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Why do colleges (their athletic teams) from time to time change their conference? For example, I'm reading about the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They're leaving the Big 12 to go to the Big 10. Do the schools intiate these changes or does the NCAA?
Why do colleges (their athletic teams) from time to time change their conference? For example, I'm reading about the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They're leaving the Big 12 to go to the Big 10. Do the schools intiate these changes or does the NCAA?
Thanks
Reiterating Jack's post, yeah, I hate to break it to you. I hate to be the one to do it, but big time college athletics like football and basketball are all about money and not much else.
You can tell that the NCAA has an image problem when you see their commercials on TV that state most athletes will turn professional in something other than sports.
Universities have enormous athletic departments and the army of employees there don't work for free. Administration uses sports as a marketing tool to bring in more tuition-paying students (who'll likely fail my history survey courses). Scholarships are the gloss and glue that holds it all together.
There are folks, knowledgeable people, who've set out to try and reform collegiate athletics. Former LSU basketball coach Dale Brown is just one among them. Too much money involved in it--and ESPN and all of their advertisers are some of the major benefactors of athletes' unpaid labor.
Conference affiliation allows universities to gain top billing on networks--which is the reason why you won't see the University of Memphis football team on in a prime time slot on a major network, but you will see Florida there--even Michigan, which has been subpar the past few seasons. For a college to be in a major power conference means more dollars in terms of licensing fees will come rolling in.
I agree-it's money-but also competition--which brings in more money. The Big 10 is a powerhouse for football and basketball-usually sending at least 1/2 of their teams on to post season play (and if you count the NAIA, almost all of their teams in basketball).
Big-time college athletics has nothing to do with education. Or, to clarify that a little bit, big-time college athletics is all about the corruption of the educational mission of the institutions that choose to engage in it.
Big-time college athletics has nothing to do with education. Or, to clarify that a little bit, big-time college athletics is all about the corruption of the educational mission of the institutions that choose to engage in it.
Good post, Jack. The University of Chicago, for example, got out of the football business back in the 1930s because school officials could see that it was already getting out of hand.
Because the unis, tv networks, the advertisers and the 2A want to make conference games as profitable as possible so they reshuffle the conferences to make those games. Prior to their move the only time you would see Nebraska play an Ohio State is in a bowl game. How often does that get done? Hardly ever. But here is a game which could possibly be played every year between two regional powers which most of the nation wants to see. Tell me how often anyone in Florida would spend any time watching Ohio State/Minnesota? But those Sunshine State denizens would watch the Buckeyes/Cornhuskers. But when a NE moves out of conference it kills off the other smaller schools which are left behind.
Something else to keep in mind. No matter what they tell you, for the most part, athletic departments are a very big financial drain on their schools. Very shortly more unis will be unable to sustain their prior involvement and will wither away because they just don't have the money any more. When student loans no longer will be created at the rate they are now, and unis will have to stop building and paying high overheard, then they'll be out of the sports business as well. One example is Washington State U. Last year they had a 20% cut in their overall budget. Eventually those cuts will have to be reflected in the quality of education and fewer students will attend. Fewer students fewer loans and far less money because the state is in no shape to close the funding breach. This is only one school, there are many, many others in the same situation. Once the student loan bubble bursts, many schools will implode. I believe NE made the move out of their conference because they know that many unis in their former conference are facing the same situation as was WAZZU.
Something else to keep in mind. No matter what they tell you, for the most part, athletic departments are a very big financial drain on their schools.
The NCAA put out a study on the finances of school athletic programs a few years ago. From 2004-06, only 17 of the 300 DI schools made a profit from athletics (16 were in the 120 FBS schools). In 2009, 14 of the 120 FBS schools made a profit. You can go through the list of financials 04-05 that made up the study above at your leisure if you really felt like it: NCAA Financial Reports Database | IndyStar.com
Fantastic responses all around. Thanks for the great information.
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