OT-ish: FSU to privatize their athletic department
FSU plans to convert their athletic dept into a private organization that is separate from the public university. Article gives the reason as streamlining the relationship with boosters, but possibly also to avoid FOIA requests. Apparently a few of the other big public universities in Florida have already done this. I know there are many people on this board who are connected to our own ath dept, so I'm curious about their take on this w.r.t. how legitimate it is (legally and otherwise) and if it actually necessary/beneficial to the university.
Athletic departments with even less accountability. What could go wrong?
Yeah, that's sort of my reading as well. I'm sure there are tax and business reasons to do so, but considering how poorly some of these schools have handled matters in the past I'm not sure how being s private entity with fewer oversights is going to be a net positive.
Scary to think of the situations at places like Staee and Ped State and then giving them a $200,000 cap on lawsuits and protection from FOIA laws to hide behind.
This would be like giving John Engler the keys to not just all the candy stores, but also to all the ice cream shops and pizza joints.
That wouldn't end well for Engler and I suspect this won't end well for the schools either.
Rumor has it that the reason why Jimbo Fisher left FSU is because they wouldn’t allow the money cannon for recruits. He went to A&M because their money cannon is fully loaded and being used in the SEC recruiting war.
FSU going private is a signal boosters have loaded the money cannon and want use it. University wants to insulate itself from that and all other potential financial liabilities coming out of athletic departments these days.
I’m outraged?
Good start. Now let's roll up our sleeves and figure out what this means.
You should be?
I'm Ron Burgundy?
Is there something in Florida's State Constitution or state laws that make this a possibility only there and not for public universities in other states? Is there something in particular in agency laws that shield a state agency from the FOIA vs. the University itself being subject to FOIA?
Seems tailor-made for hiding the activities of boosters and bagmen. Especially being that the FSU Athletic Director becomes a board member of the booster's club and several booster's club committees: where's the oversight to monitor the bagflow to the AD himself?
I'm confused how a public institution's athletic department is even legally allowed to privatize
It’s the opposite. Florida has widely expansive public disclosure laws that make literally everything communicated to and through a government entity available for public disclosure.
Yes, I was wondering if this was the impetuous....
Yup. This is why those Florida Man mugshots flood the internet. Because they're freely available.
And, hey, if you can get those crop reports to me a day early we can make something happen.
Imagine the shit Jameis could have gotten away with if this happened 6 years ago.
He could've gotten ALL the crab legs.
And the (insert slang for female genitalia here).
Pussy. The word was pussy
Using that word in a sentence...
While standing on a table in a dining hall, shout "show me the pussy!"
I believe you mean "hoo-hah"
Having an athletic department that is not directly accountable to the university? Call me crazy, but this uneases me on many levels....
I'm not sure why this makes you uneasy. College sports is a business, a very big business, played under the guise of an NCAA rule book that is enforced selectively or, with rare exception, completely ignored. College sports is a big money game and anyone thinking otherwise is naive. If you get in the way, you get steamrolled.
What FSU is doing is hardly shocking but no different than what has gone on in Pennsylvania for a very long time with no ability to get information via FOIA. Once you accept that college sports isn't clean, it's less annoying when you BELIEVE your school does it right.
Anyone saying their school doesn't stink only needs to wait for the wind to change direction.
He didn't imply that any of this was surprising or unexpected, just unsettling due to the shadiness. Just because college football has become a big business, that doesn't mean it is ethical.
Players getting paid and some academic impropriety is one thing; nobody would argue that any school is squeaky clean. But covering up criminal behavior, including sexual assaults, doesn't happen everywhere, and I like to think part of it is because certain schools do a better job at policing their AD with proper oversight and well as outside parties being able to FOIA them. Removing some of those checks is going to let these departments get away with more, and I'm comfortable saying that FSU has a checkered enough history to make me question how well they'll handle this new autonomy.
bluebyyou dismisses concerns, saying the FSU situation is "no different than what has gone on in Pennsylvania for a very long time with no ability to get information via FOIA."
Uh, isn't that reason for unease? "Because people like Sandusky, like mold and mildew, grow in the dark." https://www.nwherald.com/2012/07/23/penn-states-foia-exemption-helped-enable-hide-sandusky/b66rpr3/
I don't dismiss for a moment that what FSU is doing should be a situation for unease, but it is not reality to think that the people running college sports think beyond dollar signs and winning with the exception of when some nefarious act is so despicable that there is little that can be done to avoid the consequences. Obviously sexual abuse and domestic violence have no business on campus or anywhere else for that matter, and while I'd like to think that PSU and MSU should have taught lessons to people running our institutions, one need look no further than what recently took place with OSU where wholesale domestic abuse took place with Meyer "overlooking" a domestic violence issue for years, illegally deleting text messages and the school doing little about it except to keep Meyer on the sidelines for a couple of games. That Dantonio and Izzo faced no repercussions from their looking askance at sickening behavior in their programs is today's mantra; avoid the rules until you can't. That is the reality we face; the program is bigger than anything else except when one gets caught and that more and more is how the NCAA looks at things.
What FSU is doing is recognizing the way the world turns in college sports. You fight it, you lose because in the long run, you simply can't be competitive if others are playing with a different rule book.
You're getting down voted - but you're definitely not wrong.
You mentioned Pennsylvania. In the wake of the PSU/Sandusky affair - there were bills in Harrisburg as regards FOIA reform and making things more transparent as regards the state's public universities.
PSU was lobbying against that - but they were not alone. Their biggest allies in Harrisburg were Pitt and Temple leadership.
I don't really love that, but it is reality.
At 9:17 AM: "I'm not sure why this makes you uneasy"
At 12:07 PM: "I don't dismiss for a moment that what FSU is doing should be a situation for unease"
???
Makes me want to poop in my cooler.
When Jimbo left weren't their rumblings about financial troubles?
Yeah, I think he grumbled about not being able to pay his assistant coaches. FSU has had funding problems for a while. I got into their MFA program (but went to Michigan instead) and was told by the director that she wasn't sure if I'd be funded in year two because of shaky program funding. Which...no thanks. FSU allowed the Koch brothers to fund their economics department in exchange for hiring decisions, which is unheard of and set off a firestorm in academic circles. UF - FSU and UM - MSU is an imperfect comparison. FSU is even MORE little brotherish in all ways: poorly funded, academically...kind of a joke (which MSU really isn't), significantly smaller. The football program struggles to fill Doak Campbell for big games because Tallahassee is in the middle of nowhere and inaccessible directly by air despite being a state capital. They struggled to get donations for an indoor practice facility because they have no Stephen Rosses, et al among their graduates. The FSU community blames this state of affairs on a conspiracy of UF grads supposedly running the state legislature and starving them to benefit UF. So..yeah...maybe it'll work out for them.
This is 100% on point. Florida State, despite it's football success under Bowden is not a wealthy school and more importantly the money in college athletics is just vastly much greater than even 10 years ago. Jimbo was constantly battling the athletic department stating that if FSU wanted to compete at a top 5-10 level, the school needed to pony up massive upgrades in staffing, facilities, salaries, etc. He tired of the battles and ventured off to A&M which is a wealthier school with a multitude of ridiculously wealthy boosters and alums. I imagine they will give him whatever he wants.
Sounds risky, because wouldn't you be forfeiting any and all public money?
I'd think they'd have to, but grants could be made. Besides, maybe FSU is self-supporting, like UM is? This is something Michigan cold do with seeming ease, because the AD doesn't get a single dime from taxpayers. In fact, the AD gives money to the schools general fund each year (I think it's $10M/yr).
Talk about lack of oversight...
It sounds like a big reason they want to do this is because it frees them up to work closer with their Booster organization to raise money. So this feels like maybe the school was limiting their ability to hand bags of cash to people.
Then the case can really be made to pay players
And undermine the amateurism of our cherished scholar-athletes?
Won't somebody think of the children?
“Hi, I’m an FSU Scholar Athlete (TM).”
Just go all the way. Sent up an independent charitable corporation entirely self governing to run the football program. Have it license the FSU name and logo and purchase the football facilities. The profits would go to local law enforcement in exchange for looking the other way. Local businesses could contribute goods and services (cars anyone?) for a charitable deduction. The possibilities are endless.
It would be interesting to see how this holds up in court once challenged.
UF and UCF already do this, so it's probably legal in the state of Florida.
Privatizing athletic department to streamline the relationship with boosters sounds like a recipe for making giving payments to players easier
Also, apparently Florida and OSU's athletic departments are also privatized. Starting to see a bit of trend between privatized athletic departments and sketchy recruiting practices
Removing the athletics piece, this already exists at U-M. AAUM and UMS both function under similar auspices. Independent board, CEO/President reports to University President. Also, as the article suggests, many universities (public and private) put their school-wide fundraising operations under the name of an independent foundation, and yes, athletic departments, too.
My point being, this isn't new territory for anyone. And the spineless NCAA isn't going to bat an eye, less the hypocrisy spotlight shine directly in their eyes.
For those who might have been as confused by the acronyms as I was: AAUM is the alumni association and UMS is the University Music Society (https://arts.umich.edu/orgs-projects/university-musical-society-ums/).
How is a public university able to privatize one of its own departments? Really odd.
I guess it’s less BS that the university itself has to deal with, and it would sure make paying players easier if that eventually becomes a reality, as I know a lot of alums would not want funds that would otherwise go to academics to instead be going to paying the star QB.
But this is just one more way to make the athletic department even less accountable to the rules.
Could this be seen as a prelude to paying it's athletes (which most around the board appear to favor)?
Interesting question about how a university's federal funding is impacted by its decision to privately own and manage (or license?) an athletic organization. I would think that the fact that the athletic department is still under the university umbrella, they would still be subject to all of the requirements and regulations governing the university.
This is great news! They must be doing this to capitalize on and redistribute all of the money from baseball, softball, rowing, tenn...oh wait. Cut the BS and just privatize men’s b-ball and football...you’re not fooling anyone.
College towns have secrets, especially ones that are so heavily into college athletics. Every single one of them.
Privatization just means it's less likely those secrets ever get out - which is probably a driving factor in this decision.
Bad idea. Not sure why this is allowed
Now, if players are allowed to be paid, this is a different discussion.
But, as the rules are today, I think this is a bad idea