College bowl’s drain bad news for NCAA
The concept of amateurism that underpins big-time U.S. college sports is under attack from upstart leagues, like the new pay-for-play circuit for teenage basketball players retired NBA vet David West is part of.
College sports is also competing with apparel makers. Before New Balance signed the Raptors’ Kawhi Leonard, the Boston-based company hired teenage basketball star Darius Bazely as an intern, providing him a six-figure income while he trains for the NBA draft.
And as college football’s bowl season approaches, the NCAA confronts a growing challenge from one of its staunchest allies — the NFL. So far, 13 NCAA football stars have opted out of their college team’s post-season bowl games, choosing instead to safeguard their health and invest extra time in preparing for this spring’s NFL draft.
It’s great news for fans of Edmonton’s Chuba Hubbard, who becomes Oklahoma State’s first-string running back now that starter Justice Hill is skipping the Liberty Bowl in favour of draft prep. But the trend has to trouble an NCAA football leadership that sells star power during bowl season, but can’t compel unpaid players from leaving college teams one game early to train for professional futures.
The NFL draft, and the buildup to it, are clearly important to U.S. broadcast giant and college football platform ESPN. Wednesday afternoon, their NFL expert’s mock draft led ESPN’s website, trumping a preview of Wednesday’s marquee NBA game between the Raptors and Golden State Warriors.
So imagine the pre-draft season’s importance to NFL prospects like West Virginia quarterback Will Grier, who can rise or fall in value depending on how they perform at the NFL Combine in mid-February. If a potential first-round pick like LSU cornerback Greedy Williams joins his teammates in the Fiesta Bowl, he’ll have six weeks to prepare for the biggest job interview of his life, while competing against players who have been building up to the combine since late November. And the four-team College Football Playoff, which ends Jan. 7, shortens prep time even further.
As bowl season begins, the mystery isn’t why star players leave their team before these post-season showcase games. It’s why so many NFL hopefuls choose to stick around.
Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette figured it out quickly. Two years ago, both were superstar NCAA running backs — McCaffrey at Stanford and Fournette at LSU — and neither saw any upside in playing a bowl game with the draft evaluation season looming.
So McCaffrey, the Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2015, announced he was leaving Stanford’s team in advance of the 2016 Sun Bowl to get a head start on draft preparation. That same day, Fournette an- nounced he would make the same move, opting out of the Citrus Bowl so he could deal with a nagging injury ahead of the NFL Combine.
The strategy paid off for both Fournette, the fourth overall pick in the 2017 draft, and for McCaffrey, who went eighth overall. And it set an example for the 13 potential first-round picks who have chosen to skip bowl season this year.
And while draft hopefuls can benefit from bypassing bowl season, the NCAA will have to grapple with the after-effects of the growing drain of star players.
The NFL rule prohibiting players from entering the league until they’re three years past high school helps funnel the vast majority of elite football talent to NCAA schools and allows college football to function as a de-facto farm system. But once those three years pass, the NCAA can’t compel players to stick with their college teams if it makes financial sense for them to leave before bowl season.
It’s a business for everyone involved. Schools receive payouts — Penn State and Kentucky will each receive $8.5 million for this year’s Citrus Bowl — while coaches can negotiate bonuses based on bowl game berths. Kentucky’s Mark Stoops can pocket an extra $250,000 with a Citrus Bowl win. Meanwhile, organizers can charge a premium on tickets, and broadcasters profit by pegging ad rates to the size of the audience tuning in to watch top teams and top players. But NCAA amateurism blocks players from the bowl game windfall.
Opponents of paying players call scholarships their compensation, but players don’t earn an extra semester of paid tuition when they qualify for a bowl game. If you’re a highlevel NFL prospect, the only way to cash in on bowl season is to opt out of it.