NCAA 'PSA' College Sports Ads Make me Mad
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Really? The pressure to win/lose etc is not much different in D2 and D3 even if the depth and talent pool might be less.
And studies (well ones that are not run by the NCAA or the colluding universities) are finding out that not only are most Universities monetarily gaining from athletics, that some of the secondary sports that they like to promote as 'living off the Football profit' in D1 are net positives money wise for the universities.
If you decide to pull away all the accounting tricks and look at it from a wider perspective, a very, very different picture emerges.
Some examples:
- Schools use the full-freight # for tuition when calculating 'cost' to the university. So lets say you give out the equivalent of 800 scholarships * out-of-state-tuition and = big number. I use 800 because one of the studies looked at Texas University and that was how they were accounting for it. So 1) Texas 'locals' should be calculated at in-state rates and 2) regular out-of-state students rarely pay full freight. The estimate is that teh university was at least doubling the real cost
- Schools were regularly hiding revenues in other departments. Concessions to go food services. Merchandising goes to Campus Services. Media Rights were in General funds. And so on
- Partial scholarships were not included accounting wise. So even if I am giving say a 25% scholarship to someone, the other 75% is getting paid into the university general funds from other sources. Considering that student was probably unlikely to attend the university without the partial - and that most universities are not at capacity (so there is $0 opportunity cost because this student didn't prevent anyone attending), that is a major net positive for a university. Not even thinking preferred-walkons who attend because they get no money but were offered a roster spot either.
- There is a bunch of other things they do as well...
It is pretty easy to figure out why colleges support athletics on a campus wide basis - even without the football profits that some D1 football provides. The universities may say that they are losing money. They are not. In the end they are businesses - there is money for any ongoing activity - otherwise it wont be ongoing any longer.
Even our sport - D1 College Softball - if it wasn't generating enough revenue and interest you think it would be on ESPN? You know why we have seen such a big increase of the number of games? Because there is interest and major growth in viewers and that means money to be made.
Viewership numbers from last year:
Driven by record viewership of the Women's College World Series, the WCWS easily eclipsed the viewership of baseball's College World Series by 31 percent^. The 2015 Women's College World Series — ESPN's 15th year televising the entire event – was the most-viewed Women's College World Series on record*, averaging 1,196,000 viewers (15 games) from May 28 – June 3.
Furthermore, No. 1 Florida vs. No. 3 Michigan's best-of-three WCWS Championship Finals – which Florida won 2 games to 1 — averaged 1,912,000 viewers (June 1-3), the most-viewed WCWS Championship Finals ever.
https://nfca.org/index.php?option=c...n-s-college-world-series&catid=109&Itemid=149
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Apparently, marriad and I are in violent agreement as to D1.
If someone really wants the "student athlete" experience, she should play D3. It is much less demanding than D1.
If someone really wants the "student athlete" experience, she should play D3. It is much less demanding than D1.
Less demanding.. yes... still hugely demanding... yes... and a top D3 will be more demanding than a mid-lower level D1. And D3 the academic commitment can take up the other hours...
Time commitment:2015 NCAA Student-Athlete Survey:
Change in median time spent on athletics:
Division I: 32 hours/week in-season in 2010, 34 hours/week in 2015.
Division II: 30 hours/week in 2010, 32 hours/week in 2015.
Division III: 27 hours/week in 2010, 28.5 hours/week in 2015.
Source: http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/GOALS_convention_slidebank_jan2016_public.pdf
- Feb 7, 2013
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- 48
The athlete does benefit from the NCAA by getting some serious tuition $$$ (especially for private schools) subsidized with athletic scholarships and need based financial aid packages, not to mention free tutoring, meals, amazing workout facilities and fields, travel accommodations, etc. Heck, I see talented HS softball players getting greatly reduced private HS fees based on talent and financial need where it would cost the non-athlete middle income family 15-20K per year to attend. Not a bad gig for the student-athlete.
You're wrong.
My DD#3 played D3 basketball and won a national championship. For all 4 years, her team was ranked in the top 10 nationally. I think you would have to classify her team as "Top D3" program. DD#1 played D1 softball for a mid-major.
The main difference between D3 and D1 is in the off-season.
DD#1 had a fall softball season, meaning that she practiced for about 10 weeks in the fall about like she did in the spring. She had weight lifting every day at 6AM. She spent about as much time in the off-season as in-season.
Off-season time for DD#3? She would shoot hoops and stay in shape. There was very little mandatory anything. There was a general recommended fitness program, but it was mainly unstructured activity.
The survey that you cite backs all of this up. Slide 60 shows that D3 athletes spent 10% to 15% more time in season studying than D1 athletes, missed fewer classes, and spent less time away from campus.
I'm wrong in that I over generalized - every program is going to be different in many ways and clearly every sport is going to be different as well.
Off-season time on slide 39 suggests that even in DIII, off-season athletic activities are still expected at the majority of schools to be a similar time commitment to in-season. DIII shows lower numbers than D1&D2, but still a very significant expectation at many institutions.
