Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

[Clonefan94]

They aren't when you consider the revenue they're bringing in.

Crazy people don't realize this. I'm 100% for the athletes getting a cut of what essentially they are putting all the risk in to. Don't get me wrong, I don't like NIL and what it has done to college sports, but it isn't the athletes fault. This is what happens when greed kicks in. The Schools, the ADs and TV loved raking in every bit of cash they could, all the while punishing any kid who got offered a free ride from the airport. I really wish they'd make these schools make these kids employees. Pick a number, if a school takes in over $XX million a year in revenue, the athletes must be employees.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

To be fair, I think it’s a pretty difficult to answer the question of whether the value comes from the university affiliation or the individual.

Is the revenue coming to the school because of the individual, or because of the collective branding/longevity of the institutions (schools, conferences, tv contracts, etc.)?

If every single current CFB player disappeared today, and every single team got a brand new roster tomorrow, I’d bet the TV ratings and ticket sales would still be pretty similar.

You don't have sports without players playing them. Regardless of the chicken/egg argument (which I totally get where you're at with), the players on the field are responsible for the revenue coming in and should be sharing in it a lot more than they are. Frankly a $20M cap is insultingly low considering most everybody at the P2/M2 level is pulling at least $100M in revenue every year and many several multiples of that.

I think your point applies much better to true NIL. There are maybe a dozen college athletes that are marketable enough to make what they're making if we just allowed the free market to do it's thing and not disguise pay for play as NIL.

 

[not-the-manager]

They aren't when you consider the revenue they're bringing in.

What is the monetary value of the backup TE at Ohio State? It's small, if anything, but ultimately it's hard to say, as Fox signed a deal with the Big Ten Conference, factoring in a valuation of the TV products of the Ohio State Athletic Department, among others. You're correct that teams are comprised of players, so players are bringing in the attendees and eyeballs, i.e., money. Revenue sharing was a small step towards addressing this. I'd be fine with your idea of increasing the revenue sharing limit. The issue is athletic departments like Iowa State's lose money on almost everything they're involved with, and can't even afford to set aside the current maximum allowance. All the while, fans are still being asked to buy season tickets, parking passes, concessions, to travel to and attend the occasional neutral-site game, to watch every game they can't attend, to donate to the revenue-sharing fund within the athletic department, and, if they own a business or have some influence, to sign advertising deals with individual players. I wish it were as easy as "Just take the ESPN money and give it to the players," but as of yet, college athletics hasn't figured out how to handle the fact that football and men's basketball are massive revenue generators, but barely make up for everything else at most schools

 

[ghyland7]

You don't have sports without players playing them. Regardless of the chicken/egg argument (which I totally get where you're at with), the players on the field are responsible for the revenue coming in and should be sharing in it a lot more than they are. Frankly a $20M cap is insultingly low considering most everybody at the P2/M2 level is pulling at least $100M in revenue every year and many several multiples of that.

I think your point applies much better to true NIL. There are maybe a dozen college athletes that are marketable enough to make what they're making if we just allowed the free market to do it's thing and not disguise pay for play as NIL.

I agree that it’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation.

I disagree that $20 million is “insultingly low.”

I think coach salaries probably are a little high, particularly compared with player compensation, but good luck putting that genie back in the bottle.

ISU pays roughly $10 million per year for tuition, summer school, and other education related expenses (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $15 million per year for travel, uniforms, and game day expenses (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $15 million per year on student athlete meals, medical expenses, and “other operating expenses” (which includes non-team travel for conferences, team banquets, and other similar expenses).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for coaching salaries (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for non-coaching staff (from JP down to janitors).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for things like risk management, utilities, facilities maintenance, administrative fees (charged by university to athletics), and other “direct overhead” expenses.

ISU pays roughly $10 million per year for debt service.

It also costs the university a few million bucks to send the team and support to a bowl game.

From my count (note: this is from FY2024, so before the big extra $20 mil per year from the 2025 settlement).

It looks like from a ~120 million in operating expenses, $40 mil goes to salaries/benefits (coaches + admin). $40 mil goes indirectly to students (travel/unis + food + education expenses), and the last $40 mil is stuff like debt servicing and operational expenses with the facilities.

Who do you think we should fire to pay the student athletes an extra 30 or 40 million? Or should we sell the stadium?

To me, roughly 1/3 of expenditures being directly on student athletes (even if not literally cash-in-hand) isn’t exactly out of line.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Telling coaches they can't change jobs when they want is blatantly unconstitutional.

It's funny how we allow college coaches to break their contact and leave for another team, but professional leagues they cannot do it. College coaches's agents have set up a system the allows a coach to make millions, get a large buyout if fired, but then they can also turn around and leave the school to take a better job with only a buyout paid to the former school. Maybe it's time to start putting in "none compete" clauses in all coaching deals, instead of a buyout. The agents and coaches would hate it, but if every university agrees to do it, they could jam it through. Can you imagine the outrage if any team could go out an hire anyone's coach any time they wanted in the NFL, MLB or NBA? But they do it in college every year, and people believe that its the coaches constitutional right?

 

[1UNI2ISU]

I agree that it’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation.

I disagree that $20 million is “insultingly low.”

I think coach salaries probably are a little high, particularly compared with player compensation, but good luck putting that genie back in the bottle.

ISU pays roughly $10 million per year for tuition, summer school, and other education related expenses (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $15 million per year for travel, uniforms, and game day expenses (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $15 million per year on student athlete meals, medical expenses, and “other operating expenses” (which includes non-team travel for conferences, team banquets, and other similar expenses).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for coaching salaries (all sports).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for non-coaching staff (from JP down to janitors).

ISU pays roughly $20 million per year for things like risk management, utilities, facilities maintenance, administrative fees (charged by university to athletics), and other “direct overhead” expenses.

ISU pays roughly $10 million per year for debt service.

It also costs the university a few million bucks to send the team and support to a bowl game.

From my count (note: this is from FY2024, so before the big extra $20 mil per year from the 2025 settlement).

It looks like from a ~120 million in operating expenses, $40 mil goes to salaries/benefits (coaches + admin). $40 mil goes indirectly to students (travel/unis + food + education expenses), and the last $40 mil is stuff like debt servicing and operational expenses with the facilities.

Who do you think we should fire to pay the student athletes an extra 30 or 40 million? Or should we sell the stadium?

To me, roughly 1/3 of expenditures being directly on student athletes (even if not literally cash-in-hand) isn’t exactly out of line.

'Employees' are a cost of doing business. Professional leagues, and college sports are professional sports, are perfectly able to accommodate all those costs and still pay players at the level they should be paid for the revenue they bring in.

We all know the entire system is broken but if these are the parameters we're going to go with, the players actually playing the sport deserve to have way more than they get.

The best course would be to separate sports from universities altogether but there are way too many egos for that to ever happen.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

It's funny how we allow college coaches to break their contact and leave for another team, but professional leagues they cannot do it. College coaches's agents have set up a system the allows a coach to make millions, get a large buyout if fired, but then they can also turn around and leave the school to take a better job with only a buyout paid to the former school. Maybe it's time to start putting in "none compete" clauses in all coaching deals, instead of a buyout. The agents and coaches would hate it, but if every university agrees to do it, they could jam it through. Can you imagine the outrage if any team could go out an hire anyone's coach any time they wanted in the NFL, MLB or NBA? But they do it in college every year, and people believe that its the coaches constitutional right?

Blame the universities giving out those contracts. The coaches aren't offering them to themselves.

If there way any appetite for that at all, the universities would have already done it.

 

[ghyland7]

'Employees' are a cost of doing business. Professional leagues, and college sports are professional sports, are perfectly able to accommodate all those costs and still pay players at the level they should be paid for the revenue they bring in.

We all know the entire system is broken but if these are the parameters we're going to go with, the players actually playing the sport deserve to have way more than they get.

The best course would be to separate sports from universities altogether but there are way too many egos for that to ever happen.

Professional leagues have anti-trust exemptions, collective bargaining, salary caps (at least the NFL/NBA, most analogous to major college sports), player unions, sport-wide meetings and media rights, and more.

College sports ARE related to colleges. I think it’s a good thing, and it’s unique compared to professional leagues.

While I agree that athletes absolutely deserve a bigger slice of the pie than they have gotten historically, I think it’s only fair to point out that a LOT of money is already spent on those athletes, again, even if it’s not cash-in-hand.

I fundamentally disagree that an extra $20 million in player comp is insulting.

Professional sports leagues do NOT operate like normal businesses, and neither do colleges.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

'Employees' are a cost of doing business. Professional leagues, and college sports are professional sports, are perfectly able to accommodate all those costs and still pay players at the level they should be paid for the revenue they bring in.

We all know the entire system is broken but if these are the parameters we're going to go with, the players actually playing the sport deserve to have way more than they get.

The best course would be to separate sports from universities altogether but there are way too many egos for that to ever happen.

In most professional sports the team is not supporting a dozen or two teams that are losing million of dollars to run every year, while colleges are. That is a huge difference. What other teams do the Vikings or Chiefs support with money and players every year. MLB teams 5 or 6 minor league teams to support that are losing money every year, but some of them they do not own. ISU is supporting 12 teams that never break even or close to it, and we are on the low number of sports offered by a university.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

In most professional sports the team is not supporting a dozen or two teams that are losing million of dollars to run every year, while colleges are. That is a huge difference. What other teams do the Vikings or Chiefs support with money and players every year. MLB teams 5 or 6 minor league teams to support that are losing money every year, but some of them they do not own. ISU is supporting 12 teams that never break even or close to it, and we are on the low number of sports offered by a university.

The rules haven't changed. It's the cost of doing business as a DI Athletic Program.

It's not even an Iowa State thing. I'm getting real tired of departments across the country crying poor when every single thing they've done is self inflicted and built on a 'free' labor force. No one required you to spend hundreds of millions on facilities, no one required you to blow up coaches salaries, no one required you to have 3 helmets, 12 uniform combinations and to hand out gear like it was free, no one required you to get into leagues where your travel budgets exploded, no one required you to send your women's golf team to tournaments across the continent, no one required you to spend the way you've spent on sports that have no ROI.

You made the bed. Sleep in it and enjoy it.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Blame the universities giving out those contracts. The coaches aren't offering them to themselves.

If there way any appetite for that at all, the universities would have already done it.

The universities cannot do it, because few coaches are going to sign up for that deal, if others are not going too. So it's going to have to be done by the conferences. Start slow, make it illegal for a coach from one school in the conference to go to another school in the same conference while under contract. So Kiffin is not allowed to go to LSU from Ol Miss, while under contract with Ol Miss. Start small, it's rare a coach leaves one conference school for another. Then raise the stakes a few years later, you cannot move from one P4 school to another P4 school. Or just have the entire conference schools start to sign coaches to contracts that forbid them from leaving if under contract. No one is forcing a coach to move, they and their agents are calling the shots, time to take that away. You want to leave, you can when your contract is up, nothing wrong with that.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

The rules haven't changed. It's the cost of doing business as a DI Athletic Program.

It's not even an Iowa State thing. I'm getting real tired of departments across the country crying poor when every single thing they've done is self inflicted and built on a 'free' labor force. No one required you to spend hundreds of millions on facilities, no one required you to blow up coaches salaries, no one required you to have 3 helmets, 12 uniform combinations and to hand out gear like it was free, no one required you to get into leagues where your travel budgets exploded, no one required you to send your women's golf team to tournaments across the continent, no one required you to spend the way you've spent on sports that have no ROI.

You made the bed. Sleep in it and enjoy it.

Correct no one is forcing them too, it's called the cost of doing business and trying to be successful. How many coaches have we seen tell a school they will take the job, but in return they expect to be getting better facilities, more money for asst. coaches or more money for NIL. It's the coaches demanding these things, not the universities.
That "free" labor force got a lot of perks that other kids attending the university do not have. Free education, free food, great medical care, first chance at getting into classes, free academic counseling. I'll bet every kid at any university would trade places with these players. Many universities have control and ownership of projects being created at a university by the students and staff, if it happens at the university. I suppose we should do away with that also.

 

[cykadelic2]

We all know the entire system is broken but if these are the parameters we're going to go with, the players actually playing the sport deserve to have way more than they get.

The best course would be to separate sports from universities altogether but there are way too many egos for that to ever happen.

College sports participation is voluntary and athletes know what they're signing up for. They sure as hell aren't being held "hostage" given the FCOA scholarship benefits + any RevShare/NIL they now get with the full knowledge that P4 FB and MBB has always subsidized the other non-rev sports.

And suggesting the best course would be to separate sports from universities is comical.

To address both of the above, the truly best course is start up a professional FB minor league without any age restrictions and academic requirements so that mega-rich athletic donors can spend as much money as they want to support the league and their respective team and FB/MBB prospects coming out of HS have a choice.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

College sports participation is voluntary and athletes know what they're signing up for. They sure as hell aren't being held "hostage" given the FCOA scholarship benefits + any RevShare/NIL they now get with the full knowledge that P4 FB and MBB has always subsidized the other non-rev sports.

And suggesting the best course would be to separate sports from universities is comical.

To address both of the above, the truly best course is start up a professional FB minor league without any age restrictions and academic requirements so that mega-rich athletic donors can spend as much money as they want to support the league and their respective team and FB/MBB prospects coming out of HS have a choice.

Literally every other country on earth is able to have 'developmental' sports below the professional level that aren't hooked to universities.

And your last paragraph is exactly what we already have, we just call it 'college sports' so we feel better.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Correct no one is forcing them too, it's called the cost of doing business and trying to be successful. How many coaches have we seen tell a school they will take the job, but in return they expect to be getting better facilities, more money for asst. coaches or more money for NIL. It's the coaches demanding these things, not the universities.
That "free" labor force got a lot of perks that other kids attending the university do not have. Free education, free food, great medical care, first chance at getting into classes, free academic counseling. I'll bet every kid at any university would trade places with these players. Many universities have control and ownership of projects being created at a university by the students and staff, if it happens at the university. I suppose we should do away with that also.

I agree that it's ******** that universities get to patent inventions and other intellectual property just because a student enrolled there. No disagreement. The students and staff should be sharing in that windfall. The university absolutely deserves a piece for their commitment to the project but certainly doesn't deserve it all.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Literally every other country on earth is able to have 'developmental' sports below the professional level that aren't hooked to universities.

And your last paragraph is exactly what we already have, we just call it 'college sports' so we feel better.

Most other countries on earth pretty much only care about a couple of sports: soccer, cricket, and to a much lesser extent basketball.

They also sign kids super young in ways we don’t do in the states. Not saying one is better than the other but there are some key differences.

To your point outside of the US no one really understands the college sports thing we do here

 

[FinalFourCy]

Agreed. Nothing is ever going to pass.

If there were adults in the room, they'd actually enforce their own rules but there's too much money involved to ever get to that point. I fully expect the SEC and Big Ten to both go their own way at the end of this TV deal and not together. I'd imagine they'll only play conference games and then set up a 4 team playoff and a 'challenge series' to replace bowls. I also expect the completely feckless and dependent NCAA to let them go their own way for football and keep all other sports under the NCAA banner with revenue advantages and control over postseason tournaments.

A lot of outcomes possible. Given the only major stakeholders involved that need to be profitable are P2 networks, namely ESPN & Fox, moves will be biased towards that

Everyone is out for themselves. Networks, schools, conference HQs, etc.

Surprisingly, right now, arguably the most “greater good” stakeholders are the elite brands in P2 that continue to subsidize a lot of other schools

As with the case with most situations, a lot of issues stem from subsidies determining winners and losers.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Most other countries on earth pretty much only care about a couple of sports: soccer, cricket, and to a much lesser extent basketball.

They also sign kids super young in ways we don’t do in the states. Not saying one is better than the other but there are some key differences.

To your point outside of the US no one really understands the college sports thing we do here

A lot of that has to do with the fact that we've farmed out Olympic development to the universities as well.

 

[FinalFourCy]

To be fair, I think it’s a pretty difficult to answer the question of whether the value comes from the university affiliation or the individual.

Is the revenue coming to the school because of the individual, or because of the collective branding/longevity of the institutions (schools, conferences, tv contracts, etc.)?

If every single current CFB player disappeared today, and every single team got a brand new roster tomorrow, I’d bet the TV ratings and ticket sales would still be pretty similar.

It’s not difficult at all.

The market is clearly saying the players are not fungible. No one is forcing these rates. The buy side is willing to spend a lot for free agents with no previous affiliation with the university

It is not like athletes are aggregating to inflate labor costs.

It’s no different than coaching salaries. Coaches are affiliated with universities, but they for decades have market value inherent to their resume

If you’re wondering why the salaries are increasing in such fashion, it’s because unlike most every other industry, the buy side isn’t profit driven. (Plus some fervor due to labor costs artificially suppressed for decades)

Businesses can now use out-spending on the most pertinent input to improve market share. This means that even for profit driven businesses, over spending can be justified if leading to long term benefits. Multiple cycle planning

 

[cykadelic2]

Literally every other country on earth is able to have 'developmental' sports below the professional level that aren't hooked to universities.

And your last paragraph is exactly what we already have, we just call it 'college sports' so we feel better.

No, my last paragraph is not exactly what we already have. Last I checked, a majority of FB and MBB players are getting degrees and you're again ignoring the economic model that college athletic programs operate under and the tax exempt status they have in doing so.