The ’14 IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum kicked off this morning with two presidents of NCAA institutions -- Wake Forest’s Nathan Hatch and Villanova’s Rev. Peter Donohue -- providing insight into the latest NCAA governance changes and their individual schools’ priorities. Donohue, whose school is in the Big East as opposed to one of the Power Five, said that those conferences’ push for autonomy is positive because the “focus has really been on, ‘How do we really give that student-athlete the advantage they need?’” He later added that the idea of paying the full cost of attendance is a sensible model, and that Big East presidents recently determined that all of the conference’s schools would cover the cost of attendance for men’s and women’s basketball players. Donohue: “We are an elite basketball conference, and we will do everything we can to stay at that level.” He noted that schools could then decide individually how they would treat athletes in other sports. Hatch said that the new governance structure for the Power Five conferences was important because it allowed D-I “to stay together.” He also praised the creation of a new D-I council, which will include ADs, student-athletes, conference commissioners, faculty athletic reps and SWAs. Hatch: “Over time, the NCAA has seen a diminution of the involvement of important athletic directors, and I think this new structure allows that to be recaptured.” Regarding the notion that schools outside the Power Five will lose out on revenue as a result of the autonomy move, Hatch said that TV and media rights affect the gap between big and small schools far more than any changes in governance could.
QUICK HITS
* Hatch, on the fan experience: “In our culture, the push by media is to have it be all about the individual. ... It seems to me that’s an issue we all face in the future in terms of fan participation. Students may go to a game for a half, and then they get something on their phone, something more interesting going on, and they’ll join it. It seems to me we live in a culture, a digital culture, that makes [fan loyalty] difficult. ... And the fact that sports are presented so well on television.”
* Donohue, on athletes being deemed employees: “I would hate to guess [what that would mean]. It would change things drastically. ”
Hatch: “If that was the decision, it’s not only the difference between state and private institutions, but it’s right-to-work states and others. I think largely, in the south, you wouldn’t have unions, and I think in other parts of the country ... you might. The anomalies it would create for the NCAA are mind-boggling.”
* Hatch, on the treatment of student-athletes: “Sometimes you feel whipsawed, because in the press they say student-athletes aren’t well taken care of, that we use them on behalf of commercial advantage. On our campuses, I think many of our students think students-athletes are pampered. They get more academic help; in some ways their lives are good. They’re tough, but good. I think the current model works if we’re committed to the education of student athletes.”
