Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, and Quarterbacks

From May 2012

I was listening to a conversation on sports radio regarding the banning of college football and I had all sorts of crazy thought and ideas.

Keep in mind that I’m a 40 year-old white male who loves both college and pro sports – especially football, basketball and soccer! I’m a Seahawks season ticket holder, lifelong athlete (mostly soccer) and I’ve coached youth sports at various levels for over 15 years.

When I hear most people complain about college sports, football in particular and to a lesser degree men's basketball, what I distill out of the conversation is a frustration with the degree to which the sports have grown into a business, and how revenue from television increases the expectations for wins…and how that trickles down to effect recruiting, facilities development, coaching, etc. Certainly the games are entertaining and enjoyable, but at a huge cost – literately and figuratively. I think everyone agrees that to some extent it’s 'out of hand.’

The radio program mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal claiming that sports don’t support the goal of an academic institution. I disagree. As a long time coach, I fully believe that the true value in sports is as a metaphor for life, and that the lessons we learn from playing – and watching – are critical to our development as people who live and work in dynamic communities. Sport develops our self confidence, self awareness, teamwork, responsibility, empathy, problem solving, leadership, and a healthy respect for playing specific roles as well as when to respect and when to question authority. Sports also develop community and camaraderie amongst fans (of each team). Because I believe that, I believe that sports should always have a place along side academics in institutes of learning and student development; at all levels!

Having said that, I’m going to propose something very radical…

My Big Idea:

Privatize the industry that college football and basketball have become.

By that I mean take the coaches, the players (the ones who are only, or mostly, in college for the athletics), the non-student fans, the TV contracts, the uniform contracts, the marketing, and so on…and make it private. Let the revenue support the infrastructure outside of the college environment. What that would give you is a true NFL and NBA minor league system made up of regional teams that travel, compete, are on television, fill stadiums, sell jerseys, and maybe most importantly, pay players a market value. When players are good enough or old enough, they can get drafted to the full-pro league. European soccer, baseball, and to a degree basketball, have already made something like this work!

What happens back at the universities? The values that I listed above, that I so wholeheartedly believe can be learned by participating and competing in sports, can be learned just as fully at a recreational level as at a semi-professional level – if not better! So why not let sports at a place of learning be about the learning environment for both players and fans, and let the business of sports entertainment be a business.

Make college athletics a much lower impact venture, again. Continue to have teams for all sports so that students get the value of participation, competition, and supporting a team; but let them resemble a small D3 program, or college-club level, or lower. Teams get a coach or two, some uniforms and equipment, shorter seasons, regional travel only, etc. The NCAA could even set a budget cap and a revenue cap (to keep history from repeating itself) for each sport!

Look, I went to art school, which had very limited sports - mostly just intramural sports that often resembled a pick-up game. However we had a hockey team that was extremely low budget, played only a few games against local schools, and lost all of them by huge double-digit margins. Guess what…our student body were ravenous supporters and would turn out for 10pm games to scream and chant! It didn't take wins or a big budget, or even a home ice (we used another local school’s building), it just took having a team to watch and share...and maybe the idea of getting to shout "GO Nads!" for a couple hours.

I don’t think the problem that we talk about with college football (de facto professionalism) only exists in college football, I think its trickled down to basketball, and soccer, and track, and softball, and baseball, LAX, and so on. Football created the problem, and basketball followed first, but to some degree all the sports are following suit. The trend now is to model each college athletic program after the professional structure, in every sport! The pressure is on for all coaches to recruit and win, and that means players train and practice more, need a bigger medical and support staff, more academic support for lost study time, and on and on and on.

Probably only football and basketball can afford to support themselves as a private industry, so maybe only those should. But reducing expenses and expectations at colleges across the board would be required, and who knows, the MLS or NHL might have enough players for developmental leagues.

I know that currently football pays for everything else and the idea of losing it would collapse the system. But it’s not the only way to pay for everything else, and as the expense of all sports has gone up the burden of paying has become part of the problem. Change the system so it doesn’t collapse. I think if you were to reduce expectations and costs for all sports colleges could find the funding. Why does a university need a bigger football budget than a high school team? Why does the university soccer team need a bigger budget than a select U-15 team? I don’t even have a problem with a publicly funded college operating sports at a loss, if I know my tax dollars are actually supporting a valuable student service…and not propping up a multimillion dollar industry!

Like I said, radical…