In the Gene Smith Expects Revenue Sharing with College Athletes thread I posted comments in which I promised  to share a long-form piece that dared to dream what college sports might look like 25 to 30 years into the future. I wrote that piece 11 years ago in another forum I frequented back then. I've looked back at it two or three times as the landscape of college football has changed, and have thought even more about it as those changes accelerated in recent years. I've never reposted it or discussed the details of it further since that time - but this Gene Smith article and the probable newest changes to the athlete compensation model it presents are as apropos an opportunity to revisit what I wrote. If for no other reason it can serve as a contribution to the discussion we're all having with ourselves: "Where is this all heading?"

I'm simply doing a copy-and-paste, offering it exactly as it was written 11 years ago. It's long, but there are no doubt aspects of how things could one day look that you will agree with, and others that you won't. I'd love to hear what you think and especially how you see things playing out in college sports the coming decade or two.

9/12/2013

Dream a little dream, that this is how the future of big time college sports will look...

Allow yourself to daydream for a moment and imagine the drastic extremes needed to address the salient troubling issues in college football and basketball today.

The core issues are two-fold:

1] Protecting the interests of universities/athletic departments (and conference networks) to reap the huge dollars they now generate from their football and basketball programs.

2] Allowing players to realize their full market value via all avenues available to them.

The challenge? Accomplish these two goals while completely eliminating the current issues of booster payouts, recruiting rules violations, academic fraud and gender equity compliance.

In this daydream to the extreme, this flight of fancy, there are still some hard facts that are rooted in the reality of our most lucid moments, namely:

Market forces will prevail. Human nature won't be meaningfully repressed. Amateurism doesn't exist in the big business of college sports.

While in the short term it's immensely profitable to resist these realities in the current administration of college football and basketball, ultimately, it's a losing public relations battle, and along with the crush of the administrative nightmares, this current model will eventually be overrun by market forces.

So when college administrators give up the fight and finally relent to the forces that won't ever retreat, here's where they'll arrive.

The charade is over. Colleges no longer administer the highest level of football and basketball programs. They enter the licensing business full tilt.

Anyone - agents, coaches, former administrators - can now bid to be the licensed representative of that university for that sport. This licensed group provides the players, coaches and staff, and consults with the university in the area of branding and promotions. The university provides and maintains the facilities from the funds it receives according to the agreement it reaches with the licensee regarding the split of proceeds generated by that sport.

The NCAA is dead - sort of. College presidents still govern these adjuncts to the athletic departments, called Football Academies, through whatever association they form (perhaps NCFAA - National Collegiate Football Academies Association).

For them, refreshingly, it's a simpler task, as their full focus can be on maximizing the value of these adjuncts, with no energies wasted in dispelling endless hypocrisies. Perhaps they'll even bolster the gravitas of these academies with available broad-based and specialized degrees in Professional Sports.

Athletic scholarships remain - but are without academic advancement requirements.

The only restriction on the scholarship is that it's good for a total of 10 full semesters of use over any span of time. Otherwise, university academic policies for the general student body apply.

Football and basketball athletes can be, but are not required to be student-athletes.

Agreements with licensees will specify that players are to be obligation-free daily for a defined period of time during which classes are offered. This is an important concession in that not all players will have significant earning power in the marketplace and will thus value the scholarship far more than others.

Beyond the scholarship, colleges are beholden only to the licensee, not the athlete.

Effectively, the licensee handles all matters of medical concerns, insurance, and should they arise, labor concerns. They are, for a price of course, a buffer to the university.

Football and basketball athletes can be paid by licensees - not the colleges.

Payments are solely a decision for the licensee. The marketplace rules.

High school football and basketball athletes arrive at colleges via licensee recruitment and screening.

As a matter of university branding, the university may specify to the licensee minimum standards to be met for character, and even academic ability, but the academic admissions process and standards play no role beyond that.

High school football and basketball athletes are allowed all inducements, and these are not university-regulated.

Better licensees will maximize their contracts by involving boosters in order to defray costs. The market place rules. Foolish boosters will waste their wealth while the wise ones will maximize inducements and add some polish to the university brand.

Football and basketball athletes are allowed to profit according to their full market value.

Athletes will consider which licensee maximizes their value best. Autographs, memorabilia, shoe contracts, ads - the marketplace rules.

There may be numerous halting iterations of this ultimate model over quite a bit of time before it's adopted - after all, the current model of NCAA administration has lasted in the neighborhood of a century, and it will encounter a great deal of intransigence due to colleges having to come to terms with owning up to the size and length of this long-running charade. Plus, there's an untold number of I's to dot and T's to cross before college administrators not only are assured that their earning power is protected, but that the growth trajectory remains intact.

Once administrators are convinced this is the route to go, what about the fans/alumni, boosters, faculties? As long as the overall university brand is protected you're off to a solid start. Then, for the fans/alumni - winning is the thing. With a level playing field, fans then just want to be entertained and to secure those coveted bragging rights by winning. Do I really need to even address how boosters would enjoy this model? As for college faculties, the former taint of big time athletics is one giant step removed from academia, and the remaining student-athletes are genuinely that very thing.

Will this extreme ever really come to fruition? It is a pretty drastic change, after all. Sure, for some, it's hard to see that now. But really, with some imagination, it's little different than a sculptor standing before a block of marble and seeing the masterpiece - the artfully stylized expression of undeniable truths which the intellect affirms for it's veracity and the eye appreciates because it is the very thing that it should be - within. Market forces, while lacking the cachet and flair of an artist, aren't at all subtle, and most assuredly have the power of precisely directed blows to chip away until the very thing that should be comes into being.

Still doubtful? See O'Bannon vs NCAA; the impact of the Johnny Football scandal in gouging the already eroding perception of the NCAA's legitimacy foundation; the continuing decades-long burgeoning of the football powers' ability to separate it earning capacity from the NCAA's control, which ultimately has to expand to the basketball realm; the rise of the National College Players Association (NCPA); and the many, as yet unseen "chisels of change" that are lining up to take their cracks at the current corrupt NCAA model of collegiate sports.

Some things to consider that no doubt should be discussed:

This model certainly looks like an established semi-pro league - but with the stars of tomorrow. So would the marketplace ultimately demand that it break away from the colleges and become a challenger to the NFL?

Does the NFL feel the need to take an active role in this new model before that happens?

Athletes in other college sports have market value also, even if their college sport doesn't produce revenue. How do colleges accommodate them? Could be a simple solution since there are no dollars for the colleges to lose out on.

Given the open frontier of this new college sports landscape, how drastically are high school sports changed? With NCAA restrictions now gone and payments out in the open, do the old NCAA problems now shift to the high school associations? Do they shift even lower? Imagine the Drew Rosenhaus College Sports Group courting seventh graders to be groomed for college competition.

How does a conference office function in this new arrangement? Alliances are still necessary, as there is great value in a regular schedule, playoffs and a championship game.