A Letter To The NCAA
538 Bison Dung Road Clearfield, PA 16830
Mr. Charlie Baker, President
National Collegiate Athletic Association
200 Billion Dollar Lane
Indianapolis, IN 46285
Dear Mr. Baker:
Unless you have been comatose lately, you have surely noticed the mess that is college football nowadays. It has regressed into one big fight over money. Worse, the NCAA has done nothing to regulate it. I guess it must be tiring to avoid lawsuits from third-string linebackers who get angry when you deny him a seventh season of NIL payola, I mean, eligibility. But, it is time to take a stand.
Make no mistake, college football is headed down a path that is unsustainable. If left unchecked, it will become the domain of the oil-money Bubbas and the hedge-fund Harolds out there. College football is in dire need of a “commissioner,” someone with the authority to tell everyone where the bears poop in the woods. I am writing this letter in hopes of securing such a position. Allow me to explain how I would sort out all of this.
Transfers-College football players should be allowed to transfer—once. None of this four teams in four seasons stuff. At that point, he’s just a hired gun. Everyone makes a mistake, so a player should be allowed to transfer. One time only. In other words, choose wisely. And, if I am running the show, the transfer portal will not open until May. You start the school year at Podunk U, you end the school year there. You have plenty of time to enroll at your new school for the summer, and work out alongside your new teammates.
Name, Image, and Likeness-Since football players generate revenue for their athletic departments, they should be entitled to compensation. But, not this multi-million dollar stuff. I will implement a pay scale, starting at, say, the salary a beginning teacher would make, and topping out at maybe half of a million. You want to be paid more? The NFL awaits. Good luck sticking with a team there.
You’re already living the life of Riley. You have access to a free education. Your training table serves food that most people can’t afford to buy. You train in lavish facilities. Why, Clemson has a mini-golf course at their practice facility. Oregon’s locker room features individual chairs with heat and massage, and marble shower stalls. The aforementioned scale gives you the means to own a serviceable vehicle, have walking around money, and even the means to start an IRA, provided you don’t blow it all on bling.
And, since an NIL agreement is a contract, should you choose to opt out of a bowl game, that will cost you one-thirteenth of your loot. If you signed for $500,000, that will be $38,450, please.
Agents-And, speaking of NIL, there will be absolutely no agents allowed. The sporting world has enough pond-scum, bottom-feeders who will hold your hand for ten percent or so. Learn to stand on your own two feet now. Someday, you will have to do so. If I need an enforcement arm to deal with this, well, I do still have relatives in Sicily.
Coaches-Unquestionably, there are plenty of coaches to blame for this sorry mess. Therefore, there will be no contact from colleges to other coaches, and no fleeing and popping up elsewhere until the season is completely over. Sometimes, it’s hard to blame the players when the coaches act the way they do. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Conferences-Conference alignment today is utterly ridiculous. For example having Rutgers fly out to play USC is, well, stupid. I will align NCAA major college football into four, geographically-oriented conferences. Sixteen teams each, two divisions of eight teams in each conference. You play the other seven teams in the division, maybe one crossover game to take care of rivalries. The two division leaders meet for the conference title. The current conference commissioners can go get real jobs. Colleges are always looking for ticket-takers on game days.
And, while we’re at it, Notre Dame will be in a conference. I don’t care if the Irish are God’s Own Football Team. The Golden Domers don’t get to have their cake and eat it.
So, Mr. Baker, you have to admit that I make a lot of sense. My dictatorship, I mean, commissionership, would bring stability to college football. It might even move the colleges to stop putting the screws to their fan base over tickets, parking, donations, and such.
And, it gets better. The president at the local Enormous State University makes $950K a year, which is completely ridiculous. I will do this job for a fourth of that amount. And, I will fly commercial. You can sell the Gulfstream G550.
Feel free to contact me at the address at the top of this letter. You will not be sorry that you did. As my grandpa once said, “You can’t get the crick to run clear till you get the pigs out of the water.”
Yours in pigskin,
Mike Sciabica
