wifeisafurd said:I'm saying this badly, but I'm not sensing any planning for when the House settlement explodes, which is disconcerting because you can read about what other schools are doing, so they are proactive and not continually reactive like Cal. I appreciate there is no real resource in-house to address policy given that Knowlton was an obvious light weight, and his two successors are even less qualified. Outside guys that have some expertise, like Sabasterbear, don't seem to always have the Chancellor's ear. My sense is that while the Chancellor wants to become more involved in sports on personal level, he has an awful lot on his plate already, and things in college sports are not waiting around for the Chancellor to find some spare time. Rivera seems like a quick study, and can influence the Chancellor, but is he willing to discuss the entire athletic department as opposed to focus just on football? Shocky can come off as over the top, but doesn't mean he is wrong about the lack of direction in Cal athletics in these critical times.sycasey said:I mean, what they got was the House settlement and if that blows up they will probably seek something else.wifeisafurd said:The NCAA and at least power conference schools have been signaling (no actually begging) for Congressional action for several years now. How has that been working? The rest of us are concerned that Cal doesn't appear to have a Plan B, when House blows-up. But the one thing I can assure you is that is if Cal can't remain in a Power conference, many of the Cal "Olympics" program are in trouble, regardless if being endowed. For example with men's swimming, the top swimmers will chose instead to go to power programs like Texas (SEC), Florida (SEC), Indiana (B1G), Michigan (B!G) , Georgia (SEC), Auburn (SEC) , Arizona (Big 12), etc. and I would also expect that Durden moves to a power conference program (for huge bucks) because everyone whether players or coaches, wants to compete against the best.sycasey said:wifeisafurd said:Sycasey, this scenario works until the House settlement falls apart because the concept of restricting private collective payments to athletes dies with an injunction leveled by a federal Judge likley sitting in an SEC state where an anti-trust case has no doubt been filed by said State's Attorney General. Everyone knows it is coming. And plan B is ????sycasey said:
Sebastabear seems pretty optimistic that Cal is also going to reach its funding goals for football, so couldn't the endowment of these other sports be seen as away to get them "off the books" and self-sustaining so that the school can better focus on the sports that really need the help and the ones that will maintain membership in a power conference (in other words, football and basketball)?
I can't speak to how fundraising would change if the rules change. Presumably the Legends collective would need to re-form.
That said, even if the House settlement in its current form fails to hold, its very existence signals a general desire by even the powerful NCAA programs (not to mention Congress) to have some restrictions and guardrails vs. the current free-for-all, so I suspect SOME kind of framework will have to be created. What the contours of that are, I cannot say.
BTW, without a power conference football team and its attendant revenues, look for Cal to become overall to compete at a level like Oregon State in all sports, which means a huge drop off, except in certain unique sports (which is OSU's case is their elite baseball program). The economics are that bad.
I don't disagree about Cal's need to remain in a power conference.
Sure, there needs to be some idea of what to do next if the guardrails are again removed (even if temporarily). That said, given that Lyons seems to be aligned with athletics needs, that Rivera is in place with real power, and that Sebasta and his cohort seem to have a lot more influence now, I am more optimistic about that being discussed now than I would have been before.
