It’s standard operating procedure. Whenever one attempts to discuss big-time college sports student-athlete competition in terms of money, they rarely know what they’re talking about.
Cite one database of financial statements and someone inevitable calls Barbara Streisand. They point to another database which shows different data. Someone else argues that you can’t trust either cause they each have different standards. And there’s also the accusation that, well, who cares really? LET’S PLAY SOME FOOTBALL!!!!!
Valid points all. And it helps that even the power brokers in DC have no clue how all these Saturdays are funded. And one such power broker wants some answers!!!
Good luck with that.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, asked the CBO in 2007 to review the economic benefits received from the tax-exempt status of college athletics.
The CBO concluded that removing the major tax preferences would be unlikely to significantly alter the nature of the programs or garner much tax revenue, even if the sports programs were classified for tax purposes as being engaged in unrelated commercial activity.
“As long as athletic departments remained a part of the larger nonprofit or public university, schools would have considerable opportunity to shift revenue, costs, or both between their taxed and untaxed sectors, rendering efforts to tax that unrelated income largely ineffective,” the report concluded.
Grassley said Congress and tax policymakers “need to know more.”
Good thing for the NCAA, he’s a Republican. Otherwise this could be taken seriously.
For those of you interested, here’s the CBO report. One highlight – it refuses to pretend the pro leagues aren’t invested in the commercial success of the … /coughcough .. amateurs.
When athletic departments function primarily as a part of the educational experience for students, they participate in that nonprofit market. However, highly competitive college sports teams with large-capacity stadiums and prime-time television events with advertising are more reasonably considered participants in the market for entertainment. They compete for entertainment spending with many other recreational options, but their most direct competitors are professional sports leagues.
Even though competitive university sports programs enter the same market with tax advantages unavailable to the taxable professional leagues, those leagues have never advocated removing tax preferences for the college programs. One reason may be that college sports tend to reduce costs for professional sports. The two sports with the most active and commercial college programs—football and basketball—are each controlled by a single professional association that spends very little on training players. In many cases, all but the final polishing is done by the colleges while the players maintain amateur, nonpaid status. If players were not trained by colleges, the professional leagues would probably have to pay those players a salary and complete the training themselves.
The horror! Then again, we’re sure all those professional accounting firms appreciate getting some college-trained worker bees at not development cost either.
We’re posting this only because we find it mildly interesting and good comment fodder. That, plus there is absolutely nothing going on right now. Nothing.
/checks countdown clock
September can’t get here fast enough.
You mentioned that nothing is going on now.
Well, how about the fact that Delaware passed their sports betting bill; the NCAA then discovered that Montana had one for years, even though it was little used because of Vegas having so much action, and that Delaware and Montana both may not be able to host FCS playoff games anymore. Additionally many of their fans are saying let's just go FBS then.
Additionally, the new AD at Delaware, who just was hired from Georgetown was evidently told something about Delaware moving up since he keeps talking about the "gigantic opportunities" at Delaware….so much, even their local newspapers are saying that the move to FBS seems immenient….also some are speculating that Delaware is trying to get in the Big East right away….and are in process of building a complete new football stadium….and could some of this sports betting money be influence on the size of the stadium, and their new AD being from a Big East school? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Somehow, I doubt this will be what tips the scale one way or another. I suspect Delaware is in a better situation to make the move than Montana. My guess is that they will resolve this in a way that allows them to host games. I doubt the inability to host would be the deciding factor. In the end, it comes down to affordability at this point.
Just speculating, but I would think there would be less alumni/fan "push" to go FBS at Montana than at Delaware. There is only one other D1 school in Montana–Montana State, also playing FCS and also in the Big Sky conference. The peer pressure to move up would likely be far less at Montana than here at App, where we have five FBS schools in the state.
One might say the same of Delaware (where, I believe, the only other D1 football-playing school is Delaware State, also FCS), but other factors may be relevant. First, the entire state of Delaware isn't much larger than a handful of good sized NC counties, so numerous FBS schools in surrounding/nearby states may provide the peer pressure some of us feel from schools within our own state boundaries. Second, Delaware and nearby FBS schools are mostly located in much larger cities than is Montana, so the marketing opportunities for a "big-time" program are greater. Finally, despite what the Big Sky schools like to think, CAA is far superior, year-in and year-out, to the Big Sky, so Delaware generally plays better competition than Montana. I personally doubt either school would be very successful, very quickly at the FBS level, but I would bet in terms of competitive readiness, Delaware is generally better prepared than is Montana.
You might be correct, but it seems that what you point out is seen by Delaware fans as their worst points….small town location, not much around them…also, Rutgers and UConn and other FBS schools that have moved on that they used to play a lot.
Either way, and for whatever reason would really hate to see Delaware, Montana, maybe JMU, GaSo, Georgia State, ODU, UMass, and some others leave and think of what you would have left in the FCS then….not a lot. Guess our big rivals then could actually turn out to be UCLA.
Though I don't personally agree with the timetable message in your posting moniker, my opinion would change quickly if a bunch of perennial FCS top 10 or 20 schools, including those you mention, jumped to FBS within a fairly short time frame. There would be far less reason to remain FCS if that happened.
Something we may be overlooking is why the moratorium was implemented. Somebody thought too many FCS teams were making the jump to FBS. I'm thinking that a reorganization will occur at the end of this moratorium instead of a resuming of the free for all jumping to FBS.
That doesn't mean we won't be moved up. I think we're better prepared for a move than some of the colleges that did move. But, whatever happens, I don't think it'll completely be our decision.
A very overlooked point. I suspect when the moratorium ends, there will be a different look to the landscape. It would serve little purpose to place a moratorium on the movement upwards only to see a pent up demand for it to occur when it ends.
Not saying this will happen but it would not surprise if FCS is slowly done away with after the moratorium. The moratorium had more to do with basketball and the dilution of the NCAA tourney(autobids) than it did with football. Schools moving up to play basketball with their football teams playing FCS. No FCS would make a lot of schools think very hard about dropping down to D-II or doing away with football to stay D-I in bball. Just some thoughts I've had.
So I drove down to Chapel Hill from Lafayette, IN over the weekend for a wedding. (Good gracious, do I love the state of NC! What a great weekend!) Anyway, on the way back, my wife and I decided to stop by Athens, OH, which is the birthplace of my father as well as the home of Ohio University. Just like Ball State, the campus was quite pretty, but the athletics facilities were no more (and no less) impressive compared with App State. It merely confirmed what I already knew: The MAC, along with the Sun Belt and most of the WAC, lag so far behind the rest of the Bowl Subdivision in terms of financial support that they really resemble ASU, Montana, or Delaware more than they do "big-time football."
I think that the biggest problem with the classification system is that certain teams in what I'll call a "gray area" are either at extreme financial advantages or extreme disadvantages. In the FBS, about 10-20 schools can support themselves with no financial strain. Then you've got schools that can barely get 20,000 people in their stadiums, a la Ohio or BSU.
In the FCS, App State, Montana, Delaware, and maybe a few others have an environment so much more supportive than the rest of the FCS, where crowds average, honestly, the size of a large, small-town high school. Yet ASU & co. aren't close to ACC schools in support, save for Wake & Duke, and are still far behind ECU and Mountain West schools. Then on the other end, you have schools that cannot (or will not) sponsor scholarship football but still play FCS.
So how would you classify everyone and do it in a way that doesn't force schools to lose millions in spending?
If the NCAA has been working on some change for the past two years, where is the proof?
I have not heard of them holding any meetings on the subject, inviting anyone in to discuss it with them, or make any sort of announcment that they are going to do so.
I truly believe that the NCAA, with pressure from BCS schools, implemented the moratorium to keep their holy grail of TV money, and prestige from being "watered down". The BCS is like an octopus or the mafia in holding onto such a good thing. They have built a system that is even hard to crack into. Not like it was 20 or 30 years ago when the school pretty much decided how much impetus they wanted to put into it.
That is one reason that I believe Appalachian should take every potential opening in going into FBS, and then concentrate on somehow getting into the BCS. Yeah, I know, many will say it will never happen….UConn did it under weird circumstances, several Florida schools did also….you have to be at that right position, in the best shape you can, at the right time.