by Kyle Golik
I recently took a drive for a week-long oasis in Fernandina Beach, Florida, to attend the annual Concours d’Elegance at Amelia Island. It was a very much-needed escape from the insanity of my day-to-day life. I honestly feel at some point in your life, you need to take that long road trip across the country, there is something therapeutic about it.
Through your travels, you often find yourself in remote spots in this country and there is a beauty and charm to them. One of my stops happens in the “Mountain State” past the New River Gorge Bridge near Beckley, West Virginia.
There are great breakfast stops as you approach I-77 South toward Charlotte. The pride for WVU athletics beams throughout; you see the iconic “Flying WV” logo from many patrons, but the pride and passion for the Mountaineers is palpable.
You begin to realize there are many states in this country where professional sports from the Big 4 (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL) don’t have a presence, but college athletics are the de facto home team.
Grant you, depending on where you are in West Virginia, you are within a six-hour drive to cities like Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, where a West Virginian could support a pro sports team.
What gives Mountaineer faithful hope is they have had multiple flirtations, over the years, with national championships in the two biggest revenue-generating sports in college athletics, football and men’s basketball. The football program under Don Nehlen had two undefeated regular seasons in 1988 and 1993. Rich Rodriguez saw his 2007 Mountaineers club fumble a shot at the BCS National Championship in the 13-9 upset in the Backyard Brawl.
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Jerry West, many generations ago, guided the Mountaineers to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final in 1959 where they fell short to California 71-70. Over a half-century later, Bob Huggins guided the Mountaineers to a surprise Final Four run in the 2010 Tournament.
Fairmont, West Virginia native Nick Saban participated in Senator Ted Cruz’s (R – Texas) roundtable on Capitol Hill Tuesday, notably along with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, Haley and Hanna Cavinder (Cavinder Twins) from the University of Miami, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, discussed how to“find consensus and pass bipartisan legislation” surrounding NIL.
Saban had a few good quotes, but one that left a major impact was when Saban described how the disparity between the programs that have resources to get all the athletes and those that don’t will destroy college athletics, “You’re going to create a caste system where the rich will get richer, and the poor get poorer, and eventually fans will look at it like, ‘I really don’t want to watch the game.’”
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban: "You're going to create a caste system where the rich will get richer and the poor get poorer, and eventually the fans will look at it like, 'I really don't want to watch the game.'"https://t.co/Wzy1DFlLUu pic.twitter.com/ImJsSAwZ3B
— Pete Nakos (@PeteNakos_) March 12, 2024
The impact is being felt across all of college athletics. St. John’s men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino, who coached at Iona from 2020 to 2023, described how smaller conferences like the MAAC have seen entire starting lineups get poached by power schools because they simply don’t have the money to compete with the NIL opportunities the power schools have and how rosters are gutted.
The disparity is at its highest currently in college football. The SEC and Big Ten literally have destroyed a historic conference (Pac-12) and rivalries (the many Big XII rivalries Texas and Oklahoma had plus Pac-12 rivalries that the Big Ten’s purge has impacted) due to their insatiable appetite for money and power.
You look no further at how Oregon State and Washington State, two outstanding institutions that were stalwarts in the Pac-12.
How are those fans going to get used to playing a primarily Group of 5 schedule?
Outside of the Apple Cup and Civil War games, what games are of interest for the fan to watch?
What is the long-term effect of these programs not being able to have the same resources their in-state rivals will now have on their programs?
Quite literally, we are going to be able to see firsthand how fans of those programs are going to react. You can’t judge them when their biggest rivalry game is on. You will judge when Washington State plays UNLV, or Oregon State has a duel with Wyoming. Is there the same zeal or passion for those games as when they were in the Pac-12?
Saban also supported a revenue share across the country, he alluded to states like West Virginia and Alabama simply don’t have the same resources schools in Texas, California, and Florida have.
“I think the revenue-share approach if we can go down that road a little bit further, you can do that without making people employees,” Saban said.
“Then the revenue share does not impact women’s sports – even though they don’t create revenue, you’re still going to be able to create opportunities. It leads to a more relative approach to how we could move forward. We can make the quality of life better for players that are not employees.
“They still have name, image, and likeness opportunities. They can still do name, image, and likeness. They still have those opportunities. But it’s not going to be created. It’s going to be something that they all earned. In other words, I’m not really for collectives. I respect what these folks over here do. But I think those funds should go to the institution. Not to create opportunities.”
Collegiate athletics is at a major crossroads, similar to the place situated in West Virginia along I-77, where I had breakfast that had the “Flying WV” logo displayed with pride. I could see a day I make a pilgrimage south, that if the NCAA and lawmakers don’t codify legislation to protect amateur athletics and have a level playing field, I will see a day where fans in places across the country like they do in West Virginia stop watching and that “Flying WV” logo is no longer displayed because it is no longer relevant.
