I recommend reading the whole article as there are a lot of interesting quotes from Notre Dame’s AD regarding the current state of NIL, transfers, conference realignment, football playoffs, etc.
To briefly summarize, he says college sports are changing very rapidly to become a big business and it will soon reach a point where some schools will throw in the towel and realize they can’t keep up and then we will see a split between the two and we will have FBS split into the big $$$$ division and the small $ division.
Here are a few interesting quotes from the article. It was hard not to cut and paste the whole article as so much of it is relevant to a lot of threads on these boards recently.
The expectation is that the Big Ten and SEC will continue to leave the rest of the Power Five conferences behind in terms of revenue. The widening gap will place more stress on the current landscape, leading some schools to move away from their existing conference affiliations—and possibly leading some leagues to boot longtime members that don’t bring as much to the revenue trough.
“We’re going to have these two conferences that have so distanced themselves from anyone else financially,” Swarbrick said. “That’s where I see it starting to break down. There are so many schools trying to get out of their current conference, and they can’t get there.”
Asked if the current Name, Image and Likeness landscape is sustainable, the answer was a blunt no. Recruiting inducements were not the original idea, but that’s what NIL has become in many instances.
“This morphed so quickly into talent acquisition fees that it’s just stunning,” he said. “Two things happened. The schools that have been doing [under the table] this a long time just had a way they could describe it now and be covered. That created a whole bunch of pressure on other schools that said, ‘Oh my god, we’ve got to do that, too.’
“We went from what people thought was an overly restrictive market to the most unrestricted labor market in the history of sports.”
Does Swarbrick see NCAA Enforcement having any chance of reining it in?
“No. I hate to be so pessimistic, but it’s been a lot of years of not seeing them have any,” he said. “I can see a lot of that [rules compliance and enforcement] being transferred to the conferences.”
Swarbrick predicts that the current NIL marketplace will severely damage Olympic sports, as investments and donations continue to tilt toward revenue-producing sports.
“I hate to see that,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how the federal government approaches it. If all of this revenue is disproportionately coming to men, even if you didn’t set it up, how does Title IX analyze that?”
To briefly summarize, he says college sports are changing very rapidly to become a big business and it will soon reach a point where some schools will throw in the towel and realize they can’t keep up and then we will see a split between the two and we will have FBS split into the big $$$$ division and the small $ division.
Here are a few interesting quotes from the article. It was hard not to cut and paste the whole article as so much of it is relevant to a lot of threads on these boards recently.
The expectation is that the Big Ten and SEC will continue to leave the rest of the Power Five conferences behind in terms of revenue. The widening gap will place more stress on the current landscape, leading some schools to move away from their existing conference affiliations—and possibly leading some leagues to boot longtime members that don’t bring as much to the revenue trough.
“We’re going to have these two conferences that have so distanced themselves from anyone else financially,” Swarbrick said. “That’s where I see it starting to break down. There are so many schools trying to get out of their current conference, and they can’t get there.”
Asked if the current Name, Image and Likeness landscape is sustainable, the answer was a blunt no. Recruiting inducements were not the original idea, but that’s what NIL has become in many instances.
“This morphed so quickly into talent acquisition fees that it’s just stunning,” he said. “Two things happened. The schools that have been doing [under the table] this a long time just had a way they could describe it now and be covered. That created a whole bunch of pressure on other schools that said, ‘Oh my god, we’ve got to do that, too.’
“We went from what people thought was an overly restrictive market to the most unrestricted labor market in the history of sports.”
Does Swarbrick see NCAA Enforcement having any chance of reining it in?
“No. I hate to be so pessimistic, but it’s been a lot of years of not seeing them have any,” he said. “I can see a lot of that [rules compliance and enforcement] being transferred to the conferences.”
Swarbrick predicts that the current NIL marketplace will severely damage Olympic sports, as investments and donations continue to tilt toward revenue-producing sports.
“I hate to see that,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how the federal government approaches it. If all of this revenue is disproportionately coming to men, even if you didn’t set it up, how does Title IX analyze that?”
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick says total Division I realignment is ‘inevitable’ - Sports Illustrated
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