And that is where the non-thinking academicians of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) now lead college football, the greatest institution ever of American amateur athletics. In recent years, I have begun to accuse our educational system of no longer teaching students how to think, but wrongly, what to think instead. Now, the NCAA demonstrates that institutions of “higher-learning” themselves, don’t think at all.

Thanks for nothing, Doc

     How did Dr. Mark Emmert, CEO of the NCAA, present the “Name, Image, and Likeness” (NIL) policy to the board of the NCAA?  It seems to have gone like this: “Let’s allow potential college athletes negotiate with potential sponsors, donors, and corporate advertisers, and see how it goes.” Evidently, no foresight seems to have been analyzed to determine the ramifications that would impact not only Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football. Most of college football including some FCS programs and other NCAA sports programs among all its members depend on revenues generated primarily by football and by men’s basketball.

      Great strategy? How about…no strategy?  Allow some 18-year-old high school kids and their families to negotiate NIL contracts with any benefactor they want. Of course, not every potential athlete will get an offer. Approximately an average of 20 players among 133 FBS schools annually sign letters of intent in the end.  That’s 2,660 kids per year applying that can end up playing for some program. Some will get more money than others; some will get none.  In this generation of “everybody gets a trophy”, no one in the NCAA saw this as a cause for dissension even “within a team”?  All of a sudden, this isn’t an issue?  Almost everybody goes to a bowl game now.  We heard rumors there was a particular power five program that had internal issues with this last season. Kids who had money flaunted it.  Others resented it.  So much for no “I” in “team”.

Can’t “Pay for Play”? Really?

   The NCAA states, however, they want to be sure that no one violates illegal “Pay for Play” arrangements that could result in suspensions of NCAA teams who violate this.  Uncontrolled NIL policies and Pay for Play seem to contradict one another.  Who controls or monitors that to prevent violations?  Are schools allowed to solicit sponsor offers directly to players?  If not, who is going to know?  And take it from someone with over 40 years of professional Purchasing experience. There are online tools out there already to run auctions to select the highest bidder if desired.  Wait until the adept high school kids who are technology savvy start doing this.  Is the world of academia aware of anything like this?  It seems they live in a very small world void of business, laws, and/or common sense. 

As for the transfer portal

     Does anyone think alumni or big donors to universities with wads of cash (more than $60,000 spent by the former Tennessee coaching staff now under investigation) won’t approach coaching staffs to lure not only the best high school talent available?   Now, they can also can consider how they can lure proven college football talent from among the best of “The Group of Five” or FCS players. Through the wide-open transfer portal, of course. (Are these student-athletes really transferring all their course credits from school to school so easily?).  Maybe from even another Power Five foe.   Don’t believe that there’s really a one-time transfer limitation, submission of waiver requests provides even more flexibility.  Some players have played for three or four schools already within four-five years.

Not blind here

   Don’t get me wrong. We’ve all seen players like Joe Burrow sit out for four years at Ohio State and finally get a chance with LSU and win a national championship. Great! We’ve also seen Jalen Hurts win a national title his freshman year at Alabama only to be benched behind Tua Tagovailoa a year later.  He moved on and starred at Oklahoma.  Joe Flacco left Pittsburgh after sitting on the bench. He transferred to play at FCS Delaware before landing in the Super Bowl a few years later.  In these three cases, all QBs of course, they made one move and found success. If a player needs to make more than one move, maybe he’s not as talented as he thinks, or he’s not committed to play for any team he joins. Allow transfers, but relegate it to one time only, and that’s it.

     As far as health insurance, that’s a no-brainer.  Every player should be insured to avoid costly medical bills suffered from football injuries and any other potential losses of income.

Any NCAA members out there offer courses in Market Research, Business Law, or Econ?

    Oh, what poorly made plans initiated by the NCAA!   No foresight whatsoever.  No thoughts, no models tested, no in-depth discussions? Evidently not.   Whatever happened to Research Departments at institutions of higher learning? The very small number, but dominant, of the “rich” football programs get richer, and the “mediocre” teams among the majority not only become fodder to them on game day because of superior talent levels recruited (check out those rankings), but they also become feeder systems of talent to them as well. Competitive restraints start to expose the monopolization of a few among 133 schools playing FBS football.  Thus, anti-trust violations abound. Most of these academic institutions of “higher learning” depend upon the revenue-producing sports of football and men’s basketball to fund most of the non-revenue athletic programs for other “student-athletes”, both men and women.

Whatever happened to sportsmanship?

     With the advent of billion-dollar TV contracts for whatever eventually defines the Southeastern Conference, The Big Ten, and possibly the Atlantic Coast Conference (let’s refer to them as the “Super Conferences”), profits will benefit only about 48 FBS football programs.  What happens to the remaining 85 teams supposedly competing for the same national championship and the monetary rewards to be reaped from media contracts, ticket revenues, CFP bowl games, alumni donations, and national merchandising revenues afforded to the Super Conference teams?  They don’t equally compete for that same revenue stream opportunity. Does that seem fair?

    The non-Super teams may get other media opportunities but at much lower rates compared to TV contracts for teams of “more glamorous” NIL players in the Super Conferences.  With lower revenues than what some of these other programs make now, it might become too costly for them to continue playing college football at the FBS level, or in some instances, to continue playing at all.  If discontinuation of these revenues becomes reality for any, all their collegiate athletic programs may no longer be affordable at their current levels of competition. Other sports programs will have to fold because of a football program’s inability for increased revenue contracted with the minority of Super Conference teams. 

Great long-term, investment opportunities

     In addition, can we assume that the NIL money afforded to players contracted will eliminate these players’ needs to be awarded football scholarships?  It seems now that most should use their new-found funding to invest in their educations.  This will reduce the costs for these Super Conferences again allowing them the benefit of cutting costs and investing scholarship money elsewhere.  Whereas any hangers-on among the “non-Super” have to consider survival only if they can afford to offer scholarships.  However, will this all be worth it to them?

How about some compensation among “friendly foes”?

     After a year or two, a player for the non-Super may consider an offer of NIL money from the Supers that be and exits his current team through the transfer portal (Is this offer allowed? Who monitors?  If not, who monitors?).  Thus, the non-Super ends up offering another scholarship to a replacement with no guarantee that this will not happen again.  Is this unfair among 133 programs competing for supposedly equal advantages to compete for the same national championship and its rewards?  You bet it’s not fair.

Not these people again

     With everything else our US Congress has to be involved in to correct important issues to turn our economy around, to offset inflation, and to reduce crime, they’re probably going to have to be involved in Anti-trust legislation to assure competition is not being violated among 133 universities of higher education who cannot effectively govern themselves through a very inefficient, clueless, and leaderless NCAA. Hopefully not, but perhaps, Legislators will just let the entire system struggle until it’s no longer worth the effort save this great, but now out-of-control, American tradition from a slow death.

How this may all end

     Regretfully, the NCAA evidently never put much of any thought into what these new policies could do to destroy the enthusiasm for many who love college football as well as for the players who play hard and for the alumni and student bodies who take pride in them.  All might as well let the money people in the NFL start funding their own minor league system like Major League Baseball does.  Remember, college football spawned pro football – not the other way around.  Looks like it’s time now to let the pros invest in the development of their future players. Let the TV networks fund their minor league football since they’ve learned how to profit so much by controlling college football.  Let’s see how much benefit they can reap from another new creation – kind of like the USFL, WLAF, the XFL, or Arena Football.

Ed. – by Steve Koreivo, Author of Tales from the Tailgate: From the Fan who’s seen ‘em all! Click of the title to review and buy the book on Amazon.com.