"Freshman INeligibility" by John U. Bacon
Some of you might have heard this brief on-air essay by John U. Bacon last Friday on one of the three stations of the Michigan Radio network.
I waited until Michigan Radio posted it online before starting this thread. You can read the post and listen to the Bacon podcast at this LINK.
Bacon's suggestion is a simple, elegant, traditional solution to much of what ails collegiate football and basketball right now; end the eligibility for freshmen in intercollegiate athletics.
John's suggestion is not in a vacuum. He is explicitly linking it to the establishment of minor leagues for basketball and football, and the implicit message is to push athletes who are less interested in four years of college and more interested in professional sports, to go directly to professional sports.
What John does in this essay is little more than to set out a premise for discussion. As a boradcast radio podcast, he is not given enough time or space to develop a full brief on the subject. Which makes it particularly sutiable for further discussion on the MGoBoard.
This is one of the more definitive and forceful policy positions to be taken by Bacon, who is customarily a reporter and storyteller. And I could not agree with him more. Freshman ineligibility would unquestionably be good, in just about every imaginable way, for student-athletes as athletic students.
Freshman ineligibility would only be bad for students who wish to use college exposure to get to professional leagues. Let those players go. Colleges should not be capitalizing on those players, and those players should not be using their college days in that fashion. Freshman ineligibility would actually help the development of developmental leagues. There would be, or should be, players who do not want to waste a year of their athletic development as a university student. Again, let them go. We'd be left with a population of student-athletes who are more dedicated to their collegiate careers.
Talk amongst yourselves.
October 6th, 2013 at 3:12 PM ^
True. College football cannot, and has never, survived without Freshman eligability... Wait...
October 6th, 2013 at 3:15 PM ^
Brilliant response, especially in terms of path dependency and systematic institutionalization... Wait...
October 6th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^
1. Title IX wasn't around for the majority of the time that freshmen were ineligible, so athletic deparments weren't dependent on football revenue to fund the additional sports. The reason this is important is b/c if you take all the top players out of the college game and put them in the minor leagues, then the demand for college football goes down, ticket prices will fall, and there wouldn't be enough revenue to fund a college athletic department as it is currently structured.
2. College presidents oversee athletics, and as long as they're evaluated on how much prestige and revenue they bring to the university, they will not go for any system that decreases their revenue streams. The best way to reverse the trend is to put oversight of athletic departments back into the hands of a faculty board in control of athletics.
In summation, $$$$$$$$$.
October 6th, 2013 at 7:40 PM ^
Learned something during my bye-week expedition that I never would have thought possible:
30% of Wiitenberg University's students are playing intercollegiate athletics.
Think about that. 30%. And they somehow support that level of participation.without a revenue stream.
Admittedly they aren't funding scholarships for these athletes. But just supporting the costs of the activities--facilities, equipment, travel, coaching, auxiliary staff--is amazing.
We have a model in place that would be hard to dislodge. I'm not sure it's the only viable model.
October 6th, 2013 at 2:00 PM ^
From the Bacon article:
Okay, but why would the NFL and NBA ever pay to develop players they’ve been getting for free? They wouldn’t, so you’d have to force them.
But forcing them can be accomplished in one step: bring back freshmen ineligibility, which requires players to sit for one year before playing in games.
Bacon is right that the NBA and NFL won't willingly put in place expensive minor leagues. But why would freshman eligibility force them to do so?
The NFL can't draft players until three years after high school anyway, so freshman ineligibility wouldn't have much of an effect. The NBA might need to raise their age eligibility for the draft by one year, but that's something they've already at least talked about doing already.
October 6th, 2013 at 3:17 PM ^
Freshman ineligibility would force the NFL and NBA to reconsider the value of the colleges as feeder mechanisms for the pros. Freshmen couldn't get game experience and would have vastly restricted practice rules, so the pros would basically be getting their players a year early, development-wise. They could make up for that year by having their own pro feeder system, which would allow players one year out of high school to go all-out in developing for the pro team.
NFL and NBA restrictions on draft eligibility are those they created for themselves. With a minor league system, they could choose to draft players right out of high school, like MLB does. Then, the players could choose to go the minor-league pro or college route.
October 6th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
October 6th, 2013 at 5:06 PM ^
October 6th, 2013 at 5:41 PM ^
The NFL wpould care because the clock is ticking on the players' atheltic prime, and a year as a freshman with limited football exposure cannot be regained.
The impact on the money involved in college football and basketball would be negligable or positive. The impact on the morality of college football and basketball would be entirely positive. It wouldn't fix all the problems of big-time college athletics, but it would fix the corruption and exploitation problems.
October 6th, 2013 at 7:43 PM ^
When freshmen were ineligible the NFL was quite happy to use colleges as feeder mechanisms. Why would that be different now?
I'm sure they wouldn't be happy about the change; I don't think they'd be so unhappy that they'd take on the expense of training players themselves.
October 6th, 2013 at 5:51 PM ^
The only way this could happen is if the NCAA raises the scholarship limit back up to the 100+ it was in the days of freshman ineligibility. In the era of 85 scholarships, I don't think it can be done.
Title IX, unfortunately, makes raising the scholarship limits almost impossible, so this is a moot issue.
October 6th, 2013 at 7:58 PM ^
but making all freshman ineligible has at least a few consequences to take into consideration.
- Other than the two sports with huge pro leagues and without a minor league option, what purpose does getting freshman off the field serve? If I'm a softball player from California or a golfer from Windsor with the option to take a degree from Ross or Engineering and get a real job or take a half scholarship and pay $30k to play my eligibility out in a fifth year, that's not an ideal spot to be in to say the least. Most athletes are "student-athletes" in the real sense of the word and fairness to them has to be a prime consideration before the NCAA makes a policy affecting anyone on scholarship.
- What, if any, restrictions would there be on athletic pursuits? If this just means having 25 guys in warmups on the sideline while still doing everything else to prep for game week and attending all the offseason training, is this even worth pursuing?
- The service academies would automatically be down 1/4 of their athletes. Not sure if this would apply to any religious/technical/arts/other niche schools, but like the first bullet point, it needs to be considered before enacting a rule that covers everybody.
October 6th, 2013 at 9:10 PM ^
Those redshirt sophomores will have less wear and tear so I see the NFL thanking colleges and not changing anything.
October 6th, 2013 at 11:02 PM ^
I have no idea by what mechanism taking away freshman eligibility "forces" the NFL and NBA to create minor leagues. Yes, that would make going to college less attractive to those athletes who don't have any interest in school, but so what? The fact that there is a potential labor force that wants to be paid does not imply that anyone will pay them..."demand for labor" comes from employers, not potential employees.
The NFL and NBA are 100% fine with the current arrangement whereby the nation's universities identify and develop youth talent for them; tweaking the eligibility rules will not change that. The only way those minor leagues will be established is if we eliminate the current ones, i.e. big time college football and basketball.
Also, if the problem Bacon sees with college athletics is that everything is too driven by money, taking away freshman eligibility does nothing to address that. The big time money in college football and basketball comes from TV - the rights deals that conferences and schools sign with third-party broadcasters, and the cable networks the conferences are setting up for themselves. That money is still going to get made regardless of if freshmen can play. It's not like if you declare freshmen ineligible, ESPN is suddnely gonna say "welp, we don't want to pay you hundreds of millions for the right to broadcast your games anymore." That wouldn't make sense in any era, but it especially doesn't make sense in the modern age when live sports events (aka, "the only thing anyone is willing to sit through commercials to watch anymore") are the single most valuable properties a broadcaster can have.
As long as the games are played, people will want to watch them. As long as people want to watch the games, networks will be willing to pay big money for the rights to broadcast them. And as long as networks are willing to pay big money to broadcast games, and as long as college administrators aren't, you know, **stupid**, the peurile vision of college athletics that "exist for their own sake" and aren't "corrupted" by the evil influence of money is nothing more than nostalgic fantasy.
October 6th, 2013 at 11:50 PM ^
solution.
And if John attmepts to make the case that all that needs to be done in intercollegiate athletics is to take away freshman eligibility, I'd probably begin to disagree with John. But I don't think that's his position.
I have a hard time understanding why it is that with ever-increasing television contracts from networks, and a new revenue stream from a Big Ten Network, and merchandising and very active support from alumni, plus unprecedented rent-seeking in the form of PSD's, the Michigan Athletic Department is still so hard up for money. What are we spending all of that money on? What is Ohio State spending all that money on? What are we spending on now, that we didn't spend 25 years ago when the Department budget was 1/3 of what it is now? What are we spending on, that doesn't help student-athletes become better student-athletes? What are we spending millions on every year, that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Ohio Wesleyan, Louisiana-Lafayette, Montana and GVSU do without?
October 7th, 2013 at 7:14 AM ^
more and better facilities upkeep: the southern campus has doubled the AD acreage and # of buildings
insurance for those bigger facilities: how much insurance did M pay for a concrete hole in the ground surrounded by chain-linked fence and barbed wire? compare that to insuring the $240M suits that are insured today. Probably a difference of 20-50k/month)
higher coaches saleries: obvs
the financing of the facilities: obvs
increased tuition: tuition doubles every 10 years if it increase 7%/year as it has over the last 30 years.
and finally, what i would describe as a exponential increase in non-essential support staff: tutors & advisors in the AD who all seem to have law degrees and are puting them to use interpreting NCAA regulations, developing beurocratic procedures to follow NCAA guidelines, filing paperwork and tutoring student-athletes. plus, the non-academic but non-coaching staff that places like Alabama have these days- what was the quote about Saban having like 100 football support staff?
October 7th, 2013 at 10:19 AM ^
Women's sports didn't really become NCAA managed till around 1980, and Michigan wasn't even compliant in scholarships until 1989. And that was with less sports. So around 25 years ago you started having to pay for a lot more scholarships.
And then the department has taken a step towards supporting those programs with top of the line facilities. I'd say after being in crappy stadiums and such they were finally getting what things like football and basketball were getting, but Michigan was pretty notoriously cheap with their football and basketball facilities till just recently too.
Most schools still lose money on athletics, and are supplimented by the University. A lot of those private Ivy's probably do just that. U-M not only pays for everything themselves without tuition raised assistance, but they pay extra- paying out of state tuition for all their athletes.
So a few people are getting rich off it, but the vast majority of it is going back into athletes and debt service.