Jim Jordan Warns That Major Proposed Reform To College Athletics Could Lead To Cut In Sports Played

yesterday

At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned Chris McIntosh, Director of Athletics at the University of Wisconsin, about the issue of paying college athletes.

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Transcript

00:00I'll recognize Chairman Jordan for five minutes. Thank You Mr. Chairman. Mr.

00:03McIntosh, if we follow Mr. Cooper's plan, what happens? Thank You Chairman Jordan. I

00:10think what happens is college athletes are eventually deemed to be employees

00:16and that's a model that I've not had a student-athlete ask to be deemed an

00:24employee. What happens to non-revenue sports? What's happened to the Olympics?

00:27Look, let me back up a second. I'm not a fan of the NCAA necessarily, but I am a fan of

00:31providing opportunity to young adults who want to compete while they're

00:34pursuing higher education, while they're pursuing their degree. Mr. Cooper says if

00:39we follow his plan, well if we follow his plan, what's going to happen to the

00:44non-revenue, the Olympic sports that Ms. Smith Gilbert talked about?

00:48Yeah. Chairman Jordan, there'll be a tremendous amount of financial pressure

00:52placed on institutions. I think admittedly in conferences like the Big

00:57Ten, we could find a way to make it work. I think it will be detrimental to Olympic

01:02sports at lower levels. Well, when I had Mr. Sankey, the SEC

01:06Commissioner, and he said if we don't do something, he anticipates that you lose

01:11all kinds of Olympic sports. He says you're going to go to, you know, three, now

01:16of course the incident of I think Division One, you got to have what 16

01:19sports? Yeah. So he says we're going to go to the, everyone's going to go to 16,

01:23and there'll be football, basketball, whatever sport fits that school in the

01:29men's side, and then you'll have the comparable number or a higher number of

01:32women's sports to satisfy Title IX. Is that what you think happens if we don't

01:37do something? Which is my big concern. I think that's an accurate portrayal of

01:41what a likely result might be. Now Mr. Cooper just said you can, as long as you

01:45give notice that we're going to, hey we're going to drop your sport, but we're

01:48going to give you a year to get ready, or if you're an athletic department that

01:52makes, I think you said over a hundred million dollars in revenue, then that

01:56that'll be enough to deal with the non-revenue problems. Does that work,

01:59do you think? I think it's important just to just to let it be known, we don't have

02:05any desire to drop an Olympic sport. We have no desire to cut an Olympic sport.

02:10We have a desire to enhance the tradition that already exists within our

02:14Olympic sports. I don't know that giving one year's notice solves that problem. I

02:20think there are ways in which we can ensure that Olympic sports thrive

02:24within the house settlement. The University of Wisconsin, I think you said

02:27you had 171 million operating budget. Would you be able to, the way

02:32things are going, continue to offer the 22 sports you currently do? That is

02:35correct. You can do that? Yes sir. And you think you can continue to do that even if

02:40nothing changes? Yes sir. We'll be able to operate 23 sports. We'll be able to

02:46offer and operate 23 sports with world-class opportunity, competitively,

02:51academically, made possible because of the stability provided by the house

02:55settlement. That was my next question. The house settlement is, and the revenue

02:58sharing with the house settlement, you think we'll do that? Yes sir. The house

03:03settlement allows us to be successful, certainly in our revenue sharing sports,

03:07like I mentioned earlier, those revenue, I'm sorry, revenue generating sports,

03:10those sports fund the opportunity for all of our student-athletes. The

03:15unstable environment that we are currently operating in is not

03:19sustainable to us. It's been a challenge and I think it's been long overdue that

03:24we can now share revenues directly with those athletes in a fair way, in a

03:30generous way, and that will in turn support the entire model, the entire

03:34ecosystem, which we've been successful in the past. Thank you. Ms. Smith-Gilbert,

03:38comments on some of the same things I asked Mr. McIntosh, if you could. I felt

03:42like you were wanting to jump in there. I never want to jump in, but thanks for

03:47the question. I think if we're talking from an employment standpoint, I'm not an

03:54employer. I'm a teacher, a leader, and a mentor. So I think if you make

04:02student-athletes follow an employment model, then it changes the relationship

04:08between the coach and the athlete. And athletes should not be put under the

04:12pressure of being employees at such a young age. Mr. Albero. Yeah, I wholeheartedly

04:22agree with that and I think ultimately the impact in our sport, in the sport of

04:26swimming and diving, which has been a foundational sport for the Olympic

04:29movement, will be severely impacted. Yeah, I know, we've had the USSE and to talk

04:35with this, we've had Women's Volleyball Association, Wrestling Coaches

04:43Association, all are very concerned about what happens to, if we don't do

04:48something, what happens to the non-revenue sports that are, you know, part

04:52of our, as Ms. Smith-Gilbert talked about, part of our Olympic training ground. So

04:57that's that's a big concern I have. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Chairman.

05:01The gentleman yields back, now recognize a ranking member for unanimous consent

05:05request. Mr. Chairman, I have two unanimous consent requests. The first is I ask

05:11unanimous consent to enter into the record a post from bold.org titled, quote,

05:16how do college athletes get

Jim Jordan Warns That Major Proposed Reform To College Athletics Could Lead To Cut In Sports Played

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