College Sports are Falling Apart
Whether College Football Plays or not, things are about to change
Organized college sports are among the oldest continuous team sports operations in the country. College Football predates the NFL by 50 years. College basketball predates the NBA by an even longer period. Just take a look at this timeline:
College football: 1869
The National League: 1876
College basketball: 1895
The American League: 1901
National Hockey League: 1917
National Football League: 1919
National Basketball Association: 1947
College sports have been many things over time. A tool for physical fitness. A way to promote colleges and universities. A source of school pride. And eventually, big business. Very big business.
But the model has been the same for a long time, at least insofar as most Division I scholarship athletes go. A student-athlete attends school to play a sport. In return, they attend college and get room and board for free.
I mean, that’s the model the NCAA sells you. A lot of people truly know that for many athletes playing Division I college football and basketball, a lot of these “student-athletes” are attending major schools in hopes to play professionally someday. With due respect to my friend and our resident college football guru Justin Ready, most football players are going to Alabama to play for Coach Nick Saban and not because of their U.S. News & World Report ranking.
College sports are already suffering thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cancellation of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in March drastically hurt the NCAA’s finances generally and its member institutions particularly. Since revenues from college basketball and college football fund the rest of university athletic programs, that cancellation led to scores of schools cutting non-revenue sports in order to trim athletic budgets. That creates even more problems for schools as they run into Title IX restrictions on equal opportunities for male and female athletes.
Now the discussion comes to the fall college football season, and whether or not the season will be played. Smaller conferences like the Mid-American Conference have already canceled, and now the discussion has moved to the “Power 5” conferences. And the entire thing is more complicated than it truly seems.
Initial decisions of the Big 10 and the Pac-12 conferences indicate that their leadership is going to cancel or postpone their seasons. The ACC, Big 12, and SEC have not indicated their decisions yet.
But that’s the decision of leadership. The players want to play. The #WeWantToPlay movement, led by Clemson quarterback and likely #1 overall NFL pick Trevor Lawrence, has organized football players from across the country in a unified effort to save the season. Many college coaches are supporting their players. Even President Trump weighed in.
The players have formed a de facto union in support of playing, the first organized union-like organization across college football outside of the failed attempt of Northwestern’s team to organize. Though it is unclear if the players can formally unionize, you have to call it what it is.
The creation of this proto-union comes at a time where players are going to get paid (legally; we see you Florida State) for playing college sports. The NCAA will soon be rolling out their guidelines on paying players for their name, image, and likeness rights, the result of state laws and a long-running lawsuit against the NCAA.
So there are many different factors here as to the moving pieces with college athletics:
College administrators want to cancel the football season to mitigate risk and liability;
The cancellation of football will lead to a further reduction of non-revenue sports;
The elimination of non-revenue sports has Title IX implications that may ultimately impact the number of players colleges can allow to play in revenue sports;
At a time where players will be getting paid and may face reductions in opportunities, players are organizing across revenue sports for the first time;
Schools in conferences that might cancel the season may go rogue: Nebraska and Ohio State are already rumbling about playing anyway. And that will destabilize conferences and their broadcast partners.
Ultimately, it’s a giant freaking mess.
Here’s what we do know; the entire face of college sports is going to change. It’s going to change across all institutions, from Abilene Christian to Youngstown State. It’s going to change across all sports. from college football to college bowling. And it’s going to change across all conferences, from the Southeastern Conference to the Centennial Conference.
Some sports may get eliminated.
Some schools may eliminate athletics.
Some sports may leave the NCAA entirely.
All we know is that change is coming.