Nothing New In The Current NCAA/O'Bannon/Power 5 Debate

[Tugg Speedman]

Dave Revsine book is great!  And as this Op-ed shows, we went through all these issues 120 years ago.  Football survived, basketball survived, non-revenue sports survived.  And they will again.

(PS in Revsine book he makes an argument that college football was MORE POPULAR in the 1890s than today).

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O'Bannon v. NCAA—Now That's Old-School Football
Players want compensation for the use of their images? Right out of the 'Willie Heston's Cigars' playbook.
By Dave Revsine
Aug. 11, 2014 7:33 p.m. ET

'He talks cigarettes to his friends. They appreciate and like him; they realize he is a poor fellow," the tobacco executive said of the college football star, "So they buy our cigarettes, knowing that he gets a commission on every box sold."

On Friday federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken issued her decision in the so-called O'Bannon Trial, ruling that college athletes could profit off their name, image and likeness. Just as James Hogan, a three-time All-American at Yale profited off his name, image and likeness, thanks to a deal with the American Tobacco Company—in 1904.

He wasn't the only one. Another All-American of the same era, Michigan's Willie Heston, had a similar arrangement in Ann Arbor, garnering profits from "Willie Heston's Cigars." So while Judge Wilken's ruling is monumental, the fundamental issue didn't exactly sneak up on us.

One day before Judge Wilken's decision, the NCAA Board of Governors voted to grant autonomy to schools in the largest revenue-producing conferences. The leagues reportedly plan to give athletes money beyond their current scholarship restrictions—a "stipend" to cover the "full cost of attendance" at a university.

While some fear these two decisions will corrupt college athletics' amateur model, the truth is that amateurism has been a moving target since schools started competing on the gridiron. In the 19th century, professional athletics was looked down upon as the domain of those who lacked the wealth and leisure time to participate in sport for sport's sake. But that didn't stop universities from compensating athletes under the table, in direct opposition to the rules of the day. Players routinely sold themselves to the highest bidder to spend a Saturday competing for a school, with a writer of the time noting: "There is a scale of prices, just as there is for horses and cows and grain."

As a result of Thursday's autonomy vote, the conferences will also look to address health concerns, perhaps with long-term insurance policies that cover players well after their careers have ended. The vote came days after the NCAA agreed to provide $70 million for concussion testing of current and former athletes.

Medical concerns are also as old as the game itself. As a result of gridiron violence, 18 players died at all levels of football in 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt called the sport's leaders to the White House for an emergency summit. The subsequent years were filled with intense debate over proposals to make the game safer. Those alterations were opposed by Walter Camp, adviser to Yale's powerhouse team and the de facto head of the college football rules committee.

When the forward pass was legalized in an effort to stem the carnage, Camp, whose offense was premised on an overpowering but dangerous wedge-based rushing attack, refused to add his signature. He was advocating for his team's self-interest. It brings to mind the debate last spring when Alabama coach Nick Saban lobbied to slow down the hurry-up offense that has proven difficult to defend—an offense his team doesn't run.

Mr. Saban is an easy target, with many pointing to his $7 million salary as an example of the way big money has taken over the college game. "Money, money, money seems to be the cry," exasperated sportswriter Caspar Whitney complained in '94. "It will be the curse, if not indeed the downfall, of honest university sport." For the record, that was 1894. Even 120 years ago, the balance sheet ruled.

At the time the football program at Chicago had an enormous financial advantage over rivals in the Western Conference, precursor of the modern Big Ten. Chicago Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg used that edge to dictate where the Maroons would play, and he refused to share receipts equally with competitors. His heavy-handedness nearly led to the league's dissolution, a dispute mirrored more than a century later when Texas refused to share television revenue and threatened the viability of the Big 12.

How did college football survive these challenges? It's simple. Much as they do today, people loved the spectacle and the collective sense of belonging that the game engendered. Grandstands overflowed for the biggest games, with school spirit whipping campuses into a frenzy and the media covering it all—creating new superstars along the way. The New York Sun sent 17 reporters to the 1893 Yale-Princeton game, which drew 50,000 fans and created a festival-like atmosphere in New York City.

Football's place on the American campus was perhaps best captured by an early Chicago professor, who said the school had two purposes: "to spread the light of knowledge over the western world and to lick Michigan." It's a mission that would ring true in Columbus, Ohio, today. The scope of the sport has obviously changed. But college football's current popularity and problems are the logical extension of those in 1890s and early 1900s.

Last week's events were significant, particularly Judge Wilken's ruling, but it isn't a seismic shift. As they have since the beginning, lots of people will continue to profit from the game. The only difference is, in a very tangible way, that group now includes the players. Some schools will find the changes easier to swallow financially than others. The gulf between the haves and have-nots may widen.

But college football will endure. On Jan. 12, in Arlington, Texas, one team will raise the first College Football Playoff championship trophy. Players will celebrate. Fans will rejoice. And somewhere outside the stadium, preferably in a properly designated area, someone may even light a celebratory Heston.

Mr. Revsine is the lead studio host for the Big Ten Network and the author of "The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation," just out from Globe Pequot Press. The Big Ten Network is partially owned by Fox, which until recently was owned by the same company as this newspaper.

[GGGG]

The concept of amateurism as some sort of noble cause has been dying for decades...golf, tennis, Olympics...and now college athletics.  And all it has done is improve the respective competitions.  College athletics will be the same.  The doomsayers haven't been right so far, and they won't be right now.

[Tugg Speedman]

The concept of amateurism as some sort of noble cause has been dying for decades...golf, tennis, Olympics...and now college athletics.  And all it has done is improve the respective competitions.  College athletics will be the same.  The doomsayers haven't been right so far, and they won't be right now.

+1

If you go back to the early 1970s and the fights Olympic sports (especially track) had with the AAU over allowing professionals compete, you'll see it was exactly the same as the fight now over college sports.  Many of the fears expressed then have been expressed on this message board here (see Chicos and Lab Warrior). 

At the end of the day it was the best thing to happen to the Olympics.  They might not have survived if they stubbornly held to amateurism.  Ditto the other sports Sultan mentioned above.  i.e., Tennis becomes orders of magnitude more popular when they abandoned amateurism and moved to the "open era" in the late 1960s even though many Cassandras announced it would kill the sport.

Bottom line, when a sport abandons amateurism things get better.  That is what will happen to college sports (all of them).  What we will learn is the current system has been strangling them for years and now they are about to be freed.

[Spotcheck Billy]

I hear the Badgers Grid Iron Club will be asking boosters to Adopt-A-Jock for $5K/year.

[GGGG]

Part of the problem that detractors see is if you don't have amateurism, then you have complete out of control professionalism.  But as the court decision showed, you *can* have a middle ground.  It's not one extreme versus another.

[Tugg Speedman]

Part of the problem that detractors see is if you don't have amateurism, then you have complete out of control professionalism.  But as the court decision showed, you *can* have a middle ground.  It's not one extreme versus another.

What is complete out of control professionalism?

[forgetful]

The concept of amateurism as some sort of noble cause has been dying for decades...golf, tennis, Olympics...and now college athletics.  And all it has done is improve the respective competitions.  College athletics will be the same.  The doomsayers haven't been right so far, and they won't be right now.

I don't think it will be the same if the athletes are getting paid.  There is already brewing on college campuses a vocal minority greatly opposed to college athletics.  Mainly, because of the cost and the rising tuition prices.

If athletes start getting paid and athletics costs more, that vocal minority can quickly become a majority.

[GGGG]

What is complete out of control professionalism?

LOL...yeah that wasn't the best of phrases.  That athletes are earning six figure salaries and endorsement deals, not really student-athletes, etc.  "Out of control" in that there is no leveling out factor that helps to maintain competitive balance.

For instance if the system that the judge outlined in her opinion was implemented tomorrow, the NCAA would be able to place reasonable caps on NIL payments and have those payments go into a trust.  Does it break the "complete amateur model?"  Yes.  But it's like a salary cap that maintains competitive balance, requires athletes to be students, etc.

Collegiate athletics can still function just fine on a "reasonable professionalism" model.

[keefe]

What is complete out of control professionalism?

Competence on Capitol Hill?

[GGGG]

I don't think it will be the same if the athletes are getting paid.  There is already brewing on college campuses a vocal minority greatly opposed to college athletics.  Mainly, because of the cost and the rising tuition prices.

If athletes start getting paid and athletics costs more, that vocal minority can quickly become a majority.

You might be correct.  And some places may chose to no longer participate in D1 athletics and drop down a division or two.  That's OK.  But I don't think it destroys the entire model.

[Tugg Speedman]

I don't think it will be the same if the athletes are getting paid.  There is already brewing on college campuses a vocal minority greatly opposed to college athletics.  Mainly, because of the cost and the rising tuition prices.

If athletes start getting paid and athletics costs more, that vocal minority can quickly become a majority.

The only athletes getting paid are the revenue sports, football and men's basketball.  No one is going to complain about that.

[forgetful]

The only athletes getting paid are the revenue sports, football and men's basketball.  No one is going to complain about that.

You haven't spent much time on a college campus lately have you.  Remember, part of the change in housing for the basketball program at MU was because of animosity by students.

A vocal minority of students (actually a good sized minority), do not like the specialized treatment and associated costs of football and basketball specifically.  They get all the attention so they also get all the detractors.

[GGGG]

You haven't spent much time on a college campus lately have you.  Remember, part of the change in housing for the basketball program at MU was because of animosity by students.

Oh I don't think that is true at all.  I think that was 100% driven by SP and LW in reaction to the sexual assault issues.  I don't think anything would have changed otherwise.

And it won't be for just basketball and football.  This will be expanded or Title IX is going to be an issue.

[brandx]

Part of the problem that detractors see is if you don't have amateurism, then you have complete out of control professionalism.  But as the court decision showed, you *can* have a middle ground.  It's not one extreme versus another.

I think you are right. Just because things change doesn't mean they come to an end or are destroyed.

There are just a few posters who believe that any change to the power structure and status quo will foreshadow doom and destruction.

[Galway Eagle]

My only question is how long till the top high school recruits realize that all the scouts and reporters coming to their games to see them are paying the $5-10 entrance fee and start demanding a cut of that.  I mean they're students and bringing in revenue that they don't get a cut of.  I mean obviously were talking about a couple hundred dollars vs thousands of dollars but the way I see it the principle remains the same   

[Benny B]

The only athletes getting paid are the revenue sports, football and men's basketball.  No one is going to complain about that.

Two words:  Gloria.  Allred.

[Lennys Tap]

My only question is how long till the top high school recruits realize that all the scouts and reporters coming to their games to see them are paying the $5-10 entrance fee and start demanding a cut of that.  I mean they're students and bringing in revenue that they don't get a cut of.  I mean obviously were talking about a couple hundred dollars vs thousands of dollars but the way I see it the principle remains the same   

Do you really think lawyers are going to get involved over the chump change involved in high school and AAU basketball games? They go (for a % due to their aggrieved client) where the money is.

[brandx]

Do you really think lawyers are going to get involved over the chump change involved in high school and AAU basketball games? They go (for a % due to their aggrieved client) where the money is.

Good comment, Lenny. Some people want to figure out the extreme possibilities in everything instead of just using common sense.

[bilsu]

Back in thew 70's when I went to college I am pretty sure players were given a certain dollar amount for personal expenses. I believe at some point this was changed or limited. Maybe at the same time the scholarship limit went from 15 to 13. Does anybody know more about what actually changed in what players were permitted to receive?

[brandx]

Back in thew 70's when I went to college I am pretty sure players were given a certain dollar amount for personal expenses. I believe at some point this was changed or limited. Maybe at the same time the scholarship limit went from 15 to 13. Does anybody know more about what actually changed in what players were permitted to receive?

I don't think that was the case. I remember listening to Majerus talking about Earl Tatum (who came from abject poverty) and how he thought it was a crime that anyone associated with the program could not give him a few bucks for just basic expenses.

[Galway Eagle]

Do you really think lawyers are going to get involved over the chump change involved in high school and AAU basketball games? They go (for a % due to their aggrieved client) where the money is.

If Lebron or Kobe were to have lawyer fathers you don't think that woulda happened? I do.

[Tugg Speedman]

If Lebron or Kobe were to have lawyer fathers you don't think that woulda happened? I do.

No but if it becomes legal (not affect their college status) for them to collude and demand money to play in these summer tournaments ... They will

[Lennys Tap]

I don't think that was the case. I remember listening to Majerus talking about Earl Tatum (who came from abject poverty) and how he thought it was a crime that anyone associated with the program could not give him a few bucks for just basic expenses.

Earl Tatum's "suitcase" when he arrived at MU was a cardboard box - honest to God true.

[Benny B]

Back in thew 70's when I went to college I am pretty sure players were given a certain dollar amount for personal expenses. I believe at some point this was changed or limited. Maybe at the same time the scholarship limit went from 15 to 13. Does anybody know more about what actually changed in what players were permitted to receive?

I can attest that at least until into the late 90s, the NCAA allows institutions to, in lieu of actually providing meals, give stipends (a/k/a meal money) to student-athletes while the team was traveling, usually during periods of extended travel (i.e. tournaments, multi-city contests, etc.)... but this was entirely at the institution's discretion.  I'm sure that some kids got a white envelope with cash in it for every road contest, some may only have seen it during the conference tourney, and some may have got nothing at all... it all depended on whether or not the institution wanted to provide meals.

No, it wasn't for personal expenses, but I personally witnessed multiple instances where those stipends mostly were utilized to facilitate the procurement of alcohol without ever garnering a second thought.

[GoldenWarrior11]

https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/hawaii-athletic-director-says-hawaii-football-could-be--going-away-232207654.html

Here is the beginning of the powerful ripples the Power 5 has caused.  Hawaii's AD states the football program could be dropped due to the rising costs.  A HUGE drop for a program that was just in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago.

Could another school, one from the Northeast, and that was also in a similarly prestigious BCS Bowl a few years ago, consider dropping or moving football to keep their basketball program relevant?