With the Big 12 ready to pluck arguably the ACC's two most atttractive football programs, FSU and Clemson, it really makes you wonder how football got so powerful that it could just change the entire landscape of college athletics.
I think the disparity in value between football and basketball is largely due to the NCAA rules. The NCAA does not give basketball a level playing field with football, and that has resulted in the mess we've seen unfold in the last decade. Including conference championships and bowl games, the NCAA allows its football programs to play up to 93% of the games the NFL allows in the regular season, but NCAA basketball teams only play between 35% and 48% (the latter figure being Kentucky and Kansas for reaching the championship game) of the games played by the NBA in the regular season. The NCAA limits the basketball regular season to only 39% of the NBA's while allowing the football schools a regular season that is 75% of the NFL's.
Basketball-only schools have been so short-sighted. If they banned together, they could have limited the growth of football or at least fought for basketball to be given the same consideration. I really don't get it. There are 347 or so D-1 basketball teams and only 120 D-1 FBS football teams (33 of which averaged less than 21,000 fans in 2011), several of which draw more from basketball: Syracuse (by over 200,000!), Louisville, Maryland, Indiana, Kentucky, Memphis (more than double), UNLV, New Mexico (double), Vanderbilt, etc. UNC and BYU would have drawn more to basketball but curiously only played 15 and 14 home basketball games, respectively. Kansas was about even. How did the football schools gain such an advantage? The ACC, Big East, and CUSA (and other conferences) should have joined with the non-football schools and lobbied for the right for basketball to stay competitive.
How is NCAA football in its current state considered amatuerism when the time its teams spend on the field is the same or even more than the NFL? The first NCAA training camps started August 1 in 2011 while NFL camps started July 27-29th. The NCAA season ended January 9th and the NFL season ended February 5th. The NCAA then allows Football to practice for a month and have an intersquad exhibition in the spring. The NFL only has a few days of OTA's.
Why, then, does basketball have its earning capacity diminished by having its regular season capped at only 37% of what the NBA allows if Football is allowed to have its regular season as high as 75% of the NFL's?
Is it safety concerns? That clearly can't be it. At the college level, football accounted for 55% of all direct catostrophic injuries while basketball accounted for only 3.5% (National Center for Castostrophic Sports Injury Research). I can't imagine 10-15 more games in the season would even make a dent in that figure.
Is it academics? Football is literally practiced in every semester: spring, summer, and fall. Football teams that are selected to bowl games usually have to practice through all of their final exams. The spring football schedule doesn't end until mid-April, and that can interfere with spring finals or at least finals preparation. Additionally, the weight-lifting and conditioning required at D-1 schools is year-round. Baskeball is played through the fall finals as well, but there is an entire month (or more at many schools) of the season played when there are no classes at all. The season ends well before traditional schools have their final exams.
If the NCAA permitted basketball teams to play 75% of the games the NBA played like it does with Football relative to the NFL, that would be 61 games. Football should be scaled back two games to a total of 10 games for the year (62.5% of the NFL) and basketball should be given a 42 game regular season (51% of the NBA).
If the NCAA did allow basketball to play 42 regular season games, a school like Creighton (assuming 30 home games and attendance similar to its 2011-2012 average attendance) would have drawn more fans than all but 25 football schools in the country in 2011 with nearly 30 more television and radio opportunities.
I think the disparity in value between football and basketball is largely due to the NCAA rules. The NCAA does not give basketball a level playing field with football, and that has resulted in the mess we've seen unfold in the last decade. Including conference championships and bowl games, the NCAA allows its football programs to play up to 93% of the games the NFL allows in the regular season, but NCAA basketball teams only play between 35% and 48% (the latter figure being Kentucky and Kansas for reaching the championship game) of the games played by the NBA in the regular season. The NCAA limits the basketball regular season to only 39% of the NBA's while allowing the football schools a regular season that is 75% of the NFL's.
Basketball-only schools have been so short-sighted. If they banned together, they could have limited the growth of football or at least fought for basketball to be given the same consideration. I really don't get it. There are 347 or so D-1 basketball teams and only 120 D-1 FBS football teams (33 of which averaged less than 21,000 fans in 2011), several of which draw more from basketball: Syracuse (by over 200,000!), Louisville, Maryland, Indiana, Kentucky, Memphis (more than double), UNLV, New Mexico (double), Vanderbilt, etc. UNC and BYU would have drawn more to basketball but curiously only played 15 and 14 home basketball games, respectively. Kansas was about even. How did the football schools gain such an advantage? The ACC, Big East, and CUSA (and other conferences) should have joined with the non-football schools and lobbied for the right for basketball to stay competitive.
How is NCAA football in its current state considered amatuerism when the time its teams spend on the field is the same or even more than the NFL? The first NCAA training camps started August 1 in 2011 while NFL camps started July 27-29th. The NCAA season ended January 9th and the NFL season ended February 5th. The NCAA then allows Football to practice for a month and have an intersquad exhibition in the spring. The NFL only has a few days of OTA's.
Why, then, does basketball have its earning capacity diminished by having its regular season capped at only 37% of what the NBA allows if Football is allowed to have its regular season as high as 75% of the NFL's?
Is it safety concerns? That clearly can't be it. At the college level, football accounted for 55% of all direct catostrophic injuries while basketball accounted for only 3.5% (National Center for Castostrophic Sports Injury Research). I can't imagine 10-15 more games in the season would even make a dent in that figure.
Is it academics? Football is literally practiced in every semester: spring, summer, and fall. Football teams that are selected to bowl games usually have to practice through all of their final exams. The spring football schedule doesn't end until mid-April, and that can interfere with spring finals or at least finals preparation. Additionally, the weight-lifting and conditioning required at D-1 schools is year-round. Baskeball is played through the fall finals as well, but there is an entire month (or more at many schools) of the season played when there are no classes at all. The season ends well before traditional schools have their final exams.
If the NCAA permitted basketball teams to play 75% of the games the NBA played like it does with Football relative to the NFL, that would be 61 games. Football should be scaled back two games to a total of 10 games for the year (62.5% of the NFL) and basketball should be given a 42 game regular season (51% of the NBA).
If the NCAA did allow basketball to play 42 regular season games, a school like Creighton (assuming 30 home games and attendance similar to its 2011-2012 average attendance) would have drawn more fans than all but 25 football schools in the country in 2011 with nearly 30 more television and radio opportunities.
