08-02-2013, 11:13 AM
Hank, that would start to get problematic pretty quickly. It's not clear that the NCAA even could limit targeted donations, and if they tried they'd almost certainly get sued and lose. The NCAA isn't interested in competitive balance and never has been, so why would they even want to?
I'm also not really sold on it being a problem. The three examples you cited were rich dudes coming in and helping rescue programs from mediocrity, isn't that kind of what we want? Would Oregon be a perennial top-10 team without uncle Phil? Would OSU without Pickens? (I don't think Arrillaga factored into our rise, but may be wrong.) And the rich schools elsewhere don't do it off of individual rich donors (at least as far as I'm aware), but because they have such rabid followings they make tons of money. Is this have/have-not divide a problem? I'm not actually sure. As I said before, college football has never had any real parity and it's not clear to me that it needs it. Different programs have different goals, is it really a problem that the mid-majors aren't ever going to win a national championship? At least they have a reasonable shot of a major bowl if everything comes together for them.
As for how the fans/students feel about it, my guess is there's some grumbling but they don't really care. Even ignoring the whole "it makes their experience better because they enjoy a better football team" thing, it probably makes their experience better by increasing interest in the university, which can bring in more/better students and more non-football donations. Plus if the athletic department has more money than it can reasonably spend it means they're not losing money. (Now, if taxpayer money was used on that monstrosity that's another story.)
I was in school when the new Stadium was built and didn't care whatsoever about it. It's not like there was any chance that money was going to be spent on new dorms, or anything else that I'd benefit from directly.
I'm also not really sold on it being a problem. The three examples you cited were rich dudes coming in and helping rescue programs from mediocrity, isn't that kind of what we want? Would Oregon be a perennial top-10 team without uncle Phil? Would OSU without Pickens? (I don't think Arrillaga factored into our rise, but may be wrong.) And the rich schools elsewhere don't do it off of individual rich donors (at least as far as I'm aware), but because they have such rabid followings they make tons of money. Is this have/have-not divide a problem? I'm not actually sure. As I said before, college football has never had any real parity and it's not clear to me that it needs it. Different programs have different goals, is it really a problem that the mid-majors aren't ever going to win a national championship? At least they have a reasonable shot of a major bowl if everything comes together for them.
As for how the fans/students feel about it, my guess is there's some grumbling but they don't really care. Even ignoring the whole "it makes their experience better because they enjoy a better football team" thing, it probably makes their experience better by increasing interest in the university, which can bring in more/better students and more non-football donations. Plus if the athletic department has more money than it can reasonably spend it means they're not losing money. (Now, if taxpayer money was used on that monstrosity that's another story.)
I was in school when the new Stadium was built and didn't care whatsoever about it. It's not like there was any chance that money was going to be spent on new dorms, or anything else that I'd benefit from directly.