While we probably won’t hear from Brother Emmert until next week, yesterday had its moments in the O’Bannon courtroom. I can’t say for certain which side will prevail, but it’s already clear that competitive balance is getting the crap beat out of it.
Coaches are getting money that otherwise would go to players.
He and Hausfeld emphasized that the compensation of football coaches has risen more than 500 percent since the 1980s, in part because of exploding revenues and NCAA rules controlling how much of that money can flow to players. Additionally, Noll said, schools are redirecting money to the building and gold-plating of athletic facilities — $5.1 billion in 104 stadiums, arenas and practice facilities since the late 1990s.
None of this has helped level the competitive playing field, either, he said. Hausfeld showed slides highlighting the dominance of about a dozen teams in football and basketball since 1993, in contrast to the bottom quarter of programs that struggled mightily.
How much would directing more money towards players change the status quo? In the world of Mike Slive’s “so-called level playing field”, not nearly as much as the NCAA would have you believe. Especially if them what’s got the gold get to make their own rules.
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UPDATE: Exchange from today…
Get The Picture 
Plaintiffs’ argument: “Competitive balance is already shot, so we’re here to make it worse!”
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How would it be worse?
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I guess it could be worse if there was no limit on what you could pay the players. Kind of like MLB before there was a luxury tax and draft pool dollars. Not sure if that would make it much worse, but it would probably be some what worse.
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There have been 11 BCS champions out of ~120 schools (9%), and over that same period of time there have been 9 WS champions, out of 30 teams (30%).
Even if you just count the B5 conference teams, it’s still something close to 15%, or half has much competitive balance as a professional league with no salary cap.
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Just curious, but wtf does the bcs have to do with things getting even more uncompetitive? The point is we have never seen college football with unrestricted spending so it could allow the richest teams to simply spent their way to the top.
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And this is a new thing in your opinion?
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While I agree with your position, Senator, I think that your question concedes too much. It assumes that competitive balance is a worthy goal, and that the status quo is terrible. Now, I think we both agree that the status quo is terrible, but not because of the lack of competitive balance.
My problem with “competitive balance” is that when it is enshrined as a moral good, it is used as an excuse for all sorts of abuses.
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