bke1984
Helluva Engineer
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The impact on non revenue sports is going to be significant for a few reasons. Most have already pointed to the AA deficits which will put pressure on the departments to cut these programs that eat money. But I also believe one thing that will happen almost immediately is Title IX’s application to sports will be challenged. Right now the sports are considered educational activities. I think now that you pay them a salary there’s a pretty big argument that they are no longer educational activities. If that excludes football and basketball then there’s a pretty good argument that you could eliminate all non revenue sports entirely and just claim you don’t offer any educational athletic programs at all. Or maybe just keep baseball and volleyball for instance.
In the end I think this kills big time college athletics, but it will die slowly. Colleges will no longer fund the AAs, donors will shift spend to tickets and merchandise (which won’t be dollar-for-dollar, attendance will die as ticket prices rise in attempt to fill the gap, and then broadcasts will slowly disappear when interest fades. Programs with big debts used to fund capital projects will go bankrupt and cease to exist once this happens. The big programs that are left may have some small division they continue to play in, but the vast majority of the country won’t care anymore and will follow pro sports instead.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
In the end I think this kills big time college athletics, but it will die slowly. Colleges will no longer fund the AAs, donors will shift spend to tickets and merchandise (which won’t be dollar-for-dollar, attendance will die as ticket prices rise in attempt to fill the gap, and then broadcasts will slowly disappear when interest fades. Programs with big debts used to fund capital projects will go bankrupt and cease to exist once this happens. The big programs that are left may have some small division they continue to play in, but the vast majority of the country won’t care anymore and will follow pro sports instead.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.