Why are we not fighting Title IX and mandated sports?

[ragtimejoe1]

Two things G5 Presidents should be aggressively pursuing is alterations to Title IX and to the mandated number of sports to remain in FBS, D1, or whatever it is called now.

Regarding Title IX, it should be altered to read that if the sport generates ___ % of the revenue for the entire Athletic Department, then that sport is exempt from Title IX. I would say keeping the entire AD afloat is more than fair and more than enough of a contribution to both men's and women's sports.

Secondly, when the big dogs want their autonomy, we should be getting some for us too. The major one I see is let smaller conferences choose how many sports they require. Perhaps we can do fewer sports but do a better job in those.

 

[McPeachy]

Tough situation.

As the "Equality State" Wyoming will be the last to shit on non-revenue women's athletics.

That said, I certainly think that football should be excluded from the Title IX counts & such.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

Title IX is a US education law, not an NCAA law, mandate, regulation, etc. G5 can talk all they want about changing Title IX, the federal government will tell them to go pound sand and deal with it...or lose federal financial assistance.

As for the mandated number of sports, that is something they could certainly look at.

 

[cowboyz]

At the end of the day, unpaid teenagers combined with billion dollar industries, is never going to work out as a fair deal for anyone. They've built these weird conferences around football and men's basketball (the money sports). Then to compete against your conference foes, schools are purchasing airline tickets, securing hotels and supplying food to send their golf teams, their tennis teams, volleyball teams etc. all around the country, to compete in front of dozens to a couple hundred non-paying or low-paying fans. Plus many schools are paying the coaches on these sports a lot of money. This makes zero sense.

With most schools, football and men's basketball can cover these expenses with revenue. In fact, with many schools, they make a profit. What needs to happen is for those in power to recognize this farce and deal with it. I believe you carve out football and basketball from the NCAA and treat it for what it really is, the minor league for the NFL and the NBA. Let it be financed by the revenue from ticket sales, TV, etc. And not from ripping off students that could give a shit by adding a sports fee to tuition, or from the taxpayers that could give a shit by taxing them to prop up a money losing sports program.

Sure they'd need rules similar to the NFL, salary caps, equal TV revenue sharing, a fair split on the live gate, etc. But that's okay, as it'd be a minor league professional sports league. I suppose some players might want to trade their salary for an education, but let it be their decision.

In football we would then have the NFL, the Minor Football League, and college football. We might land in college football, but that's where we are today, and I like it. We'd be playing all the same teams and competing for the same conference title and bowl games, with the exception of the Oregon type games, now off our schedule. Although maybe the college teams could play the MFL teams in pre-season or in showcase games, not unlike the FBS/FCS warm-ups of today. Only that they won't count on anyone's record.

Then we keep title IX, as it's fair-ish, but reduce the total amount of scholarships and reduce the travel and coaching budgets. It'll bring some temporary sanity to college sports. And a few years into it, the Texas' and Alabama's of the world will see their fan base shrinking, as no one reallllly likes minor league sports. You either want to see the best of the best (NFL) or the passion of young college students competing for a ring. That's why the big conferences are not simply telling the NCAA to fuck off and do whatever they'd like. They have the resources, but they NEED to give the illusion of amateurism, as that's the a large part of the appeal to the fan base.

And while I'm ranting about scholarships, when will we end another farce The idea behind athletic scholarships is to give a young person with "different talents" a chance at an affordable education. I'm okay with this as we want our universities well-rounded, we have music scholarships, dancing scholarships, why not athletics? However, when did these scholarships become "USA Universities give free or reduced educations to foreign athletes"? That sort of punches a hole right through the "different talents" argument and takes it straight to 'we will do whatever we feel we need to do to win". Sure, there are good players in many sports or that can blow a horn etc. from all over the world. But how about we let their countries reward their young men and women with "different talents" and reward our own. Shit, we already defend the world and feed the world, do we also have to give up our limited American scholarships to educate the world as well?

 

[Brew_Poke]

Because we believe in equality?

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Because we believe in equality?

IMO, the equality angle is covered if the revenue sports permit the existence of non-revenue sports.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

At the end of the day, unpaid teenagers combined with billion dollar industries, is never going to work out as a fair deal for anyone. They've built these weird conferences around football and men's basketball (the money sports). Then to compete against your conference foes, schools are purchasing airline tickets, securing hotels and supplying food to send their golf teams, their tennis teams, volleyball teams etc. all around the country, to compete in front of dozens to a couple hundred non-paying or low-paying fans. Plus many schools are paying the coaches on these sports a lot of money. This makes zero sense.

With most schools, football and men's basketball can cover these expenses with revenue. In fact, with many schools, they make a profit. What needs to happen is for those in power to recognize this farce and deal with it. I believe you carve out football and basketball from the NCAA and treat it for what it really is, the minor league for the NFL and the NBA. Let it be financed by the revenue from ticket sales, TV, etc. And not from ripping off students that could give a shit by adding a sports fee to tuition, or from the taxpayers that could give a shit by taxing them to prop up a money losing sports program.

Sure they'd need rules similar to the NFL, salary caps, equal TV revenue sharing, a fair split on the live gate, etc. But that's okay, as it'd be a minor league professional sports league. I suppose some players might want to trade their salary for an education, but let it be their decision.

In football we would then have the NFL, the Minor Football League, and college football. We might land in college football, but that's where we are today, and I like it. We'd be playing all the same teams and competing for the same conference title and bowl games, with the exception of the Oregon type games, now off our schedule. Although maybe the college teams could play the MFL teams in pre-season or in showcase games, not unlike the FBS/FCS warm-ups of today. Only that they won't count on anyone's record.

An interesting take, and I could see some schools even looking at trying it. The biggest caveat I see with this is that if they are doing this as an attempt to circumvent Title IX, there will be some big changes for those programs. Let's use Texas for example.

Texas says screw Title IX, we are going to separate our football and basketball teams to get around it. They could no longer call themselves the University of Texas Longhorns. They could say the Longhorns, or maybe even the Texas Longhorns, but they could never associate themselves with the University. They also couldn't give athletes an education in exchange for playing. They could pay the players and then the players could use that money to pay for tuition, but it couldn't be an exchange or a direct payment of any sort.

Basically the 2 programs could have zero direct ties to the University. If they did the University would risk being sued and/or losing federal monies which, despite the money that athletics brings in, is a far bigger number.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Title IX is a US education law, not an NCAA law, mandate, regulation, etc. G5 can talk all they want about changing Title IX, the federal government will tell them to go pound sand and deal with it...or lose federal financial assistance.

I meant fight it at the Federal level. College sports has changed dramatically. If CFB, for example, essentially pays scholarships and facilities for all of the Women's sports, how is it unfair to exempt CFB from Title IX? In this example CFB is affording many women the opportunity to participate.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

Ah, I see your point. I thought you meant fighting it or changing the rules at the NCAA level now that they have the autonomy to do so. Misunderstanding on my part.

 

[cowboyz]

Texas says screw Title IX, we are going to separate our football and basketball teams to get around it. They could no longer call themselves the University of Texas Longhorns. They could say the Longhorns, or maybe even the Texas Longhorns, but they could never associate themselves with the University. They also couldn't give athletes an education in exchange for playing. They could pay the players and then the players could use that money to pay for tuition, but it couldn't be an exchange or a direct payment of any sort.

Basically the 2 programs could have zero direct ties to the University. If they did the University would risk being sued and/or losing federal monies which, despite the money that athletics brings in, is a far bigger number.
This is what I am suggesting, that these are separate entities, for the reasons you mention. I don't have a problem with keeping the name, The University of Texas Longhorns, for instance, for nothing else but to give it the identity they desire. Sort of like the New York Jets. They aren't really tied to New York, other than they use the name in New York in their own name. But when they say it, we all give it a location of who the team represents. Maybe the minors would pay a licensing fee to the school for name and image rights. What they are trying to do, it seems, is get away from the regulations, to exploit their income producing sports. Well, I think that they can't have their cake and eat it too. Are they an institution of higher learning, that to be well-rounded offer their students athletic opportunities? Or are they an institution that offers higher education, but also has this fun thing on the side that both costs and generates tons of cash, that is pretty much a failure at seeing these kids complete an education and becoming well-rounded? Most of these kids are athletes first that attend class because they have to. They are not really getting a true "college experience".

I still support Title IX, but let's not send these teams all over the country because they are in a conference that makes sense for the football team. And let's not pay the coaches these salaries, just to appear fair. Many coaches would take on these roles for a hell of a lot less pay, and the athletic experience could be accomplished on bus trips to play teams in the Rockies. There's not a need to fly these teams to California, etc. Can you imagine that very recently SDS was about to send all of their teams (golf, swimming, tennis, etc.) across the country multiple times per season, just because they thought it made sense for the football and basketball teams, as was Boise State. It's crazy.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

It seems you are alluding that some coaches salaries are bloated as a result of Title IX?? Maybe I'm misreading you here, but if that is what you are suggesting, I don't think that is the case. Title IX wouldn't apply to coaches, only to the athletes and programs involved. A school can pay a coach as much or as little as they desire, as long as the coach agrees to it. They could pay the men's teams coaches $50 million and pay the women's teams coaches $50 and it wouldn't be illegal from a Title IX standpoint (but possible sexual discrimination depending on the coaches genders).

Again, maybe I misunderstood your point.

 

[cowboyz]

I realize that Title IX doesn't pertain to coaches, but I think that the universities have lost perspective. I can see the reasons for the big conferences for income producing sports, but then they take it to that next level with the "who cares" sports, for competition (we're #1) sakes. Winning a conference title in almost every sport means nothing to most people, so why do we spend the money on coaches, scholarships, travel etc. for these sports. I feel that it's a mentality of "we've spent the money on the scholarships, so we may as well spend a boatload on a coaching staff as well". If we have less scholarships, now that we needn't have the 85 football scholarships matched, I feel it'll bring the scope down a bit over the entire sports programs. The teams will still fill up with willing players, and if they don't then maybe the sport never should have been sanctioned.

 

[billings]

San diego and boise were joining a west coast league for all sports but football and were not going to send all those sports to the east coast