Please keep in mind that it’s only the ticket price and not at all the season ticket/alumni donation requirement or parking or concessions or apparel costs etc etc that have gone up
Uniformed post coming in, but: 1. Admitting students who care less about the identity of the school and are just going there because its the best school they can get into seems like a good way to kill off fundraising / identity of the school long-term and turning us into like Williams or Vasser 2. Nobody is asking the athletic department to be a cost center, people are just asking for the same "third party licensing deals" Jack bemoaned this morning from rich donors that USC, Michigan, and other strong financial institutions use to pay athletes their market value 3. I'm obviously an idiot, but we have a $19 billion endowment, so I just don't really comprehend how having a rich donor pay Peyton Bowen $500k guaranteed to get him to enroll is the domino that like ends in eliminating women's lacrosse
personally, my feeling is that the biggest mistake the University has made in the past couple of decades is trying to become the image of its aspirational peers. academic and reputational uniqueness wanes to the detriment of fundraising, imo.
If ND football doesn't drive enough fundraising to support a new-age college football team, then no one does.* How is it not far more likely that universities figure out a way to make it financially viable than just decide to shutter the sport. None of the stakeholders want college football to go away. *Unless the missing piece of the equation is Big 10/SEC TV money, in which case just join the fucking Big 10 and get it over with.
1. yes. 2. i don't think the op-ed was about nil, necessarily. nil really isn't the issue, but it helps frame the degradation of college athletics as a whole. and we would definitely stand to gain if the NCAA were to magically figure out regulation/enforcement. 3. it doesn't, student-athlete employment status is the domino
private college endowments aren't going to get bailed out, the moral hazard that might exist for svb doesn't for our hedge fun with a school attached.
it's going to be a lot easier for public schools to figure out financial viability, particularly in the south where they can just use money earmarked for hospitals. i think there are very few stakeholders looking at long-term health over short term profit.
Student engagement isn’t just a ND problem it’s widespread now as the academic rat race has accelerated 10x over the past 20 years these kids these days are just different
All of that is fine and dandy but how smart is it to let everybody know that nd is ready to move on from football right now? What was the point of publishing this?
the op-ed wasn't for you or recruits. i'm also not sure how you can read it and say that we're moving on. if we were moving on the op-ed wouldn't have been written.
The op-ed probably has more to do with the legislation in California that will kill non-revenue sports than NIL. I think Jack/The University are comfortable with their position that this current state of large up-front guarantees is not sustainable and will ride it out. I think that if there is legislation that threatens the viability of Olympic Sports that they are right to voice their opposition. Other schools in conferences are too entrenched in there territorial conquest to focus on saving soccer, tennis, swimming, etc.
I opened the article pretty heated, but it wasn't so bad ... until I got to the part on establishing a minor league in the NFL to essentially separate the kids who just want to prep for the NFL from the kids who just want to play some football while getting an ND degree That was literally the line Alabama used to flip Keon Keeley ("do you want to be a first rounder at Alabama or worry about getting a degree at ND?) so if I was a coach at a rival school I'd be sending this to all committed ND recruits as soon as I could to say their admin essentially wishes you were playing minor league football and/or in the classroom all the time ("minimum amount of days on campus" idea - woof)
well that part is undoubtedly true. I won't pretend to know enough to discuss the public vs. private aspect of it, but as for the north vs. south part, I still have a hard time seeing how there won't be an inflection point that forces a compromise. The SEC can't sustain their top line if the south is the only region that participates.
we probably shouldn't think of the health of the sporting landscape in terms of what will a recruit think. in a normative sense, there should be a minor league. why should anybody have to go to school to ply a trade, that doesn't require a college education, if they don't want to? by leaving that vacuum, the nfl has capitalized on it to the detriment of the college game.
The introduction of a minor league would do wonders for ND's ability to compete in football. It's obviously self-serving for ND to promote that idea as they stand to benefit greatly, but I personally feel like it's a good idea that would benefit the athletes as well. The reality is that the SEC is already the minor league though, and there is not really any momentum for that to change.
i did not read it. I based that on what I am reading here. My mistake on that . But that will be used against the program regardless of who they were targeting
the inflection point is a ballooning in costs, even beyond the balloon that currently exists, and it's probably coming. couple that with a potential for tv revenues to plateau or fall as popularity declines and it might be too late to save. i think some places have foresight and are just getting while the getting is good, but it's unsustainable. then when college football is dying or dead, the nfl will probably pony up for their own minor league.
Its easier to get a "G League" in the NBA where the top handful of players can opt out and essentially practice a year before they hit the NBA, but an NFL minor league would require hundreds of participants, major infrastructure, a number of kids who should be going to college making the wrong decision to go to this league, etc. As others have stated, the SEC is essentially a minor league right now while providing the benefit of actually giving the kids a college degree if they don't make it and get through school, I'm not sure how this ever gets off the ground
that Colzie catch (over Ben Morrison no less) and the throw (and catch - couldn't see who the WR was) at the end by Minchey were very very impressive
I don’t care if the wasn’t for recruits coaches will have a field day with this. In the end, ND wants to have its cake and eat it too. Like I said a day ago, just move down to FCS and compete with the Dakotas. See how much that works.
the QB and WRs rooms this spring are a literal 180 of what they were last spring Styles was projected to be our #1 WR last spring and he might be 4th or 5th on the depth chart entering this spring
Was it ever confirmed who was keeping Merriwhether off the field? If it was Rees, that's good. Flores and Greathouse have The Look
don't forget the number of individuals making the decision to go to college when they shouldn't or shouldn't have to. i think even the xfl and usfl require you to go to college or at least be a certain age to tryout. if the nfl wanted to do it they absolutely could, but they don't have to. if we care about the welfare of athletes i don't think limiting their options follows such a sentiment, but i don't think most people really give a shit beyond the performative act of "caring". if we really cared we probably wouldn't continue to worship a bloodsport.
I’ll leave it at this. Only ND administration could fuck up the beginning of spring practice and the hiring of a hot new basketball coach. You really have to work hard to be the fucking inept.
Because today we are reminded that ND fans love making assumptions and jumping to hyperbole based on headlines and others jumping rather than, you know, actually reading an article and getting the context.
Midway through the season he was on the field. A lot. The QB just didn't throw to him. Then he got hurt.
If the popularity of football declines, then yes I agree this is a lost cause. But as long as the viewership is there, there is too much money and too little competition for me to believe that a core group of 30-40 profit seeking entities won't find a way to make it work. Even if one or two of them decide to opt out.
To be clear for anybody who may not have read the op-ed, they implicitly come out in support of athletes having the right to NIL with the reasoning that everybody else has the right to profit from celebrity so they should be able to, as well. The calls to action are essentially" ...A call for governance to protect competitive balance because. Hell the government has guardrails against monopolies in the business world, so it's not asking much. ...For universities to not lose touch with the student part of student athlete and completely give up on the supposed mission of the institutions. ...Warn against funneling too many outside resources into a pay for play model in the big two sports because of damage it could do to the future of other programs and their respective athletes. I'll admit the piece comes off a bit holier than though, but in no way is it an avocation for giving up on football or railing against NIL and being competitive the way people who probably didn't read it are making it out to be. Mick Cronin's a hell of a guy, and a good coach, by the way. Fans in Cincy didn't appreciate him nor deserve him. I'll bet they wish they had him, now. I'm happy for his success.
i am sure they are right, my problem is why on earth do you feel the need to put that out there right now? This is not helping anything
It’s the sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude, the lack of self awareness, and the extremely self-catering future they proposed that all come off extremely poorly. Even if some of the actual points made in the article have merit. The greater points Thoros has made about de-emphasizing football are larger concerns, for sure. Even if the University has gotten to the point where they don’t need football financially anymore, that’s not necessarily justification to move away from it. Nor do I think totally shifting the culture of the University itself will be a good thing. Like great, we have a lot of money now. But having money isn’t the mission of a University either, nor I don’t want my alma mater to become Harvey Mudd.
Agreed on that. It's a little tone deaf. My guess is that they sincerely believe their fears are legit and they are trying to take a leadership role in which other schools will follow. I don't share their confidence if that's the case.
I generally tracked through some quick google searching that 2012 is roughly the time scientifically speaking CTE was generally accepted in the scientific community, and by 2017 it was accepted pretty much across all media. We've heard about how football only has a couple decades left for at least 6-7 years now, and its only becoming more popular. Whether hundreds of universities can sustain football programs with rising costs, pay-for-play, etc. is one thing, but the tide hasn't even started shifting on shutting football down other than in very elite medical type circles.
Taking Thoros' commentary out of this. If you read the article, there's no indication of a desire or plan to move away from it. Nor do they rail against current state. As others have said, it's more about fears over future state. This article isn't moving away from football. Neither was Hillman. He knew what he needed to do. He chose not to. ND didn't suddenly throw something new out there. Ludwig wasn't moving away. It was somebody fucking up and not doing their homework. That bought Ludwig time to reconsider. ND is paying coaches. Schrewsberry is coming at the cost of a huge buyout and a huge salary, and that's not even football. Two position coaches just got promotions after Marcus mentioned every coach on staff getting looks. Keeping as many as they did was probably not cheap, as evidenced by the new titles. Those come with a price tag.
Numbers for youth football have been steadily declining, which is well documented. At some point, the dwindling supply of players will catch up.
I don't think many of the kids sitting out youth football at age 9 were going to be the ones making it to the NFL anyway, so I'd look at viewership / revenue of the NFL as the major driver of sustainability of major college football and the NFL moreso than how many youths are playing People don't want their kids to play, but want to watch other people's kids playing