But he is saying there will be two camps. One for schools with sports as a business and one for schools who still consider their sports programs part of the school.
Sounds like he sees ND siding with the latter. Might be ND’s first hint they are headed towards B1G membership.
Wholesale change is unavoidable in college athletics. The Fighting Irish athletic director thinks a total realignment of Division I is coming with it.
www.si.com
Just a matter of time. You can't have the SEC schools and other big time athletic departments (Ohio St, Miami, Clemson...etc) with say (for example) a football team who when you factor in all of the NIL deals the players have with a combined salary of $20 million. And then have a Northwestern, Indiana, Syracuse, or other program who's football team when you factor in their NIL deals with a combined salary of $30,000.
And that's just the football example, the SEC (and your Ohio St's, Clemson, Miami's and select others) is going to soon take over College basketball (Men's and Woman's) and do the same there. And so on and so forth with the other sports as well on a smaller scale but still paying more than 99% of other schools.
There is going to have to be a split. You will have schools where players are making big money (ie Major League College sports) and the other schools where the money just isn't there (Minor League college sports). You can't have them compete in the same conferences, for the same titles, on the same field as it won't be competitive contests on any level.
And a kid may start off at a "Minor League" school (like Northwestern, Syracuse, Indiana) but after a good season look to make the jump (i.e. be recruited) to one of the "Major League" schools to cash in. This is our new normal.
This is happening now. There is no going back. The SEC schools and other big time sports programs will need (want) to split away to create a new bigger financial pie so they can get a larger piece of THAT pie.
I know many fans will say well I just won't watch and college sports is ruined and for some that may be true. But for most fans, and fans who don't live in a college town they won't care. They will want to watch the best of the best and don't care what the players are getting paid or that half of the "major college programs" are dying a slow death and not playing on equal footing. And with sports gambling is what it is now, "college sports" won't be hurt at all in reality.
College sports since the beginning was a
"HOUSE OF CARDS". It wasn't perfect by any means but the set-up worked. Players were getting "paid" with a free education. Could they have loosened things a bit where a coach could buy a kid lunch or dinner, or an airplane ticket for when a parent died so he can fly home and stuff, yeah. But the system was,
"free education for play." And with the transfer portal, was it unfair a coach can leave at any time, but a kid is locked in and its hard to transfer? Yes, but that is the system that was at hand and the system that worked. Don't like the rule, don't sign up. The kids knew what they were signing up for.
Once these things were broken, it stopped becoming college sports and its now just semi-pro ball with no salary cap.
