Thoughts on the House Settlement and the Future of College Athletics (part 2)

Loyalty and Business Don’t Play Well Together

It’s not my intent to explain the ins and outs of the settlement, I’m doing a bit of speculating and complaining from my specific perspective as a former NCAA Power 4 Olympic sport staff member. If you’d like a bit of an introduction to the House Settlement, here’s as good an article as any from a trusted news source. Also, I don’t have enough experience with Division II or III athletes and institutions to comment on their situations so my thoughts are about Division I only.

In part one, I set up a few ideas around paying college athletes: revenue sharing, Alston money, and NIL. I acknowledged that paying college athletes is a difficult and complicated subject. I ended by saying that much of what has happened is driven by power. It’s time to explore that idea and dig into loyalty. You can read part one here:

Thoughts on the House Settlement and the Future of College Athletics (part 1)

Division I coaches are often retained or let go based on how much they win. With the pressure of keeping their jobs an ever-present factor, these coaches are always going to seek out athletes that can increase their team’s chances of winning, regardless of what the players already on the roster may have been told in the past. The portal gives coaches even more opportunities to upgrade their rosters. Meanwhile, college athletes, until shortly before the creation of the portal, were almost always coerced to remain at an institution by the threat of losing playing seasons unless the institution allowed them to leave. Coaches were free to bring in athletes without restriction but athletes didn’t have the same freedom to improve their own conditions. Society at large has decried the lack of loyalty of college athletes wishing to transfer without questioning the loyalty of the coaches and administrators to those same athletes. Business trumps relationships. (But more about that in a moment.)

I’m not saying that all college athletes that want to transfer have honorable reasons for doing so, but that’s a value judgement on my part and I don’t think it’s my place to judge their motives and rule on their eligibility to transfer. The transfer portal forced a choice for everyone involved. You could allow more transfers, without being allowed to judge the reasons, which means allowing more transfers for reasons you would find insufficient/incorrect. Or you could continue restricting transfers, which means preventing and discouraging many transfers for inoffensive reasons. This decision, in my mind, forces people to choose whose power and autonomy they wish to support. I choose to allow more transfers because I choose to support athlete autonomy. I understand this choice means supporting athlete decisions I may not agree with and I accept that consequence.

I find it interesting that so many people believe so strongly in the loyalty owed by college athletes. I think the House Settlement should force people to question their beliefs in loyalty. It’s one thing to be a loyal fan of an athletic team, it’s something very different to be a loyal employee of a business. If you’re a fan, it’s easy to question financial decisions (which include personnel decisions) but that’s what happens when the nature of your relationship isn’t built on business but the decision you’re questioning is. When you’re in a business, particularly a sports business, loyalty is a much more fickle thing that regularly takes a place behind financial considerations. Think of Luka Dončić’s recent trade to the Lakers. For a better reminder of what sports business decisions look like, recall these two scenes from Moneyball:

If front office staff treat athletes as professionals, there’s very little room for emotion and I believe that’s part of the bargain athletes make when they become professionals. If NCAA institutions are going to transform personnel decisions into financial decisions, then observers should follow their lead. College athletes will be accepting the same bargain as the pros and fans should do the same.

I think it will be common for observers to consider this new standard through their old expectations. But, rather than expecting the emotional loyalty of the athletes that commit to a program, fans should expect those athletes to make business decisions regarding their athletic careers. And these choices may no longer focus on vibes and education as much as they have in the past. If college athletes are offered differing financial packages from different schools, they should be expected to choose the one that fits them best, even if that means moving to a different school. In the past, when I have chosen to change jobs, no one has questioned my loyalty to the previous job and everyone has assumed I would be paid more and/or get a better deal in other ways. In short, people have acted as though I am making the best decision for my career, my bank account, and my life. I believe people should extend the same expectations to college athletes as they weigh their business decisions. Loyalty? To double down on sport management movie lines…

But the offers college athletes will be able to consider are subject to so much more than is apparent at first blush. Like most US pro sports, college programs that opt in to the House Settlement terms will be subject to two kinds of caps, spending caps and roster caps. The caps on spending take two forms, scholarship limits and revenue sharing limits. These caps are somewhat similar to restrictions the NCAA has had in the past. Roster limits, however, are new to college sports. I think, coupled together, these caps will force college sports programs to structure their rosters and financial commitments in ways that resemble pro sports more and more. But something that continues to separate pro sports from college sports is equity.

The NCAA and its member institutions sponsor many sports, while each professional league only sponsors one. That means the pro leagues and teams don’t need to consider how their league minimums, roster limits, etc. affect other leagues. But the NCAA and its members do have to consider this. The most obvious reason for this is Title IX. The NFL’s version of equity is much simpler because all its members are football teams. But, Title IX doesn’t apply to them because they don’t receive federal financial assistance. NCAA member institutions, on the other hand, are institutions of higher education so they are subject to Title IX and they offer opportunities for participation across genders so, in theory at least, they must not discriminate on the basis of gender.

This is one way in which I think the House Settlement will profoundly affect the future of college sports. Athletic administrators are searching for ways to protect their financial viability without running afoul of Title IX. To remain members in good standing of the NCAA and of their conferences, athletic programs must sponsor a minimum number of sports. Athletic programs may not be able to afford, metaphorically or financially, to continue to sponsor as many sports. To remain in the black, the programs must generate revenue. If they cannot generate enough income, then they must consider how to cut costs. An obvious way to cut costs is to cut sport programs that generate the least revenue and/or incur the largest losses. These cuts will be to any sport, regardless of gender, so long as equity of opportunity is maintained so expect coed sports to be cut at higher rates and expect sports to be cut in gendered pairs. At least, until one or more athletic programs bring a legal challenge about if they actually are subject to Title IX…

No administrator would risk cutting sports that typically generate the most revenue (football and men’s basketball), even if those sports don’t generate as much revenue in their program as they do elsewhere. Administrators will always invest in sports which hold the highest perceived potential for profit. Emerging sports that don’t have the same perceived potential are overlooked. Newer professional leagues are attempting to combat this, but unlike startup professional leagues, with all their investors, NCAA programs cannot operate with the expectation of years-long losses before profitability. So they cannot invest in sports that don’t currently generate much profit with the hope that they will eventually increase their profit margin. Athletic programs are stuck in a short-term cycle of results and expectations, a cycle in which they must make money now.

The short-term cycles these member institutions are trapped in are subject to larger historical and social forces. Why is it that “revenue sports” generate the revenue they do? Why do “non-revenue” sports struggle to keep up? Because of the US’s unique social history and because of the history of power protecting power. American football is currently popular because of years of toil and investment many years ago, when sports didn’t have the same pressure on them to make money. But you only have to look at any other country in the world to see that there’s nothing special about American football. Most countries would rather lavish the same kind of money on football (soccer). So why does college football get the treatment it does? History.

In part three, I’ll go from the impact of history into a possible future and why it worries me so much.

Thank you for reading. I know this is a lot and I don’t expect anyone to be with me on all of it. I don’t assume that the future will be like I imagine it but I can’t get this possible future out of my head. I welcome your thoughts and feedback in the comments. What happens in college sports will end up having impacts on how we all coach and I’m curious to hear from you how you think it will impact your work.

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