Kansas Crimson

I wanna believe there’s a way for the sport to work, so that players are fairly compensated and I still get to watch Michigan inexplicably blow three-plus games a year. In fact, just last week a group of Pac-12 players issued a series of demands for their return to the field which included not only intense safety precautions but also genuine reforms to address the ongoing sham of amateurism that has allowed coaches and administrators to bank millions off a glorified NFL farm system. Their vision of the sport, complete with formal player unionization, SEEMED like it could work.

It’s just that no one in charge will ever allow that to happen.

[...]

The sport has been so corrupt for so long that even the people who RUN it can’t even sort out the composition of the rot. The NCAA, which only asserts its authority across the sports when there’s money to be made or because some fullback from Iowa State committed a rule violation when he got $10 to mow a neighbor’s lawn, has essentially told conferences and schools that the situation isn’t their problem. This is because the NCAA has no interest in actually FIXING any of this s—, because that would cost them money.

[...]

[Colleges] have never had to deal with players refusing to play en masse. They can’t imagine it. Their budgets won’t even allow for it. The Pac-12 is already preparing to take out billions in loans if the season gets scuttled. That’s how dependent these schools are — not just the athletic departments, but entire schools — on free football talent. Player exploitation is the backbone of the college sports industrial model, and those schools have any number of fans and bootlickers in the media to present that exploitation as a FAVOR granted to college football players. They have money and football history to use against players, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are already forcing those players into a losing proposition right when the stakes are highest, and they aren’t afraid to use every weapon in their arsenal to browbeat them into compliance. They never have been.

[...]

These players give everything, and what the f— have their bosses ever given back? We’ve reached a point in history where it’s crystal clear that American universities are where corruption goes to get laundered. Many of them can’t exist without their s— football teams, and those football teams can’t exist without screwing over their own players. That’s the system. You don’t fix a system like this. You bury it. I hope every college football player opts out and never opts back in.

The NCAA will furlough its entire Indianapolis-based staff of about 600 employees for three to eight weeks in a cost-saving move, according to memo obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The memo from NCAA President Mark Emmert went out to the association’s more than 1,200 member schools Wednesday. The furloughs will not affect senior executives.

Starting Sept. 21 through the end of January 2021, all national office staff will be subjected to a mandatory three-week furlough, Emmert wrote. Some staff will be furloughed up to eight weeks, depending on position and “seasonal timing of their duties.”

Earlier this year, USA Today reported Emmert and NCAA senior management were taking a 20% salary reduction and vice presidents would be taking 10% pay cuts. The association also implemented salary freezes for all employees and did not fill open positions.

The latest belt-tightening measures include voluntary separation and early retirement packages being offered to many NCAA employees.

“There decisions are unfortunate but necessary as we continue to identify ways to cut costs across the national office,” Emmert wrote. He said all the measures represent “top of budget cuts in every national office group totaling nearly half our operating budget.”

The NCAA took a massive financial hit when it canceled the men’s college basketball tournament in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament accounts for almost all of the NCAA’s annual revenue, which reached $1.1 billion last year.

The NCAA cut its annual distribution to Division I conferences and schools this year from an expected $600 million to $225 million.

“We are committed to supporting our member schools and conferences and student-athletes in every way possible, and yet I expect that some of our services to membership may be limited or delayed during this period furloughs,” Emmert wrote. “I ask for your patience as we all strive to weather these difficult times together.”

NiceDC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:14 pm https://apnews.com/667a0ead17d001842077077e273e51fd

Memo: NCAA to furlough its entire staff for 3-8 weeks

The NCAA will furlough its entire Indianapolis-based staff of about 600 employees for three to eight weeks in a cost-saving move, according to memo obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The memo from NCAA President Mark Emmert went out to the association’s more than 1,200 member schools Wednesday. The furloughs will not affect senior executives.

Starting Sept. 21 through the end of January 2021, all national office staff will be subjected to a mandatory three-week furlough, Emmert wrote. Some staff will be furloughed up to eight weeks, depending on position and “seasonal timing of their duties.”

Earlier this year, USA Today reported Emmert and NCAA senior management were taking a 20% salary reduction and vice presidents would be taking 10% pay cuts. The association also implemented salary freezes for all employees and did not fill open positions.

The latest belt-tightening measures include voluntary separation and early retirement packages being offered to many NCAA employees.

“There decisions are unfortunate but necessary as we continue to identify ways to cut costs across the national office,” Emmert wrote. He said all the measures represent “top of budget cuts in every national office group totaling nearly half our operating budget.”

The NCAA took a massive financial hit when it canceled the men’s college basketball tournament in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament accounts for almost all of the NCAA’s annual revenue, which reached $1.1 billion last year.

The NCAA cut its annual distribution to Division I conferences and schools this year from an expected $600 million to $225 million.

“We are committed to supporting our member schools and conferences and student-athletes in every way possible, and yet I expect that some of our services to membership may be limited or delayed during this period furloughs,” Emmert wrote. “I ask for your patience as we all strive to weather these difficult times together.”

jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:18 pm

NiceDC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:14 pm https://apnews.com/667a0ead17d001842077077e273e51fd

Memo: NCAA to furlough its entire staff for 3-8 weeks

The NCAA will furlough its entire Indianapolis-based staff of about 600 employees for three to eight weeks in a cost-saving move, according to memo obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The memo from NCAA President Mark Emmert went out to the association’s more than 1,200 member schools Wednesday. The furloughs will not affect senior executives.

Starting Sept. 21 through the end of January 2021, all national office staff will be subjected to a mandatory three-week furlough, Emmert wrote. Some staff will be furloughed up to eight weeks, depending on position and “seasonal timing of their duties.”

Earlier this year, USA Today reported Emmert and NCAA senior management were taking a 20% salary reduction and vice presidents would be taking 10% pay cuts. The association also implemented salary freezes for all employees and did not fill open positions.

The latest belt-tightening measures include voluntary separation and early retirement packages being offered to many NCAA employees.

“There decisions are unfortunate but necessary as we continue to identify ways to cut costs across the national office,” Emmert wrote. He said all the measures represent “top of budget cuts in every national office group totaling nearly half our operating budget.”

The NCAA took a massive financial hit when it canceled the men’s college basketball tournament in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament accounts for almost all of the NCAA’s annual revenue, which reached $1.1 billion last year.

The NCAA cut its annual distribution to Division I conferences and schools this year from an expected $600 million to $225 million.

“We are committed to supporting our member schools and conferences and student-athletes in every way possible, and yet I expect that some of our services to membership may be limited or delayed during this period furloughs,” Emmert wrote. “I ask for your patience as we all strive to weather these difficult times together.”

Huh.

Sparko wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 1:22 pm Sure makes me wonder where they are hiding money. This furlough is the kind of thing Exxon-Mobile would do if a state wouldn’t approve strip mining for tar sands. We all know there are untouched assets and hidden investments.

jfish26 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 3:22 pm

Sparko wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 1:22 pm Sure makes me wonder where they are hiding money. This furlough is the kind of thing Exxon-Mobile would do if a state wouldn’t approve strip mining for tar sands. We all know there are untouched assets and hidden investments.

I'm not sure they are - I think it's just been coming out at the top. Hiding in plain sight, as it were.

[The] revenue generated by [Power Five] athletic departments nearly doubled during the study period, from $4.4 billion to $8.5 billion. Nearly 60 percent of that revenue was generated by football and basketball teams, much of it derived from the increasingly lucrative sale of broadcast rights to major television networks.

“There’s so much money,” Garthwaite said, “and the one group that really has not seen any real increase in benefits are the players who are risking their health and safety to play the sports.”

Over the study period, the average annual salary of football coaching staff nearly doubled, from $4.8 million to $9.8 million. Non-coaching administrative salaries nearly doubled as well. But financial support for the athletes — primarily tuition aid, room and board — grew 47 percent.

“It’s morally bankrupt,” Garthwaite said. “The NCAA wants it to be ‘amateur’ for the athletes, but none of the rules of amateurism to apply to all the other people in the system.”

The NCAA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Much of the money generated by football and basketball programs is spent on salaries for coaches and administrators, and on the construction of lavish facilities for the teams. But millions of dollars also flow each year to such “nonrevenue” sports as tennis, sailing and crew, which don’t generate substantial revenue and hence are reliant on the substantial profits from football and basketball to sustain them financially.

The students playing those sports tend to be Whiter and hail from wealthier neighborhoods than those who play football and basketball. Black students constitute nearly 60 percent of the rosters of football and basketball teams, and just 11 percent of the rosters of all other sports. Similar racial dynamics are apparent among coaches. Football and basketball players also came from neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty and lower incomes than students in other sports.

The net result: White athletes and coaches profit off the labor of Black athletes, who receive no additional compensation for the considerable revenue they generate.

CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2020 1:20 pm I knew I should start posting on this board today. Great news. Made no sense to treat CBB and CFB differently from other student athletes. NCAA is losing its grip.

NDballer13 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:28 am The only reason I can think of is that the NCAA Tourney is such a large portion of a conference's revenue they can't break away from that. What makes the tourney so great would be eliminated if the P5 schools broke off and took away the David v Goliath storylines.

And that's strictly a guess. I've done absolutely zero research into how much money each conference/school gets from the NCAA Tourney.