Nicholls football took home a full-purse of 965 thousand dollars from the games with University of Oregon, Western Michigan University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but some have argued that those games should not have even be permitted.
The representatives of the Big 10 conference have already said they will no longer schedule Football Champion Subdivision programs like Nicholls. The money Nicholls took home for those three games accounts for 15 percent of the entire athletic budget. If other conferences were to follow in those footsteps, Nicholls athletics would struggle to keep their heads above water. Many of those FCS programs rely heavily on these “money games” for money, marketing and networking.
Ultimately, I do not think it is fair to small universities, nor to the students or athletes of those universities. If you take away games from these athletes, you take away exposure for them to better their careers; is that not what college athletics is for?
I am not the type of person who has that “everybody wins so we all get ice cream after the game” mentality. In this case, I think taking away opportunities from student athletes who work hard is just immoral and comes from nothing but greed and self-centered attitudes.
In a sense, the set-up would be similar to that of a professional system. To some degree, there may be a fraction of people who have the capitalistic approach and say, “fend for themselves because if they were good, they would make money.”
That is one of the biggest conceptions in college athletics. According to Forbes and USA Today, only 23 of the 228 public division I programs actually make enough money to take care of the department. Most of the 23 schools had to actually get subsidies to help generate enough money to cover the expenses. The only programs last year which were able to cover all costs with no aid was LSU, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Purdue and Texas.
From a capitalistic standpoint, essentially the only reason people would say no is to help generate more money because people would rather see Louisiana State University battle Oregon instead of Nicholls play Oregon.
“When I first started at the University of Oklahoma, I was a student and I wasn’t in the athletic department. I viewed those FCS schools as nothing because I wanted to see bigger teams come in for attendance purposes,” Director of Ticket Operations for Nicholls Athletics Tyler Knowles said.
Knowles also said, “As I started working with the athletic department, especially when I got to Nicholls, I saw how these smaller schools rely on these bigger programs to sometimes stay afloat, so my opinion made a 360 turnaround. With the upsets we have seen this year, I think it is taking a trend more toward where these teams can compete now.”
Knowles was a student intern and then a graduate assistant for the University of Oklahoma athletic department.
For most of the bigger schools, they do see this as another win on the schedule, but in week one alone there were seven FCS upsets this year. I do not, by any stretch, think the playing field is level, but it goes to show you that on any given day FCS schools could win the game. Nicholls had not beaten a division I opponent for two years, and they went in to Kalamazoo and beat Football Bowl Division opponent Western Michigan.
Part of that is because when FCS compete against FBS programs, recruits may see that FCS school on television and like it.
Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs Brandon Ruttley said, “We use those games to our advantage. Oregon likes to sell themselves as the nations brand. People will immediately look at the score, but they don’t see the 350 yards of offense and almost 20,000 hits to our website.”
Taking away the games would take away the marketing value in scheduling these big programs. For all we know, there could have been someone watching that Western Michigan game whom aspires to be the next Bobby Flay. That person checks the website, sees that we have a great culinary program and decides to enroll at as a colonel. Now you just added a network to Michigan.
We have already seen pipelines increase in other parts of the country and world, bringing exposure to Nicholls. We have a diverse group of students both nationally and internationally.