Sporticast: The Business of College Sports Is Broken. Here’s How To Fix It.
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams speak with Coastal Carolina athletics chair Joe Moglia about the current state of college sports, how money is influencing decision-making and how the whole enterprise should be restructured.
Moglia has an interesting perspective. A college football coach in the early 1980s, he gave up the career to move into business, eventually rising to become CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade. About a decade ago, he returned to college football, first as a coach at Coastal Carolina and now as an administrator and executive advisor to the university president.
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He discusses the NCAA’s inability—or unwillingness—to take a leadership role in the new NIL era, and how that’s created a cascading effect of challenges for schools large and small. Athletes should share in more of the money that’s generated, he says, but schools are also making mistakes by joining nationwide conferences that will tax students that compete in sports that aren’t football and basketball. He also talks about the effect of the new transfer portal rules.
Moglia’s solution is to spin off college football for the so-called “Power Five” schools, a group of about 65 schools that are currently playing in the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12. A separate super league of sorts, Moglia says, would generate significantly more money than college football is generating right now, allowing schools to better compensate players and to better fund other sports like soccer and gymnastics. (He proposes a similar plan for the so-called “Group of Five” schools, which includes Coastal Carolina).
Moglia also lends his thoughts on the future of the NCAA as an organization. He said he discussed the NCAA’s open president job last year before former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was chosen for the role. He also gives a surprising answer to who he’d choose as the leader of a breakaway college football enterprise.
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