NCHSAA ???

On a different thread Coach Evans stated that since there wasn't any money in baseball that he doubted they would ever expand the baseball schedule. That is a very good subject. Don't they get a cut from everyones gate? There are approx. 350 high schools in N.C. that they collect something from for doing a little bit of nothing. More games, more free money. I might be a little too hard on them so how about you high school coaches come on board and explain the role that the NCHSAA plays in high school sports and how they are compensated. One other thing I can never figure out, when you look at some teams record at the end of the year, some teams play more games than the max. of 24 how do they do that?

 

As far as scheduling goes, the NCHSAA mandates that schools schedule 23 games +1 if you play an endowment for 24. IF your conference has a Conference Tournament, those games count as part of the state playoffs, so that's above the 24. You could play as many games as yopu can in the tournament, usually 3 if you play all rounds, for a total of 27. Then games in the state playoffs add to your total.

Because attendance is not in baseball in most cases as in basketball or certainly football (the 2 money sports), the NCHSAA will not expand this. Even though the amount submitted to the NCHSAA is the same in all sports, it is reasonable to believe that football and basketball will always generate more revenue for the NCHSAA and thus get preferential treatment, unless we as baseball coaches stay united and on the same page. The football and basketball coaches are better organized than we, and money talks. IMHO

 

So does the NCHSAA get a percentage of the regular season games? How about playoffs? What is that percentage? What do they do for you guys? What is an endowment game?

 

Endowment games are bones thrown out to us. We get to play an extra game and the NCHSSAA gets 1/2 the gate. They do not get any money from our regular season games to my knowledge. They do get I believe Coach Evans can correct me if Im wrong, 1/2 the gate from every playoff game. Plus admission is jacked up for playoff games. It is not costing the NCHSSAA anything if we play more games. As far as the academic concerns our guys always do better in the classroom during the season. DHs on Saturdays are great. What we like to do is play a DH on Saturdays with the JV playing a 7 first followed by the Varsity for a 7inning game. All the parents can attend the same games together. Coach Evans is right on the money about Football and Basketball being the money sports. But why should that have anything to do with us being able to play more games? Im sure there are coaches that would not want to do this out of concerns of running out of arms and the additional cost with umpires baseballs and field maint. Thats ok like I said before let the ones that want to play more do it and the others can stick with 23 or 24.

 

Does the NCHSAA get 1/2 of the Endowment game gates? I was under the impression they got 25%. I also think they get a smaller amount of the gate for the first few rounds of the state play-offs (maybe 10-15% and then going up to 25% for the Regionals) and then 60% of the State Championship series games.
But either way, I agree that baseball will never be able to compete with the revenue that football or basketball bring in. But I'm not sure why schools who choose to do so are not allowed to add a few extra games. With the structured length of the baseball season and the restrictions already in place limiting the number of games per week, I don't think many schools would be able to add very many anyway, but they should have that choice.
One way individual schools or conferences can increase baseball revenue is to schedule rival games strategically, such as saving the best rival games for a Friday night. Also, more Saturday games may help get more people out. But I guess first, you have to give them a reason for coming out. That would be up to the coaches.

 

Im not exactly sure on the breakdown money wise. Endowment might be 50% home team 25% visitor and 25% NCHSSAA. This is gate only concessions goes to the home team like always. But regardless of the money breakdown teams that want to play more games I feel should be allowed to do so. The game limit per week could be waved. I know that some teams would not want to do so but thats ok. Its not about the money you can bring in its about giving kids more chances to play. Twenty four game schedules are way too short especially when you usually loose some to the weather. Just my opinion.

 

I will agree with Coach May based on the premise that it should be left to the individual school and program. While I would like to see more games scheduled, we lost 5 games to bad weather and 2 scrimmages. There are other factors to consider here that AD's and principals look at: Transportation costs, busses and fuel are at an all-time high, that could be worked around I am sure. Missed classes with more games... well that could be alleviated with requiring that extra games must be played on Saturdays, which is part of the 4 game per week rule. The folks at the NCHSAA say that the seasons are too ong as they are, they really don't want overlap, as I have been told in the past, because of the complaints of principals who look at the student in student-athlete. While I would be a definite supporter of more games, I just don't see it happening any time soon.