The Hammer Falls, Part IV: Could THIS be the method to Emmert's/the NCAA's madness?

I had been racking my brains for 36 hours as to how in the Hell the NCAA could so openly get away with "The Show Must Go On" and actually pass this off as WORSE than the Death Penalty.

Then, a poster to rec.sport.football.college, "That Don Guy" basically disputed my position that the only sports which might survive are revenue sports and enough women's sports to keep Title IX happy when he quoted the NCAA Bylaws and Division I Manual.

(At least I'm glad that, though the NCAA charges $16.50 for the manual, it does provide a free .PDF download here.)

Bylaw 20.9.7.1, page 341 of the 2011-12 Manual (probably still in effect for another week or two):

To be in FBS:

• You must be in 16 sports.
• At least eight womens' sports are required to be in the 16, but no fewer than six mens' sports..
• They must maintain 15,000 per game attendance over two years, on a rolling basis. (20.9.7.3)
• Failure to qualify means a 10-year period where a second failure means they lose all postseason rights and can be removed from FBS by the NCAA. (20.9.7.5)

To be in FCS:

• 14 sports, instead of 16, and either seven of each gender or six mens' and eight womens'.

In addition, the school must provide enough money to give half the scholarships which are maximally allowed in all sports, totally about $1.3 million.

So where am I going with this?

I'm going to make a rather large leap that is about the only sensical approach I can take to the announcement on Monday:

The financial and reputational penalties are meant to be so severe that Penn State is to become the first-ever college to be expelled fully from Division I athletics for misconduct.

It's really about the only common sense I can make out of it.

If you read the next post below, you will find a link to an ABC News report which indicated that, year before last (2010-11), Penn State raised $118,000,000 and turned a $32,000,000 profit for it's athletic programs for that year.

Half of that profit is already gone.  $12M a year to the NCAA for five years, about $4-5M down the drain from the Big Ten for revoking it's bowl money to give to charities from Penn State for bowl ban.

State Farm just pulled it's sponsorship of Penn State football yesterday.

GM is considering doing the same.

Pepsi, PNC Bank, and insurer Highmark are retaining their sponsorships for now.

(Time to boycott.)

I'm not saying this is going to happen this year, or even next.

But let's go down the road 2-3 years, when Barry Switzer claims that all Penn State will be able to find are Division II and Division III players for years 2-5...

They had 97,828 people for their victory over Illinois.

What if this does basically kill the program as a Big Ten program?

Remember, that nearly 100K per game was required to get $60,000,000 a year for football, more than half what the athletic program brought in for 2010-11.

If that number is halved, that's another $30,000,000 out the door.  Now, the athletic program is LOSING $20,000,000 or more a year.

Penn State, as of today, offers 29 sports.  15 mens' and 14 womens'.

Do you really believe that, once a $50,000,000 swing in the athletic budget hits the table, that even half those sports are going to survive, especially the likes of:

• Fencing
• Golf
• Lacrosse
• Tennis
• Gymnastics
• Cross Country
• Ice and Field Hockey

And I could go on a few more...

But I assert that Mark Emmert is actually going to try and bankrupt the Penn State athletic program out of Division I.

Now, listen to his press conference again, and take his words with that idea in mind!

He's basically going to give them three choices:

• Lose FBS/FCS status and drop football
• Face the wrath of the NCAA, perhaps a full-institution Death Penalty, if they try to take money from the other sports to pay the fine (which is, of course, backwards -- the football program is keeping every sport I listed above (and others!) afloat!)
• or lose Division I status.

THAT would be a 25-year crippling blow to the football program.

Even most experts believe that the football program, if it didn't get bankrupted out of D1, could return to at least minor Big Ten bowls within a decade.

If that happens, the NCAA, by it's own admission, has failed.

For the first time, I think the NCAA's rationale for this plea bargain (and let's all remember this was a plea bargain to ensure The Show Must Go On, if for no other reason than to allow the Big Ten to find a new 12th member down the road!) might be evident.