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Ryan Nelson: “Power Five” autonomy unfavorable for lower-ranked schools

By Ryan Nelson

Aug. 18, 2014 2:00 a.m.

In a move that benefitted few and surprised no one, the NCAA voted last Thursday to allow its five richest conferences – the Pac-12, the Southeast Conference (SEC), the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, and Big 12 – a certain degree of autonomy when governing their players.

The vote allowed the schools in those conferences to form their own rules when it comes to specific things, such as cost-of-living stipends, scholarship length and healthcare coverage for college athletes. While the full NCAA voting body, comprised of all Division I schools, will still have final say over things like playoff tournaments, the “Power Five” will no longer need a majority of NCAA Division I schools to pass legislation that affects these five conferences.

Essentially, the richer schools have created their own playing field, one that’s a lot nicer, with better turf, freshly painted field goals and whatever else you want to include in the metaphor.

However, to the extent that autonomy can benefit athletes that attend the affected schools, it can also do major harm to those that fall on the tier below. Creating an imbalanced system where the rich theoretically get to institute their own, looser set of rules, funnels even more of the recruiting power into less than half of Division I schools.

Dan Guerrero, UCLA’s athletic director, said in a statement that he supported the ruling, but that the “devil is in the details” as far as implementation goes. Which is true, except that everyone seems to be looking at the wrong details. And if no one else will do it, the impetus lies with UCLA to ask the hard questions.

The details the Power Five want to focus on: Rich schools can now use the decision to address some of the NCAA’s most glaring problems – cost-of-attendance stipends, multi-year scholarships, practice times, etc. – quickly and efficiently, so that athletes that attend those schools may get new benefits as early as January 2015. Which is great, but the fact remains that these basic standards of decency and fairness will only be instituted for a fraction of the athletes that commit their lives and bodies to a sport that is essentially a full-time job.

But what are the important details? Well, there are 125 Division I football schools, and schools are allowed up to 85 scholarship players. Given that there are 64 schools that stand to benefit from the autonomy, that gives us about 51 percent of NCAA football scholarship players that stand to benefit from any changes. About 5,185 will continue without the benefits, because they didn’t happen to go to or be recruited by certain schools.

Men’s Basketball programs are granted 13 scholarship positions, and there are 351 Division 1 schools, so around 18 of players stand to benefit. That leaves an additional 3,731 players without extra protection or benefits. And that’s not even mentioning direct payment to athletes for all the money they make their schools – with one report claiming the average basketball player could be worth up to $212,000 a year.

Now consider that a recruit looking to recoup even some of the money they’ll bring to their schools will have to shun a majority of Division I schools for a few lucky ones that happen to be good. What they won’t make in salary, they will make in scholarships, stipends and benefits.

It’s especially egregious when you consider that many of the “traditional” college football powerhouses – think USC, Alabama, or Auburn – and basketball powerhouses – Kentucky, Kansas, and yours truly – stay that way because they’re name brands. Winning attracts top talent. The appealing traditions, as grand and great as they are, are not as much a meritocracy as they are a reward for something that happened in the past.

Then take a university like Boise State, a major competitor in football that plays in the Mountain West Conference, and try to compare it to the more established schools. The possibility of a stipend, among other potential goodies, which Boise State can’t offer, might dissuade athletes from attending and stunt the growth of another strong football tradition. In essence, the decision limits the possibility for growth outside of the Power Five conferences and encourages them to abandon their own conference at the first opportunity of something better.

Not only that, but it also looks like the Power Five held a gun to the NCAA’s head to make this happen. Most schools agreed to the new governing format primarily because they were worried those conferences would split off into their own league.

It’s now become a vicious cycle. Small schools need the Power Five because playing against them – in mostly lopsided contests – provides their athletic programs with a media boost and extra ticket revenue, the whole point of which is to use the exposure to attract new recruits. But now they can’t offer potential athletes the same benefits, so the big guys continue to rack up wins and top recruits.

The imbalance is evident and looks like it’ll grow. There’s not an easy solution here – just blindly providing benefits to all athletes at every school could bankrupt some programs without the resources to do so. Somewhere, there’s a solution that ensures fairness to athletes and program solvency.

But if no one else will address it, UCLA – with its much publicized values of accountability and service – should be broaching the subject at meetings and offering solutions. It would help to distinguish exactly whom athletics is supposed to service: their student-athletes, or their bottom line.

Otherwise, we’re going to end up mirroring the same structural deficiency as the rest of the country: an ever-increasing amount of influence and wealth transmitted into the hands of the relatively few, while those who do the grunt work are left behind. It’s great business, and bad sportsmanship.

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Ryan Nelson | Opinion editor
Ryan Nelson was the Opinion editor from 2015-16 and a member of the Bruin Editorial Board from 2013-16. He was an opinion columnist from 2012-14 and assistant opinion editor in 2015. Alongside other Bruin reporters, Nelson covered undocumented students for the Bridget O'Brien Scholarship Foundation. He also writes about labor issues, healthcare and the environment.
Ryan Nelson was the Opinion editor from 2015-16 and a member of the Bruin Editorial Board from 2013-16. He was an opinion columnist from 2012-14 and assistant opinion editor in 2015. Alongside other Bruin reporters, Nelson covered undocumented students for the Bridget O'Brien Scholarship Foundation. He also writes about labor issues, healthcare and the environment.
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