Sweeping changes recommended in college sports

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100617/SPORTS02/100617035/1094/

Financial reforms recommended Thursday by the commission include:

— Removal of half of the money now distributed by the NCAA through its tournament basketball distribution fund, which bases the distribution on the number of appearances made by each conference’s members each year.

That money, which would have amounted to $83.5 million this year, would, instead, be distributed through an Academic-Athletics Balance Fund only to schools who have at least 50 percent of their athletes on track to graduate and “that demonstrate an appropriate balance between institutional investments in athletics and education.”

— Remove 20 percent of the money now distributed by the Bowl Championship Series group and placed in a similar balance fund and distributed to all Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) based on the same criteria as the new NCAA fund.

— Reduce the ceiling on scholarships now offered by schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision from 85 to a range of at least 75-77 scholarships.

“Even with this reduction, football would still have a much higher of ratio of scholarships to playing opportunities when compared with other sports.”

— Prohibit any school with an Academic Progress Rate score of less than 925 from participating in post-season play. Each program’s eligibility for post-season play would be determined at the start of each academic year based on the program’s current score.

— Require each school to make public annually all financial data regarding revenues and expenditures of its athletic departments including long-term capital expenses. That data should be provided in a form that can be accurately compared with other schools.

— Prevent use of athlete names and images to promote the commercial entities or products. The recommendation includes urging that current NCAA rules be change so that athlete images can no longer used to sell products.

Blah, blah, blah, I hate sports, blah, blah, blah.

If you hate sports, teach at U of Chicago, U. of Paris, or CPCC! :)) But seriously, 20% for academic increase in 4 years isn’t exactly something to defend. At least atletics is supporting the extra $ to cover the 38% growth.

I’m pretty sure, no one at U of Maryland System is missing out on any classes they want to go to.

I am ok with most of this. They are STUDENT-athletes. The amount of money involved with college sports is insane.

I don’t see how anyone who cares about what the NCAA is really supposed to be can have a problem with this.

I don’t mind any of these but most if not all of them will not be implemented any time soon.