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The Time Has Come for Power Five Football to Break From NCAA

Joe Moglia
·6 min read

Today’s guest columnist is Joe Moglia, chair of athletics and executive advisor to the president at Coastal Carolina University.

It’s the two-minute warning when it comes to the NCAA’s losing battle against pay-for-play in college football. The Power Five’s spin-off seems inevitable–it’s merely a matter of when.

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And, maybe, now’s the time.

The last several weeks have seen multiple hits against the organization. A Tennessee judge granted an injunction against the NCAA, potentially putting an end to their ineffectual ban on using NIL deals as inducements during recruiting from either high schools or the transfer portal. Then, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to join a union, blazing a trail that could lead to student athletes—at least those in revenue generating sports—being classified and paid as employees of their universities. It also opens the door for collective bargaining in college sports.

There’s no doubt at this point that NIL has completely reshaped college athletics, especially when it comes to Division I football, which generates billions in TV revenue.

Yet the NCAA and its president Charlie Baker—following prior president Mark Emmert’s failure to act on NIL—have not moved the ball forward. The organization failed to act proactively on NIL, and even since Baker took over, it’s struggled to justify its authority or purpose. Rather than working to shape the NIL era, support athletes and enable the Power Five schools to act independently, the NCAA sought to hold back the rising tide with sandcastles.

Take the NCAA’s recently overturned ban on using NIL as an inducement. It was a ridiculous rule to begin with. Coaches were talking to players about NIL from day one. Plus, there were numerous loopholes. The NCAA failed to understand the fact that the very point of NIL is to pay players. Any recruit’s first question is now, “What’s the NIL situation look like?”

Indeed, legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban spoke on Capitol Hill recently, saying that while in the past coaching “was about developing players” and “helping people be more successful in life,” that was no longer the case.

Saban also shared how his wife rang the alarm on the changing landscape. “She would always meet with the mothers [of recruits] and talk about how she would help impact their sons and that they would be well taken care of. She came to me right before I retired and said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about how much you’re going to develop them.’”

For an organization like the NCAA to give up on the idea of developing players—young people who are just beginning to understand what it means to have character—and let chaos reign on the portal is a travesty.

It was also totally predictable.

NIL became the consideration for players—and something coaches use to recruit—whether the NCAA wanted it to be or not. Yet the organization chose to promote an unrealistic, unenforceable rule, rather than create a system based around strong contracts and protections for players and schools alike. And they did this even as they got rid of the restrictions on the transfer portal, effectively creating an annual auction house for players while pretending no one was bidding.

Of course, once again, a court has ruled against the NCAA. Their attempt to contain NIL failed. Likewise, with the Dartmouth result, they’re failing to prevent the rising tide of professionalism. Again and again, the NCAA and Baker have missed their chance to lead on these issues and have simply watched the losses mount and their credibility disintegrate.

Now, rather than taking a proactive role in shaping the era of college sports, Baker is once again asking Congress to fix the mess by giving the NCAA an antitrust exemption. It’s a desperate attempt that only makes the organization appear even weaker and less effective than it already is. And he’s laying it on thick, claiming that if college athletes were paid, it would endanger the existence of sports at “95% of colleges,” because they don’t make money on sports.

This position is ridiculous for two reasons. First, even if athletes are categorized as employees, it doesn’t mean they’d all necessarily earn huge salaries. The vast majority would likely earn minimum wage—the same as many, many students who already have campus jobs. Second, Baker vastly overstates the percentage of schools who would struggle to pay student athletes. And just because some schools might struggle to pay student athletes doesn’t mean it’s not right to do it!

Imagine if we made the same argument about a business. It would be ludicrous to claim that no one should pay wages because a few businesses might be dependent on unpaid labor and wouldn’t be able to survive if they had to pay their workers. It’s a laughable idea.

Of course, rather than trying to get Congress to save him, Baker could be working to put things on a better course. Spinning off the big revenue sports—especially Power Five football—could help protect non-revenue sports, from fencing to shot put, from the (supposedly) undue financial burden of paying minimum wage. It would help limit collective bargaining to those sports and teams that generate the bulk of the TV revenue.

And the fact of the matter is, even as the NCAA spends millions on lobbyists, Congress is also sick of the complaining. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told the AP plainly, “Now that the courts and states are forcing them to start treating athletes fairly, the NCAA is spending even more on expensive lobbyists in an attempt to convince Congress that all of a sudden, college sports are broken.”

Instead, Murphy said the NCAA should “start negotiating directly with athletes to come up with an entirely new model that gives them the pay and protections they have long deserved. Until the NCAA takes these basic steps, simply coming to Congress to bail them out is not a reasonable approach.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said it even more succinctly: “The NCAA has a well-established history of backroom deliberations that produce unfair punishments for athletes, coaches, and universities,” and that it has “damaged its priorities in Congress.”

I agree.

Congress doesn’t seem interested in what the NCAA is selling, and the organization certainly isn’t acting in the best interest of athletes—or the athletics departments who have to deal with NIL on a daily basis even as they try to care for their players.

Since the NCAA can’t seem to put together a winning strategy, what are the power conferences waiting on? There’s no time like the present to spin off and start doing things right by establishing a new model for the business of college sports.

Moglia is the former CEO and Chairman of TD Ameritrade, and current Chairman of Fundamental Global LLC and Capital Wealth Advisors. In 2012, he became Coastal Carolina University’s head football coach, leading the team to four conference championships and an overall record of 56-22. He is now the Executive Director for Football and Executive Advisor to the President at Coastal Carolina. You can find him on his website, on his LinkedIn page and on Twitter.

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