guncurug

In the most jarring example yet of the pressures being felt by athletic departments across the country caused by the Great Recession and the college sports arms race, University of California Berkeley announced it was dropping baseball, a sport which it had fielded a team since 1892. In addition, it is also dropping men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and is reducing men's hockey to club status, all as of the close of the 2011 academic year.

The athletic program has been receiving millions in subsidies from the school; in fact, last year the university provided athletics with $12 million in support.  With budgets tight across the entire university, the administration decided it could no longer justify support at that level.  These reductions will supposedly reduce the need for support down to a more manageable level of $5 million.

You have to wonder if cutting baseball was the most appropriate response.  Berkeley is not exactly a hockey hotbed and travel to other D-I hockey playing schools is expensive as they are few that are close.  The same is true for lacrosse, so cutting those programs makes sense.  However, baseball is a Pac-10(12) sport with a more than 100 year tradition at Cal and it's hard to picture a BCS school, particularly one that fancies itself as a major athletic institution without a baseball team.  Cutting baseball has also not gone down well with certain vocal and well-heeled alumni, including current major league ballplayers, which may lead to significant fund raising losses.

It's often said about departmental politics in colleges and universities that the politics is so brutal because the stakes are so small.  Maybe that's why the conference realignment game being played out among the Mountain West, WAC and West  Conference Conference seems to be on a whole other plain of duplicity and hard feelings than even the infamous ACC midnight raid on the Big  East.  At least in that raid, with the exception of the Boston College, there were no expressions of fealty to the league being abandoned before the jump was made.


The realignment dance out west began when the Pac-10(12) decided to explore expansion.  Shortly after the expansion discussions began, it became evident to BYU that it would not become a member of the PAC-10(12) and that Utah likely would.  At that point, it became clear to the leadership of the WAC that an opportunity was presenting itself to elevate the league's status to becoming the top non automatic qualifying conference in the land, by providing BYU with a spot for all of its teams other than football and working out an arrangement that would allow BYU to go independent in football, which is something that BYU had been exploring for years.  To that end, the WAC asked each member for a five year commitment to the league and each member agreed, whether that agreement was in writing and the nature of the agreement is going to be something that a court will likely decide but I'm getting ahead of myself.  


The Mountain West, now fearful of losing its two best programs, went searching for new members, other than Boise State who had jumped from the WAC before the discussions described above took place.  The league asked Utah State but the Aggies declined in solidarity with its WAC brethren and in reliance on its agreement with the other members.  It might end up paying a very heavy price for that choice.  The WAC then asked both Fresno State and Nevada, who each thought about their commitment to the WAC for about five seconds and jumped to the MWC, probably believing BYU was staying.  Now, Utah State, having been totally deceived by Fresno State and Nevada, wants a mulligan on the MWC decision and supposedly they are in discussions. 


Yesterday, BYU announced it is leaving the MWC to go independent and will affiliate with the West Coast Conference in other sports.  If that doesn't ring a bell, it is the wholly owned subsidiary of Gonzaga basketball.  BYU also announced an eight year agreement with ESPN for broadcast of its games across the ESPN family which justifies its decision.  In fact, it even has Southern Call at least thinking about taking the same route.  Who knows maybe Texas will take its Longhorn Network and go independent as well, although they have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages so I guess it wouldn't make much sense for them to leave the Big XII (X).

The WAC meanwhile is now scrambling to see if they can keep a league together.  The biggest loser in all of this may be Hawai'i who desperately needs a conference to ensure enough games for all of its athletes.  It's bad enough trying to schedule football when the visitor receives and extra game to make up the travel costs, but the Olympic sports have similar travel costs (admittedly the teams are smaller) but no way to make up the additional expense.  If Hawai'i can't count on a conference to fill out its schedule its participation in Division I could be in jeopardy.  The second biggest loser could be the only school that acted honorably in the whole mess, Utah State.  If the MWC doesn't extend membership to the Aggies and they are left with the other WAC schools trying to pull together a makeshift conference, they may just have to return to the Big West.


We would like to think of our institutions of higher education as places where our children go to learn the values that help govern our free society.  Based on the manner in which these schools conduct their business, the values that are being taught to out kids are the very values that embody the Wall Street mentality that put us in the Great Recession.  A college or university athletic department is first and foremost a reflection of, introduction to and manifestation of that particular college or university.  If this is the way that these universities wish to portray themselves to the general public, they should not cry too much when legislators cut the budgets of public schools and when public and private schools have a tougher time attracting donations.  Few people like to be associated with greed, duplicity and the callous disregard for general ethics.  College athletics in particular should be above this.

Here are a few links for your weekend reading pleasure.  What else are you reading this weekend? 

Jaguars sell naming rights to  Jacksonville stadium to EverBank for relatively cheap $16.6 million over 5 years (Times-Union) video of announcement here

Could this be why A-Rod is having trouble hitting number 600?

Is rebranding the Pac-10/12, of which this new logo is a part,  just a prelude to an attempt to form a Pac10/12 Network in 2011 when its current media contracts expire?

Tim Tebow follows up his Focus on the Family ad with an endorsement deal with Jockey underwear, oh, and not to be left out signs his Broncos contract for good measure.

The Great Conference Realignment appears to be a small shift by three schools at least for now.  With Nebraska going to the Big Ten, Colorado to the Pac-10 and Boise to the Mountain West being the only moves for the time being, armageddon in college sports has been avoided and everyone can thank TExas for that.  As had been widely predicted all along, Texas was indeed the key to wholesale realignment and when UT turned down an invitation from the Pac-10, the other schools in the Big XII South followed suit and thee league survived to play another day.


That survival did not come without a cost however.  Texas negotiated is now clearly the top dog in the conference and the league will continue to distribute revenues unevenly.  Texas also won the right to retain local media rights, which the Pac-10 was unwiling to give it.  This will allow Texas to pursue its idea of a University of Texas network, an idea which it has been considering  for some time.  The Pac-10 needed all schools local media rights to facilitate its launch of a Pac-10 network modeled on the Big Ten Network. 

Based on preliminary discussions, Big XII Commissioner Dan Beebe believes Fox is willing to pay substantially more for its television rights when the current contract is up for renewal, even with the defections of Colorado and Nebraska.  Now, that will only be true if ESPN bids for them and if the departure of Nebraska really is that meaningless, two contingencies I don't really believe.  Nevertheless, on those assumptions and assuming a successful launch of the all Texas, all the time network, the Longhorns should be taking home between $20-$25 million per year in media income, or roughly what the Pac-10 would have been paying.  So Texas will get roughly the same amount of money, in a league with no championship game and with only Oklahoma to contend with on the field.  I don't think they had to deliberate too long about this one.

After a seemingly interminable investigation, the NCAA handed down its ruling on USC yesterday and found the Trojans guilty of major violations, including the real "biggie" in the mind of the NCAA  - the dreaded lack of institutional control.  The Trojans were hit in three sports, but most of the focus has been on football, where the most visible violations occurred.




As punishment, the NCAA imposed a two year postseason ban, the loss of 10 football scholarships in each of the next three years and the vacation of all wins from December, 2004 through the end of the 2005 postseason.  That, of course, included the Trojans national championship which USC won on January 4, 2005 and the 12 wins in 2005 that ended with a loss to Texas in the national title game in the Rose Bowl. 


From the tenor of the commentary about the sanctions you would think that USC is just a hatr's breath away from the death penalty.  But. really, is a two year postseason ban all that meaningful.  Now, granted the loss of scholarships will be an issue with ramifications beyond the three years, putting USC behind in recruiting for probably the next five years, or the tenure of Lane Kiffin's successor.  However, in the grander scheme of things, the NCAA has once again failed to use the most powerful weapon at its disposal short of the death penalty: a ban from television appearances.  What was once commonplace in the days before SMU underwent the death penalty seems to have disappeared now that the schools and conferences have inked multi-gazillion dollars contracts or own their own networks.  That's just the point - if you want sanctions to hurt, hit him where they will feel it the most and that's the pocketbook, and there is no better way to affect a school's pocketbook than to take away its television appearances and ban its conference from distributing television money to it that would reflect any foregone appearances.  It's time that the NCAA unsheathed its most effective weapon and if a school is found guilty of a lack of institutional control - the worst offense in the NCAA's six inch thick rule book - doesn't deserve to be hit with the toughest penalties who does?

This morning's papers were full of the stories that broke yesterday announcing Nebraska's imminent move to the Big Ten, a move which  no doubt filled the DeLoss Dodds and the other folks in Austin Texas with a mixture of glee and sadness.  Glee that at long last they were rid of the Huskers continual whining about the bad deal they were getting from the Big XII anad sadness that Texas' sweet deal is about to end.  Of course, Dodds and the Longhorn faithful can console themselves with the thought of all the money that a new, expanded Pac-16 TV Network will bring them.

The first entrant in the new and improved Pac-10 will be Colorado, which is taking no chances and leaping now before the Pac-10 folks get a chance to reconsider expansion and change their mind.  Actually, even if the Pac-10 stops here, it's not a bad move.  They will have added the Denver market which should help get the network off the ground plus help pay all the additional travel costs.  However, with Nebraska and Colorado both gone, the Big XII is toast and I expect it to be formally laid to rest this weekend when the three Texas public schools and the two Oklahoma schools join up with Colorado.  Where Baylor, the Kansas schools and Iowa State go is a really good question.  Who would have thought a basketball program like Kansas would be left twisting in a great plains cyclone.  Oh well, there is always the Mountain West.

One thought to ponder is what happens to the BCS contracts when the Big XII and possibly the Big East implode.  Those contracts run through 2015 although I'm sure there are clauses calling for renegotiation in the event of a substantial change in circumstances, which the disappearance of two out of six conferences surely is. The BCS Commissioners may just try and substitute a reconstituted Mountain West for one of the two and call the other spot an at-large spot and see if they can convince ESPN to go along.   I don't see them giving the spot to any of C-USA, WAC, MAC or the Sunbelt.

On Sunday, the Big Ten Presidents met for four hours and discussed expansion for at least half that time.  What was decided, if anything, has not yet been announced, although it appears that no vote has been taken.  What is clear is that the deadline the Big XII gave Nebraska and Missouri has accelerated the Big Ten timeline.