reform

Athletic Departments Under Attack

October 11, 2011 by John Infante

When the NCAA announced it was embarking on significant reform, it presented an opening for others to present their own reform ideas. When plans for reform started piling up from faculty members looking to rein in college athletics and the media and student-athlete advocates arguing for the professionalization of college athletics, it was not out of the realm of possibility that the NCAA would become the victim of its own reform movement. But a recent and disturbing trend is attacking something more basic and fundamental than the NCAA. Rather than going after the NCAA as an organism, would-be reformers are challenging the cells themselves: the athletic department.

Oddly enough, it was a student-athlete advocacy group, the National College Players Association that first lent credence to the idea:

The FBS non-revenue team expenses show that these schools spend far more than what’s necessary to field these teams. BCS schools spend an average of about $350,000 more on each non-revenue team when compared to FCS schools. FBS schools average 18 non-revenue generating teams per campus, which means they spend an average of about $6.3 million/year more than FCS schools on non-revenue generating sports. Schools often question where they would find the money to increase athletic scholarships. But to put this in perspective, if those excess expenditures were evenly divided among 85 scholarship football players and 13 scholarship basketball players, each player would receive about $64,000 without reducing any non-revenue generating players’ scholarship or their teams.

Jay Bilas asks about representation of not just athletes from revenue sports, but elite athletes from revenue sports:

Just one athlete per working group does not seem to allow the athlete much of a voice in the process, and one can reasonably question whether the actual experience of the typical “revenue-producing” athlete is fairly represented, let alone the views of the elite revenue-producing athlete.

The NCPA and Bilas nibble at the edges. Cutting back on non-scholarship expenses and ensuring that football and men’s basketball athletes with professional prospects are represented are one thing and raise serious questions about what the role of athletics should be in a university. But what Frank Deford is arguing is something else entirely:

I’m all for the wonderful intrinsic values of sport: exercise and competition and team spirit, but especially in these parlous economic times, it would make much more monetary sense to conduct minor college sports on an intramural basis. Would the universities’ educational mission be diminished any by that decision? Would good student applicants reject them for lack of league lacrosse games? Come on.

This sounds like it could have been written by one of the professors from Rutgers that had their phone service cut off, as Deford mentions. This does not:

All the worse, the current national model has it that some impoverished kid from the inner city risks concussions and obesity to play football in order to pay for the scholarship of a javelin thrower and the salary of an assistant swimming coach and the plane fare for the volleyball team.

Let’s address these ideas one by one.

No one is suggesting that athletic subsidies are not controversial and should not be approached cautiously. But for professors facing budget cuts and students going deeper into debt to while athletics keeps or increases subsidies, does it matter where the money goes? I doubt it makes the student or the instructors feel better when they are asked to do more with less if the money flows to the football program rather than the women’s basketball team.

As far student-athlete representation, it is the representation of elite athletes rather than representation of all athletes that would make a major difference. In his wildly popular and well-reviewed critique of the NCAA, Taylor Branch offered giving student-athletes a 20% vote as a change that would have wide-ranging impact on many facets of college athletics. Except last year, even if student-athletes had more votes than the Big Ten, Pac–12, and SEC combined, there was no legislative issue where that many votes would have changed the outcome and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee’s position differed from the Legislative Council’s final vote. To get major change, that 20% vote would need to represent only the opinions of a tiny fraction of student-athletes.

When someone pitches the idea of defunding nonrevenue sports or reverting them to intramural status, it undermines their claim that they believe in the value of elite athletic competition. High-level athletics either have intrinsic and/or academic value or they do not. To suggest that the only athletes and sports deserving of investment by universities are those that can produce revenue strips athletics of any intrinsic value, just like saying the only majors a college should offer are ones that draw enough donations and research dollars to support themselves.

This is what President Mark Emmert meant when he said college athletics are not a business. Changing conferences to grow revenue might make business sense, but not if that money is used to keep the wrestling team from being cut or to fully fund scholarships for rowers. President Emmert’s comment was somewhat aspirational, as he acknowledged the frenzy of the deal seemed to be overtaking more important considerations.

Even Division I members struggle with this issue. A lot of administrative furniture is being hastily rearranged to increase the maximum value of a scholarship. This will primarily benefit athletes who are already receiving full scholarships in sports with the largest budgets. But Division I financial aid rules still require a student-athlete who is not getting already getting tuitions, fees, room, board and books to give up aid that has nothing to do with athletics because [it counts against team limits][7]. It is an issue that Division I has gone back and forth on as much as cost-of-attendance, but which occurs is under the radar since it rarely, if ever, affects football or men’s basketball. That discussion is being put on hold for now in order to provide more for revenue sport athletes.

As often as college athletics is taken to task for looking like a profit-seeking enterprise, it gets chastised just as often for not acting like a business. As the NCAA seeks to blend higher education with elite athletics that people just so happen to be [willing to pay a lot of money to watch][7], there will always be that tension.

The goal of Division I should be to constantly expand and improve athletic and educational opportunities for student-athletes. That means all student-athletes. It means not resting on the laurels of the full grant-in-aid or APR. By the same token, it means bringing more and more sports up to the same level of financial aid and support that the revenue sports enjoy. But what it absolutely does not mean is dismantling or gutting athletic departments to feed two teams.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: basketball, Football, nonrevenue sports, reform

A COA Q&A

September 29, 2011 by John Infante

It appears no recent NCAA rule change has caught the imagination of the public quite like a possible increase of scholarship limits to cover unitemized expenses in the cost of attending a school. While a new reform movement is underway, cost of attendance is an old friend. Cost of attendance scholarships were last formally proposed in 2002 (Proposal 2002–83-B), but were defeated in favor of allowing athletes to receive other financial aid to cover the gap between a full grant-in-aid and cost of attendance (Proposal 2002–83-A).

Prior to now, it was hard to come up with on opinion of cost of attendance scholarships because we had no idea what the proposal would be. It could have been a relatively minor change to address revenue sports. Or it could have been an exotic proposal for only full scholarship athletes that would have dramatically changed recruiting in equivalency sports. Without knowing what the proposal was among 5–7 options, all you could do was be in favor of the idea in principle or not.

After the presidential retreat, the Board of Directors appointed working groups to address certain issues. In October, the BoD will hear recommendations from the group focused on student-athlete well being. A member of that group, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, let slip what the group was working on. On that note, here’s a Q&A on where the issue stands.

Q: What is the proposal?

A: The proposal is to increase the limit on athletic scholarships from tuition, fees, room, board, and books to the lesser of the cost of attendance or the current limit plus $2,000. In equivalency sports, the amount of the $2,000 would be prorated. The proposal would also be on a conference basis, meaning that a conference would likely need to adopt a conference rule to authorize its members to use the increased scholarship limits.

Q: Are there still some unknowns?

A: Yes. One question is how much freedom coaches in equivalency sports would have. The amount is prorated, but there is no indication if coaches have to give it to athletes. Two examples to compare:

A full grant-in-aid is $20,000. A women’s soccer student-athlete receives a $10,000 scholarship. The student-athlete receives an additional $1,000 per year under the new proposal.
A full grant-in-aid is $20,000. A women’s soccer student-athlete receives a $10,000 scholarship. The student-athlete receives no additional aid, but the coach has an additional $30,000 (15 x $2,000) to give to other athletes.

Another question is whether athletes will always get cash. A full scholarship football player would get $2,000 unless he has parking tickets or overdue books on his account. But does our women’s soccer athlete above get $1,000 cash, or just another $1,000 toward tuition?

Q: How much would it cost?

Because the proposal covers all sports, cost depends on how many sports an institution sponsors. Stanford’s associate AD of business strategy and revenue enhancement estimated it would cost the school $750,000. Stanford runs the largest athletic department in the country, so that number might be considered to be something of a maximum.

To figure out a rough estimate of cost, we need to figure out the average athletic department. The NCAA’s membership report has the average number of men’s and women’s sports sponsored by FBS, FCS, and non-football institutions. The NCAA’s sport sponsorship and participation report lists which sports are sponsored by the most institutions. So combining the two, we can figure out an “average” athletic department and estimate the costs based on scholarship limits. And those costs are:

FBS: $504,400
FCS: $436,400
Non-Football: $282,400

Obvious in those figures is the effect of football. An FBS football team can expect an increased scholarship bill of up to $170,000 while an FCS program should set aside $126,000. The range for athletic departments that fully fund all their teams would probably be somewhere between $200,000 and $750,000.

Q: What about four-year scholarships?

A: The same working group is also working on a multi-year scholarship proposal. Swarbrick’s comments suggest that four-year scholarships are on the same fast track as the cost of attendance proposal.

Q: What is the next step?

A: The Board of Directors will take up both proposals in October. Most likely is that the Board will forward proposals to the membership for a vote in January. Given the widespread support from both presidents and athletic directors, passage seems likely. The BoD could choose to skip the Legislative Council and adopt the proposals as emergency or noncontroversial legislation. That seems unlikely since the proposal is not one of minimal impact and more debate could improve the proposal. And given the proposal would most likely apply to the next round of scholarships (2012–13) at the earliest, undue hardship is not likely if adoption occurs in January vs. October.

Q: What do you think of the cost of attendance proposal?

A: The reason cost of attendance was not adopted sooner is the wide variations in the gap between cost of attendance and a full grant-in-aid. The National College Players Association calculated gaps of $200 to almost $11,000. The number also represents an amount of cash that athletes will receive and is thought to be subject to manipulation, although that would have far-reaching consequences for all other students at the institution.

A person’s opinion on this proposal is telling as to their attitude toward the NCAA. Ultimately the proposal means more financial aid for student-athletes. This is a good thing. Division I should continually work to provide as much financial aid for as many athletes as possible, so this is just one step in a process that should never end.

College athletics will not be perfected overnight. If that is the measure of NCAA reform, the NCAA is set up for failure. This proposal moves Division I closer to providing the proper amount of financial support for athletes. It does not go all the way, but it is a big step closer. To reject the proposal as inadequate and evidence of the NCAA’s corruption or apathy is to hold the NCAA and its members to an impossibly high standard.

Q: What about the multi-year scholarship idea?

A: It is harder to have an opinion on the multi-year scholarship proposal since there are so few details. There is one reason for pessimism though and it is this quote from Swarbrick:

“The process for nonrenewal of an annual grant probably would look just like the process for terminating a four-year grant.”

That means that a scholarship could be cancelled between years for any reason, just like a scholarship could be nonrenewed for any reason. Multi-year scholarships only work if cancellation is subject to at least the same conditions as canceling a scholarship during the year now. That can only be done for one of five reasons:

The student-athlete renders him- or herself ineligible for competition;
The student-athlete is guilty of gross misconduct;
The student-athlete lies to the university;
The student-athlete quits the team; or
The student-athlete violates a non-athletic, non-medical condition in the scholarship agreement.

Unless these conditions are kept for multi-year scholarships, the change is mostly administrative. Scholarships would not need to be renewed from year to year, but could be cancelled in between academic years. It would be a net loss for student-athlete welfare, since currently the actual contract an athlete or prospect signs must be for one year only.

Four years is also a bit of a red herring. After one year, five years, six years, or until graduation make the most sense. The five-year clock is the most important eligibility rule in Division I, and six years is the federal standard for earning a bachelor’s degree. But four years is no less arbitrary than $2,000 and under the right circumstances would be as much an improvement for student-athletes, so I will not complain about four vs. five vs. six.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: cost of attendance, financial aid, reform

Realignment’s Effect on the NCAA

September 19, 2011 by John Infante

Conference realignment in the NCAA has generally resulted in more conferences. When the Southwest Conference folded, Conference USA was created out of it. The Mountain West Conference was created when the Western Athletic Conference (the original 16 team football conference) split in two. Conference movement is a constant across all of Division I. Since 1985, only 1992–93 saw no conference movement.

A lot of how the NCAA works seems to be geared toward steady growth in member institutions and member conferences. When the size of Division I grows, a lot of things happen almost automatically. Tournaments expand, the governance structure grows and shifts, and the administrative needs of Division I are reassessed.

When the number of conferences shrink, what happens is less clear. Nothing needs to happen. If a conference disappears, but not its member institutions, that just means another at-large bid is available to tournaments where the conference qualified for automatic qualification. The conference can be removed from the governance structure, which may not even affect all committees and cabinets. This is a feature of the way the NCAA operates. This allows the very autonomous institutions of the NCAA to shift around without toppling the structure above.

The current events may necessitate action. The conferences that might cease to exist would be among the largest and most powerful conferences in the governance structure. At some point realignment driven by football may be deemed to be too much for multi-sport conferences and the idea of an institution being a member of one conference for most sports could end.

Votes in the Legislative Council would be substantially changed. If the number of large FBS conferences dropped to four, it would mean that without another change, six votes are lost in the Legislative Council. The four superconferences would have a majority on FBS issues and one would assume be able to vote as a bloc more effectively with four rather than six constituencies. But on issues facing all of Division I, the FBS conference would lose their majority. All 20 FCS and non-football conferences would need to be united and it would only be a small majority, but it would be a shift in the delicate balance.

The way votes are distributed amongst the Division I conferences means consensus tends to rule the day. The Legislative Council rarely votes on “party line” and legislation is rarely adopted via a close vote. Generally a consensus is found or proposals are modified before going to a coin-flip vote. There’s value to maintaining the current legislative structure and distribution of votes since it has seemed to produce a legislative process that serves the needs of the greatest number of institutions. It also appears good for student-athletes. In 2010–11, the Legislative Council voted against the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee position only three times.

Going back to institutional voting would radically change how the NCAA is governed but it might be necessary. Voting would be less about consensus and more about majorities since the same type of debate would be impossible. One could see the end of the Legislative Council as a voting body, with institutions getting together to discuss legislation (formally or informally) but voting and institutional positions managed online. Groups like NACDA (and its affiliates) and coaches associations would become more important in developing legislative positions.

If multi-sport conferences disappear, that could mean more conferences than institutions, as every sport looks to rebuild the structure provided by today’s conferences. Conference based governance would be impossible, changing the relationship between the NCAA and its members. Without a middleman, the NCAA would deal with institutions on an individual basis. That would roll back the delegation of some functions to conferences, like administering medical hardship waivers (a.k.a medical redshirts) and the reporting of the most minor violations.

Pretty much everyone in college athletics wishes this round of conference realignment is over. With such major changes possible, the hope is that a period of stability will follow. I agree with President Emmert that an “NCAA Commissioner” deciding who will be in what conference is not likely and not a positive. There might be a role for the NCAA to establish a more formal, national process for when and how institutions change conference affiliation.

Once the dust settles on conference realignment though, the effect at the national level needs to be sorted out. That means this is both an opportunity for major change and unanswered questions presenting a possible hurdle to reform. Either way, these conference changes are more likely to be the first act rather than the final one.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: conferences, governance, realignment, reform

NCPA Presents Good Question, Hints At More Radical Change

September 14, 2011 by John Infante

The struggle over whether to pay college athletes is relatively simple. Or at least, it is compared to the struggle over what to pay college athletes. Proposals to allow a greater degree of compensation to college athletes are a dime a dozen and it is easy to find objections to a specific proposal. This is actually a positive. It means the NCAA is getting enough right that it is hard to change and please a substantial majority of people.

The recently released study by the National College Players Association and Drexel University’s Department of Sports Management is one of the most detailed and well-executed pay-for-play proposals in recent memory. It offers a detailed plan that addresses multiple issues. It offers a plan to see these reforms turned into actual change. And it offers no shortage of data in support of the proposal.

However, the NCPA paints a very different vision for Division I athletics that most college athletes, fans, and administrators are used to. In making a series of assumptions, the NCPA study embraces a cynicism that is hard to go along with even given the quality of the proposal and the data to support it. If the NCPA wants its proposal to be taken seriously by stakeholders in the NCAA and the rest of college athletics, it must address these issues.

Major League Pay in the Minor Leagues

One of the tried and true criticisms of the NCAA is that the association is operating minor leagues for the NFL and NBA, either through implict acceptance or outright conspiracy. Which is why I find it confusing that alternate revenue models default to collectively bargained revenue sharing agreements that are only common in the major leagues. I’ve covered this issue before, but if any pay-for-play system developed in college athletics, it seems more likely it would resemble minor league or developmental pay, rather than major league pay.

Calling a collectively bargained revenue split “the free market” is also something of a misnomer, especially when citing a number that was simply offered one side in a negotiation. A collective bargaining agreement restricts the free market in order to make it a more competitive market. In a free market, the Miami Heat might have paid the Big Three more and had a different and better compensated supporting cast.

Finally, the study does not address a very important exception to the NBA and NFL revenue splits. High school seniors–and in the NFL college freshmen and sophomores–are offered 0% of the revenue. No matter what the NCAA is offering, it is better than nothing. Absent evidence that the NCAA wanted this situation and helped bring it about, that discrepancy must be addressed before anointing the results of a CBA process as fairer than the NCAA legislative process where student-athletes do have a voice, whether you belief it is sufficient or not.

The True Value of Being a Student-Athlete

The NCPA study takes pains to focus the conversation on the immediate status of student-athletes. This prevents the pay-for-play debate from moving into the realm of the value of an education or the dollar figure that should be attached to instruction from coaches. It makes for a much simpler and more practical debate.

The study takes the value of room and board, essentially the living expenses provided to student-athletes, and measures it against the national poverty line. The study generally finds a full scholarship wanting. However, the study did not take into account the additional financial aid or benefits that are available to student-athletes, not counting the portion of the NCAA’s revenue distribution earmarked for student-athletes (that is a seperate issue).

In addition to room and board, student-athletes receive a number of other benefits. While institutions cannot provide clothing at their discretion, what is available to student-athletes for “practice or competition” is interpreted rather broadly. When a student-athlete is on the road or starting the night before a home game, meals can be provided. Not to mention that a full-grant in aid covers the academic year (typically 8–9 months) while the poverty line is based on the entire year and the other months (semester and summer break) can be covered by another source (vacation period expenses or summer aid).

On top of that, there is additional aid. Federal grants, state grants, scholarships, and need-based aid. All of this helps fill the gap between a full grant-in-aid and the cost of attendance. Admittedly, the best organization to undertake a comprehensive study of what full scholarship student-athletes are paying out of pocket taking into account this additional “income” is the NCAA. And while the NCAA should make that study a priority (and likely will given that the membership is currently debating this issue), that does not mean these sources of financial aid and basic necessities for student-athletes can be ignored.

The Cure Cannot Be As Bad As The Disease

One source of assistance for student-athletes in meeting the gap between the full grant-in-aid and cost of attendance is the Student Assistance Fund. The study is dismissive of the SAF, claiming it is an element of control over student-athletes.

It is entirely reasonable to say the SAF is not enough, and could not be enough no matter how well-funded. It is also reasonable to disagree with the SAF regulations, which allow the money to spent on student-athletes in ways other than providing direct benefits to individual athletes. It is even reasonable to suggest that institutions should direct more of the SAF money to revenue-sport athletes, although I vehemently disagree with that position.

It is not reasonable to not give the NCAA and its members credit for the SAF. If the scholarship gap is a practical problem, millions of dollars that can go to student-athletes to fill that gap cannot be discredited or worse vilified. It puts the NCAA in an impossible Catch–22. Provide the money and the NCAA is a “welfare state” using the money to control student-athletes. Don’t provide the money and the NCAA is hoarding revenue that student-athletes helped earn. Outside income is either a philosophical issue separate from the scholarship gap or the scholarship gap is not a practical student-athlete welfare issue. It cannot be both.

Defunding Non-Revenue Sports

I have to start by giving credit where credit is due. Most arguments for NCAA reform fail right off the bat because they have not considered basic questions about what college athletics should look like. How many schools should be in the top level of college athletics? How many sports should they sponsor? How many athletes should be competing on the same level for the same rewards?

The NCPA has thought about these questions. While it is not explicit, the focus on the scholarship gap suggests the NCPA does not mind a smaller Division I. While I may be reading too much into this and other NCPA studies, it seems reasonable to say the organization believes institutions in Division I should be able to fully finance their student-athlete’s educations. What is explicit is how many sports institutions should be sponsoring at the highest level, in this case men’s basketball, football, and just enough women’s sports to meet the school’s legal obligation under Title IX.

Saying institutions should only invest in non-revenue sports what is legally required or the bare minimum necessary to field a team is asking the NCAA and its members to embrace a cynical view of intercollegiate athletics. That college sports should be run as a profit-maximizing enterprise and under-performing business units shuttered or defunded.

That claim requires more than simply a statement that concludes non-revenue sports are lavish excesses. To justify taking money away from programs where coaches rarely make millions and where new money is often spent improving the student-athlete experience, you need an explanation of why only football and men’s basketball players deserve a well-funded, elite athletic experience.

Small Reforms, Massive Tweaks

The NCPA’s report is one of the better and more detailed studies of economic issues facing student-athletes. It has shortcomings but those do not detract from the larger point. Colleges could provide more to their student-athletes within the principles the NCAA has established. Of the reforms offered, the NCAA has committed to exploring all but two: deregulation of athletically related income and Congressional action (which if the current reform movement bears fruit would not be necessary).

As soon as non-revenue sports are presented as a source of funding for these reforms, this ceases to be about fixing one system and becomes a call for a new system. One where expanding opportunities for women, training Olympic athletes, and providing educational opportunities for more athletes is seen as a negative. It is no longer about holding the NCAA accountable for the association’s own mission. It is about fundamentally changing college athletics. When the two are confused, no honest or productive conversation about reform can occur.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: amateurism, financial aid, reform

“Untouchables” Still a Bit Unobtainable

September 9, 2011 by John Infante

After Yahoo! Sports released its investigative report of the alleged extra benefits and recruiting scandal at Miami, former NFL agent Josh Luchs endorsed an idea that comes around every few years. Whether you house them in the athletic department or not, compliance officers are employees of the university, subject to the possibility of any number of ethical dilemmas. Luchs suggests the NCAA pay for and place compliance officers at schools. As employees of the NCAA, they cannot be fired by the school for doing their job, thus solving many of those ethical dilemmas.

Let’s assume the logistical issues could be solved. Working as an NCAA-employed compliance officer on campus would be like a State Department or FBI field office assignment. You move every couple of years until you made it to the national office in Indianapolis. Attracts a certain type of person, but that’s part of the goal here. There is still a Good, Bad, and Ugly to this type of system.

The Good

The biggest benefit would be a much simpler and more consistent major infractions process. Lack of institutional control and failure to monitor charges would not exist. The NCAA would now be in control and it would be the NCAA’s responsibility to monitor. Beyond the actual violations, the only questions would be how many people subverted the monitoring systems the on-campus staff had in place, and how severe should the show-cause orders be.

The Bad

The biggest drawback is that the majority of these NCAA positions would be new positions, not replacement or reassignment of existing staff. There are some compliance responsibilities an NCAA staff member on campus cannot perform. Decisions about whether to file a waiver, arguments for mitigation in student-athlete reinstatement cases, and how the Student Assistance Fund is managed should be made by university staff.

And if the NCAA is permanently represented on campus, expect schools to “lawyer up,” so to speak, by retaining or hiring their own compliance staff. That’s great if you’re in the compliance industry. But whether this is paid for with new or existing money, it means that money is earmarked for a larger administration rather than for a better student-athlete experience.

The Ugly

A system of permanent on-campus NCAA staff creates a more adversarial system. One big benefit of an adversarial system is that it sets very clear motives and roles. It’s my belief you get a better compromise when two people with clear and opposing motives are forced to come to an agreement. But we’re not talking about negotiation here. We’re talking about the enforcement of rules by the authorities.

In that case you get less compromise and more argument. If coming to a compromise takes a long time, winning an argument takes longer. And while that arguing is going on, innocent student-athletes and coaches will be caught in the middle. That means longer reinstatement cases and a slower secondary infractions process.

There’s a role for a long-term presence by the NCAA on an institution’s campus when something goes wrong. Probation and parole is overseen by a probation officer, not the judge. Failing an external audit should mean having to allow the NCAA to come in for a year or two to fix the issues. At the very least, that should be the pilot program before changing the relationship between the schools and the NCAA in a way that cannot be undone if it doesn’t work.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: career, institutional control, reform

Now Comes The Hard Part

August 11, 2011 by John Infante

The results of the NCAA’s Presidential Retreat exceeded even my wildest expectations. I expected clear topics to study with deadlines for proposals around this time next year. I never expected actual solutions to emerge, and the deadlines to flesh those solutions out into NCAA legislation beginning as soon as October.

Presidential initatives have a mixed history of success because once the presidents start down a path, most of the work is left to athletics administrators. They have their own mix of short- and long-term distractions, and hear more of the objections coming from coaches and boosters. Many a grandiose vision has failed to be reduced to a new group of words in the Division I Manual.

One of the main reasons the NCAA members struggle with this is that the governing of college athletics is mostly a part-time job. In fact, given that administrators and coaches who serve on NCAA committees are not paid for their service, calling it a hobby would not be too far off. This slows down processes of reform. It also means an athletic director who just listened to his football coach complain about losing recruits may show up and decide the fate of phone call deregulation.

In order to better seize moments like this when the NCAA members are geared up for reform and to great more of them, it’s time for the governing of college athletics to become a full-time job. To put it another way, the NCAA needs politicians.

Conferences would select someone to go live in Indianapolis and represent the conference full-time. That person would be paid by the NCAA and would serve a fixed term, maybe three or four years. The conference would need the NCAA’s approval to remove the legislator. This grants them a bit of independence.

These NCAA politicans would fulfill most of the functions currently carried out by staff members of NCAA member schools. They would vote on legislation, serve on committees, provide guidance to NCAA staff members, and hear appeals. They, along with outside members, would form the Committee on Infractions and Infractions Appeals Committee.

Instead of committees meeting three or four times a year in person, they could meet monthly, or even weekly. When urgent issues such as the preceived loophole in the Cam Newton case arise, they could be addressed in a matter of weeks, rather than having to wait roughly a year.

Two current groups in the rule-making structure would likely remain: an expanded Board of Directors including a president from every conference and the Leadership Council. But their jobs would no longer be to study issues and propose actual legislation. Their mission would be to give direction to Diviison I’s new congress. And all of the sport-specific committees would likely still remain.

The presidents have repaired a bit of the NCAA’s image, for now at least, by articulating a more detailed reform plan. Imagine the gains that could be made if everyone knew that representatives of those presidents were ready to tackle these issues full-time starting on Monday, rather than somewhat sporadically over the coming months.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: governance, legislation, ncaaprez, reform, structure

Now That’s a Model

August 8, 2011 by John Infante

The NCAA’s governance structure often gets the deserved criticism of taking too long. Multiple committees, subcommittees, working groups, and blue ribbon panels have come and gone without producing much. It’s the byproduct of any legislative process that includes as many different people and institution’s as the NCAA does. It’s also the result of legislating part-time.

So for the Leadership Council’s top-to-bottom review of the men’s basketball recruiting model to wrap up within a year is a small victory for Division I’s governance structure. The results of that review are even more encouraging.

A recruiting model should think about two things: how coaches evaluate and select new student-athletes, and how they convince them to attend a particular school. The Leadership Council split into two subcommittees somewhat along those lines and came up with recommendations for both.

To evaluate prospects, the Leadership Council has recommended the return of evaluations at AAU events in April. Coaches would have two weekends, which would move if they interfere with the SAT or ACT. The July evaluation period would be shortened, either to three four-day weekends or two seven-day periods. But the biggest change is allowing tryouts, or “on-campus evaluations.”

One option is Division II’s tryout rules, which allow each school to tryout each prospect. A better option is the NABC’s proposal from 2004, which give each prospect six on-campus evaluations and each institution 18. Tryouts would be centered around the official visit, with a prospect needing to be on an official visit for a tryout until after a prospect’s senior season.

This ties into changes in how contact recruits. Official visits would be allowed starting April of a prospect’s junior year. Contact would be allowed during September and April of a prospect’s junior year as well. Phone calls and text messages would be unlimited starting August of a prospect’s junior year.

When the entire model is put together, it looks something like this:

Coaches would use the April and July evaluation periods of a prospect’s sophomore year to pick the members of that class they will target.
Starting that August, coaches would establish communication with prospects to gauge interest. Interested prospects would meet coaches in person in September.
Over the junior year, coaches confirm their evaluations, and secure commitments with in-home visits, official visits, and a final evaluation on campus that spring.

The model, with the NABC’s limited tryout rule, would greatly favor coaching staffs who can make good evaluations during the spring and summer before a prospect’s junior year. It also gives prospects additional bargaining power if they hold onto official visits and tryouts into their senior year.

There’s still work to be done. The July evaluation period and tryout model are still not set. And the entire exercise could be derailed by tacking on a summer practice rule to a recruiting proposal, especially as the debate over required summer school continues.

The biggest danger to any model, be it recruiting or summer school or financial aid, is to keep it in one piece when it goes in front of the membership. It’s easy to see coaches argue for April AAU evaluations, unlimited tryouts, no change to July, and no change to the contact rules, while administrators fight for reducing the July evaluation periods, deregulating contact, and passing on April AAU events and tryouts.

There’s a glimmer of hope though. The Leadership Council has gone for consensus in putting together the model. And all 31 Division I conferences are represented in that group. When the final proposal goes to the Board of Directors in October, the whole of Division I will have blessed its contents. Then it is up to the individuals on the Leadership Council to see that their vision stays intact.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: legislation, recruiting, reform

What Do the Fans Want?

July 31, 2011 by John Infante

At some point, every debate over pay-for-play will turn away from fairness, competitive equity, and the recruiting arms race toward the fans. One side will argue that nothing will change. Fans will still come to games, alumni will still donate to the university, and students will still come and cheer. The other side will argue that everything will change. Fans come to college sports because they aren’t professional sports, and if you professionalize them, they won’t come.

The troubling thing is not that one side or another is right in this debate. The troubling thing is that it is still a debate.

Whether or not fans would want major change in college athletics is always presented as an article of faith or a point to be fought over in the larger battle. It is not though. It is a fact, one that we could determine within an acceptable margin of error. This is not complicated debate or rule making but simple market research.

The NCAA, reform groups, and conferences with aspirations of major changes should be scrambling not to win some argument, but to find out the answer to this question, and a few others:

Do fans care if student-athletes are students?
Do fans like a large Division I or would they prefer a smaller top level of collegiate athletics?
Even if they don’t attend the games, do fans want athletic departments to operate non-revenue sports programs?

The answers to these questions are critical. It seems crass to bring market research into a debate largely framed as individual rights vs. the NCAA’s principles, but it cannot be ignored. If deregulating amateurism or academics in some way means fans will stop coming, that’s a useful nugget. Not because revenue needs be maximized, but because sufficient revenue is needed to operate college athletics at all.

Conversely, if getting rid of some NCAA regulation would make college athletics more popular, that should frame the discussion as well. Again, not just because there is some untapped gold mine, but because additional revenue means additional or better participation opportunities.

This is just a guess, but I think you’ll find that the majority of fans do not care. They watch NCAA football and basketball for the high level of play and the pomp and pageantry, neither of which require academics or amateurism. And right now, those fans are driving the ratings and gigantic TV contracts that are shaping college athletics.

But I think you’ll also find that those fans are fickle. When the economy sours or a team is performing badly, they take their eyeballs and their dollars elsewhere. It’s the sizable minority of those that do care who will keep coming to games, keep watching, and keep donating through thick and thin.

Thus ending amateurism or academic requirements would not cause visible change right away but would make college athletics a more volatile enterprise. But that’s just a guess. It’s time to stop guessing and find out.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: commercialism, fans, reform

Life After the NCAA

July 25, 2011 by John Infante

In 1920, the NFL was formed at a Canton, OH car dealership. The NBA was created out of the merger of the Basketball Association of American and the National Basketball League in 1949. The NHL was formed in 1917 after the NHA folded in 1909. And Major League Baseball in its current form dates back to 1902.

So the fact that the NCAA dates back to 1905 (or 1910) and includes 1,281 different institutions and still exists at all is astonishing. The NCAA is older than all but one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States. Looking abroad, the Bundesliga in Germany has only existed since 1962. Even the English Football League suffered a major shakeup when the top clubs broke away from the Football League and the FA with the creation of the Premier League in 1992.

Thus it is appropriate to think what happens after the NCAA. There are many necessary components that define the NCAA. The NCAA is a 1) membership controlled, 2) amateur 3) educational 4) multi-sport and 5) multi-division organization. Remove any of those components, and what you have left is not the NCAA. You have some other organization, if you have one at all.

There’s a certain part of me that wonders whether the current pessimism about the ability of the NCAA to hold those five components together is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But no institution lasts forever. At some point in the near or distant future, the NCAA will cease to exist. There might be an organization called the National Collegiate Athletic Association headquartered in Indianapolis, but it won’t be the NCAA as we currently know it. If that happens in the foreseeable future (15-20 years), we should be prepared for it.

Multiple Organizations

The NCAA is a big animal. Three divisions, over 1,000 member schools and conferences, and two big missions (regulate college athletics and operate championships). To replace the NCAA with something new even for just the current Division I membership, you need almost 350 schools to agree to new rules from scratch.

That is likely impossible. In fact, I’m not convinced even the 66 BCS institutions could come to a comprehensive agreement on fundamental issues like sports sponsorship and revenue sharing with no existing framework. Thus a single national organization covering multiple sports even amongst just major football schools is unlikely.

If there is a national, multi-sport organization, it is likely to look more like UEFA than the NFL. It would only be able to set very broad rules across the conferences (like “athletes must be enrolled students”) and operate a national championship that takes a backseat or is on equal position to the conference or league championship, like UEFA’s Champions League.

Greater NGB and Professional League Involvement

If the NCAA is gone, the next logical set of organizations to oversee college athletics are national governing bodies like USA Basketball or USA Track and Field and professional leagues. The NCAA functions as a de facto minor league for some professional organizations and as the primary developmental system for many Olympic sports. That relationship would just become explicit.

Some sports one would think would be troubled by an NCAA breakup may profit from this relationship. If college baseball were to be tightly integrated into MLB’s development structure, it potentially could have access to a whole new market of fans. Baseball, soccer, men’s ice hockey, and track and field all could gain by working closer with the top level of the sport in the United States.

Sports without a top professional league or sophisticated development structure could struggle though. Lacrosse, softball, and field hockey are all examples of sports that might need to find a replacement for the strength of the NCAA to keep thriving and growing.

New Sports

Without needing to be voted in by the NCAA membership, new sports could potentially flourish as college sports. They would be able to grow organically without the stigma of being second-class citizens because they aren’t official NCAA sports or the need to hit some arbitrary amount of support before losing that stigma.

Some sports that might be poised to break into the collegiate ranks:

Endurance sports like marathoning, cycling, and triathlon
Action sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, etc.
Rugby

Another category with little or no presence at the collegiate level that might be able to break in are motorsports. High costs though could keep them from taking advantage.

More Amateurism, Education, and Title IX Problems, Not Fewer

Odd bedfellows would be thrilled at the end of the NCAA. They include proponents of pay-for-play, those who support both more and fewer academic standards, and people not happy with the current interpretation of Title IX. Many belief that the demise of the NCAA is a major step toward their goals, if not the only step necessary in some cases.

The problem is everything would need to be rethought from the ground up. Like them or not, the current NCAA rules providing a starting point for debate. It’s much easier to think up and justify a change to the rules rather than coming up with a rule and a justification out of thin air.

So rather than just asking for more for student-athletes, pay-for-play proponents would have to argue against those who want to reduce the influence of athletic scholarships. Those who want higher or fewer academic requirements may need to convince decision makers of the need for eligibility at all. And with no national body setting standards that shape how athletics programs are run, Title IX’s interpretations are thrown for a loop.

The Big Picture

Division I athletics can be described as a rough pyramid. One national organization at the top, 31 regional organizations below that, and 340+ individual institutions making up the base. Remove that national organization and you have a complicated web of institutions as members of multiple conferences and conferences interacting closely with professional leagues and national governing bodies.

Regional differences would be able to flourish, with football become even more important in the Southeast and Midwest, basketball being freed from football’s grasp on the East Coast, and the West becoming the leaders in ever more important niche sports. Questions you never thought would come up would be asked, like “Should athletes be limited in how many years they play?”

The entire history of America has a theme of moving from the local to the regional to the national, be it politics, the economy, or tastes in entertainment, food, and fashion. The disappearance of the NCAA would be a major step in the other direction. College sports would become a loose confederation dictated by regional ideas rather than a national institution with a national agenda.

It’s important to think about what happens if the NCAA is not around. If you like what you think college athletics would be without the NCAA, that opens up the options of reform. But the inertia of a very big and very old organization, can be useful even for change if you only want to go so far.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: organization, reform

Mike Slive Sets Ambitious Reform Agenda

July 21, 2011 by John Infante

Last year when it seemed like the Pac-10 would expand all the way to the Great Plains and break apart the Big XII, college athletics was at a crossroads. Ultimately college athletics decided not to take the road that would have lead to massive changes in the structure of conferences. Instead, the great conference shake-up never occurred.

Now in 2011, a similar set of forces seem to be gathering. With a presidential retreat upcoming, SEC commissioner Mike Slive has added to the debate with an agenda for reform he hopes will become the blueprint for change in the NCAA over the next year or so. The sweeping agenda focuses on financial aid to athletes, initial eligibility, recruiting, and the enforcement process. And were it all to be implemented, it is no incremental change.

Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

This debate has been bubbling for months now, and Mr. Slive did not introduce a specific plan. He did add one element to the debate, suggesting that money be added to the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, which has previously been used to cover some of these costs. The SAOF could be the mechanism used by the NCAA to maintain some degree of competitive equity and assist as many institutions as possible in meeting the increased costs.

Multi-Year Scholarships

If scholarships were required to be awarded until a student-athlete graduates or exhaust his or her eligibility, it would have a significant impact on recruiting. With standards in place for canceling a student-athlete’s aid, issues like oversigning and running athletes off would be greatly reduced.

But if institutions are simply given the option to award athletics aid for multiple years at a time, recruiting would be revolutionized. Every sport, including football and basketball, would become more like an equivalency sport. Think of a scholarship as four or five total years, with the ability to offer quarters or fifths of that total scholarship. Football coaches will be sitting down with baseball coaches to get a handle on the new environment.

Degree Completion Awards

The ability to award any amount of aid for any amount of time to student-athletes working to finish their degree seems like a big advantage to richer programs. But the competitive impact is likely to be minimal. How many 18 year-olds are thinking about coming back for a sixth or seventh year of school? Many in football and men’s basketball don’t expect to be in school for four years in the first place. An easy piece of deregulation and a big win for student-athlete welfare.

Better Assistance for Future Professional Athletes

Currently the NCAA has a few ways to allow student-athletes with professional ambitions to get advice, but they are tightly regulated, and combine with league regulations on contact with student-athletes to limit the amount of information flowing to student-athletes. Alongside working with the leagues, the NCAA could deregulate Professional Sports Counseling Panels, which currently have limits on how many athletics staff members may be involved. Or go one step further, and require the panel to operate regularly as an element of institutional control.

Raise Minimum GPA for Initial Eligibility to 2.5

This was touted as the most noteworthy of Mr. Slive’s reforms, but it is a tweak compared to the next proposal. Raising the required GPA to 2.5 simply reinforces the NCAA’s position that the core course GPA is the best predictor of college success. But legislating how that GPA is obtained could be revolutionary.

Extend Annual Satisfactory Progress to High Schools

This is, by far, the biggest bombshell in Mr. Slive’s address. The problem, outlined by Mr. Slive, is that too many prospective student-athletes, especially in revenue sports, don’t get serious about academics until their junior or senior year. Requiring prospects to earn some number of core courses every year would hopefully cut back on these “mad dashes” that often include academically unsound or outright fraudulent means.

But the infrastructure to guide a prospect through this new environment simply doesn’t exist. High school guidance counselors struggle with the requirements already. And current recruiting rules prohibit any sort of direct contact until a recruit is finished with their sophomore year. To make annual progress work, the NCAA needs to allow and in fact encourage early recruiting.

Return of Partial Qualifiers

Partial qualifiers never went totally away, with partial waivers available for student-athletes who do not qualify. Mr. Slive’s reform package would bring them back as a part of the bylaws.

The key will be getting buy-in from conferences. Initial eligibility became an admissions standard when many conference adopted non-qualifier rules that prevented non-qualifiers from enrolling, forcing them to junior colleges. If the majority of conferences adopt partial qualifier rules preventing them from enrolling, we’re back to the same position we have now, but with tougher requirements.

Deregulate Communication With Recruits

Luckily for Mr. Slive, this is already happening. Although there was the disappointing defeat of Proposal 2010-30, the Athletics Personnel and Recruiting Cabinet will introduce the first state of Mr. Slive’s reform. Two proposals will go before the membership this year. One would end the ban on text messages and the other would eliminate the limit on how often a coach can call a recruit.

But going back to the annual progress requirement, at some point the membership will need to address the issue that 2010-30 could not overcome: when should we start the recruiting process? If initial eligibility starts with freshmen, the answer has to be to start recruiting with freshmen.

Merging Evaluation and Contact Periods

While this seems like basic common sense, it has enormous competitive impact, especially in football. If the spring evaluation period becomes a spring contact period, it effectively means that football coaches will be recruiting two classes at a time.

It also doesn’t eliminate the “bump” violation. Mr. Slive stated the prohibition on contact with a prospect at the site of competition would still exist. Where do most bump violations occur? At the site of competition.

Limiting Third Party Influence

My thoughts on the battle between scholastic and nonscholastic sports are well documented. To recap: nonscholastic sports are going to win. The NCAA membership can either accept that fact and encourage nonscholastic sports to develop with the proper structure and controls, or it can hope that high schools can make up ground already lost.

The NCAA should look beyond AAU and 7-on-7 to the day when elite high school football and men’s basketball student-athletes are no longer even considering their high school team. It’s happened in other sports, and it will spread to the revenue sports whether we like it or not.

More Classes of Violations

Mr. Slive is correct that the current distinction between major and secondary infractions causes the enforcement staff to pigeonhole violations into one or the other. But rather than creating more categories, the categories should be eliminated. At some point, different in each case, the enforcement staff should engage the Committee on Infractions for guidance and a potential hearing.

Some secondary violations should be public. Some major violations should not carry the same stigma as others. As the COI reiterates so often, every violation is different. Those differences should be recognized by eliminating categories and the need to place violations in those categories.

These reforms will be discussed at the presidential retreat. Hopefully we’ll see legislation moving some agenda, either this one or another, next year. Mr. Slive has presented a comprehensive agenda where financial aid, recruiting, and academics are all tied together. To reform a rule book as large and interconnected as the Division I Manual, this is the type of comprehensive thinking that is needed.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: eligibility, financial aid, recruiting, reform, sec

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About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

Major League Pay in the Minor Leagues

The True Value of Being a Student-Athlete

The Cure Cannot Be As Bad As The Disease

Defunding Non-Revenue Sports

Small Reforms, Massive Tweaks

About John Infante

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

Multiple Organizations

Greater NGB and Professional League Involvement

New Sports

More Amateurism, Education, and Title IX Problems, Not Fewer

The Big Picture

About John Infante

Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

Multi-Year Scholarships

Degree Completion Awards

Better Assistance for Future Professional Athletes

Raise Minimum GPA for Initial Eligibility to 2.5

Extend Annual Satisfactory Progress to High Schools

Return of Partial Qualifiers

Deregulate Communication With Recruits

Merging Evaluation and Contact Periods

Limiting Third Party Influence

More Classes of Violations

About John Infante

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