On June 13, 2012, the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) endorsed the Knight Commission’s concept of revenue distribution from the Bowl Championship Series. The COIA statement follows:
“The Steering Committee of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) welcomes and supports a proposal by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics to implement a distribution scheme for new Football Bowl Subdivision revenues that would support the academic values of college sports.
The Knight Commission’s plan, presented as one of a number of realistic alternatives, would distribute new revenues generated by a postseason football playoff that would be paid directly to schools, based on the Graduation Success Rates (GSRs) of their teams, rather than distributing rewards through conferences on the basis of winning.
COIA has long endorsed the collegiate model of amateur sports that the Commission seeks to strengthen, one where the principal rationale for athletics is its potential to enhance the educational experience for athletes and fellow students.
All teams and their athletes strive to win, but as the market dynamic of entertainment sports has come to dominate intercollegiate athletics, programs in potentially profitable sports like football have increasingly moved toward a professional goal structure. Any new football playoff structure has the potential to accelerate this trend by increasing the funds available and the financial stakes of success.
The Knight Commission has played a leadership role in college sports reform for two decades, and its current proposal is a well-conceived and practical plan to ensure that any new playoff structure reinforces the academic purposes of college sports, and diminishes the distorting effects of the professional sports entertainment market. COIA hopes that the Commission’s present initiative becomes the basis for designing a revenue distribution plan for any new football playoff structure that the FBS schools adopt.”
For full information concerning the Knight Commission proposal, see: Knight Commission memorandum on distribution of BCS revenues
COIA is an alliance of 59 faculty senates at NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision schools; for more information about COIA, see: https://blogs.comm.psu.edu/thecoia