(06-15-2022, 03:24 PM)CTcard Wrote:Thanks for the clarification, CT.(06-14-2022, 11:13 PM)81alum Wrote:(06-14-2022, 07:22 AM)CTcard Wrote: Of all the various developments in college sports that had various levels of distaste, this is the first one where I am starting to wonder if I would prefer that my dear alma mater simply opt out.Yes, I entirely agree. Faced with the choice as to whether Stanford University should compete with athletic powerhouses by using a kind of legalized and collectivized bribery scheme, or whether we should give up on Division I Athletics, I say give it up.
To be clear, your statement doesn't entirely agree with my thoughts.
I have never been very warm to the idea that we either win or quit altogether.
I don't think Stanford should drop Division I Athletics. [Note, even the Ivy League is Division I.] I don't think that Stanford should drop Pac 12 conference affiliation.
My thought was more along the lines that Stanford should set its own ground rules on how it will and won't participate in NIL arrangements, with (in my opinion) particular limits on fake-NIL arrangements as recruiting inducements, and then let the chips fall where they may on the competitive prospects for football and basketball. For that matter I think every university should have such introspection - but issues for other universities aren't relevant on a Stanford board.
Losing competitiveness in football and basketball would be frustrating - I am a fan and like winning; but when I take off my fan-glasses I realize that I care more about the integrity and mission of my alma mater and universities broadly.
[And yes I am quite aware that athletics has already compromised the integrity and mission of universities. I don't take that as a good argument to go ahead and make it worse.]
However, I am also thinking about how much this corruption of NIL matters overall. It will almost certainly worsen the competitive balance situation, and while that it bad for the sport it doesn't feel like a fundamental or moral issue. I fear it will further erode the academic mission, and push the situation toward the big time college sports being merely lower level professional teams that have a marketing agreement with a university. However, there isn't a direct link there, so maybe I worry too much.
I am also not yet at the point today of giving up and pulling out of Div I, mainly because I still have hope that the whole misguided national situation will become so disastrous that it will provoke a backlash and significant reforms, and I want Stanford to be "in the game" so it can lead and benefit from those reforms.
However, I do not think that the current situation is sustainable long-term for a principled elite academic institution that wants to compete at the highest level of athletics--not in those sports in which our competitors can buy or rent athletes. Something will have to change in the next few years or Stanford athletics will be radically changed, whether we sports fans like it or not.
Perhaps the Ivy League is a good example--not of a level of competition we should embrace--but as a kind of organizational solution to the problem. Clearly it is possible for conferences to adopt differing rules while remaining in Div I. Perhaps some conferences will choose to adopt strong ethics limitations on how NIL is handled, while others will be the semi-pro conferences with no holds barred. Of course, if we are part of the former then we won't really be competing at the highest level, any more than the Ivy is today.
