Expanding Football Roster Has Title IX, Logistical Issues

[Enhance]

I think society and the university system would benefit far more from more subsidizing of scholarships and grants for poor kids and less subsidizing of scholarships and grants for people good at obscure sports. Many of those kids come from families wealthy enough to pay for lessons, club teams, etc. for those obscure sports and could send their kids to school without a scholarship.

The end result would ultimately be the elimination of female sports and most male sports at the collegiate level. Keep in mind, as stated previously, that most major sports do not turn revenues. This subsidization you speak of would include the possible and likely elimination of baseball, lacrosse, softball, volleyball, bowling, hockey and the list goes on. In the end, the primary winner is young men who play football and basketball. That's a big disappointment in many ways.

 

[4skers89]

Football makes it difficult to meet the title IX requirement as it is written. Title IX should be written as equal number of sports for each gender with a given sport allocated a certain number of scholarships.  A woman's basketball team has the same number of scholarships as the men's basketball. So if women's sports are only

Volleyball

Basketball

Track and Field

The men could have

Football

Basketball

Track &Field

If the school wants to offer scholarships for wrestling then the school needs to add Woman's softball or some other sport.

 

[Making Chimichangas]

Honestly, I think Ric Flair's idea for exemptimg football from Title IX is a relatively solid idea.  I disagree with his rationale for exempting it though.  Revenue generation, while important, should not be the goal.  Exempt football then have as close to a 50/50 split among women and men's teams as possible for other sports.  I think this would be the best approach because without that football revenue, the majority of other sports at UNL (and almost all other colleges and universities) goes away.

 

[LumberJackSker]

Should universities who's football teams lose money be exempt from title ix? The vast majority of fbs football teams dont pay for themselves let alone pay for the entire athletic department like Nebraska and a handful of others. 

 

[Mierin]

Football makes it difficult to meet the title IX requirement as it is written. Title IX should be written as equal number of sports for each gender with a given sport allocated a certain number of scholarships.  A woman's basketball team has the same number of scholarships as the men's basketball. So if women's sports are only

Volleyball

Basketball

Track and Field

The men could have

Football

Basketball

Track &Field

If the school wants to offer scholarships for wrestling then the school needs to add Woman's softball or some other sport.

That would be an excuse for making the rosters of female sports being as small as possible.

 

[Ric Flair]

The end result would ultimately be the elimination of female sports and most male sports at the collegiate level. Keep in mind, as stated previously, that most major sports do not turn revenues. This subsidization you speak of would include the possible and likely elimination of baseball, lacrosse, softball, volleyball, bowling, hockey and the list goes on. In the end, the primary winner is young men who play football and basketball. That's a big disappointment in many ways.

Other winners would be students who are attending college for the educational experience and not the lacrosse experience...and taxpayers. I think there is a significant amount of confusion about the college experience that taxpayers somehow ‘owe’ to college kids. 

 

[Enhance]

Other winners would be students who are attending college for the educational experience and not the lacrosse experience...and taxpayers. I think there is a significant amount of confusion about the college experience that taxpayers somehow ‘owe’ to college kids. 

I'm not sure I understand how you're making this assertion. My apologies for missing it if you stated it previously in the thread.

The athletic department is unable to share their revenue inter-departmentally. So, the rich will get richer (i.e. the athletic department) while being unable to provide a direct benefit to any other part of the university. And fat chance convincing the state to lower taxes now that they're not having to worry about smaller sports. The AD is not the reason they're facing a $49 million shortfall.

 

[In the Deed the Glory]

I think society and the university system would benefit far more from more subsidizing of scholarships and grants for poor kids and less subsidizing of scholarships and grants for people good at obscure sports. Many of those kids come from families wealthy enough to pay for lessons, club teams, etc. for those obscure sports and could send their kids to school without a scholarship.

You do realize that these sports you are referencing are not full scholarships, right?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/8-things-you-should-know-about-sports-scholarships/

 

[Ric Flair]

I'm not sure I understand how you're making this assertion. My apologies for missing it if you stated it previously in the thread.

The athletic department is unable to share their revenue inter-departmentally. So, the rich will get richer (i.e. the athletic department) while being unable to provide a direct benefit to any other part of the university. And fat chance convincing the state to lower taxes now that they're not having to worry about smaller sports. The AD is not the reason they're facing a $49 million shortfall.

The inability to share revenue is just because that’s how we’ve decided to set it up. That’s probably in part because it’s easier to justify football revenue funding womens’ bowling than explaining to taxpayers why they have to pay for it. 

So here’s my plan. Change Title IX so that it exempts revenue-generating sports and only forces universities to pay for the same number or male and female scholarships in sports that lose money. Then take the bulk of the cost savings each year and invest that money back into academics.

 

[Enhance]

So here’s my plan. Change Title IX so that it exempts revenue-generating sports and only forces universities to pay for the same number or male and female scholarships in sports that lose money. Then take the bulk of the cost savings each year and invest that money back into academics.

Again, though, I must go back to the elephant in the room.

What you're suggesting simply isn't going to happen. Title IX has overwhelming support at all levels of government. Most people value the athletic opportunities of all sports at the college level, even the non-revenue generating ones. Even if you were able to convince the federal government to adjust Title IX (which, again, isn't going to happen), you would then need states to make significant adjustments to tax law for your system to be feasible. But, it wouldn't just be our tax laws, it would be up to every state to make those adjustments since Title IX is a federal program.

It just won't happen.

 

[LumberJackSker]

The inability to share revenue is just because that’s how we’ve decided to set it up. That’s probably in part because it’s easier to justify football revenue funding womens’ bowling than explaining to taxpayers why they have to pay for it. 

So here’s my plan. Change Title IX so that it exempts revenue-generating sports and only forces universities to pay for the same number or male and female scholarships in sports that lose money. Then take the bulk of the cost savings each year and invest that money back into academics.

What if football team is one of those sports that lose money do they just keep title ix?

 

[4skers89]

That would be an excuse for making the rosters of female sports being as small as possible.

The minimum number of scholarships  that a school must offer per sport would be by rule regardless of gender. If a school only has a women's volleyball team they can't cut the scholarship number below the minimum. Volleyball might be considered a female sport but some schools have men's volleyball. By my rule if a school wants to add a men's volleyball team they would have to carry the same number of scholarship for the men as the women's volleyball team. This would provide better gender equality for that sport. Also by rule the school would need to add another female sport.  I suppose you could have equal scholarship numbers for baseball and softball.  

 

[zoogs]

The heart of all of this is that women's participation and opportunities are things that do not matter and it's all just s#!t getting in the way of the unencumbered operations of our true love, men's football, which by the way happens to have extremely large team sizes and would like to even expand from there. If football weren't exempted, we'd just see fewer women's sports. Not a good, or fair outcome.

Long, long term I'd like to see a world where women's athletics was at least as big a deal as men's athletics. 

 

[ColoradoHusk]

The heart of all of this is that women's participation and opportunities are things that do not matter and it's all just s#!t getting in the way of the unencumbered operations of our true love, men's football, which by the way happens to have extremely large team sizes and would like to even expand from there. If football weren't exempted, we'd just see fewer women's sports. Not a good, or fair outcome.

Long, long term I'd like to see a world where women's athletics was at least as big a deal as men's athletics. 

While that's a noble opinion, I just don't think it will happen anytime soon.  With sports, most people want to see the best at each level of sport.  Men are superior athletes (that's not debatable) so if people are watching a sport where they want to see the best play in that sport, it's most likely going to be a men's sport.  Women's tennis and volleyball are the sports that are the closest to being more entertaining with women, compared to men (I would even say that those women's sports can be more entertaining than their men counterparts).

I am not trying to say that those women aren't great athletes in their own right, but they aren't the best.  The US Women's Soccer team is one of the top teams in the world, but it's still a far inferior product to men's soccer.  The U.S. Women's Soccer team will scrimmage against high school boys, as they prepare for their big tournaments, and the high school boys usually beat them.  

 

[zoogs]

I think interest in sports is as inertial as the idea that most people want to see men's stories in movies. Sports viewership and intense sports fandom is largely male historically and it doesn't have to be. Women's professional and international soccer is more compelling than U17 competitions, at least IMO. Anyway, regardless of all that, universities have a responsibility to offer some equality in opportunities. And that to me does not mean well, just please overlook football so we can stop offering so many women's sports.