Big 12 Commissioner Speaks...

[RedSoloCup]

The Big 12 commissioner slammed the NCAA, and discussed the the issue of athletes pay... And how that pay might affect other sports. I am happy to hear an official position that represents all student athletes for a change.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/11243234/bob-bowlsby-big-12-commissioner-says-cheating-pays-ncaa-enforcement-broken

"It is hard to justify paying student-athletes in football and men's basketball and not recognizing the significant effort that swimmers and wrestlers and lacrosse players and track athletes all put in," he said. "Football and basketball players don't work any harder than anybody else; they just happen to have the blessing of an adoring public who is willing to pay for the tickets and willing to buy the products on television that come with the high visibility.

"We have both a legal obligation and a moral obligation to do for female student-athletes and male Olympic sports athletes just exactly what we do for football and basketball student-athletes. I don't think it's even debatable."

 

[metsfan2323]

The fat lady is warming up for olympic sports.

 

[whaler11]

Sort of like how the commissioner of the Big 12 makes 7 figures because of the public adoring football and basketball players?

There is no moral obligation to do the same for wrestlers as football players. It's completely debatable.

How hard someone works is not the key criterion on how they are compensated.

Should the NEC commissioner be compensated the same as the Big 12 commissioner? What if he works just as hard? Yeah I didn't think so.

Call me when there is an adminstrator who actually is interested in fairness - instead of someone who benefits from the status quo angling to stop any change.

When the guy who runs the league to which Oklahoma State belongs rails against cheating... maybe get your own house in order before you attack anyone on the subject.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

I thought the "cheating" angle was the more interesting part of his little show.I took it as a veiled shot at the handling of the Miami and UNC cases, but that might be just me reaching a bit

 

[SubbaBub]

I thought the "cheating" angle was the more interesting part of his little show.I took it as a veiled shot at the handling of the Miami and UNC cases, but that might be just me reaching a bit

He should be looking at Baylor. Or he should shut up. The P5 is looking to legitimize both the cheating and the exploitation in one fell swoop with these new proposals. The schools driving this certainly won't be losing money.

 

[whaler11]

I like how Gundy chose his adverb. If his coach is 'blatently' cheating he'll be dismissed. Subtleness is a virtue.

 

[SubbaBub]

I like how Gundy chose his adverb. If his coach is 'blatently' cheating he'll be dismissed. Subtleness is a virtue.

I have to admit that the term cheating in college sports is pretty broad. There is a huge difference between a millionaire coach sliding $20 to a kid for whatever and Cam Newton being paid $200k to attend Auburn. Even $500 so the kid can fly home isn't that big a deal.

Changing grades/faking SAT scores/no-show classes should be death penalty stuff for both the kid, the coach and the program.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Sort of like how the commissioner of the Big 12 makes 7 figures because of the public adoring football and basketball players?

There is no moral obligation to do the same for wrestlers as football players. It's completely debatable.

How hard someone works is not the key criterion on how they are compensated.

Should the NEC commissioner be compensated the same as the Big 12 commissioner? What if he works just as hard? Yeah I didn't think so.

Call me when there is an adminstrator who actually is interested in fairness - instead of someone who benefits from the status quo angling to stop any change.

When the guy who runs the league to which Oklahoma State belongs rails against cheating... maybe get your own house in order before you attack anyone on the subject.

This is the guy who's members include Oklahoma, Ok State, Texas, and Baylor right? He's worried about cheating?

The other stuff is just commie mumbo jumbo. Schools will shut down non revenue sports before they pay the players who participate in them.

 

[Dooley]

My guess is that there is another angle to mentioning Olympic sports here (along with the BS about "fairness"): to scare any G5 conference (i.e. - AAC) into adopting any P5 "reform". As whaler said above, this has nothing to do with fairness. It never has. This has more to do with trying to intimidate the "have nots" from wanting to join the party. Reforming all sports, not just football and basketball, will thin the herd quite considerably. There are only two G5 schools that could afford to do this across their entire athletic department (with an added P5 revenue stream in the long term, of course): UCONN and BYU. Cincinnati, USF, UCF and Boise could probably do it for football/basketball but would have to draw the line there OR cut programs. Every one else would have a very difficult time adopting all of the increased cost of tuition, insurance, stipends, etc that is being discussed.

Trying to keep the P5 as P5 and not a P6, P7 or P8. That is what this and any quote about "fairness" is ever about. Bowlsby can ramble on and on about field hockey and swimming all he wants, but he would cut both of those, or any sport, from his conference if it meant protecting his own salary (and the salary of the other greedy slime that are ruining collegiate sports).

 

[whaler11]

I have to admit that the term cheating in college sports is pretty broad. There is a huge difference between a millionaire coach sliding $20 to a kid for whatever and Cam Newton being paid $200k to attend Auburn. Even $500 so the kid can fly home isn't that big a deal.

Changing grades/faking SAT scores/no-show classes should be death penalty stuff for both the kid, the coach and the program.

Yes, I don't disagree about degrees of cheating.

Gundy's use of blatently doesn't get at the severity of the offense - it gets at how conspicuous it is.

I posted the Clay Travis article about SEC bagmen. It didn't get any comments probably because it takes about an hour to read. That's the reality of big time college football today. The coaches retain plausible deniability and the secret societies take care of the dirty work.

 

[BlueDogs]

The reason I suspect we all like college football is because it is about college loyalty and the finest in amateurism. It is supposed to be about tradition, excellence in sport and education. You play for the love of the game.
Cynical forces are at work and have made this beautiful thing called college football into all about money . The P5 is trying to systematically drive others out of the media money space. Nothing makes the P5 happier than talking about player pay because it creates further financial burdens on other schools that cant compete financially because they are stranded in second tier conferences with low TV revenue share. It kind of like Warren Buffet, who never saw a regulation or tax he did not like because it squelches his competition and protects his businesses.

If college athletics is to mean anything, the NCAA must do its job fiercely (of course the enemy is already within the gates). The very first thing to be done is to make it clear that P5 will not have any association with words collegiate, college, NCAA championship or anything remotely trading on the concept of amateurism or college athletics. If the p5 is going to be feeder league into the NFL, then that's what is should be. Next, the NCAA should implement their own antitrust enforcement rules and start pushing for parity across D1. It must go directly after the great money grab going on with college football coaches and their staffs. I'd push for a luxury tax system which requires a 50% tax on any coach earning more than 2.5MM a year from any source. Next, I'd require out of conference games with non p5 teams with home and away requirements to qualify for post season. Next, I'd further increase academic performance standards and for each student who fails to graduate and achieve at least a 25th+ percentile score of GREs a scholarship is removed. Finally, I'd return to a sports writer based ranking system and eliminate any influence from inside the system and mandate at least a 16 team college playoff system.

 

[BoatShow]

Commies taking over college sports.

THANKS Obama

 

[SubbaBub]

Yes, I don't disagree about degrees of cheating.

Gundy's use of blatently doesn't get at the severity of the offense - it gets at how conspicuous it is.

I posted the Clay Travis article about SEC bagmen. It didn't get any comments probably because it takes about an hour to read. That's the reality of big time college football today. The coaches retain plausible deniability and the secret societies take care of the dirty work.

I read it. The details of something obvious that few have ever admitted.

 

[junglehusky]

Interesting that the B12 commish is the one warning about Olympic sports. That conference actually sponsors fewer of those sports and they don't have the revenue to support those teams. So it telegraphs he is worried about falling behind the other P5s.

 

[noeynox]

I thought Bowlsby came off as a coward when he talked about cheating. If your going to talk about cheating then go ahead and name who you think has prospered from the cheating. Secondly as has been said by others this guy does represent schools like Oklahoma and Oklahoma STATE no? They are hardly the example of everything that is right with college football.

 

[Pudge]

It is almost like the Classic Saturday Night Live skit with Garret Morris ...

You simply need a YELL GUY explaining the truth of what these P5 Commissioners are saying. It ain't about Olympic Sports at all. That I agree with. And we are now reaching the poijnt of blatant crap coming out in a PR push. I don't get it though: where is their resistance? If the 250 other schools in the March Madness division pushed back ... who'd notice?

 

[whaler11]

There is no one who can push back.

The NCAA leadership works at the beheist of the P5 schools. They only care about keeping the basketball tournament alive to keep their funding and salaries rolling in.

The G5 schools have no power. Outside of a handful of schools the fanbases are minimal and drive almost none of the national revenue.
Just read this board about football scheduling - people are obsessed with having P5 schools on the schedule.

The non-FBS D-I basketball schools only exist for the purpose of making the first weekend of the NCAA tourney fun. For this role they get pittances to keep their conference offices afloat. If the NCAA tourney doesn't exist, they go from playing in obscurity to playing in the witness protection program.

The non-revenue sports wisely keep their mouths shut. They are lucky to keep what they get now - if they make a lot of noise it's a fairly simple question to ask why they even exist.

Government intervention will never happen. The P5 schools have enough votes from their states in Congress to make that an impossible route. When one guy had some power and made some noise suddenly Utah was in the Pac12. Let me know when you hear anything on Utah St or Weber St.

Now this all might backfire on the P5. They could turn some percentage of people off permanently by paying players (I highly doubt it). They could get burned in court, which might make them roll back some things (that I'll believe when I see it).

The war is over. I would venture to guess 90% of us wouldn't care if UConn were on the right side of the line. Other than Boston College and maybe Syracuse I don't think anyone went out to damage UConn. I don't think anyone set out to damage Cincinnati or South Florida either. These schools are just collateral damage created when other schools saw money and had the leverage to take it.

 

[noeynox]

@whaler. While I agree the war is pretty much over, I have hard time believing this is how it ends for our basketball programs. Because make no mistake, if Syracuse and BC can offer potential recruits benefits that we can't, its over for UConn basketball. It would be time to round up the Yankee conference up again. That is the only reason I see a glimmer of hope. The brilliance of our basketball programs.

 

[whaler11]

@whaler. While I agree the war is pretty much over, I have hard time believing this is how it ends for our basketball programs. Because make no mistake, if Syracuse and BC can offer potential recruits benefits that we can't, its over for UConn basketball. It would be time to round up the Yankee conference up again. That is the only reason I see a glimmer of hope. The brilliance of our basketball programs.

I don't think UConn is finished yet. Just the P5 war against everyone else is over. There could be a handful of additional teams that get promoted to the P5.

Honestly if UConn doesn't get promoted I wouldn't say Yankee Conf. I could see them dropping football and joining the Big East.

 

[noeynox]

If the big east is allowed to enact the p5 benefits to athletes than the american will as well. If they can't provide the same benefits the big east will be the Yankee conference deluxe. I don't think it has really sunk in even for me how dire a situation wr are in. UConn has done everything right and then some to compete at highest levels and they may not even get the chance. They didn't spend 200 million on football to drop it within two decades time.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

@whaler. While I agree the war is pretty much over, I have hard time believing this is how it ends for our basketball programs. Because make no mistake, if Syracuse and BC can offer potential recruits benefits that we can't, its over for UConn basketball. It would be time to round up the Yankee conference up again. That is the only reason I see a glimmer of hope. The brilliance of our basketball programs.

We are approaching a time when the scholarship formula will be very simple:

{(Football Scholarships + Men's Basketball Scholarships) = (Available Scholarships for Female Sports)}

Everything else will be like men's hockey at Arizona; a pay-to-play club sport.

Que the Lawyers. Que the yelling and screaming.

 

[noeynox]

@FAIRTIDES expect that to be next moving line in the sand. P5 will say you have to sponsor x number of sports and pay out the benefits if you want in. This power grab is nauseating.

 

[whaler11]

If the big east is allowed to enact the p5 benefits to athletes than the american will as well. If they can't provide the same benefits the big east will be the Yankee conference deluxe. I don't think it has really sunk in even for me how dire a situation wr are in. UConn has done everything right and then some to compete at highest levels and they may not even get the chance. They didn't spend 200 million on football to drop it within two decades time.

Based on Swofford's comments I think they will be able to. Few will be able to afford, and I don't see how UConn isn't bleeding money after a decade.

My guess would be they could potentially make it work for basketball only and it would be a despiration move to salvage the basketball program. I wouldn't say I'm predicting it - it's just one potential outcome.

Imagine UConn without Kevin Ollie right now...

 

[whaler11]

We are approaching a time when the scholarship formula will be very simple:

{(Football Scholarships + Men's Basketball Scholarships) = (Available Scholarships for Female Sports)}

Everything else will be like men's hockey at Arizona; a pay-to-play club sport.

Que the Lawyers. Que the yelling and screaming.

That is exactly what I expect to happen, and I don't see why a school like Temple wouldn't just sponsor men's and women's basketball and call it a day.

 

[freescooter]

I have been saying for a while that the balance of the NCAA needs to grow a pair and call the P5's bluff. Give them a few things, cost of attendance and an extra year to complete an education both work, and tell them the rest of this guff is nonsense. If you don't like it leave, but understand that you are all in or all out. No NCAA hoop tourney. No womens sports (, no olympic sports. My guess is that most P5 schools would ultimately declare victory and stay. Maybe not the SEC. Maybe not the Big but I bet they fold too.