Do not let this patriotic, flag waving, for the love of the game, its about pure competition rhetorical propaganda fool you. The powerful always say whatever is convenient to get the weak to buy into the facade of college athletics. Rules exist to keep the Have Not’s in line. Disparities in sentencing does not just exist in the prison system. Policing and punishment will never be fair or just in profit driven societies. The NCAA polices and punishes.
This is one of the reasons I always laughed at the IAA/FCS playoffs perspective of we play for championships mantra. Do you remember when the message was we don’t want the FCS playoffs impacting the bowl season so we can’t move the playoffs up a week to accommodate the SWAC? How dare the SWAC support its mission and not sacrifice its money making events. This narrative was pushed for decades. So, we created the SWAC championship to bring us as a whole more revenue. Then, FBS goes to a quasi playoff so FCS cannot push theor highest level of NCAA playoff football line anymore then ESPN pushes the FCS championship into January and magically all that goes up in smoke.
The reality is colleges play for exposure to increase the quality of their student population and as a result state and outside funding. Universities would rather be doormats in FBS than champions in FCS because it is all about who sits in the rooms where you sit. That exposure alone gets you into bigger and broader conversations that move the needle and don’t leave you stagnant and dying on the vine. Capable HBCUs should all strive to be FBS. No other level makes long term sense. It is the only level that matters in college football.
People are always talking about it is a financial loser. IT IS NOT. We pay too much attention to athletic budget shortfalls but miss how much the athletic budget increased and how much the overall university operating, auxiliary, and restricted budgets increased. These metrics are reflections of more and better students/student athletes and donations to your university. I could go on and on.
The roadmap to what we desire our universities to be is there but we keep this 30 year, 9-5 job thinking it will create wealth. It does not. It just pays the month to month bills. There are levels to this. We piss on our leadership but the SWAC bucked the NCAA football system first because the system doesn’t make industry sense. Now look at what is happening. They about to burn this shit down. There will be no boundaries for the Have’s and mark my words the Have Not’s will be pushing for the love of the game nonsense again while dying slow deaths.
www.espn.com
jsu has created the formula other schools are trying to replicate in hires, recruiting, and even in branding and marketing on social media.
