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New NCAA Proposal Could Divide The Top Level Of College Football · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday de number sixth. I'm your host Tom
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  Moore. The Cotton Bowl game against Missouri in twenty three days, the game
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  against Michigan in three hundred and sixty days. Today, though, we are
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  talking big picture because there was some big news that came out on Tuesday.
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  NCAA President Charlie Baker announced eight Well, there was a leaked proposal I guess
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  from NCAA President Charlie Baker about the future of the top level of football in
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  the college realm, and it could look very different than it does right now.
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  I'm joined today by Tony Gernaman of Buckeheadle dot com, and Tony,
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  I guess this is the kind of thing that I think you and I and
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  you know anytime two or more sports writers are gathered, they will have the
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  conversation about the future of college football and what it might look like and a
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  potential breakaway of the top division and all that kind of stuff. That's not
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  really the newsworthy part of this. The newsworthy part of this is the NCAA
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  president has put this on paper and send it out to the schools as a
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  hey, maybe we should look at doing this. Yeah, the NCAA president
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  has done something, and wow, that is news in itself. The release
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  should just be hey, guys, I did something, and aren't I so
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  much different than the previous guy? And that is really the as you said
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  that the biggest news in this that they're actually moving forward trying to be I
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  can't call it proactive, but pro retroactive. Is that a word? Because
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  obviously there are things happening with the antitrust and employment status and things like that,
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  and so they are taking steps to be I think in the article and
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  the release talking about being forward thinking, and this is what that is.
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  And there's a bunch of thinking involved. For once, there is a bunch
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  of thinking involved. And you know, by the NCAA standards, this is
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  like super proactive because they have not already lost a US Supreme Court case nine
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  to nothing on these matters before they even remotely consider changing any rules. The
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  proposal that Baker put forward is I'm just going to read from the Yahoo article
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  because I know how everyone loves it when I read from stuff on the show.
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  Schools that choose to be part of a new subdivision that can opt in
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  or out are required to meet a strict minimum standard rooted in athlete investment.
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  Members of the new subdivision will permit be permitted to strike name, image and
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  likeness deals with their own athletes, a significant move away from the current ANIL
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  structure. However, the most impactful benefit of this new model is a framework
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  in which schools can directly compensate athletes through a trust fund. Schools within the
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  new subdivision will be required to distribute to athletes thousands of dollars in additional educational
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  related funds without limitation. There is no cap on the amount of funds that
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  a program can provide an athlete. So I'm going to just sort of translate
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  for you. You can join this club, but there is a substantial annual
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  fee and that is going to be what determines. You know, this is
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  not a well you have to have a certain winning percentage to be the top
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  group here, or you have to have, you know, a certain number
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  of years in a major conference. It is would you like to pay a
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  certain amount of money. It is thirty thousand dollars per year per athlete into
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  what is termed a quote it enhanced Educational trust fund unquote for at least half
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  of your schools accountable athletes. That is the you know, that is the
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  bare minimum you've got to do if you have you know, if a school
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  has you know, four hundred people, they're going to have to put thirty
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  thousand dollars in each year per per athlete for half of the athletes and their
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  school, you know, on average. The the article said it could cost
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  about six million dollars a year just for the bare minimum. That's like the
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  table stakes to get in six million dollars. Probably not a lot to Ohio
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  State, Tony, but that does feel like you're probably really dividing, you
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  know, what should probably be divided, because it really is you know,
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  Ohio State. Pretending that Ohio State and Louisiana Monroe are playing the same sport
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  at the same level is obviously not true. That's kind of how it's presented
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  right now. It has not been true at any point really during the course
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  of the NCAA's existence. But it does feel like this is where you're going
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  to sort of have the you know, it's not necessarily on field haves and
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  have nots, but it's sort of the financial haves and have nots is where
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  this is potentially going to split yeah, and you can have anybody come in
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  and join the table if they can afford it. And so it is interesting
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  in that way where we assume it's just going to be the power of the
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  Power five. We can get into who exactly that's going to be later on.
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  But if somebody else has been like SMU moving to the ACC wanting to
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  be involved, obviously there's some money in Texas they you know, maybe they
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  were will be one of the ones. One question I do have is why
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  do they say thirty thousand for at least for half? Why not just say
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  fifteen for everybody? You know, they just make cut the math out in
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  that way, at least fifteen for everybody, and then you don't have to
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  do all of the division. But for a place like Ohio State with roughly
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  Ohio States are always touting over a thousand athletes, you're talking like fifteen million
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  dollars into that fund every year. It's a lot of money, but it's
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  there. They bring in a lot of money. That is what two home
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  gates for the football season basically, so you know they have that money.
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  But it is a certainly a sea change in terms of compensating the idea of
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  it's open now. If it is the we've talked about pay for play with
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  nil, this is pay to play. If you want in, come on
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  in. It's going to cost you. And we don't want to hear any
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  belly aching about it. And so it's it's very interesting and you know how
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  quickly this moves, will see, but you don't move without a first step.
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  I wonder how this is going to impact non rev sports, Olympic sports,
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  whatever you want to call it, because the you know, according to
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  according to the proposal, schools do have to continue to live by the framework
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  of Title nine. So fifty percent of the investment of the money that they
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  put in, So for Ohio State, you know, the fifteen million dollars,
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  fifty percent of it has to go towards female athletes under the Title nine
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  framework. You wonder if this is this going to lead to a bunch of
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  you know, Ohio State has thirty five sports. There are you know,
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  a couple of years ago when Ohio was playing Clemson, I think the conversation
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  was about the fact that Clemson sponsored like eighteen sports and they're both at the
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  same you know, the top level of the of the Division one. You
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  wonder how this is going to impact other sports. Are they going to you
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  know, are you going to have teams just yeah, you know what,
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  we don't need a track team anymore. And you cut the men's team and
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  the women's team, and then it's not the title nine issue. But you're
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  you know, you're kind of pairing down your your payrolls and your you know,
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  your student potential, educational trust pay rolls, or however you want to
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  frame it. It'll be interesting to see how that's impacted. I would assume
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  this is probably this probably means less money for extremely expensive coaching staffs, extremely
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  expensive locker rooms, extremely expensive slides and waterfalls and football facilities, that kind
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  of stuff. You know, some of that is more discretionary than other pieces
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  of spending. It has felt for a long time like a lot of big
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  college football programs are kind of in you know, they're basically in Brewsters millions
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  mode, Like, well, we have to spend it somehow. We can't
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  have you know, we're not for profits, so we can't have a profit,
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  so we have to spend it somehow. So okay, let's put another
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  waterfall. You're going to have some of that stuff. But it does feel
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  like this could have a negative impact. You know, it's going to be
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  a positive impact for the athletes who are getting the money. It could have
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  a negative impact though, on some of the other athletes who might see their
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  sports cut. Yeah, it's going to be interesting because already with non rev
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  sports, you have I don't know what is like eleven or thirteen scholarships for
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  an entire baseball team, and you've got to split that stuff up and sports
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  like that where not everybody's getting a full share, and Ohio State has always
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  been one of those that we want to They're saying this, we want to
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  be able to field as many programs, as many teams as possible. When
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  the COVID thing hit and everybody's getting extra COVID years, some schools are saying,
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  no, we're not giving anybody extra COVID years. A high stated said,
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  We're going to give everybody extra COVID years. There's this pride that Jean
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  Smith has had throughout this about keeping things going being a full athletic department.
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  Jean Smith tweeted out support of this plan. It's been similar to a planned
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  is that he is shared with people, but he's also on his way out.
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  So you wonder the next athletic director when they're going to see all of
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  this and they're going to see fifteen million dollars and why are we you know,
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  thirty six thirty five sports and Alabama has six, ten or seventeen when
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  you start looking at in those terms, and you know you can't. I
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  don't think Tom, you don't want to talk about competing athletic departments and only
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  focus on football. But football is everything, and you can't you know,
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  do you get rid of for sports to compete with Alabama football? And that
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  seems like not collegiate. You know, that's not a university thing. That
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  is a professional thing, and we can all operate under the guise of this
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  is still amateurism. And that's actually part of the whole argument going on as
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  well. But you're asking a lot to not lose any sports in Ohio State
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  may keep everybody, not every school is going to keep all of these sports
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  if they're going to do this, and that's going to have to be something
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  that they think really really hard on. And I also wonder Tom will because
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  you can have teams in the same conference not opt in and some opt out.
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  How many of the Big ten, how many of the major of the
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  power and the article continues to talk about Power four because the PAC twelve is
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  gone, how many teams in the Power four won't be opting in? And
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  is that also? Is that table stakes? To be in a conference of
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  the Big ten and the SEC, you have to opt in and if you're
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  not going to opt in, we're going to opt you out. Is this
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  going to impact what the conferences look like? Yeah, that's that's certainly one
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  way to approach the question. And I think that's a very reasonable way to
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  approach the question because you have already sort of seen the you know, you've
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  gone from a Power five to a Power four really though it's kind of a
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  Power two. You look at the amount that the Big ten and the SEC
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  are bringing in in TV revenue starting next year. You look at the you
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  know, compared to the Big twelve and the ACC and it's multiple, you
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  know, it's like three x, and you know, give or take versus
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  what the smaller conferences are bringing in. And then if you look at the
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  nc double A, there's not a guarantee the NCAA is the governing body here
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  for the sport of college football. Because the NCAA is facing a bunch of
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  court stuff that is not court stuff. That's a very technical legal term.
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  There are several lawsuits facing the NC double A. You know, you go
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  back to the Alston case a couple of years ago, that was a relatively
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  minor one, the Obandon case a few years before that. I mean,
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  there's a bunch of that stuff that's sort of shipped away at the NC double
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  A and you know the NCAA's power. There's a bunch of stuff now.
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  House v. NC double A is one of them, looking for as much
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  as three billion billion with a b in retroactive nil and broadcast revenue payments from
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  people who are going, well, they you're doing nil now because you were
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  told you had to do nil. So you know why didn't I get my
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  nil back? Then? It's because you violated my rights. And there are
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  several cases along those along those lines that you know, the n CUAA may
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  not be able to be an ongoing, you know, a viable ongoing entity
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  at some point. So you know, it does the end you know,
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  does you know do they shift it? Like oh that was our old LLC
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  and now Ohio State football is under MC double A. Sorry you have to
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  x that out. Sorry, x C double A football and it's a new
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  LLC. Sorry, we don't have anything to do with the old one.
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  I am not a law talking guy, so I don't know exactly how viable
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  that is in terms of legal strategy. But I'm not super confident that the
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  NC double A is going to continue being an ongoing entity. You know,
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  ten years from now, fifteen years from now. There's no timetable on this
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  proposal, Like it's sort of thrown out there, and I think it's a
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  starting point for the conversation. So you know, this is not necessarily Hey,
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  this is all going to happen next year. Things have been moving pretty
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  fast in the NC double A world. I have sort of always assumed that
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  there would be some kind of a breakaway at some point in the twenty thirties
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  when all the TV contracts were kind of up more or less at the same
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  time. That's sort of the timetable I've always sort of been assuming this might
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  happen on in your mind, does this make this Does this expedite the process
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  of that happening. Does that make this more likely to happen before the twenty
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  thirties? Is this an interim step between here and the twenty thirties. Wait,
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  how do you see that maybe shaken out? I think this is showing
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  Congress and the government like hey, look we're doing something, We're trying to
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  fix the issue. Just give us a little help, give us a little
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  time something like that. I do think all you need to know about how
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  messed up the NCAA is and was is you've got a politician that comes in
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  and is able to like maybe save it. That's how bad things where.
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  You get to turn to Charlie Baker, former Massachusetts governor, and you're like,
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  please, please, mister politician, help us out of this jam.
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  And you know, obviously there's going to be a lot of politics involved in
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  getting this done. But this is a logical step, a you know,
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  a tip of the cap, like an acknowledgement that yes, things need to
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  change. This is these are what we want to do. These are things
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  that we think will help. Now just give us, give us a little
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  bit of a hand in terms of the employment status and things, you know,
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  keeping things these are student athletes, not employees. And how all of
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  that shakes out, that's going to be something else that comes in. But
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  I do think this moves up the clock. Now, I don't know what
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  it does. You know, does this throw everything into the lurch in terms
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  of these contracts. I wonder what kind of fine print there was in terms
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  of anything like this happening with those contracts, like if something earth shattering should
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  happen, and I do we've talked in the past what I wonder about.
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  At some point, do these fifty schools or whatever it is then have their
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  own contract with whatever networks like and that's how things operate. So there's still
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  obviously so much to happen, and this is the first it's a pretty big
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  step. But we'll see where it goes from here and how long it takes
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  for the next step to happen. But it sure doesn't seem to me like
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  twenty thirty one or whenever the contracts are up is when this will finally take
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  place. Yeah, this is probably not the final form of what this is
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  going to end up looking like, but just the fact that this got put
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  out as a first you know, a sort of first offer. It's you
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  know, it's like you're selling your house and you know you're probably not on
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  the final the negotiation is not done, but the first piece of paper they
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  slid across the table had a much bigger number on it than you were expecting,
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  and it was like, oh, okay, well, this probably will
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  not be as long and arduous a process as you might have thought. So
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  we will see how long and arduous the process is. But it certainly,
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  you know, yet another one of these monumental days in the history of college
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  football that seemed to be happening faster and faster and more and more frequently over
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  the last three or four years or so. For since I started doing a
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  morning show, everything seems to be happening really really big consequential stuff seems to
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  be happening more and more frequently. Probably just a coincidence. I couldn't couldn't
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  tell you for sure. But we will continue doing this morning show. We
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  will continue doing the Buckeye Weekly podcast. We'll continuing all of the shows you
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  have come to know and love at Buckeyehuddle dot com and YouTube dot com slash
• 16:30
  Buckeye Huddle. We'll try not to cause the you know, the universe to
• 16:33
  spin too fast, or the college football universe to spin too fast and throw
• 16:38
  itself out of orbit or something like that. But we'll be covering the Buckeyes
• 16:42
  as they head to the Cotton Bowl. Tonie, Kevin and I have our
• 16:45
  flights booked. We will find out together probably in the coming days and weeks
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  how many of the members of Ohio States football team a few weeks ago we'll
• 16:53
  be joining us there in Dallas. As of as of right now, no
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  further transfer portal entries after the ones that Tony and I broke down on yesterday's
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  show. So we'll see if that if that craziness has maybe settled down,
• 17:07
  We'll have to see how the how the opt out thing goes. Marvin Harrison
• 17:11
  headed to New York for the Heisman this weekend. Lots of stuff to talk
• 17:15
  about. A pop five star defense, our offensive lineman making a decision or
• 17:19
  house it considered a strong contender to lend his services. Jordan Seaton early signing
• 17:25
  day coming up in de Sember twentieth. Boy oh boy is there are a
• 17:26
  lot of stuff going on right now at buckeyehuddle dot com. So when I
• 17:30
  stay up to date with all of it, you can join us there and
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  of course on our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Buckeyehuddle as well.
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  That will do it for today. I thank you guys all for joining us.
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  Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.