Very interesting article:
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I read that article earlier this week. It could be very good for some, very bad for others.
Awesome.
I wonder what it does to the NIL model of the past few years, where some players are offered NIL money instead of scholarships? More scholarships would seem to put more direct control back in the hands of coaches and athletics directors, instead of leaving it to collectives.
It's going to happen but when, I have no clue. The first thing on the list is to force D1 programs that don't fully fund their athletic programs to do so asap. JMO
The NCAA is a slippery institution and any ruling that doesn't hard code the number of scholarships a school must offer at full funding will allow them to stick to whatever is bare minimum, except in those few cases where it benefits the school financially to be competitive. If the number of scholarships goes up to 32, but a school still doesn't have to fully fund that, there will be no change at anything but P5 schools. (that's basically what the article is saying, no requirement to fully fund) I do think getting rid of the concept of anything but a full scholarship will make things better for student athletes, not just in getting their education paid for, but in reducing the shady promises by recruiters and coaches. If you take the wheeling and dealing away and set them all equal on a tuition basis at least that ends that. Now they'd still have NIL deals to be used car salesman over.
Also, I think the scholarship should be once offered, always offered, whether cut or not, like to see coaches earn their money.
Forever is a long time, so I don't think it will be forever changed. I'm a firm believer that higher education is going to change its model significantly in my lifetime. If higher education changes, so will college athletics.
Higher education in the United States is different than other countries, as we put a premium on college athletics here. Higher education is struggling financially right now as the total number of student seeking undergrauate college degrees is declining. It has been declining since 2010. So this scholarship proposal is to increase the scholarships available to baseball and other sports while the undergraduate student population has been declining 7.4% over the last 10 years? We can blame demographics, Covid, the economy, etc....but it is reality. Don't get me wrong, I love the new scholarship idea and promises especially for baseball (and some other non-revenue sports) because anything is an improvement over what we have now. However, state funded Universities are receiving much less contributions from the states. Universities have been trying to make up that money in athletics and research revenue streams with mixed results. This just doesn't add up in my mind at this time.
I just have one question.....what is going to be the financial source for all this new scholarship money?
As always, JMO.
I'd only add that until 2008, which is only 16 years ago, baseball scholarships had one set of rules, then they changed. So no set of rules is forever.
One thing NIL collectives may have done was to siphon donor money away from athletic departments. So if schools want to give more baseball scholarships, they're probably going to have to convince those donors to bring their money back to the schools. I wonder whether that will work?
make football deal with what baseball did. say. 30.7 scholarships spread across 80 players. 🤣. that should free up some cash
kidding, really, maybe...
@fenwaysouth posted:Forever is a long time, so I don't think it will be forever changed. I'm a firm believer that higher education is going to change its model significantly in my lifetime. If higher education changes, so will college athletics.
Higher education in the United States is different than other countries, as we put a premium on college athletics here. Higher education is struggling financially right now as the total number of student seeking undergrauate college degrees is declining. It has been declining since 2010. So this scholarship proposal is to increase the scholarships available to baseball and other sports while the undergraduate student population has been declining 7.4% over the last 10 years? We can blame demographics, Covid, the economy, etc....but it is reality. Don't get me wrong, I love the new scholarship idea and promises especially for baseball (and some other non-revenue sports) because anything is an improvement over what we have now. However, state funded Universities are receiving much less contributions from the states. Universities have been trying to make up that money in athletics and research revenue streams with mixed results. This just doesn't add up in my mind at this time.
I just have one question.....what is going to be the financial source for all this new scholarship money?
As always, JMO.
@anotherparent posted:I'd only add that until 2008, which is only 16 years ago, baseball scholarships had one set of rules, then they changed. So no set of rules is forever.
One thing NIL collectives may have done was to siphon donor money away from athletic departments. So if schools want to give more baseball scholarships, they're probably going to have to convince those donors to bring their money back to the schools. I wonder whether that will work?
I disagree.
College and universities are awash in money. The Pell grant program and other federal student loan guarantee programs, which were put in place to make up for reduced state spending on higher education, created an absolute bonanza for colleges and universities over the past 40+ years. Both in terms of absolute tuition dollars and year to year percentage increase in those dollars, which has way outpaced inflation.
And the endowments aren’t taxed.
The money has mostly gone to admin, up 468% over the past 15 years, and facilities, especially athletics. While enrollment is up by about 75% and the faculty numbers increased by nearly 90%, the money has not gone anywhere near the students in terms of overall tuition relief or increased merit- (including athletic-) based scholarships.
And that is very much by design.
NIL money that takes away from the university athletic fund and gives to the “men in the arena” is a very good thing, long overdue.
Demographics are indeed causing a decline in the pool of high schoolers, but demand for college is as high as it’s ever been, which is why acceptance rates are flat or declining most everywhere.
And that is because demand is up - the percentage of people in the US holding a college degree is currently about 1/3, up from about 1/4 in the 1990s.
With penetration rates that low, they won’t run out of customers anytime soon.
Private colleges and universities are awash in money. Public universities are not. It's the big state universities that drive the major conferences.
@anotherparent posted:Private colleges and universities are awash in money. Public universities are not. It's the big state universities that drive the major conferences.
Sure, publics don’t have as much money as the privates, but they are not poor. I don’t buy it.
The figures I cited above which speak to the explosion in administrative overhead come from a recent report that covers all US colleges.
It would cost ~$700,000/year in foregone tuition (roster of 40 minus 11.7 existing schollys * say $25,000) for the public schools to fully fund their baseball team.
I just came back from touring several large public universities in the Midwest. Cranes everywhere at Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota.
I bet Wisconsin is spending >$1mm/day to build their new AI center in the heart of campus. And all of the schools are constructing housing, which they expect to turn into a profit center.
They have money, they just don’t want to give it to the kids.
The article says that a settlement would involve sharing the media rights money with athletes, smaller rosters and full scholarship money being available to every rostered athlete. On the one hand it seems that the powerhouses would have even greater advantage due to their ability to fully fund. However the smaller roster size could have an interesting effect. What if they go from 40 to 30? That means a lot of quality players at P5 schools would "trickle down" to other programs.
Lots of cranes at penn state too! There would definitely be some trickling down of good players as well. Plus, as someone else stated: recruiting would probably be taken more "serious", if that's the right terminology.