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Jewish World Review Sept. 23, 2011 / 24 Elul, 5771 Big-time college football is now all about the money By Dan K. Thomasson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
If there ever was any doubt about the venality of those running big time college football, it has been dispelled in recent weeks by a series of piratical raids so audacious they would leave Blackbeard envious.
Seemingly without a second thought, the looters began a process that if followed to its logical conclusion may some day in the not too distant future spell the end of the NCAA's top tier in its main revenue activities at least and probably the entire Division I-A. The football powerhouses were abandoning their conferences at a clip never before seen, dumping their former partners for more high profile venues. Boola, Boola has become Moolah, Moolah.
Texas A&M started the latest dash toward super conference creation by seeking to abandon the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, thereby setting the stage for others to follow. The SEC has accepted the school but is waiting until legal issues are resolved. The Big East then became a huge loser as the Atlantic Coast Conference offered two of that league's premier football and basketball schools, Syracuse and Pittsburgh, the opportunity to join. Only seven football teams would remain in the Big East, potentially disrupting that conference's participation in the Bowl Championship Series where schools earn up to $18 million for reaching major bowls. That move also upset traditional basketball rivalries like Syracuse and Georgetown.
And there is every indication that more of the same is on the way in other conferences as the search for TV revenues has been all-consuming under economic pressures that have turned Saturday afternoons into a mockery of all that academic babble about "student athletes." The true student athletes all reside in Divisions II and III anyway. Actually, the athletes are the only ones who won't benefit financially, at least directly, from the TV tidal wave of cash being dumped into big time collegiate coffers. All bets are off on the paying them issue, however, if there is eventually a consortium of major schools at the expense of the NCAA.
There ultimately may be a number of schools left with independent status and little chance in sharing the bounty. Some may even decided that football is far too expensive to continue playing. My own university, Indiana, the perennial bottom dweller in that sport, probably should do that now except that it is protected by the Big Ten, which has 12 teams and its own TV network. The league apparently feels that one of its oldest members should have the privilege of practicing masochism as a religion if it wishes. You know these liberal academics. Besides every school needs a Homecoming patsy and Indiana always seems willing. But the cost of 100 years of losing has been high.
It is easy to foresee that the upshot of all this movement by the football biggies to 16- and 18-team leagues would soon usurp the authority of an NCAA that has been powerless to stop it. That would be true even if the presidents who are supposed to run the college athletic governing association weren't involved in the shenanigans up to their jock straps, which they are.
So these institutions with the oversized stadiums and pro-like accommodations for high rollers might just decide they no longer needed the affiliation with a bunch of small timers, no matter if some of them have been their longest rivals. No hard feelings, Armpit U. It's just business.
They say that college football has become the hottest ticket on sports TV, and the billions being spread around to the winners of this lottery can't be denied the opportunity to increase their wealth. It is more than likely that new rivalries will be formed with teams in a league that stretches from coast to coast.
An old professor of mine wrote a great story about the day football died. It got so big that each school had to have two stadiums for every game. When the defense was on the field in one, the offense would be on another. Each squad would run back and forth through a tunnel connecting the stadiums. The sport became so confusing not to mention expensive that suddenly no one could follow it and it died. What a shame.
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