keep players eligible means that should an athlete seek an education it won't be in bogus or dumbed down classes. And his/her degree will actually mean something beyond a booster supplied job.

I think the university presidents would love to think what you've just painted could occur. If you gave them truth serum, there are plenty of them that wish that they could completely outsource the management of their athletic teams NOW (including at the P5 level).

Here's why I don't think it will occur in practicality: as long as athletics are the single highest profile front porch publicity avenue for a school, which is going to be the case for every P5 school from Stanford to Alabama to Oregon State, then the university president is going to need to exert control over the athletic department.

It doesn't matter if the management of an athletic department is technically outsourced to some other legally separate entity that you've mentioned: perception is always reality in life, and the perception is that the university president is in control of whatever their university is associated with.

A classic example is the Alabama basketball player situation this week. The president of U of A can't just sit back and say, "We've outsourced our athletic functions to a separate legal entity that merely licenses the University of Alabama name and trademarks for a fee. Not my problem!" He could try doing that, but you're not getting very far with that approach. If there's something that is so critically important to the image and perception of the school - and athletics is going to qualify on that basis for everyone in the P5 - then by nature, no university president is going to give up control even when they *wish* that they could do so. It would be like a CEO that never liked accounting classes saying that the actions of the CFO aren't his responsibility or some subsidiary that he doesn't care about goes rogue and starts breaking a bunch of laws. That would be ludicrous - the CEO is ultimately responsible and, as result, *has* to provide oversight whether they actually personally want that responsibility or not!

Likewise, the university president is going to be responsible no matter what type of legal structure you would try to put athletics into here. Ironically, as a lawyer, I find this to be attempting to apply a legal solution to what is really a business/management problem. This is a classic "form over substance" situation. A separate legal entity for an athletic department might shield a school from certain liabilities, but it's not going to shield any school from the public perception that it still controls that athletic department... and the last thing that any university president wants is to be held responsible for something that he or she doesn't actually control. If a university president is going to get the blame for how the athletic department acts no matter what, then they're ultimately going to insist upon controlling it themselves.

The bolded part is a better argument for my position. In that world the athlete would be put on paid leave until the merits of the case were decided and if guilty, he would be terminated. That's the beauty of contract vs scholarship, and yet another reason the two entities would be separated.

Are you seriously telling me that professional sports aren't image conscious? Any entity dependent upon advertising is image conscious. The president doesn't need to micromanage this at all. He/She needs to let the corporate wing, which is much more efficiently policed, handle its side of the equation and protect the brand and its sponsors. I'd argue the Miller issue would have already been handled under that model.

I'm not saying that the president has to micromanage.

What I'm questioning is how the actual day-to-day management is different than what is already outsourced to an athletic director.

Sure, there might be certain financial, legal and tax advantages for the athletic department to be legally separated from a school. That may very well make all of the sense in the world if/when pay for play becomes a reality. I actually agree that all of those *legal* structures could come into place. Universities having legal subsidiaries are already common in a lot of ways - research parks, land developments, medical centers and hospitals, etc. So, an athletic department could certainly become a similar type of subsidiary.

What I'm saying is that this doesn't remove that, at the end of the day, the athletic brand IS the school brand and vice versa. As long as that's the case, then the university president is going to be responsible in the eyes of the public and, in turn, that university president is going to still have to exert the same amount of control as they do over athletic departments now. The fact that the athletic department changes from a direct unit of the university to a separate legal subsidiary doesn't remove the university president responsibility for that subsidiary from their purview any more than other types of university subsidiaries that already exist.

The separation is better legally, more efficient in terms of contract enforcement and discipline, and as long as the athletic side is super image conscious with the schools name it works to everyone's advantage to have them separated. And thanks to sponsors the super scrupulous image control is baked in.