American document in response to changes

[KOD594]

Not an attorney so would be good to get an opinion. Up until schools could decide what level they want to compete. So if a school wants to go from 3 to d2 and offer scholarships allowed at that level or d1AA with 63 scholarships to d1a with 85 scholarships it would be their choice and no on could block them from that decision, would be contradictory to past practice if there was an allowance for d1a schools to offer full cost of attendance scholarships would UCONN or any other school have a good case some if they were restricted to do the same?

 

[Dooley]

But where are we going to get the money to do so?

Well, the hope is that we have enough money stashed from Big East exit fees to hold us over until we get a P5 invite. And part of that is on us fans too. If able, we all need to buy tickets, watch on TV, buy merchandise, etc. No more excuses about not being able to get to games because it was raining or cold. If our AAC sentence turns long-term, hopefully the next TV contract will net us $10+M per year. Still not the same as P5 money, but better than the peanuts we currently get. Our IMG deal expires in a couple of year too. If we keep winning championships in basketball and football returns to competitive ball like pre-Pasqualoni, then hopefully we can re-up for more than the $8M/yr or so we get now. Plus there is the Nike deal.

But yes, the hope is that our G5 sentence is very short-term. We can afford to adopt P5 structure for 5 years or so. After that, we'll need to get creative...including the possibility of looking into a massive lawsuit if we are shut out from competing where we want to (and have demonstrated successfully) compete.

 

[whaler11]

If you're in higher ed, you probably know how to count. So when you look at a budget and see countless subsidies, it begs credulity to call those subsidies profits. And when you have a budget of $75 million, it is very impressive to have expenditures come within 75 cents of revenues year after year. At least some people are impressed by that.

For the ten millionth time they spend more than they generate by choice. Nobody forces Ohio State to have more AD staffers than the White House. Nobody needs 3 sports information directors. Nobody needs an athletic director for each gender. Nobody forced the conferences to reorganize sprawling all over the country.

I don't understand why the students don't push back on subsidies. But they pretty much don't.

If the subsidies went away, the athletic departments would just spend less. It's not rocket science.

 

[whaler11]

You don't see the contradiction in what you're writing?

Sorry I'll be clearer. I don't believe the NBA or NFL decision makers would punish players who stood up to the NCAA. If the players get themselves a few thousand dollars a year by pushing back - that doesn't impact the NFL or NBA - if it kept a few more kids from declaring early it would be a good thing from their standpoint.

 

[upstater]

For the ten millionth time they spend more than they generate by choice. Nobody forces Ohio State to have more AD staffers than the White House. Nobody needs 3 sports information directors. Nobody needs an athletic director for each gender. Nobody forced the conferences to reorganize sprawling all over the country.

I don't understand why the students don't push back on subsidies. But they pretty much don't.

If the subsidies went away, the athletic departments would just spend less. It's not rocket science.

You're treating the symptoms, not the disease. If you want to cap spending, then cap coaches' salaries. The facilities are a thing for the players. Obviously. They want to be trained for the pros. No player says I want to be trained in crappy facilities by crappy coaches. But you could easily cap coach's pay. And even if you did cap it, that's a small savings compared to the subsidies. Can you do math?

 

[CL82]

Keep in mind that the P5 is arbitrary ESPN created term. It has no substance other than as a fairly obvious tool of exclusion. If the NCAA want to change the rules for the highest level of football, that's fine, but each institution should decide whether it wants to participate or not. That's the way these types of changes have always been done. Arbitrarily excluding member institutions from competing at the highest level is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

 

[tjhusky]

I think the only lawsuit that could do anything positive would be for the AAC to sue to get into the P5.
It is obvious, being shut out of a P5, that our suit against the ACC did us more harm than good (actually no good).
We have 0 leverage right now. A competitive football program for UConn, and the other AAC teams, combined with pressure from Aresco for inclusion (P6) would either get the AAC away from irrelevance or get us cherry picked into a P5.

 

[whaler11]

You're treating the symptoms, not the disease. If you want to cap spending, then cap coaches' salaries. The facilities are a thing for the players. Obviously. They want to be trained for the pros. No player says I want to be trained in crappy facilities by crappy coaches. But you could easily cap coach's pay. And even if you did cap it, that's a small savings compared to the subsidies. Can you do math?

LOL. It's amazing that decades of players survived crappy facilities and crappy coaches. Imagine how good Jordan could have been if his coach made $7 million.

I can improve the budgets in two seconds. Golf, Tennis, Track, a dozen other sports... eliminated.

Stop the nonsense. Oh they can't possibly run an athletic department without spending more than the revenue. It could be done by every P5 school in the country tomorrow if they chose to.

 

[CL82]

I think the only lawsuit that could do anything positive would be for the AAC to sue to get into the P5.
It is obvious, being shut out of a P5, that our suit against the ACC did us more harm than good (actually no good).
We have 0 leverage right now. A competitive football program for UConn, and the other AAC teams, combined with pressure from Aresco for inclusion (P6) would either get the AAC away from irrelevance or get us cherry picked into a P5.

I think a suit to prevent the NCAA from implementing exclusionary policies that have disparate impact on otherwise equally situated member institutions has a very strong likelihood of prevailing, particularly when one of the affected institutions is a state institution.

You may want to review the facts around the mentioned lawsuit. Did you know that UConn was not the only plaintiff institution? Do you know the current conference affiliation of the other plaintiff schools? Do you know that the plaintiff schools who stayed a part of the suit until settlement received a 7 figure payment in settlement? There's a lot of mythology around that suit. The answers to those questions dispel much of it.

 

[whaler11]

Swofford today:

“The autonomy gives us the opportunity to come up with something that enough of us can agree upon that it’ll move forward for the five conferences, but there will be some interesting discussions,” Swofford said. “We’ll need to immediately begin developing a process for the five conferences and how we operate together in bringing about legislation that would be permissive for the five as well as permissive beyond the five for those who would want to take part in it.

 

[Ldandy]

I would be curious to know how many schools currently situated outside of the so called P5 Conferences, would actually want to compete at this new level should it become fully realized? When you take into account that new P5 rules could include full cost of attendance for multiple sports, increased spending on health care for student athletes, and other not yet disclosed expenses, I don't think many of these schools would be all that interested.

With most AD's currently operating in the red, I don't see how a school like Tulsa or Tulane with small enrollments and smaller media deals, can compete on equal footing(expense wise) with schools making 10-15 X more in TV Dollars. IMO the most logical step is to allow all of the schools serious about competing at this new level an opportunity to form their own conference. A 6th so called Power Conference. The remainder of the schools not interested in, or unable to compete at this level can choose to compete at The FCS Level. IMO it is absurd for a MAC School like Akron to try to compete financially against a school like OSU, when they are a hell of a lot closer to YSU financially.

 

[CL82]

I would be curious to know how many schools currently situated outside of the so called P5 Conferences, would actually want to compete at this new level should it become fully realized? When you take into account that new P5 rules could include full cost of attendance for multiple sports, increased spending on health care for student athletes, and other not yet disclosed expenses, I don't think many of these schools would be all that interested.

With most AD's currently operating in the red, I don't see how a school like Tulsa or Tulane with small enrollments and smaller media deals, can compete on equal footing(expense wise) with schools making 10-15 X more in TV Dollars. IMO the most logical step is to allow all of the schools serious about competing at this new level an opportunity to form their own conference. A 6th so called Power Conference. The remainder of the schools not interested in, or unable to compete at this level can choose to compete at The FCS Level. IMO it is absurd for a MAC School like Akron to try to compete financially against a school like OSU, when they are a hell of a lot closer to YSU financially.

I'm not sure that we can do it indefinitely unless our conference affiliation changes.

 

[FDNY99]

SNY and Dunkin Donuts. If Dunkin won't play ball, I say F'em and lets make a power move to Tim Horton's.

The first thing UCONN needs to do with DD is get their brand throughout the ENTIRE state. I leave for a game at the rent in the morning and get coffee at a DD on the Post Rd in Greenwich there is not one thing UCONN branded in there. I get a coffee in East Hartford right outside the gate and everything is UCONN branded.

 

[HuskyHawk]

This article might be revealing. http://truthonthemarket.com/2012/09...a-radically-reshaping-college-sports-is-real/
It is entirely possible that amateurism is gone, and that the P5 is doing little more than operating a minor league for the NFL.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

This article might be revealing. http://truthonthemarket.com/2012/09...a-radically-reshaping-college-sports-is-real/
It is entirely possible that amateurism is gone, and that the P5 is doing little more than operating a minor league for the NFL.

The NCAA has a terrible record in court, so the writer loses quite a bit of credibility arguing otherwise. I don't think many believe the NCAA will prevail in O'Bannon.

 

[Ldandy]

I'm not sure that we can do it indefinitely unless our conference affiliation changes.

I don't think so either. That's not a knock on UCONN, but an examination of the current sad state of affairs. I'm not sure how any team making less than 5 million a year can hope to compete with schools potentially making 45 million. Especially if they are required to meet the same economic standards of those schools in order to ensure participation. I still think w/Fox, NBC, and CBS all starting cable sports networks, there is enough demand for another power conference. Especially marketed the right way.

 

[Adios]

LeBron James will keep up this non-stop "northeast Ohio" talk and sponsor the University of Akron, renaming it King James University.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The Big East doesn't look so bad now. $5MM/year/school and a network pot committed that will protect it. What does the AAC got?

This will end in court, and I am relatively confident that the P5 will lose badly. I don't know if that will save UConn's athletic department though.

 

[Ldandy]

The Big East doesn't look so bad now. $5MM/year/school and a network pot committed that will protect it. What does the AAC got?

This will end in court, and I am relatively confident that the P5 will lose badly. I don't know if that will save UConn's athletic department though.

If the plan is to compete at the highest level in basketball only, then the Big East is fine. However if your goal is to join The Big East and still play major college football as an independent, you might as well save your fans a lot of heartache. What happens to program support when the best games on your home schedule are the likes of Army, Umass, and Middle Tennessee State? No one can truly survive as an independent. Not ND, not BYU, and not Navy. UCONN would have it 10x harder.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

We have no money. I don't get what ESPN's game here is, but they seem intent on killing off the AAC. Nothing about the current situation is remotely viable for more than a couple of years.