All this talk “Project Rudy” talk had the CBS/247Sports college football slack channel buzzing Tuesday afternoon, especially in advance of Thursday’s meeting in Nashville between the Big Ten and SEC. Fifty messages or so into our slack thread, we realized this is rather compelling content. The below is a lightly-edited transcript of our conversation.
What do athletic departments gain from chasing the most money?
Chris Hummer: Can someone answer a question for me I’m just curious about: What’s the point of athletic departments chasing so much extra revenue, especially in places like the SEC and Big Ten?
They’re not really for-profit enterprises. There are no shareholders you’re responsible to other than in the general concept of winning games. If anything, creating extra revenue makes it harder in the long term as schools will have to pay more as part of a revenue share to players. It also continues to make their general position that athletes aren’t employees seem more and more absurd. It’s just a cycle where they’ll have to continue to raise more and more while squeezing so many of their peers out of the picture.
The answer is probably: “Get ahead of the competition.” But if the rev share really is capped at like 22 million, why do you need to generate so much extra revenue?
I know these athletic departments aren’t run like actual businesses — what other established business could bring in 200-plus million in revenue and spend every bit of it annually? — but it’s something that’s confused me about this era of the sport.
Richard Johnson: For starters most of the schools outside of the 25 or so you can name off the top of your head adding $21 million overnight isn’t a snap of the finger. It’s gonna come through a mix of slashing the…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/as-college-football-relentlessly-pursues-something-bigger-what-will-it-leave-behind/
Author : Shehan Jeyarajah
Publish date : 2024-10-09 20:10:11
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