Post House Settlement moves

[UCObluejay]

With the recent House settlement, will D2s be more reluctant to move up? Will FCS/Non-Football programs decide to move to D2?

[MooseLodge]

Cash crunch time for most FCS programs. Several things at work in that.

Much of the House Settlement per se won't affect FCS. Those athletic are funded mostly by student taxes, and they are going to have minimal money to pay players. However, FCS programs also are each responsible for $3 million damages per school, with up to 10 years to pay that back ($300K a year).

The real problem for FCS and low FBS is that they have counted on one- or two-million-dollar money games per season against P4 programs. These funds are crucial to helping FCS programs stay afloat. Those games are going bye bye very soon. That's because the 16 team CFP is going to likely only give 5 auto bids, and the rest of the 11 will be at-large bids based on rankings. If you've got a FCS or low FBS win on your schedule, that's going to really hurt you. As a result, the P4 conferences are all beefing up their schedules for the annual CFP beauty contest. Alabama won't be playing Mercer in November anymore.

So your typical FCS program is going to be spending $300K a year on damages for the next 10 years, and losing probably $1 million a year from the money game or two they counted on. With budgets and falling enrollments already stretching most of these programs, some are going to move down, some are going to cut all sports except perhaps 3 men's and 3 women's teams, or drop football and put a lot more financial horsepower into basketball.

D2 and D3 are unscathed. I've never been a huge proponent of D2 ball from a business perspective. I always thought it offered the worst of D1 and D3 all combined together: The significant expense of scholarship sports, and the relative obscurity of D3. But with the House Settlement and the re-shaping of D1 college football, it's an attractive option today.

[Fightingscot82]

I think a positive could be more transparency in athletic department finances, especially at "public" schools. I'm not talking about how much the defensive backs analyst is paid, but more so a deep dive into their revenue sources and expenses to show where they make their money and exactly how much is left over and due to compensate their new student employees. I do wonder if schools can minimize profitability by increasing expenses the same way lawyers & agents successfully pushed to centralize football & basketball revenue instead of the old model where football & basketball funds the rest of the department.

[Predatory Primates]

Cash crunch time for most FCS programs. Several things at work in that.

Much of the House Settlement per se won't affect FCS. Those athletic are funded mostly by student taxes, and they are going to have minimal money to pay players. However, FCS programs also are each responsible for $3 million damages per school, with up to 10 years to pay that back ($300K a year).

The real problem for FCS and low FBS is that they have counted on one- or two-million-dollar money games per season against P4 programs. These funds are crucial to helping FCS programs stay afloat. Those games are going bye bye very soon. That's because the 16 team CFP is going to likely only give 5 auto bids, and the rest of the 11 will be at-large bids based on rankings. If you've got a FCS or low FBS win on your schedule, that's going to really hurt you. As a result, the P4 conferences are all beefing up their schedules for the annual CFP beauty contest. Alabama won't be playing Mercer in November anymore.

So your typical FCS program is going to be spending $300K a year on damages for the next 10 years, and losing probably $1 million a year from the money game or two they counted on. With budgets and falling enrollments already stretching most of these programs, some are going to move down, some are going to cut all sports except perhaps 3 men's and 3 women's teams, or drop football and put a lot more financial horsepower into basketball.

D2 and D3 are unscathed. I've never been a huge proponent of D2 ball from a business perspective. I always thought it offered the worst of D1 and D3 all combined together: The significant expense of scholarship sports, and the relative obscurity of D3. But with the House Settlement and the re-shaping of D1 college football, it's an attractive option today.

Otoh if you are one of the handful of FCS programs with real money, buying a championship will be easier than ever.

[MooseLodge]

Otoh if you are one of the handful of FCS programs with real money, buying a championship will be easier than ever.

Exactly. The flagship schools from the Dakotas and Montana are FCS. They'll be winning most, if not all, of the football championships. Those programs probably actually post a small profit. They can pay players and probably have some decent NIL offerings. No FCS program in the country will be able to keep up with those schools.

[chapmaja]

Cash crunch time for most FCS programs. Several things at work in that.

Much of the House Settlement per se won't affect FCS. Those athletic are funded mostly by student taxes, and they are going to have minimal money to pay players. However, FCS programs also are each responsible for $3 million damages per school, with up to 10 years to pay that back ($300K a year).

The real problem for FCS and low FBS is that they have counted on one- or two-million-dollar money games per season against P4 programs. These funds are crucial to helping FCS programs stay afloat. Those games are going bye bye very soon. That's because the 16 team CFP is going to likely only give 5 auto bids, and the rest of the 11 will be at-large bids based on rankings. If you've got a FCS or low FBS win on your schedule, that's going to really hurt you. As a result, the P4 conferences are all beefing up their schedules for the annual CFP beauty contest. Alabama won't be playing Mercer in November anymore.

So your typical FCS program is going to be spending $300K a year on damages for the next 10 years, and losing probably $1 million a year from the money game or two they counted on. With budgets and falling enrollments already stretching most of these programs, some are going to move down, some are going to cut all sports except perhaps 3 men's and 3 women's teams, or drop football and put a lot more financial horsepower into basketball.

D2 and D3 are unscathed. I've never been a huge proponent of D2 ball from a business perspective. I always thought it offered the worst of D1 and D3 all combined together: The significant expense of scholarship sports, and the relative obscurity of D3. But with the House Settlement and the re-shaping of D1 college football, it's an attractive option today.

I don't think you will see the "money games" disappear as much as you think. I think you may see some schools who play a notoriously soft non-conference schedule give up one of those money game opponents, but I really don't think you see an SEC school not playing a low FBS or FCS school as a result of the house settlement and expansion of the CFP. I think the schools are going to realize a win over an FCS opponent will actually mean more to the selection comittee than a loss to another team in contention for a playoff spot will. I don't think an SEC team is really going to be willing to risk losing a game to an ACC school who is also in contention for a playoff spot.

Also, lets not forget one more thing.

When you are playing an FCS school, that game is at home. Having to go play a P4 conference school is going to require more road games. More road games means less home games. Less home games means 1) less ticket sale revenue 2) less merchandise sale revenue at the stadium 3) less parking revenue 4) less revenue for local businesses that rely on home games for a substantial amount of their revenue.

The pressure isn't just going to be on the schools to win on the field, its also going to be to feed the multiple "pigs" that all want a piece of the money slop trough.

You may see some of these games disappear, but that might have more to do with a 9 game SEC schedule (up from 8 games), than it would from the CFP expansion or house settlement.

[chapmaja]

With the recent House settlement, will D2s be more reluctant to move up? Will FCS/Non-Football programs decide to move to D2?

I've talked with a few people and everyone seems to agree it would be assinine for consider moving up from D2 to D1 now. I think it is more likely you will see some D1 schools drop down to D2 than move up. A lot may depend on what happens with the NCAA basketball tourney and the money that would come with expansion of that event. For smaller D1 schools, that, not college football, is a bigger revenue driver.

[chapmaja]

Here is something else to consider from a post - House Settlement prespective.

With the NCAA insituting rsoter caps, rather than scholarship limits at the D1 level, many schools have been dropping athletes. In some sports conferences have created additional cuts beyond the roster limit cuts from the NCAA. In Men's swimming and diving, some conferences (SEC) have gone to a 22 athlete scholarship limit, well below the NCAA's 30 athlete limit. As a result, there is a larger number of athletes who previously would have gone to one of these schools who are now no longer getting the opportunity to compete at the "big school". This pushes them down to the "FCS equivalent school" which further pushes athletes out to D2 and D3 schools.

I would not be shocked to see some D2 and D3 schools start adding sports like swimming and diving in the future to take advantage of the potential to bring in additional students who otherwise they would not have gotten.

I know several recent HS graduates who have been pushed down to the D2 level instead of being at the D1 level in both track and field and swimming and diving due to the changing D1 landscape.

[Fightingscot82]

I've talked with a few people and everyone seems to agree it would be assinine for consider moving up from D2 to D1 now. I think it is more likely you will see some D1 schools drop down to D2 than move up. A lot may depend on what happens with the NCAA basketball tourney and the money that would come with expansion of that event. For smaller D1 schools, that, not college football, is a bigger revenue driver.

I agree with you. The P5 is in phase 2 or 3 of consolidating power and money in D1 football and basketball. They control the voting block of how D1 does things and have already pressured P4 football programs to draw down the FCS money games - which is how a lot of FCS schools probably assumed they'd get the revenue needed to pay players. As more schools creep up to the lower level of D1, that puts more pigs at the trough and more divisions of March Madness revenue distribution shares. Even though they've seen some success, I bet some of the LSC and NE10 schools that have moved up to D1 within the last decade may be slinking back within the next few years. There's just no way Tarleton and TAMUC can keep up with that kind of revenue needed. Private schools may be able to make up for it because their scholarship are largely just budgeted discounting instead of fundraised/donated dollars.

[TheBigCat2192]

I broadly agree with the posts already shared that House means very little for existing D2 programs. You’ll probably see more players try to aggressively transfer up and get paid as upperclassmen if they’ve performed at this level as underclassmen, but that will just be an acceleration of a phenomenon that NIL already kickstarted. The much bigger concerns for our level are things outside of this settlement like the enrollment cliff (you can’t have a team if you don’t have a school) and the risk that “student-athletes” are ever legally deemed employees. Penn State and Pitt could afford to pay all of their guys and give them bennies but I seriously doubt any of the PSAC schools (or even the big GLIAC/MIAA schools) could do the same. I’m not even sure that Lehigh or Lafayette could and they’re “D1.”