New NCAA Division I Governance Structure Model Released

[SactoHornetFan]

Well, here is the proposal. It gives 60% control to the Power 5 conferences of FBS.

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/DI%20Steering%20Commitee%20on%20Gov%20Proposed%20M odel%2007%2018%2014%204.pdf

Interesting to note, it allows any Div. I conference (FCS and non-football schools) to option of going along with implementing autonomous procedures or not.

Discuss away.

[Bogus Megapardus]

Thank you for this post, Sacto. Lots to discuss here.

[Bogus Megapardus]

. . . reading . . . the self-serving euphemisms lay thick, so far . . .

[Lehigh Football Nation]

The steering committee removed transfers from the autonomy list – with a caveat. The five conferences requested autonomy over transfers if substantial change isn’t accomplished within the new structure’s first two years.



Could someone explain this to me? It looks and smells like blackmail to get everyone else's approval.

[SactoHornetFan]

I see this as a way to widen the gulf between FBS (G5) and FCS.

It also increases the size of this already huge bureaucracy xsmhx

[CrazyCat]

We'll see. Depends on which FCS schools implement the new "benefits" and how they do it with partial scholarships being involved. Do they just offer it to top recruits on their board? Do they implement some sort of % of scholarship?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

I'm starting to think that less unites the members of the P5 than people think, and when Duke and Stanford are asked to tow the line so that Ohio State and Florida State can do something.... hilarity might ensue.

[walliver]

I'm starting to think that less unites the members of the P5 than people think, and when Duke and Stanford are asked to tow the line so that Ohio State and Florida State can do something.... hilarity might ensue.

Duke's endowment is based in tobacco money. Duke Medical School may rail against tobacco, but the schools hasn't given back Mr. Duke's money. Duke will play along.

[gumby013]

I see this as a way to widen the gulf between FBS (G5) and FCS.

It also increases the size of this already huge bureaucracy xsmhx

But the report says the new structure will make them more nimble!

...by adding new layers of governance, councils, and student and faculty representatives...

[TribeNomad]

But the report says the new structure will make them more nimble!

...by adding new layers of governance, councils, and student and faculty representatives...
Nimble is a word I would never use when a discussion includes government or the educational bureaucracy.

[RichH2]

Just finished it. The word obfuscation comes to mind. Wade thru the verbiage one realizes most of it is window dressing to ease the conscious of the Presidents supporting this venture. While lots of words about student athletes ,their needs and protection,one finds very little concrete mandate to actually accomplish that. Essentially,the document states in stark terms that the money is ours and if you dont go along with this proposal we will leave. Gekko would be proud,smh

[Lehigh Football Nation]

The issue on which the P5 are supposedly united is athlete stipends. In fact, the alleged basis for the P5's decision to seek autonomy is so they can implement it independent of 85% of the membership. But what I'm discovering is that the expensive private schools in expensive metro areas (Duke, Stanford) are starting to freak out. They're probably going to have to spend at least double the money for stipends than, say, Ohio State will. Add to this the public schools in expensive metro areas: UCLA, NC State, who will also have to spend more just to "keep up". Then there's the Pell Grant issue - does the stipend invalidate the Pell Grant? Then there's the NCAA general fund - does that assistance go away with stipends? There is hardly unanimity here - I think it might not even pass through the P5 as a result.

If the P5 can't ram stipends through, what on Earth can they do? Autonomy sort-of becomes a UN security council, with Alabama vetoing the things that benefit Ohio State, etc. It becomes a gigantic mess - a mess that the 85% of the membership now gets to gleefully watch as the P5 eat themselves.

You can even see this with the "speed of play" rules. Saban and the SEC wanted them, the Big XII was in an uproar. The P5 can't even agree on something like this.

[RichH2]

Unintended consequences and collateral damage likely from this gambit by P5. Autonomy does serve to contain most of this to that group. My hope is MCAA does arrive at some common sense rules for the students to alleviate the real issues they face. Cant totally accept premuse that the rich schools require different rules than the rest. College sports are supposed to be about students playing sports not about ADs and coaches making more money. In today's society, I guess I am just naive.

[Lehigh'98]

Unintended consequences and collateral damage likely from this gambit by P5. Autonomy does serve to contain most of this to that group. My hope is MCAA does arrive at some common sense rules for the students to alleviate the real issues they face. Cant totally accept premuse that the rich schools require different rules than the rest. College sports are supposed to be about students playing sports not about ADs and coaches making more money. In today's society, I guess I am just naive.

When hasn't it been about money? SMU death penalty, O'Bannon lawsuit, tv deals, useless bowl games, no playoffs, Scam Newton, Reggie Bush. At least they are starting to be honest about it now.

[RichH2]

Honest?Admitting that there is grasping for money and condoning it by changing system to facilitate it are not the same thing.

[Bogus Megapardus]

College sports are supposed to be about students playing sports not about ADs and coaches making more money. In today's society, I guess I am just naive.

The canned response to this always seems to be, "let them play DIII, then."

My thinking on this is old, tired and intractable but I'm still convinced that a world of "college football" that is so dominated (in the public's eye) by the Power 5 that all others might as well not exist, constitutes an economic monopoly. That's an unlawful trust - and the only question becomes whether ESPN's constitutional free speech rights trump federal anti-trust statues. Remember, there is no existing congressional anti-trust exemption for college sports (as there is for MLB and, to a lesser extent, the NFL).

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), pretty much lays out what the NCAA can and cannot do. Read it here:

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=NCAA+v.+Board+of+Regents+of+the+Uni versity+of+Oklahoma,&hl=en&as_sdt=6,31&case=6175968099923315390&scilh=0)

Of course, none of the members of the Supreme Court responsible for that decision (or its dissenters) remains on the Court today.

[MplsBison]

For those who don't want to slog through the document itself, I think this article does a fairly nice job of summarizing the key points.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/07/18/ncaa-governance-proposal-autonomy-power-5-conferences/12830313/

This graphic in particular does a great job of explaining the meat of what is going to be voted on by the board in August:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bs1Yl-CIIAAN8jQ.png:large

So it's important to realize here that the NCAA board is just voting to update the way that the P5 schools can create new legislation to benefit student athletes.

They're not voting on all the changes that the P5 schools want to implement themselves.


If the new structure is approved, it will pave the way for major conferences — and others in Div. I who want to adopt their legislation — to make significant rules changes including full cost of attendance scholarships. The five power leagues will have until Oct. 1 to write their first proposals to be considered and possibly adopted in January at the 2015 NCAA convention.



"Generally speaking, for those of us who wanted to stay inside the NCAA and do things in a big tent, keep the tournament intact, keep the opportunities intact and hopefully re-establish in a better way a collegiate model that's been under attack from a lot of perspectives, hopefully part of the restructuring and reform will allow us to affect the narrative and to affect the experience of thousands of athletes," Delany said.

[MplsBison]

We'll see. Depends on which FCS schools implement the new "benefits" and how they do it with partial scholarships being involved. Do they just offer it to top recruits on their board? Do they implement some sort of % of scholarship?

The valuation of a full scholarship is going to increase in Division I, regardless what FCS or non-football DI schools think about that.

For example, at North Dakota St or Montana St any student-athlete may be allowed to receive an addition $2k as part of his/her scholarship. But that doesn't mean the school has to award it or will choose to award it.

It's really no different than if these schools said "you know, we already give you $15k a year for tuition, room and board payments, we're not going to give you another $1k a year to pay fees, sorry."


To your partial scholarship question -- at the end of the day, it's just dollars. It doesn't really matter toward which "category of expense" the money technically is intended to cover.

In other words, if a student-athlete receives $7k scholarship that is intended to cover his tuition payment, that still leaves him with a school account in the negative around $8k when you consider fees, room and board. Then you throw on books, lab materials and general cost of living and that could be another 2-3k. Those things all have to be paid by money.

So if the school said "hey, here's another $2k for your cost of living", at the end of the day that's just increasing his dollars from $7k to $9k. He's still got bills to pay, regardless.


I think the thing that may be confusing or hard for folks is that they're going to need to stop thinking in colloquial terms of "full scholarship" or "half scholarship". It all comes down to total dollars provided.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

So if the school said "hey, here's another $2k for your cost of living", at the end of the day that's just increasing his dollars from $7k to $9k. He's still got bills to pay, regardless.

So a B1G school can now offer $9-10k for 1/2 a 14k scholarship, while Robert Morris can only offer $7k for the same 1/2 scholarship. That is, once Title IX mandates that the benefits of the stipend needs to be instituted for women's sports equally.

Nah, no competitive advantage there.


I think the thing that may be confusing or hard for folks is that they're going to need to stop thinking in colloquial terms of "full scholarship" or "half scholarship". It all comes down to total dollars provided.

Way to rewrite the rulebook for every sport in the NCAA, excluding only FBS football and perhaps basketball. If "half scholarship" is indeed colloquial, the entire NCAA needs to be overhauled to reflect this new reality where women's fencing is now a headcount sport where it's either full scholarship or nothing.

[MplsBison]

LFN I can only conclude that your lack of comprehension is on purpose, to best suit your propaganda campaign.

The NCAA allows schools to provide student-athletes with money that amounts to fractions of a "full" scholarship value in every sport. That isn't changing. The only thing that's changing is the dollar amount of a "full" scholarship value.

Here are two hypothetical scenarios to help with your comprehension.

- Let's say that for the 2014-15 school year, the University of Minnesota will provide 83 football players some amount of money via a scholarship. As you noted, because FBS football is a headcount sport that means the UofM will be at 83 scholarship headcounts for the 2014 season (with 85 as the maximum limit for FBS).

But when you actually look at the dollars to be provided, you find on average each player will receive only 98% of the dollars considered to be a "full" scholarship value for that school year.


- Let's say that for the 2014-15 school year, North Dakota State University will provide 83 football players some amount of money via a scholarship. FCS football, on the other hand, is an equivalency sport, meaning the limit is then directly related to the amount of money being provided to the players.

When you actually look at the dollars to be provided, you find on average each player will receive only 72% of the dollars considered to be a "full" scholarship value for that school year. That means that NDSU is providing 83 * 0.72 = 59.76 equivalencies to its football players (with 63 as the maximum limit for FCS).



Now let's pretend that for the 2014-15 school year, scholarship enhancements were approved and the entire DI membership was free to implement them as well.

Thus, a "full" scholarship value for the school year at each school would have increased by some amount (related to factors like the cost of living in that city, etc.).


Thus, if both schools provided the same money under the new rules:

- U of M would still be at 83 scholarship headcounts but perhaps would only be providing 95% of the dollars considered to be a "full" scholarship value for that school year, to each player on average.

- NDSU would perhaps only be providing 65% of the dollars considered to be a "full" scholarship value for that school year, to each player on average. Meaning their equivalencies would drop to 83 * 0.65 = 53.95.


It would be up to each school to decide if they want to provide additional dollars to the players as they would have then been allowed to do under the updated rules. Each school has to determine if they have the extra dollars to give in the first place and the potential ramifications of doing that for their particular situation.



There is no additional advantage in any of this for the big schools that they don't already have right now over smaller schools. It comes down to dollars and who has more dollars to provide to student athletes in the ways that are legal per NCAA rules.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

NDSU would perhaps only be providing 65% of the dollars considered to be a "full" scholarship value for that school year, to each player on average. Meaning their equivalencies would drop to 83 * 0.65 = 53.95.

So by redefining the definition of "scholarship", NDSU magically has gained six more equivalencies?

You're making the gigantic assumption that the other 85% decide to implement this. If they don't, then there are two definitions of "scholarships": one for the P5, one for everyone else. Then you have to define what are "partial scholarships". And whether, with stipends, men's scholarships and women's scholarships are the same.

[MplsBison]

So by redefining the definition of "scholarship", NDSU magically has gained six more equivalencies?

You're making the gigantic assumption that the other 85% decide to implement this. If they don't, then there are two definitions of "scholarships": one for the P5, one for everyone else. Then you have to define what are "partial scholarships". And whether, with stipends, men's scholarships and women's scholarships are the same.

NDSU hasn't gained or lost a single iota, in the example I gave.

Average player costs for 2014-15 school year at NDSU (hypothetical example):

Tuition: 8k
Fees: 1.5k
Room: 4k
Board: 4k
Books: 0.5k

"Full" scholarship value without COL: 18k

Cost of living: 2k

"Full" scholarship value COL INCLUDED: 20k


In my example, without cost of living NDSU was providing 83 players on average 72% of the "full" scholarship value, which is equal to 83 * 0.72 * 18k = $1,075,680 = 59.76 equivalencies * 18k cost of a single equivalency.

But if the "full" scholarship value increased to 20k by including COL and NDSU did not want to spend any more than the $1,075,680 they were already spending, then their equivalency count drops to 83 * 0.648 * 20k = $1,075,680 = 53.95 equivalencies * 20k cost of a single equivalency.


It might appear that NDSU now magically can offer six more full scholarships, but you see how that's false. First of all, if they offered any money to six additional players then they'd have 89 players on scholarship which is over the limit (85 max, same as FBS).

Second of all, the money does not appear out of thin air. If they want to decide to spend an extra 6 * 20k = $120,000, they'll have to come up with that money somewhere.

Third, this is no different than how it is now. If a school wants to give more players some money without spending more total money, then it has to deny the maximum money possible to some or all of the players already receiving money.



There are as many definitions of "full" scholarship value as there are DI members. Every school has a unique number for what constitutes a "full" scholarship. How do you not know this already?

You can't possibly think that the NCAA has a a single dollar number for every DI member as to what constitutes having provided a "full" scholarship?? How would that possibly work when you have public and private schools in DI? Tuition costs are vastly different.

And for public schools, it's even more complicated because tuition costs vary depending on residency. So the "full" value for one player could be different than another player's "full" value.

[Bill]

Just trying to add to the discussion...here's a simple link about full scholarships...more to come. Need an updated one!

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/how-do-athletics-scholarships-work