How to get rid of the ncaa
If you clicked this thread, you may be curious - like me - what steps should / could be taken to eliminate the NCAA from college football and basketball (at minimum). I will be the first to say I am a hypocrite: I am complaining about something without an alternative strategy...however, the facade of the NCAA is so acute, I struggle to enjoy college sports anymore.
UM has a history of disruption. We are paragons of industry - from finance to automotive to tech...as a proud alum, I actively seek and recruit students curious about challenging the future; yet, while most of my focus has been “business” (crappy term) I can’t help but wanna be involved in the inevitable implosion of this scam organization.
im genuinely curious about your thoughts: What value does the ncaa serve anymore? Does UM have the critical mass make changes? What is the feasibility of any change? Etc...
(Excuse spelling and grammatical errors. I’m still getting used to a mobile version of the MGoBlog link)
April 24th, 2019 at 12:12 AM ^
uhhhhhhhhh
April 24th, 2019 at 12:14 AM ^
this sounds like the type of deal where we get rid of the government and instead, we select certain people to be in charge of communal affairs. Everyone gives up a little bit of their income to support community needs and bam! no government.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:17 AM ^
Sounds awesome! I'll volunteer to be first commissar!
April 24th, 2019 at 12:23 AM ^
Not that your wrong but why do you have this opinion? Is it because of the NCAA’s legal position? Or simply a desire to maintain status quo?
His point is, what do you think would possibly happen?
You can't have a system of college sports without a governing body of some kind. And that governing body would be comprised of the same people this governing body is comprised of. When you suggest "getting rid of the NCAA", what in hell do you propose it be replaced with?
April 24th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
The AACN.
Yes, we'll set it up & run it from a small country in South America. We'll have Kool-Aid, it'll be crazy!
Will there be Subs too?
Yes, & you will be in charge of the Kool-Aid.
"But don't you see... this way, it would take the money out of government."
I had this conversation three different times in college-- each time for at least an hour. It always ended with me and a friend explaining things like what the government actually does (a lot, it turns out) and why "Coincidence of need" makes all plans to re-form society with small communes extremely stupid.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:23 AM ^
I'm sad that you weren't nearly as drunk as the thread title led me to believe ☹️
April 24th, 2019 at 12:25 AM ^
I’m trying hard! Been a long day of travel! Should be there in ~1 hour ?
Maybe he is drunk.. Just not an adept writer. Great post btw.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:29 AM ^
Dunno but something slow and painful I’d hope.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:29 AM ^
Just start paying the players openly along with a couple other blue blood schools from other conferences.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:34 AM ^
The NCAA is not an independent organization. They only do what the members schools want. In fact, they vote on all major decisions. So the replacement for the NCAA would just be a new version of the NCAA. The NCAA does screw up some individual cases, but new administrators will do it too.
I prefer to think of the NCAA as a PR scam. They take all the heat. Fans hate them, but love their school, who never gets blamed for what the NCAA does. In fact, most fans seem to believe their school is somehow victimized by the NCAA.
The only way the NCAA goes away is if there is a big split between the schools that generate a lot of money and those that don't. Not too likely to happen, in my opinion. Both groups need each other and understand their relationship.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:43 AM ^
You're one of the smartest people on this board, but come on, the NCAA needs a complete overhaul. Burn it down and rebuild.
I have no particular love of the NCAA, and it probably needs a major overhaul, but the major thing seems to be that it doesn't enforce it's regulations and when it does, enforces them unevenly. Michigan gets penalties for stretching and North Carolina gets nothing for decades of players who can't read and never went to class.
Burning it down might be hyperbole, but I'm guessing there are a lot of good things that go unnoticed.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:55 AM ^
Well said - I agree nearly completely.
The NCAA's Board of Governors (be it at the total NCAA level or the Division 1 level): outside of one (essentially figurehead) student-athlete who is on the board, they are ALL University Presidents, Chancellors or ADs. No independence there, and conflicts of interest everywhere!
The Rice Commission and Knight Commission have both advocated for independent directors to be added to the Board. This past January, the NCAA (I was in shock when I saw this) actually indicated they are going to take some steps in that direction.
The independent directors won't be a majority of the board. But it's something. This could be a good thing. Time will tell.
(on a tangent: the College Football Playoff Board of Managers has this same issue)
These are supposed to be the smartest people around but yet they continue to allow the idiotic decisions and the less than moral decisions NCAA makes. I am sad to think how these people are responsible to educate the next generation.
Yes, you are right.
Now let's take a step back and try to figure out why this might be. Is it because (a) the University Presidents are stupid and don't know how to get what they want, or is it because (b) they are smart and they just want things that we as sports fans see as stupid or immoral?
I have a sneaking suspicion that it's (b). I think Occam's razor would support me on that one--it's the simplest explanation.
So...Michigan doesn't want to get rid of the NCAA; Michigan is the NCAA.
April 24th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^
To be fair - I am sure a number of University Presidents truly want the NCAA to be better in regulating college athletics. There are good folk out there.
But - the NCAA has 1200+ member schools and conferences. That's 6x as many "fiefdoms" as there are countries in the United Nations! The most skilled leader in the world would struggle to "get what he/she wants" given 1200+ different groups.
Smaller groups are usually easier to manage - which is why I'm in favor of (1) NCAA running the National Championships and setting eligibility guidelines, while (2) the individual conferences are responsible for enforcement and penalties.
Mr Miggle is very correct. It's the exact same dynamic with sports commissioners. Their primary function is to be the bad guy with the public when they just represent the greedy ideals of the owners. People want to believe there's some distance between the things about the game they hate and the family who owns the team they directly give their time and money to.
This is also why the OP of this thread comes across as so naive. Thinking Michigan, of all places, would be the engine behind a "disruption" when its one of the schools that has benifited the most within the current framework. UM has such institutional reverence for the NCAA that they rolled out the red carpet for the "investigators" during stretch-gate, demonstrating eager cooperation. They made a big show out of removing basketball banners and called it a "day of great shame."
Contrast these attitudes with UNC inventing fake classes for athletes and telling the NCAA to stay in their lane after they inquired. And of course the NCAA did, because they are a toothless, sham of an outfit.
Sleep it off.
If there were junior sports leagues that offered young players an alternative means of developing their talents outside of scholarships then that would be one thing but college sports are deeply ingrained in our culture and I'd be very surprised if anything changed with the NCAA.
If a junior football league ever came along that game young players an alternative to taking a scholarship, I'm inclined to think it'd fail because I don't see enough people putting their money where their mouth is and going to those games rather than their big University games. We all know the vast amounts of money that pour through into the Universities through these sports.
If a junior football team was founded in Detroit, would you make a bigger point of going there or to Michigan games?
By "junior league" do mean a farm league like MLB? I think that's the exact answer, rather than paying college athletes. As it is, the NFL/NBA/NCAA is kind of holding them hostage. Let them go to a development league right out of high school if they are good enough. If not, go to college and stop whining about pay. It's the lack of choice that's the problem IMO.
I also don't think it matters if people attend, but minor league baseball clubs in mid-sized towns are very popular and well-attended, I'm sure the NFL could figure this out.
Minor league baseball is fairly popular. But to put that into context, the stadiums are small, ticket prices are very cheap, there is no TV and no real local competition.
That doesn't really translate into competing with college football or basketball.
I don't look at as competing with college sports. It's an alternative for the players. Some very talented players don't want to "play school," and they shouldn't have to. Some need to get paid right away, and if they are talented enough they should be able to. If they choose the college route, they know they are deferring a paycheck (just like every other full-time college student)
April 24th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
The point I was responding to was that minor league baseball works so why not minor league football?
Yes, it's an alternative that could make sense for some players. But what incentive does the NFL have to fund and run one? A junior league for the NFL will have to compete with college football for players. The costs will be higher. There will be more competition for fans. It's hard to see how it wouldn't cost the NFL a fair amount of money to run. They seem to be quite content with the current system.
Minor league baseball more or less pays for itself because they pay close to minimum wage salaries for many of their players and they don't have to compete with a popular college sport. It also helps that there aren't many full scholarships available in college baseball.
I used the term "junior league" because I was thinking of CHL hockey and that's generally referred to as "major junior hockey", but yes, you're right on the same track as me. Hockey players have the choice of taking a scholarship and attending a university or going to an OHL/WHL/QMJHL team. Football and basketball players don't really have that option.
I’ll make my own college. We’ll be the South Harmon Institute of Technology Sandwiches.
i think you use the same stuff they use to get rid of sea lampreys....
Spermicide
Be consistent ...
Either good or bad, right or wrong.
The back-n-forth is what frustrates me.
buddha bless this beat
The whole college sports model needs to be overhauled. I think a major first step would be instituting pay caps on all coaches and administrators. Coaches should not be paid more than the professors at the universities they’re employed by. If this is truly amateur athletics, let them be coached by amateurs.
Universities are now paying assistant coaches more than 1 million a year while increasing the amount of adjunct professors making nearly minimum wage. How many jobs exist today that pay starts at 7 figures?
Next student athletes should be able to transfer freely without penalty other than college credits like every other college student. These kids are not employed by the university and if they don’t like a choice they make, they should have free will to make a different one.
The only thing that the ncaa is needed for is to setup a national tournament. Not being a regulator. Universities can regulate themselves and be held accountable by those that consume their product.
I disagree with all of this. Not looking to argue, just saying it's not that simple. All of the things you want to do to improve the college game are things I think are necessary and/or valuable and would do everything in my power to uphold.
First point: "The NCAA needs to regulate more, all the way down to how much staff are paid!"
Last point: "The NCAA shouldn't regulate at all!"
April 24th, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^
That's a very simplistic interpretation. Stating that coaches should not be paid (BTW - bad idea) is not so much regulating more, but keeping consistent with its model - that college athletics are the domain of amateurs.
April 24th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
I'm sorry, but the only way to protect that amateur domain is through regulation. You can't argue that the NCAA should impose no rules and only set up national title competitions while also saying that there needs to be a drastic increase in rules about how programs are run. Where will those rules come from if not the NCAA? I don't expect Alabama to voluntarily fire Saban and hire a coach willing to be paid $200k in the name of protecting amateurism.
My interpretation is simplistic because it is, in fact, a simple scenario. Your argument that forcing Universities to obey a regulation about salary caps is "not so much regulating" is false. Just because there's a reason behind a regulation doesn't change the fact that it is a regulation.
My only intention was to point out the logical inconsistency in the post and that it wasn't a cohesive argument.
April 24th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Or perhaps major college sports should not remain in the amateur domain??
We should treat sports, just like we treat all other areas of our economy and let the free market (with oversight and regulation) operate as it would.
Michigan wants to pay Harbaugh $30M a year - Fine
Michigan wants to pay a no profile coach $30k a year - Fine
Michigan wants to pay an athlete $1M to play football - Fine
I don't know why we trust the market to work in almost every other situation, but when it comes to sports we feel the need to interfere.
I never said that the ncaa should regulate pay. It’s funny how universities don’t regulate paying professors with a national body, and yet there pay is similar across the country. Universities aren’t hiring ceos and paying them millions to teach kids business, because it doesn’t make economic sense. Universities shouldn’t be hiring coaches and paying them nfl salaries. The coaches are free to earn money from outside sources, just as professors are allowed to. If Jim makes 3 million on his podcast a year, that’s his right. But the university should not be doling out pay and compensation that is higher than the governor of the state in which the university resides by a factor of 20.
You tell me where all these coaches would end up, if universities were actually fiscally responsible in the paying of employees in the athletic departments? There’s only so many professional teams.
Remember when the big 5 told the ncaa how it was gonna be? well how did that work out?
Problem is there needs to be a governing organization if for no other reason than to protect the athletes.
LOL. The NCAA is an association of colleges and universities. I may be wrong, but I don't think the members of the association have any intention of doing away with it.
I work at a private K-12 and the NCAA seems to do a thorough job of vetting each student athlete's education. Once the students are at school, I think there are important aspects to NCAA compliance, such as making sure the students are making academic progress and not participating in sports for more than a certain number of hours.
To eliminate the NCAA, you'd have to split the responsibilities for the important part of their work. My take is this would mean a nationwide student athlete union to cover quality of life issues and an accrediting body (or expansion of responsibilities for existing accreditors) to cover matters relating to academic integrity.
I don't think the answer is to get rid of the NCAA, but heavy reform, to the point where it would be unrecognizable as what it is, might be the only thing left.
I think one of the keys is heavier involvement from people who are not ADs, Chancellors, Regents, etc...or rather, the student-athletes themselves, or maybe even independent people sitting on committees. It seems like it has become so top-heavy and insular in the sense that an overwhelming number of people on the various boards and committees are from the top of the ranks of their respective schools that as a whole, the NCAA has become a self-involved nightmare which doesn't value the thing they are supposedly there to protect.
April 24th, 2019 at 10:02 AM ^
With these ideas you should be #21 and throw your hat in the ring. You'll fit.
April 24th, 2019 at 10:38 AM ^
If the NCAA wasn't doing exactly what it member institutions wanted it would have already been changed.