Power conferences' increased autonomy could affect C-USA

[Harry]

According to the Associated Press, the major conferences could address issues such as providing money to students above the traditional scholarships and expanded insurance.

The “next five” FBS leagues waiting to see what happens in the power conferences are the American Athletic Conference, C-USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt.

After adding football and moving into C-USA, UTSA's athletics budget has increased by more than 100 percent during the past five years, according to the university.

UTSA has covered the costs, largely with the use of a student athletics fee, bringing in a projected $24.3 million this year, compared to $23.4 million in expenses, according to university records.

Whatever new NCAA legislation is enacted, Hickey said C-USA members will need to respond with “good judgments.”

“We definitely want to be competitive at the highest level,” she said. “But at the same time, we're going to have to make decisions based financially on what we can legitimately handle so that we're not running a bad business.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/college_sports/utsa/article/Power-conferences-increased-autonomy-could-5435419.php

[Harry]

With Hickey's comments, we are starting to get a feel for how this whole thing may play out.

And yes it is all about the money.

Scenario: Let's say it's going to come down to the p5 group voting to allow for an additional $2K given to each football player (105 x $2k = which would be an additional $210K to the budget annually).

So if you are UTSA or UNT, you have to make a business decision to either comply with what the big boys vote for or not. $210 may be a bigger issue for one school as opposed to another. So Banowsky and C-USA has to get the Prez's together and make a vote themselves.

I could even envision a situation where a conference, let's say the MAC agrees to fork over the $2k per player but only for the 85 scholarship players, lowering the total annual to $170K and saving $40K....

But here is the rub. In this litigious society that we live in today - -is it possible for the big boys to say we will pay our football players an additional stipend of $2K and not do the same or similar for the other sports? I can see a mom of a women's softball player filing a discrimination law suit or something like that. Can a conference rightfully pay one male sport and not another or would they have to equalize the amounts ie title 9 to provide for female athletes?

Back to the original point... $210K is a DROP in the bucket for Ohio State or Texas. But for the g5 schools it could be the difference between hanging on to a key assistant coach.

And like Hickey says, the big concern on these changes are how much does this affect the perception of the p5 vs. g5 in the minds of the alumni, donors, recruits, fans etc...

Those following recruiting already know that the perceived difference is already a mile long. The budgets, TV, bowl access, endowments, support staff, facilities etc make it a very clear divide.

If I was to guess, I would suggest that the first steps are baby steps that the AAC's and C-USA/Mountain West's of the world can stomach.

My fear is not the Big Boys -- they already hold a huge advantage over the rest of us. It's the AAC.... what if the p5 enacts a policy that the AAC can fund and the other 4 can't? I just want us to be in the group that can.

[UNT90]

Remind me again:

Why aren't we increasing the Athletic Fee as was our right, even though our piss poor Chancellor failed to protect this legislation in Austin?

[Arkstfan]

We've not seen this hypothetical stipend.

What we can figure out using knowledge of the system and some applied logic is this:

1. The stipend will not exceed actualy cost of attendance as determined by Federal Student Aid guidelines, that triggers tax and employment issues.

2. The stipend will likely be less than "calculated full cost of attendance" and be a flat national amount simply because Clemson won't want Georgia Tech paying more than they do because cost of living in Atlanta is higher, Iowa won't want Maryland, Northwestern, and Rutgers paying more cash. Washington State won't want USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford paying more. Iowa State won't want Texas and TCU paying more. Even though differing amounts would in theory have the same buying power, no one trusts 17 year olds to understand that and go with the school offering the greater cash.

3. The last stipend was head count sports only, that may change because there are far more head count spots in men's sports than women's (men FBS football and men's basketball, women its women's hoops, volleyball, gymnastics). If stipend comes to equivalency sports there will be a fierce battle over whether it is stipend per full ride or per athlete.

4. If it is head count only that will drastically contain costs, Sam Houston for example wouldn't be able to offer a football stipend because FCS football is equivalency.

5. I think the insurance issue may not be that significant. Most student athletes should now be insured under ACA, at most you are looking at some form of supplemental plan, but I suspect unless controlling state law is not favorable, most schools self-insure so you are probably looking at something that picks up co-pays and deductibles.

6. The unanswered question for ACA is this. If a school is providing treatment (physical therapy, medications, etc.) at the direction of a physician, is the institution a provider that can bill Medicaid or private insurance.

7. Forget 5 and 6, neither applies that much to UNT because Texas isn't participating in Medicaid expansion.

[GrayEagle]

What if the P5 conferences decide to give the $2,000 supplement to all athletes? Now, instead of $200,000 we're now talking about $600,000 per annum.

What would happen if half of the CUSA schools agreed to pay the additional stipend and half didn't? Would the Conference have to split if any number of schools decided that they couldn't afford it? It seems to me that if they stayed together in one conference then the one's that agreed to the supplement would have a tremendus recruiting advantage over those who did not.

What if the change affected FBS membership, forcing those that did not comply to drop to FCS? That could force a big turnover in football revenue since the FBS receives the giant portion of the total. It wouldn't force any revenue in the other sports or force anyone out of Division I but it would force those without heavy football revenue to concentrate on basketball.

It seems to me that the P5's could also require an increase in average attendance, stadium size, expenses, number of sports, etc. that they could meet but the majority of the G5 members couldn't and that would allow them to take an even greater portion of the pie.

I'm still trying to understand how their needs are so much greater than that of the other FBS universities. I haven't found a definitive answer other than greed and power. It's destroyed nations and empires...the NCAA doesn't have a chance.

Edited May 5, 2014 by GrayEagle

[Harry]

But you can sense from Hickey's comments that she hopes UTSA will be in a place that allows them to participate in whatever the p5 decides to enact....

quick aside -- when I say p5 I mean Texas A&M, Ohio State et al

when I say g5 I mean us, C-USA AAC, Belt etc..

Arkstfan pointed this out to me the other day and it was worth sharing.

[NorthTexan95]

It seems to me that the P5's could also require an increase in average attendance, stadium size, expenses, number of sports, etc. that they could meet but the majority of the G5 members couldn't and that would allow them to take an even greater portion of the pie.

I'm still trying to understand how their needs are so much greater than that of the other FBS universities. I haven't found a definitive answer other than greed and power. It's destroyed nations and empires...the NCAA doesn't have a chance.

I don't think the P5's could get away with requiring average attendance, stadium size, etc. NCAA tried that but backed down in the face of lawsuits.

[untjim1995]

I think a $2k stipend is just the start to convince the lower-level FBS teams and FCS teams considering a jump up to know that its about to cost even more to play at the highest level. The SBC schools and lower-revenue teams in the MAC and CUSA are now being warned of what it will cost. Sure, we can probably pay this, since we have the ability (if we choose) to increase a sports-fee for this. But schools like New Mexico State, ULM, Lamar, South Alabama, etc... that's who is going to get culled first. Maybe not all of them, but you get the idea. This won't affect the AAC or MWC at all. Schools with large enrollments in the MAC, CUSA, and SBC will be ok, at least for now.

Eventually, though, the AQs learned their lesson on setting up requirements based on attendance or stadium size--you can get around those fairly easily if you are creative enough. So the best way to get rid of these non-AQ people is to raise the price of poker--literally the ante is now $200k more than it was before. It won't stop there...its actually genius in an evil sort of way. Politically, the current mindset in the country deals alot with inequality of income for the INDIVIDUAL (note, not per school or company). You can get in front of your political base by saying that you are for giving the athlete a stipend to be used as needed because you are in favor of helping the student-athlete get by. Guess what? The AQ media, who gets their audiences from these schools, and the politicians, who have graduated from most of these AQ schools, will gladly trumpet this. Meanwhile, in places like Denton, where athletic spending garners a lot of negative attention and creates tension among the faculty and administration, this will be the perfect excuse to say that we cannot pay that much to play at that level. These schools will just enjoy playing at a lower level again, so as to avoid the costs associated with playing at the top level.

FBS football was meant to have no more than 80-90 members, tops...these schools cannot handle the idea that Georgia State has the same amount of VOTING power as Georgia. Paying players is a great way to keep the South Alabama's of the world from ever building up a program that could take any amount of resources and funding from Alabama. Pure greed, but its the way of the world in semi-pro athletics these days.

Edited May 5, 2014 by untjim1995

[NorthTexan95]

Always great to hear from Arkstfan. He always has great info.

My guess is this won't be a huge deal at this point. Most teams have put in a lot of effort to reach the top level and don't want to go back down. However, as untjim1995 pointed out, this is probably only the beginning. You could eventually see the g5 reduced down to the g3 or g2.

[TIgreen01]

We've not seen this hypothetical stipend.

What we can figure out using knowledge of the system and some applied logic is this:

1. The stipend will not exceed actualy cost of attendance as determined by Federal Student Aid guidelines, that triggers tax and employment issues.

2. The stipend will likely be less than "calculated full cost of attendance" and be a flat national amount simply because Clemson won't want Georgia Tech paying more than they do because cost of living in Atlanta is higher, Iowa won't want Maryland, Northwestern, and Rutgers paying more cash. Washington State won't want USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford paying more. Iowa State won't want Texas and TCU paying more. Even though differing amounts would in theory have the same buying power, no one trusts 17 year olds to understand that and go with the school offering the greater cash.

3. The last stipend was head count sports only, that may change because there are far more head count spots in men's sports than women's (men FBS football and men's basketball, women its women's hoops, volleyball, gymnastics). If stipend comes to equivalency sports there will be a fierce battle over whether it is stipend per full ride or per athlete.

4. If it is head count only that will drastically contain costs, Sam Houston for example wouldn't be able to offer a football stipend because FCS football is equivalency.

5. I think the insurance issue may not be that significant. Most student athletes should now be insured under ACA, at most you are looking at some form of supplemental plan, but I suspect unless controlling state law is not favorable, most schools self-insure so you are probably looking at something that picks up co-pays and deductibles.

6. The unanswered question for ACA is this. If a school is providing treatment (physical therapy, medications, etc.) at the direction of a physician, is the institution a provider that can bill Medicaid or private insurance.

7. Forget 5 and 6, neither applies that much to UNT because Texas isn't participating in Medicaid expansion.

This all sounds reasonable. However, my question is that if this is all that is going to happen, then why are we granting the P5 conferences "autonomy" to set the rules?

I understand that there are 300+ Division 1 schools, a majority of which do not compete in FBS football. I originally had thought that rule changes would fall along that dividing line---the FBS schools would split away as it is widely believed that most would vote together on stipends, etc. Why now cut that down to just P5?

Edited May 5, 2014 by TIgreen01

[the green rokemi]

That's what I'm not sure about. Who's voting on this? Do the non p5 schools out number the p5? Can they just over rule them or tweak the rules to make it more fair?

[TIgreen01]

That's what I'm not sure about. Who's voting on this? Do the non p5 schools out number the p5? Can they just over rule them or tweak the rules to make it more fair?

What I imagine is happening is that the FCS football and basketball only D1 schools are lining up with granting the P5 autonomy. They have no visions of truly competing against them and just want the lawsuit mess to go away. The G5 are probably against it. But you're talking about 50-60 G5 schools against 65 P5 schools + 150 smaller D1 schools. No idea what is required to pass this vote (simple majority, 2/3, 3/4, etc), but I imagine that the G5 is getting out politicked. Just a WAG....

[UNT90]

I imagine the G5 are perfectly happy to take an ass beating for a million or so bucks.

I think that is the gist of it. They haven't stood up for themselves for the past 20 years, why would they start now?

[Arkstfan]

Some great comments and questions, and when things are slow enough to give time to visit, I enjoy y'alls company.

A bit back there was a media led panic that the P5 were going to split and autonomy was the vehicle.

But no one took the time to ask why it was being done.

This all came about because of the O'Bannon lawsuit and similar cases. The NCAA was the defendant but the discovery was aimed at the P5 leagues, in other words potential future defendants. The media was hounding the NCAA and those schools about their exploitation of athletes, most notably the NY Times.

NCAA president Brand put together an emergency summit and the result was stipend, optional four year rides, recruiting de-regulation, etc.

It passes easily. Then the FCS and non-football schools (I-AAA) started complaining that they couldn't afford it and it created an unfair advantage. Because it was ramrodded there was no time given to let people really figure it out. UNT was looking at 125 athletes eligible for stipend. UTA 30. And the unfair advantage argument, pure silliness. Texas wasn't going to out-recruit Sam Houston because of stipend, they were going to out-recruit them because they are frickin' Texas.

So the vote gets over-ridden.

From a P5 perspective the whole episode is baffling. No one was being mandated to follow their lead, the legislation specifically said each conference would determine if they would follow. Yeah some schools would be a recruiting disadvantage but mostly to schools that were going to out-recruit them without a stipend.

The P5 and to a lesser degree the G5 schools were the ones getting the bad PR. Lot of stories about Kentucky making a bazillion dollars in basketball and denying the athletes some of the gravy, not many stories about Wichita State or Florida Gulf Coast raising their profile by "exploiting" athletes. The P5 and again to a lesser degree the G5 are the ones facing being sued (and such a suit naming all 10 FBS conferences as defendants was filed in the past two weeks).

The FCS and I-AAA schools in their quest to make Division I something they can fully afford, voted down legislation designed to protect the top schools.

The solution is autonomy. Never again can SFA band together with the 200+ schools in roughly the same boat and tell UT and TAMU, we don't care about your problems because we don't like your solution.

If all the proposals pass as proposed, the P5 will have a vote that counts more than anyone else, the G5 will a vote each that counts more than anyone but the P5. As proposed, the ten FBS conferences were they to be in complete agreement, will be able to pass division-wide legislation simply by all saying "yes" even if every other Division I conference says "no".

Basically the payback for not allowing FBS schools, specifically the P5, do what they think is essential, is potentially stripping the FCS and I-AAA a voice in the governance of Division I. The reality is the 5 power leagues rarely are in complete agreement and the G5 rarely vote as a bloc, but when stipend came up all the FBS leagues supported it and lost the battle. They are merely reprogramming the system so that if all of FBS agrees, they will win.

[Arkstfan]

I imagine the G5 are perfectly happy to take an ass beating for a million or so bucks.

I think that is the gist of it. They haven't stood up for themselves for the past 20 years, why would they start now?

Why would you not support spending $600,000 for a stipend? CUSA's 14 members will receive a minimum of $13 million from the CFP which grossly over-states CUSA's value to the CFP (honestly they don't need any of the G5 to get the money that is coming in) that will easily cover the costs of the stipend with money left over.

If the Mo Valley doesn't follow and adopt stipend (or isn't allowed to under the new autonomy plan, some questions remain whether it would require a division wide vote for I-AA and FCS) your coach visits the kid who could be a star at Wichita State and says we will give you a full ride same as Wichita but we will also put $2k in your pocket.

[Arkstfan]

What I imagine is happening is that the FCS football and basketball only D1 schools are lining up with granting the P5 autonomy. They have no visions of truly competing against them and just want the lawsuit mess to go away. The G5 are probably against it. But you're talking about 50-60 G5 schools against 65 P5 schools + 150 smaller D1 schools. No idea what is required to pass this vote (simple majority, 2/3, 3/4, etc), but I imagine that the G5 is getting out politicked. Just a WAG....

No I-AAA and FCS created the problem autonomy is designed to fix. G5 supports autonomy as currently presented (ie. we can do anything they do without permission from anyone but our conference, and we combined with P5 will be able to run the division).

[Arkstfan]

Always great to hear from Arkstfan. He always has great info.

My guess is this won't be a huge deal at this point. Most teams have put in a lot of effort to reach the top level and don't want to go back down. However, as untjim1995 pointed out, this is probably only the beginning. You could eventually see the g5 reduced down to the g3 or g2.

If not for the screwed up revenue distribution plan that the G5 crafted to deal with the CFP money, ideally there would be a G4 rather than G5 because greater concentration of members would provide greater TV revenue. Unfortunately the CFP distribution is so large that the cap discourages G5 leagues from growing past 12.

Consider AAC just on TV and CFP money. AAC is guaranteed at least $39.4 million or so and it should be larger. To go to 14 and keep everyone whole, two new members to AAC would have produce about $6.6 million in new TV money to be worth adding.

But for the artifical cap, two new members would need produce only $4.4 million. A 16 team or 18 team AAC taking the right schools would have significantly more leverage with television and might well be able to produce that extra money.

Remember when MWC signed with CSTV (now CBSS)? The WAC suddenly got a jolt in TV rights fees. Why? Because it was ESPN's only avenue to offer non-Pac-10 content to the West. It was the only way to get schools who could start games later in the evening. A 9pm central start in football isn't very practical for UNT, it is desirable for Fresno because that's 7pm local.

Look across a map of AAC, CUSA, Sun Belt. There is redundancy all in the system. Across the Gulf Coast outside of Texas you have AAC, CUSA, Sun Belt. North Louisiana, CUSA and Sun Belt. Mid-south region Sun Belt, CUSA and AAC. Florida AAC and CUSA. North Carolina CUSA and Sun Belt.

Just look at the old Fox SW footprint: AAC (Houston, SMU, Tulsa, Tulane), CUSA (UNT, UTEP, UTSA, Rice, LaTech), Sun Belt (AState, Texas State, ULL, ULM, NMSU), no one can bottle up Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Southern New Mexico) by signing one conference and if you lose one (in ESPN's case CUSA) you have alternatives that are roughly as appealing.

If not for the CFP distribution plan you would likely see the southeast and southwest reformulating into two conferences rather than three simply to gain leverage but the question now is does that leverage outweigh the loss of CFP money?

[North Texas Shep]

Arkstfan you always provide great insight and interesting content. Thank you for this.

I believe the stipend could kill some programs. This is clear, but large universities like North Texas should be able to handle this burden. If anything this will just be one more way to seperate the men from the boys. Hopefully, this would keep UNT with the men, where we should be. Do I think the stipend is the right thing to do? Yes, but that goes for all athletes. The amount a player recieves should be decided by the amount of scholarship they recieve (full ride, half, or one semester). The more a athlete recieves then the more stipend they recieve. If it is done in a manor like this then the budget could be better controlled. Also, this is a fair way to do it because this is the way it is. Better athletes get full rides (more money) and lesser athletes get less then that.

[Arkstfan]

I don't think the P5's could get away with requiring average attendance, stadium size, etc. NCAA tried that but backed down in the face of lawsuits.

The great unknown story.

Old heads may remember that about 12-14 years ago the Management Council (step one for legislation before the Board of Directors finally voted) gave first passage to an attendance requirement that would require 17,000 actual attendance with audited numbers every year. I spotted this on the NCAA website and called the associate AD at AState who said I had to be wrong we would have heard about it. They dig further and what had happened was, the Sun Belt at the point hadn't been added as a I-A member of the Management Council and the AD representing us left when they moved on to football business so he didn't know about it.

The matter would go back to the Management Council for final approval to send to the Board. Because we were not a I-A conference yet, we couldn't vote but we could submit a number of questions. The associate AD calls me and tells me what is happening procedurally. So I draft a list of about 20 questions, asking what data or studies had been relied on to get the number, asking about procedural issues, etc., all designed to create one impression, these a-holes are getting ready to sue. The list was cut down to around ten and I was told most of the ten were my questions.

The list of questions was presented. They were reviewed, there was a motion to table and it was never heard from again.

A couple years later under intense lobbying from the Southland and Big Sky, another proposal came about (part of the same package that eventually led to FCS and FBS rather than I-AA and I-A).

The Management Council fired it straight through but when it got to the Board of Directors (all presidents, Management was AD's and commissioners), there was behind the scenes lobbying underway by Sun Belt, MAC, CUSA, MWC, WAC, and the Board broke their own rules which said anything from Management had to be an up/down vote, no amending. They amended the rules to make it far easier to remain I-A. There was a procedural objection so the Board made the changes and sent to Management directing them to approve the changes and send it to them for approval and that's exactly what happened.

The presidents are the safety valve in the system. They are very likely to create rules that are hard to meet but also to include provisions that grandfather in members, and rules that are hard to meet for entry but not for staying (see the new rule requiring an invite from an existing league). Remember when the rules for Division I requiring minimum support levels were adopted, the first thing they did was carve out a grandfather clause to save the Ivy League from being relegated to Division III. When limits on aid were adopted they carved out exceptions for the academies.

[Harry]

The key for us is to be able to match what the AAC schools are able to offer.

[forevereagle]

Arkstfan you always provide great insight and interesting content. Thank you for this.

I believe the stipend could kill some programs. This is clear, but large universities like North Texas should be able to handle this burden. If anything this will just be one more way to seperate the men from the boys. Hopefully, this would keep UNT with the men, where we should be. Do I think the stipend is the right thing to do? Yes, but that goes for all athletes. The amount a player recieves should be decided by the amount of scholarship they recieve (full ride, half, or one semester). The more a athlete recieves then the more stipend they recieve. If it is done in a manor like this then the budget could be better controlled. Also, this is a fair way to do it because this is the way it is. Better athletes get full rides (more money) and lesser athletes get less then that.

Just to point something out, but athletes in sports that give out partial scholarships would be further punished with this system. They still put in a lot of time and are not allowed to work per NCAA rules, but with your proposal, they would still get less. To me, if you get a scholarship, regardless of the percentage of coverage, same stipend.

Edited May 6, 2014 by forevereagle

[Arkstfan]

What if the P5 conferences decide to give the $2,000 supplement to all athletes? Now, instead of $200,000 we're now talking about $600,000 per annum.

What would happen if half of the CUSA schools agreed to pay the additional stipend and half didn't? Would the Conference have to split if any number of schools decided that they couldn't afford it? It seems to me that if they stayed together in one conference then the one's that agreed to the supplement would have a tremendus recruiting advantage over those who did not.

What if the change affected FBS membership, forcing those that did not comply to drop to FCS? That could force a big turnover in football revenue since the FBS receives the giant portion of the total. It wouldn't force any revenue in the other sports or force anyone out of Division I but it would force those without heavy football revenue to concentrate on basketball.

It seems to me that the P5's could also require an increase in average attendance, stadium size, expenses, number of sports, etc. that they could meet but the majority of the G5 members couldn't and that would allow them to take an even greater portion of the pie.

I'm still trying to understand how their needs are so much greater than that of the other FBS universities. I haven't found a definitive answer other than greed and power. It's destroyed nations and empires...the NCAA doesn't have a chance.

Intercollegiate athletics has historically functioned without the top level schools offering the same stuff.

Until 1973 with the creation of Division I there was no limit on the number of scholarships at the NCAA level. Conferences often imposed limits on their members but there was variance between each league. The so-called University Division wasn't about how many scholies you awarded but rather who you scheduled and how many sports you offered, except College Division II which was no scholarship. You could have a school in College Division I that offered more scholarships than a so-called major college in University Division.

The I, II, III model was in large part a reaction to Title IX as well as growing tension over the everyone votes governance system.

Not until 1992 did every I-A (FBS) conference have the same scholarship cap in football.

Even now, grandfathered in Ivy League awards no aid based on athletic ability. The Patriot for years capped the amount of scholarship in athletics based on a formula of financial need. A kid from a poor family might have received a full ride, a kid from an upper middle class family might have received the cost of books.

The everyone is identical model is very new in athletics. Most likely the UNT squad that beat Tennessee took the field with fewer scholarship players.

If you know your college football history, there were a number of schools who entered and then left the Missouri Valley (UNT among them) and one of the reasons for leaving was the Valley had a lower scholarship limit. Many forget that NIU left the MAC for a number of years and one of the reasons for that was the MAC scholarship limit, NIU wanted to offer the full NCAA limit.

So differences within the division are actually normal.

[Arkstfan]

Just to point something out, but athletes in sports that give out partial scholarships would be further punished with this system. They still put in a lot of time and are not allowed to work per NCAA rules, but with your proposal, they would still get less. To me, if you get a scholarship, regardless of the percentage of coverage, same stipend.

Which is why Wake Forest voted to over-ride. There are a maximum of 98 stipend eligible men's players and only 39 for women (if you have basketball, volleyball and gymnastics).

[Arkstfan]

The key for us is to be able to match what the AAC schools are able to offer.

Which shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[TIgreen01]

No I-AAA and FCS created the problem autonomy is designed to fix. G5 supports autonomy as currently presented (ie. we can do anything they do without permission from anyone but our conference, and we combined with P5 will be able to run the division).

So, my WAG has been debunked.

I still do not understand why "autonomy" would not include ALL FBS level teams and conferences, as presently constituted. What do the G5 have to gain by going along with this and not pushing to be included? As you say, "G5 supports autonomy as currently presented"...but who is to say that we will support what it looks like in a few years? It feels like we're going along with this only because we have a gun pointed to our back.