Championships Committee Recap

Plus: What's Possible for DIII NIL; Lacking Leadership In Higher Education; What 2 Watch; Comings and Goings

Author

Steve Ulrich
January 02, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

JANUARY 2, 2024 | written by STEVE ULRICH

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TOP STORY
1. Championships Committee Recap

The DIII Championships Committee met on December 12 and voted to expand the field for the 2024 men’s ice hockey championship.

The bracket was expanded from 12 to 13 teams as the number of sponsoring institutions surpassed the threshold required to warrant expansion. Although the committee typically allows bracket expansion to an even number, the impact of a one-berth expansion will not create logistical issues.

The committee also reviewed results from the October membership survey reached consensus on the following to guide discussion at its February meeting during which the committee will finalize recommendations for the Division III Strategic Planning and Finance Committee to consider in March:

  • Increasing per diem to mitigate costs for participating institutions

  • Expanding the DIII football championship bracket

  • Combining Pools B and C as one collection of at-large selections

  • Maintain legislation capping team sport championship brackets at 64 teams

  • Length of championship (except for football) should remain at no more than three weeks

» Elsewhere. The committee approved regional hosts for the 2024 wrestling championship - Lycoming, Ohio Northern, UW-Stevens Point, WPI and the American Rivers Conference.

NIL
2. CMS’ Printz Shows What’s Possible

by Michael Ehrlich, FanNation

“In four seasons at Division III Claremont McKenna College, guard Connor Printz has played 16 total games, often in front of only 250 fans. However in that time, the basketball content creator has amassed close to a million social media followers and a whopping 80 NIL deals.

How is that possible for a DIII athlete who never played on national TV and rarely saw the floor? While Claremont McKenna is one of the top colleges in the country - The Wall Street Journal ranked them No. 9 overall for 2024 - their student-athletes do not have the NIL resources that top-10 athletic departments pitch to recruits.

Printz though is the shining example of NIL as the great equalizer for student-athletes - anyone at any level can engage - with their content creation skillset and social media reach more valuable than their team visibility or on-court statistics.”

» Why It Matters. Printz’s social network currently includes 467,000 on Snapchat; 161,000 on TikTok; 151,000 on Instagram; and 20,000 on Threads.

» What They’re Saying. “NIL has really changed my life - of course on the financial side - but it has benefited me in so many other ways," Printz added. "I’ve been able to meet so many people who I wouldn’t have talked to without NIL, I've been able to learn how to promote myself and gain a ton of contract negotiation experience. NIL teaches you so many things that you might not learn before graduating college.”

» Of Note. “With his social media community and NIL brand portfolio continuing to grow at a rapid pace, Printz has decided to retire from college basketball to focus on content creation full-time.”

STREAMING
3. The Absence of Higher Education Leadership

by Donna Lopiano, Forbes

“On December 5, 2023, NCAA President Charlie Baker dropped a “strawman” proposal that would establish a new “rich institution” subdivision within Division I. Schools in the new subdivision would be allowed to provide unlimited educational benefits to their athletes, required to provide at least $30,000 per year (under the false flag of an “enhanced educational trust fund”) to at least half of all eligible male and female athletes, and permitted to offer unlimited cash to recruits or currently eligible players under the guise of name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments.

Was this proposal really a “strawman” – an intentionally extreme proposal meant to defeat the real intentions of the “rich institutions” to start openly paying students to play sports as employees? Or, was the proposal offered to keep the wealthiest schools in the current Power 4 (no longer the Power 5 given the disintegration of the Pac-12) from leaving the NCAA and permitting them to make up their own rules with no guardrails – no limits to the football and basketball arms race and no illusion that the Power 4 is anything other than professional sports teams using “collegiate” as a convenient label?

Or, was it a proposal designed to get the Congress to act at last?”

» Reality Check. “Does President Baker know that 80 percent of all Division I FBS college presidents do not believe they can control the wishes of their football or basketball coaches – or the trustees who support them? Does he know that none of the national associations of college presidents, trustees, or governing boards have so much as a committee organized to examine intercollegiate athletics reform?”

» The Big Picture. “Did anyone share what should be a required history lesson for any NCAA president — that the NCAA membership has always failed to stand up to “rich institution” threats to leave the NCAA? In 2020, all the FBS institutions pulled the same act, successfully threatening other poorer Division I football schools in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and Division II and III that they would not continue to get their NCAA championship expense reimbursement or competitive division revenue distributions if they failed to approve the new NCAA constitution that reorganized the NCAA to allow Division I the power to govern themselves.”

» The Final Word. “This multi-billion-dollar FBS property was designed to never have to be shared with the national association and other member institutions like other national championships.”

NEWS
4. Lightning Round

🗞 News. Franklin DE Jireh Ojata, the HCAC Defensive Player of the Year in 2023, will use his final season of eligibility at Purdue.

🤼‍♂️ Wrestling (M). The NWCA has announced its bracket for its DIII National Duals event this weekend. Augsburg is the top seed, followed by Wartburg, UW-La Crosse and North Central. The women’s bracket will be announced on Wednesday.

🗞 News. “University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow, who was denied a pay raise five years ago over inviting a former porn actress to speak on campus, was fired Dec. 27 for himself engaging in explicit sexual acts with his wife on popular porn websites. The most recent action by the UW Board of Regents is part of a longer saga involving Gow and the adult film industry.”

STREAMING
5. What 2 Watch Tonight

🏀 WBB: Hartford (6-3) vs. U. of New England (6-4), 530
🏀 MBB: Bethany Lutheran (9-3) vs. Central (9-3), 600
🏀 MBB: #22 Trinity TX (13-0) vs. Schreiner (9-4), 700

TRANSACTIONS
6. Comings and Goings

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