Mark September 26th on your calendar now. That’s the day that the Pac 12 opens their regular season, featuring two important match ups. The Cal-Berkeley Bears will face the Utah Utes, and the Arizona State Sun Devils will face the University of Southern California Trojans.
Why that date? Because we might witness the first FBS football player boycott in recent NCAA history. Over the weekend, word leaked out that a number of players from Cal and ASU are very angry and concerned about, among other things, a lack of communications coming from their administrations over Covid-19 protections.
According to former ASU QB and current podcaster Rudy Carpenter, players from the Pac 12 have been meeting regularly to prepare a list of “demands” they feel are not being addressed by their schools.
These demands include:
They have discussed forming a player’s union— they are voting “shortly” to discuss a conference-wide boycott of all games. (NOTE: there are no scheduled non-conference Pac 12 games this season).
Can 2020 get any crazier?
For years, we’ve heard about the potential for a boycott in the middle of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament—perhaps prior to one of the Final Four games. And, until Covid-19 and #BlackLivesMatter, March Madness would seem like the most visible platform to force the issue of athlete’s rights.
But now? Holy Nielsen ratings! Who wouldn’t be watching one of those games? I have so many questions:
If I am any athletics administrator in the FBS right now, I am deeply concerned about this moment in time. There is also a robust group of Division I football parents who are asking pointed questions of Commissioners, Presidents, ADs and others as to the precautions being taken to protect their sons as they return for practice. This is a perfect storm.
As the NCAA is dragged kicking and screaming towards the New World Order of Names, Images and Likenesses (see the summary sheet of their proposed talking points for the Senate Hearing scheduled for Wednesday, July 22), this move by the players could upend the entire paradigm.
Most fans have a sense of how much money comes into the Power 5 Conferences (if not, here’s a quick reminder). But the Pac 12 is near the bottom of total revenues as compared to their peers. In 2018, the Pac 12 lost $12.5 million —according to Steve Berkowitz of USA Today, “the decline comes from the conference’s inability to increase its income enough to fully offset getting virtually no payout from the Rose Bowl that year. It’s an occurrence that will happen every third year, when the event becomes a College Football Playoff semifinal rather than a game set to feature the Pac-12 champion. According to the conference, as the numbers are reported on the tax document, the Rose Bowl payout difference was about $36.5 million”. They also pay their conference commissioner, Larry Scott, $5.3 million per year (plus benefits), but that’s another article.
Compared to the Big Ten, who received $54.5 million per school in 2018, the Pac 12 distributed $29.5 million. No wonder Stanford just dropped 11 sports.
Whether we actually get to see a college football season in the FBS conferences is very much up in the air. Covid-19 is raging in California and Arizona; there are not nearly enough tests, and the turnaround time for getting results is staggeringly slow. In Los Angeles, the public school system announced they are going fully online beginning in the fall. USC announced they changed their mind and are going to remote learning. I’m still not sure why playing football is still even on the table given earlier pronouncements.
Given all of this unprecedented turmoil, I could see the Pac 12 looking for a bailout, perhaps from a new conference partnership. Hello, Big Ten? How about an East/West division? The Power 5 becomes the Fab Four.
Think about it. One should never let a good crisis go to waste.
Karen Weaver is an expert on college sports as they intersect with higher education management, media, and policy. Dr. Weaver examines college athletics from the
Karen Weaver is an expert on college sports as they intersect with higher education management, media, and policy. Dr. Weaver examines college athletics from the perspectives of university presidents and trustees, athletic conference organization, higher education scholars, and sports finance. Her research includes mid majors and FBS Division I institutions, public finance and facility debt policies, and the role that college senior leaders can and should play in managing athletics. She spent 14 years in the Big Ten Conference as a coach and administrator. She is currently an Associate Clinical Professor in the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Winning the Division III NCAA National Championship in field hockey in 1986 (21-0), she has also been an athletics administrator in NCAA Division III. Dr. Weaver has received numerous honors and appointments during her years in college athletics.
Dr. Weaver is active in the digital/social media space. Download my podcast on Spotify or iTunes, “Trustees and Presidents-Management and Oversight of Intercollegiate Athletics”.