(10-27-2014 09:04 PM)moehler Wrote: writer forgot to mention that there is a real possibility there might not be a FCS in 10 years, maybe sooner. A lot of talk thru the years that the FCS could be eliminated and force teams to move up or down to division 2. If that happens and JMU is still in the FCS, cant wait to see what spin their administration will put on it.
I don't see the NCAA doing it but I expect there may be some big changes coming.
When the NCAA adopted the federated system (Divisions I II III voting their own stuff) the number of schools who were Division I was around 200 and the number of Division I football schools around 140.
They adopted limits on scholarships and because of fear eliminated the stipend (generally called laundry money). The fear came from the combination of recession, falling enrollment and Title IX.
About 15-20 years later four things changed.
1. TV rights exploded.
2. Premium seating and ticket prices exploded.
3. The governments moved away from funding colleges and into student loans and various scholarship programs.
4. College enrollments grew.
5. The NCAA Tournament revenue grew.
The first two primarily helped the power leagues though we see more "others" using premium seating.
The second three caused Division I to grow.
Growing enrollment means more students to pay an athletic fee and loans plus the state "challenge" scholarships makes students less price conscience and tolerant of fee increases.
The tournament revenue created an added carrot to use fees to go Division I.
Autonomy is restoring the value of scholarships back to what they were in 1972. A number of schools aren't even funding all their allowed scholarships including some in the Belt. Now they will need to fund stipend to keep pace.
We are entering a downturn period in college enrollment which has always been cyclical. So a number of schools will see enrollment fall and will need some combination of budget cuts or revenue increases presumably from fees in most cases.
The problem is we face a student loan crisis. Without a much faster pace of economic growth default rates are going to take off and that will result in clamping down on loans.
This process will push a number of schools out of Division I. Historically enrollment drops create turmoil. When the GI Bill enrollment boom ended you saw schools drop sports including football or dropping to cheaper levels of competition. The same happened in the 70's when the baby boomers moved past college age.
The imbalance is best demonstrated by considering that Division I as a whole is about 75% larger than in 1973 but the number of schools playing top level football is slightly smaller in large part because of the lower cost FCS option.
If a school is FCS and cannot afford FBS and wants to be competitive in other sports they will offer stipend and most likely pay for it by reducing football scholarships or dropping FCS football. FCS probably doesn't go away but the number offering 63 scholarships probably drops.
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