Knight Commission Recommends FBS Separate From NCAA
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30444422/knight-commission-endorses-fbs-split-ncaa
Makes perfect sense to me. Create a separate entity made by the football powerhouses to police themselves and give it real funding and punishment power to operate as such. Or if the FBS schools don’t want any rules, so be it.
December 3rd, 2020 at 6:49 PM ^
The Knight Commission also made several other recommendations for all of college sports -- the NCAA and its proposed National College Football Association (NCFA) -- to reform its current model. They include holding university presidents accountable for controlling their athletic departments, making sure revenue is distributed in a way that promotes the schools' educational mission and a continued prohibition on allowing players to be paid.
Not great.
December 3rd, 2020 at 6:55 PM ^
If the FBS schools decide as a whole not to pay players, that’s a decision they made for themselves without any involvement from outside schools. Having Ivies or small state private U involved with governing what Michigan and the Big Ten can or cannot do for its players doesn’t make any sense.
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:12 PM ^
Letting North Dakota have any say about national economic issues doesn't make any more sense.
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:24 PM ^
Unless you own an electric auto you might want to thank the folks in North Dakota for the gas in your car.
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:39 PM ^
Or, maybe, the dinosaurs
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:57 PM ^
Pilots for the flights we take is also a nice perk of North Dakota
December 4th, 2020 at 1:29 AM ^
I never knew pilots were made in North Dakota. You learn something knew every day.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:12 AM ^
Yeah, University of North Dakota, Embry Riddle and Purdue are widely considered to be the world's best programs for aviation. If you ever fly on a legacy carrier theres a pretty good chance your pilot was trained at one of those three or by the military.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:56 AM ^
Yeah, because people who live in North Dakota are less American than people who live in NY or CA. You are an elitist bastard.
December 4th, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
But they are more American than the people in South Dakota.
You gotta have someone to look down upon. Detroit (used to) look down on Cleveland which looks down on Buffalo. We must create our own opportunities to become elitist bastards.
December 4th, 2020 at 11:15 AM ^
And now we have a perfect example for why the electoral college exists
December 4th, 2020 at 12:54 PM ^
Been a rough month for you i gather?
December 4th, 2020 at 1:25 PM ^
Not really, I voted for Biden.
My comment was solely directed at the comment made, "Letting North Dakota have any say about national economic issues doesn't make any more sense." I just happen to think that type of mindset is gross and shameful and is precisely the reason the electoral college exists and we live in a republic rather than a democracy.
December 3rd, 2020 at 6:59 PM ^
What makes you think they'll have real power and a willingness to punish?
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:05 PM ^
If the FBS decide amongst themselves that their new governing entity won’t investigate, won’t have any rules on recruitment, outside money, etc. and thereby won’t punish anyone, fine. It’s then clear and in print and way better than what’s in place right now.
December 4th, 2020 at 7:47 AM ^
If the FBS decide amongst themselves that their new governing entity won’t investigate, won’t have any rules on recruitment, outside money, etc. and thereby won’t punish anyone, fine. It’s then clear and in print and way better than what’s in place right now.
Yeah, but you know UM...we love our history and tradition. You know damn well just because there is no investigation that the implication is still not to pay players. UM will do its damndest not to do so meanwhile the SEC will frolick in their new found freedom.
There needs to still be rules in place about how and how much you can compensate players and enforcement of it. That's the only way UM will take advantage of their significant resources. Otherwise their rules abiding ways, moral high ground, and academics first stance will always be a detriment in luring the best athletes to play for UM.
December 4th, 2020 at 8:32 AM ^
Wasn't long ago that a Michigan basketball player wrecked a car in the middle of the night after drinking, fled the scene, walked by and made up a story that he saw the crash, lying to police. He then gave them a fake name and they called him out on video for being a basketball player.
What ever came out of that anyway? I mean I assume he was either arrested or severely punished by the team since they follow rules right?
December 4th, 2020 at 10:46 AM ^
For whatever reason there seems to be a different culture associated with our basketball program than our football program. I don't know if this is the lasting legacy of Bo or what, but football doesn't seem to want to knowingly break any rules, even if they are un-enforceable rules. I can't think of a single recruiting or extra benefits violation in my 41 years on this earth in the football program. The only football violation I can remember is Rich Rods extra practice time. But, everyone seems to be coming to "play school".
December 4th, 2020 at 11:24 AM ^
So it's not a Michigan thing, but just a Michigan football thing to claim moral high ground? I mean I'll agree, outside of isolated incidents (one student athlete getting in trouble off of the field here and there), Michigan football doesn't have a problem with too much trouble coming from their football players. That is good. I don't get how one kid does something stupid (basically what college kids do at college) and people act like it's a problem with the program.
However, the playing school part is also way overblown by the Michigan fan base. People continue to use it, yet whenever it's brought to their attention that Cardale Jones was a 3.0 student and posted that after getting a B on a test that he thought he would have got an A on, just goes back to my thinking that one isolated incident from an athlete (in this case a twitter post, no illegal action, not a single rule being broken) gets way overblown from opposing fan bases. And the same people that continue to use that phrase scurry away when I bring up the basketball player incident.
Instead, they downvote and ignore instead of trying to come up with a rebuttal for which there isn't one. They do the same when it's brought up that to play football at Michigan you have to keep a 2.0 GPA while touting how the academics for Michigan football players are so much harder, therefore they can't produce a better product on the field.
It's a circle, and round and round we go.
December 4th, 2020 at 11:57 AM ^
MGoStrength, were you ever a student on campus? Or are you making that "no violations by football" claim based on what you've read in the media?
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:02 PM ^
Bobby Knight has a Commission? Surprised they didn’t recommend beating the shit out of players in practice.
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:25 PM ^
I read this whole article and cannot make heads or tails out of it.
Multiple times they point out the revenue/cost aspect of football dwarfs everything else in an athletic department at the P5 level. However, I did not read one proposed solution or idea on what would be done with the bundles of cash that is any different than what colleges and the NCAA do presently - or how exactly they can do something different financially which adheres to Title IX.
Did I miss something?
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:32 PM ^
The FBS schools can decide that all football players are school employees and can unionize. They are then not student athletes and not subject to Title IX.
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:30 PM ^
Sure, the FBS schools will go for that. Schools can then pay players (which is a real cost and who doesn't want to increase costs?) and gain a union to negotiate with.
December 3rd, 2020 at 9:19 PM ^
I don’t think they would go for it. But then from a legal standpoint, an Athletic Department then doesn’t have to pay for 85 women’s scholarships plus the cost of their coaches, travel, infrastructure, etc.
December 3rd, 2020 at 10:10 PM ^
I'd be interested to know just how many athletic departments are all that bothered by Title IX compliance costs. I've read a couple of articles and schools generally don't meet the dollar-for-dollar matching people assume is required, and there's a lot of value (beyond the intrinsic value in treating men and women equal in terms of access to sporting opportunities) in fielding women athletic teams in terms of promotion to the student body, attracting individuals who might want to compete on a team and would be willing to pay some costs to attend, etc.
December 4th, 2020 at 7:35 AM ^
I'm no expert on Title IX, but have done a fair amount of reading and research on it. I don't think there are any easy answers to how this proposal - or others that involve paying players - would affect Title IX compliance. On it's face Title IX is pretty simple:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
However, compliance and enforcement is a whole other ball of wax, involving other federal regulations and clarifying letters passed over the years. Today, athletic departments comply by simply having the same # of scholarships for women and men across all their sports. In a future where football and basketball players start getting paid, I'm not sure how things will work out. That said, I am pretty sure that bringing up Title IX either as a reason it WON"T work or as reason it WILL work is problematic.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:21 AM ^
Exactly. I am no Title IX / federal attorney either but before life pulled me in another direction my desired job out of college was athletic administration at the collegiate level but sadly I never got a chance to work in the field. Oh well.
Anyways, from a purely optics perspective with Twitter Mobs and Women's Rights coalitions, no college is going to want to defend, in federal court, why they are paying male athletes and not women. So then you decide to pay everyone a stipend, men and women, that is the same. Now you are going to deprive everyone of possibly earning their fair market value, which violates every principal of capitalism. I would have to imagine some attorney would be very interested in that. As a final solution you figure out who the most valuable athlete is on campus, determine their rate of compensation forthwith and decide to pay X number of female and male athletes that amount to try and comply with Title IX. You show this number to the people in accounting and they faint and throw you out of the office.
There is no great answer to this thought of colleges paying the players. Now you can skirt all of this by allowing endorsements that have nothing to do with the college and I think all parties involved will eventually be in favor of that. However, without major text changes to Title IX I have a hard time picturing a scenario where colleges pay players directly. Seth and I had a bit of a back and forth (respectfully, I might add) on this the last time he wrote about it and he thinks Title IX changes will come in time and I disagree, but we both agreed any proposal is doomed without it.
Last note - do people honestly want to see players paid by the college? This is not a trick question as I want you to think about this scenario - if the college pay players they would be subjected to all hiring and labor laws, which would mean age discrimination. Unless the "you can only play in this league for 4 years and then you have to move on" holds up in court, would you really want to still see Tim Tebow lining up at Florida this year?
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:47 PM ^
If an undefeated Cincy or BYU do not get into the playoffs this year, then they should split off into an FBS-AA and have their own playoff. Non-Power 5 football schools are the only teams in college athletics who enter a season without even a chance at playing for a national championship. Let them have their own playoff; but still allow for non-conference with the Power-5 and to compete in the same bowl games.
Also, why does ND get special treatment as an independent but BYU who has won as many national championships in the last 40 years as ND, doesn’t?
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:21 PM ^
People decide who goes to the playoff. BYU or Cincy could go... but they wont. Ill be honest though BYU would get beat by 28+ vs Clemson, Bama or OSU. 4 out of 120ish teams isn't a playoff its a plus 2. 4 times as many teams as the NFL and 1/4 fewer teams in the post season? That's not a playoff.
December 3rd, 2020 at 9:34 PM ^
"Ill be honest though BYU would get beat by 28+ vs Clemson, Bama or OSU."
Certainly possible, maybe even probable. Of course most Power 5 teams would lose by 28 to those teams also. Hell, the team ranked 5th (A&M) already has!!
December 3rd, 2020 at 7:52 PM ^
Does the NCAA do anything now? This year with the pandemic the NCAA basically said “figure it out on your own”. Of course it doesn’t surprise me with the other blatant cheating that goes on that they turn a blind eye to. It hard to call the NCAA a “governing body” that chooses to not to “govern” anything.
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:26 PM ^
Split out all of FBS? Make it Power 5 plus large independent (ND, BYU) and now you're talking.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:19 AM ^
-1: The article mentions that the commission discussed this possibility and ultimately rejected it, for reasons given in the article.
December 3rd, 2020 at 8:38 PM ^
Knight windows deserves a quiet knight
December 3rd, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
not sure all these downvotes understand
December 3rd, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
It’s not like years ago: the fear of double posts
December 3rd, 2020 at 9:11 PM ^
Michigan football could make 3x with its own independent TV contract. Texas and USC the same. Football leagues are going to implode if they go this route. Why subsidize the rest of the B1G teams ?
December 4th, 2020 at 8:38 AM ^
You ever heard of the Big Ten Academic Alliance? Check it out, that 3x more you think Michigan can make in football is basically a candy bar at a gas station compared to the money they lose by leaving the conference. People will say "but Notre Dame". Yeah, they are in a unique situation and have been doing it forever. Ask BYU how lucrative the football department is.
December 3rd, 2020 at 10:44 PM ^
I used to play pickup hoops against Arne Duncan, after both of our careers were well past their apex. He played at Princeton. He was a pain in the ass to guard, and I am relatively a beast of a human (or was).
December 3rd, 2020 at 11:23 PM ^
JT was still short...Never forget
December 4th, 2020 at 7:37 AM ^
After surveying a wide swath of college sports stakeholders, the group said it discovered that many leaders in the industry believe the time has come for significant change. It decided that the most effective way to solve a variety of problems is to separate football -- an outlier of a sport because of the vast and quickly increasing difference in the revenue it generates.
"Every other sport looks like a duck and walks like a duck and probably is a duck," Knight Commission co-chair Arne Duncan told ESPN. "That one [football] looks like a pterodactyl. It's not like the others, and it's had a wildly disproportionate impact on everything else. It doesn't make sense."
I'm surprised mens basketball was not included in going independent as well.
December 4th, 2020 at 2:34 PM ^
If the Power Schools owned the tournament they likely would suggest they take it and run with College Football. But the NCAA owns the tournament. And, while I am sure the power schools could throw their own 68 team tournament the conferences are contractually obligated to the NCAA for this. However if it's cancelled again this season that would make it much easier to get out of imo as the NCAA would be devastated.
Gotta say overall, I am in favor of the P5 schools walking away from the NCAA and going to their own governing body. Not to mention one uniform set of rules for all. Paying players, not really a fan, tbh. But universities already pay students in top programs so why should athletes be any different?
December 4th, 2020 at 8:12 AM ^
Umm... yeah. There should be 4 high end college leagues that can compensate players and then everybody else.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:27 AM ^
If this happens, should it happen with NFL participation? After all, then NCAA football becomes a quasi-minor league for the NFL. They should have to pony up and pay for the player development they're currently getting for free. That would free up monies to go to the non-revenue sports.