Big 12 Commissioner: 'Not a lot to be proud of' in college sports

Change is rapidly arriving in U.S. collegiate athletics, but it may be only the beginning of what’s to come, one of the nation’s most reform-minded commissioners of a major athletic conference told a National Press Club luncheon audience Sept. 21.

“We are in significant evolution,” said Bob Bowlsby, chief executive of the Big 12 conference, one of the so-called top five “power conferences” of large universities.

Citing a litany of ills and pressing issues facing college athletic departments and their governing body, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), Bowlsby likened the ferment in college sports to “how sausage is made.”

“There is not a lot to be proud of,” he said.

He pointed, for example, to the promotion of gambling by publicizing of point spreads before games, the trend of scheduling football games on weekday nights for TV revenue and alcohol sales at games.

A “fundamental issue,” Bowlsby said, is the narrowing difference between college and professional sports, at least in major-college football and basketball.

The topic gained prominence recently when football players at Northwestern University, claiming they were employees of the school, sought the right to collectively bargain. Although the National Labor Relations Board last month turned down their request, the issue “is not finished,” warned Bowlsby.

“There will be a time in the future when the popcorn will be popped, fans will be in the stands, the TV cameras are there – and the team will decide not to play,” he said. “Mark my word!”

Pressure is increasing for colleges to pay student-athletes, or at least offer compensation beyond tuition, room, board and meals currently allowed for those on athletic scholarships, according to Bowlsby.

In ruling last year that the NCAA can no longer stop players from selling the rights to their names, images and likenesses, a federal judge also permitted schools to cover cost-of-living expenses for athletes. The ruling is under appeal.

The five power conferences have voted to allow athletes to be paid full cost-of-attendance stipends. Bowlsby said he sees “no compelling reason to go above that.” Had the NCAA adopted such rules several years ago, he said, it could have avoided its current wave of litigation.

Bowlsby, who previously was athletic director at Stanford, Iowa and Northern Iowa universities, said that the NCAA may need to change its structure “to meet the varying needs of its diverse population.” The association includes nearly 1,300 schools whose athletic budgets range from $3 million to $200 million.

One specific issue the NCAA needs to address, Bowlsby said, is how to handle the movement of athletes from one school to another. He noted that fully 50 percent of basketball players in Division I, comprised of the largest schools, transfer at least once.

“It’s an embarrassment to higher education,” said Bowlsby, who is in his fourth year as head of the Big 12.

In the Q&A session, Bowlsby said that his conference, which has 10 members despite its name, “has no active plan to expand.”

The league hopes to have a championship game, as do the other power conferences, between its top two football teams, he said.

The lack of a title game last year matching the conference co-champions, Baylor and Texas Christian University, prevented either school from being invited to participate in the national championship playoffs.