[CTcard]

CTCard, the article did not single out any sport specifically.  But Swarbrick's comments do seem to be inspired by the situation in college football.  Still, the NCAA currently governs ALL sports.  Could a new "semi-pro" association exist if it only covered football?  Would it govern all sports? 

I'll be curious to see where the pressure comes from that might lead to change in the current NCAA structure.  Will it come from the schools themselves? From the courts?

My comments above were mostly related to the observation that when the ND AD wanted to come up with an example of a school that maintains an academic focus for athletes while playing big time sports, he naturally came up with Stanford.

As to these bigger picture items, who knows?
It looks to me like Swarbrick was just waxing philosophical, he wasn't describing anything in the works or a specific plan.

Of course a semi-pro sports organization could exist if member institutions want it to. The NCAA can decide if it wants to let in teams for some sports only. I think there traditional stance has been you have to be in the NCAA for all sports your school offers and are sanctioned by the NCAA - but I would imagine tremendous pressure to change that. For that matter, I don't see any reason the NCAA couldn't just decree that a particular football division is semi-pro.


On the other hand, I don't think the pressure for semi-pro college sports is quite as large as journalists make it out to be. As I read the court decisions that have been made so far, they have been leaning toward minor changes leading to a trickle more money for commercial sports athletes, but going out of their way to keep the overall structure intact.

On other pressures - Lawmakers will bounce from issue to issue, but I think their primary motivation will be to keep good old State U competitive in whatever league exists. The schools themselves know they are stuck in a Catch-22 - most administrators want to wish the problems away and most ADs want to embrace the arms race with ... both arms. So, my first guess is that over a decade like period, we will only see minor cosmetic changes - a few more dollars to football and basketball players, a few more minor sports dropped, a few more schools dropping football that is somehow combined with others leaping into the game.

[CTcard]

CTCard, the article did not single out any sport specifically.  But Swarbrick's comments do seem to be inspired by the situation in college football.  Still, the NCAA currently governs ALL sports.  Could a new "semi-pro" association exist if it only covered football?  Would it govern all sports? 

I'll be curious to see where the pressure comes from that might lead to change in the current NCAA structure.  Will it come from the schools themselves? From the courts?

My comments above were mostly related to the observation that when the ND AD wanted to come up with an example of a school that maintains an academic focus for athletes while playing big time sports, he naturally came up with Stanford.

As to these bigger picture items, who knows?
It looks to me like Swarbrick was just waxing philosophical, he wasn't describing anything in the works or a specific plan.

Of course a semi-pro sports organization could exist if member institutions want it to. The NCAA can decide if it wants to let in teams for some sports only. I think there traditional stance has been you have to be in the NCAA for all sports your school offers and are sanctioned by the NCAA - but I would imagine tremendous pressure to change that. For that matter, I don't see any reason the NCAA couldn't just decree that a particular football division is semi-pro.


On the other hand, I don't think the pressure for semi-pro college sports is quite as large as journalists make it out to be. As I read the court decisions that have been made so far, they have been leaning toward minor changes leading to a trickle more money for commercial sports athletes, but going out of their way to keep the overall structure intact.

On other pressures - Lawmakers will bounce from issue to issue, but I think their primary motivation will be to keep good old State U competitive in whatever league exists. The schools themselves know they are stuck in a Catch-22 - most administrators want to wish the problems away and most ADs want to embrace the arms race with ... both arms. So, my first guess is that over a decade like period, we will only see minor cosmetic changes - a few more dollars to football and basketball players, a few more minor sports dropped, a few more schools dropping football that is somehow combined with others leaping into the game.