A cynical new age for college athletics

Editorial by Burlington Times-News, August 11, 2014.

Too often in America today events meet the lowered expectations of our more cynical natures.

Case in point, this statement last week by University of Texas athletic director Steve Patterson. He was discussing the debate about a then-impending and later approved NCAA measure that would give the five biggest sports conferences more ability to make their own rules, which could result in less revenue and more struggles for smaller universities and colleges such as Elon. “Why should we share it if they’re not generating it?” Patterson said.

It’s a remark that explains what’s behind Thursday’s monumental decision, one that both affirms and cements the gap between big college programs and everyone else and exposes just how far out of whack collegiate athletics are becoming.

The NCAA measure will allow the five biggest conferences — including the Atlantic Coast Conference — to change rules in several areas, including recruiting, expenses and financial aid. One noteworthy change is that Power 5 schools can and likely will pay student-athletes a stipend of $2,000-$5,000 a year on top of their scholarships.

Non-Power 5 conferences like Elon University’s new home in the CAA, are welcome to adopt the same changes, but doing so would place a greater burden on smaller schools with smaller athletic budgets. Those schools would have to decide to either give up that chase, which would mean losing the revenue that big-time sports bring, or make cuts to other sports to pay the bills.

For now, smaller conferences will likely go along with the changes, mostly because they have little choice. Power 5 conference officials have subtly threatened to leave the NCAA altogether and take their TV money — some of which gets distributed to all NCAA schools — with them.

That revenue gap will continue to get larger. On Thursday, an ESPN survey revealed that football coaches at Power 5 schools would prefer to play only other Power 5 schools at some point. If smaller schools lose those games — and the big paydays they bring — their budgets will take a hit. Again, count Elon among them. It has scheduled games with Power-5 teams over the past few years, including Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest.

To which big schools would say: That’s not our problem. But once upon a time, it was. The NCAA was once a non-profit venture, at least theoretically, with a shared-revenue model designed to help student-athletes in all schools reap the dual benefits of sports and education.

Hardly anyone is starry-eyed enough to believe that’s still the model, or the goal, for many schools. But Thursday’s decision clarifies that the big schools no longer really care about the larger notion of college athletics — and all that used to mean.

Parts of this editorial were originally published in the Charlotte Observer.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/our-opinion/a-cynical-new-age-for-college-athletics-1.357329