NCAA Considering Limits on Exposure Tournaments

I can go on and on about the ills of the NCAA but that is another conversation. In my opinion, the NCAA is pushing for parity in every sport. They only way to achive parity is through controlling expenditures in areas that they can regulate. This is why they reduced the scholarship allotments in football years ago. Another way this is acheived is by limiting the amount of money spent in recruiting.

A school like Tennessee can afford to scout every showcase tournament. A school like Winthrop cannot. The cost savings comes from having to scout fewer tournaments, not scouting tournaments at different locations. Parity is acheived by limiting the opportunity a large, well funded program can spend to the level that the smaller, lesser funded teams are already spending. It is one method of reigning in the well funded programs that have unlimited resources.

 

Thanks bigham for clarifying. I assume this is for softball only.

I do have a question though. It's the schools that decide whether they will be fully funded or not. Some schools choose not to and then may change their direction later (App State comes to mind). But the Big Time schools (like Tennessee) will still have a recruiting budget that will be larger than some others, so if you reduce their opportunities to attend showcases, they will still spend their monies in other ways to help their recruiting.

I'm not a big fan of travel ball but I understand its value. The same is true for showcasing. Despite the dilution of talent and college coaches participation at some of them, there is some great value to it. The players have an opportunity that players 10 years ago did not. To play in a tournament attended by multiple schools watching you play is an unbelievable experience. An experience that I'm sure the players of yesteryear wish they had.

I have met and know personally 50+ college baseball recruiters and to a man, they would prefer to attend a well run showcase tournament. They feel it saves then time and money to be able to watch 100-200 players in one weekend vs attending a fall game somewhere to watch 1 or 2 recruits.

And if the legislation is aimed at reducing the number of showcases, who decides which tournaments will be allowed? Sanctioned? That can open up a different can of worms.

Please understand that I'm not trying to be difficult, but I try to keep all 3 eyes open when it comes to the NCAA and their decisions on new rules. They do not always play fair or have the kids interest at heart.

 

Another issue

It is already difficult for a new team or even an established team to get in most of the major Showcase events. If U limit the number of those events, U of course limit the number of kids that get a chance to be seen and U will limit the number of travel teams as most will not have the opportunity to showcase their kids. Suddenly, U have a small number of quality travel teams with a huge amount of kids competing to play on those teams. Better teams overall but wow do U create a "dog eat dog" environment that I am not sure I will want to remain a part of at this point in my life.:newsmile33:

 

A Thought to Ponder....Half-Full!!!

I'm certainly not an expert on this subject, but it would appear that this ruling would help the organizations that have ties to the high-end showcase tourneys and hurt the ones that don't.

Over time, doesn't that encourage the "real talent" to migrate towards the smaller number of higher quality showcase teams? (Supply/Demand Theory)

I've seen many, many posts over the last few months referring to the fact that there are too many travel teams and that the talent is too diluted across the board. Doesn't this help to solve that problem? Not saying that the ruling isn't bad, but doesn't it help to fix the issue of "too many teams" trying to showcase? Seems logical that to improve the quality of the showcase tournament, you must reduce the quantity of showcase tournaments? Might make kids think twice before jumping from team to team when they're on a good team with good tournament ties. That's been a problem, too, right?

Its a message board, so this ought to get a decent stream going....been boring lately. Would love to get the opinions and wisdom of the "softball experienced" folks!
DDD

 

I am quite sure we have already been through the 7 days of creation as far as the cannibalistic canines are concerned!

 

Well, if this involves college baseball, I sincerely doubt that this will be passed.

The majority of schools do not feel or have expressed the concerns that this addresses. But, we'll see.

Good thread