(10-04-2019 04:34 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I look at the world from the standpoint of the non-P5 schools and my focus is on the entire spectrum of D-I college athletics. I see Cal State Fullerton with 18 College World Series appearances (including 3 in the past 10 years) and Coastal Carolina winning the whole thing just three years ago. I see non-P5 schools having won the NCAA title in men's ice hockey for the past 7 consecutive seasons. I see Northern Arizona dominating men's cross country competition with 3 consecutive national championships. I see Hawaii having made it to the NCAA final four in beach volleyball for the past 4 seasons, and narrowly losing to Long Beach State in the men's volleyball championship match just six months ago. I see a semblance of a level playing field in those sports, and kids fighting for championships based on "good old fashioned clean competition devoid of money" and thousands of fans rooting for them. And so the question I ask is, why should I sit back and say it's fine for boosters to pay players without restriction and simply accept that going forward championships in any and all NCAA sports will be available for purchase by whomever is willing to invest the most cash?

There's zero reason to think a California model would result in the contamination of those other sports you mention with money. If there was money itching to find its way in to those sports, it would have, in the same way it finds its way in to football - huge coaching salaries, lavish stadiums and facilities, scandals involving payments to players, etc. That's because despite the passion of those fans who follow beach volleyball and cross-country track and ice hockey, in the scheme of things they are very small potatoes.

So rest easy about that. Nobody is going to throw $100,000 at beach volleyball players and ruin the competitive balance (which if I had to bet, probably isn't very balanced, I have no idea who wins in that sport but I bet a few schools dominate).