Story Poster
Photo by Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports
Texas A&M Baseball

Matt Wyatt discusses "Uneven" and scholarship issues in college baseball

May 26, 2021
8,506

Key notes from Matt Wyatt interview

  • The response to the “Uneven” movie has been overwhelmingly positive. I value people who appreciate the message and see it as an educational piece. Most people who watch it come away thinking they've been educated a little bit. That was the purpose. I got into this story because I was curious about college baseball. For years I've heard rumors that scholarships aren't the same across the sport. You know, 11.7 scholarships here or lottery scholarships there. It's very confusing, and there wasn't much out there that was all that educational.
     
  • The lack of information handy doesn't match how the coaches feel about the situation. The coaches know it's messed up, but there is an information gap. Education is a bridge to change. Now maybe the conversation can take off. If this piece that I've done can help with that, then it will have been worth it.
     
  • It's not 1985 or 1990 anymore. Back then, nobody was making any money on college baseball. Fast forward to 2021. There are 229 Division I baseball schools. A lot of them aren't making money on the sport, but the Power 5 schools are. The conferences and the NCAA governing body are raking it in. ESPN and the SEC Network are loving it. Still, at the highest level at Texas A&M, the moms and dads are footing the bill for that roster.
     
  • I'm not the SEC commissioner or the NCAA president, so it's not my job to figure out a solution. When the NCAA collects a minimum of $5M from Omaha and then checks from these regional and super regional hosts every year, what are they doing with those checks? How is this sport the #2 revenue sport for the NCAA behind men's basketball, but at the same time, every player is paying to be there? It's not a situation that can continue.
     
  • At the very least, if you're playing at this level like the teams in the SEC, there is no way you should have to be forking out $25-45,000 a year to be playing. This is a multi-layer thing, and it's a continuum of what you see with youth baseball. The wealthy families are the ones that can stay in. It's pushing poor kids out of baseball. If those poor kids want to be athletes in college, they have to play another sport. That's not right.
     
  • John Cohen nailed it when he said to imagine if one college football team had more scholarships than another. Could you imagine if Auburn had one more scholarship player than Alabama? It would be shock and horror. It's that way and then some in college baseball.
     
  • I do see a change eventually. Greg Burns said, "Never say never. Things can change." Greg Sankey has touched on it a couple of times, saying it's time to look past the old equivalency model. The question is how you should do it. Some think they should split Division I, and Sankey thinks that's a half measure. The key is getting the rest of the country to go along with something like this. There is a lot of SEC envy around the country, so it could take a while to get other leagues to come around on this issue.
Discussion from...

Matt Wyatt discusses "Uneven" and scholarship issues in college baseball

5,282 Views | 8 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by Rongagin71
frank.sganga@ttiinc.com
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
OK, now that we all agree that a scholarship is worth $25K to $40K a year..... let's get them on those....but then let's drop the "athletes need to be paid" rhetoric.............
Spotted Ag
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Cool! Now do college softball.
Covidians, Communists, CNN, FOX, and all other MSM are enemies of the state and should be treated as such.
Austin Ag
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Softball gets 12 ships and that is enough for a full team. Baseball cannot as the sport runs though as many pitchers per week as there are total scholarships.
Rongagin71
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
It needs to be noted that baseball now plays so many games that it really takes time from being a student, that also makes it much more difficult to be a two sport star as was once common.
94chem
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rongagin71 said:

It needs to be noted that baseball now plays so many games that it really takes time from being a student, that also makes it much more difficult to be a two sport star as was once common.


Baseball schedules are shorter now than they were 35 years ago.
94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
Rongagin71
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Number of games played per season starting the year I graduated:

1971 - 40,40,28,44,48,53,53,55,50,52,52,53,
1983 - 45,62,55,68,67,67,65,60,67,61,64,63,
1995 - 67,58,61,66,70,58,60,59,64,64,56,56,
2007 - 67,65,61,64.60,61,63,62,64,65,64,62,
2019 - 63,18,56...

Looks like the high was 70 games in 1999,
and the low was 18 in we-all-know-what-year.
94chem
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rongagin71 said:

Number of games played per season starting the year I graduated:

1971 - 40,40,28,44,48,53,53,55,50,52,52,53,
1983 - 45,62,55,68,67,67,65,60,67,61,64,63,
1995 - 67,58,61,66,70,58,60,59,64,64,56,56,
2007 - 67,65,61,64.60,61,63,62,64,65,64,62,
2019 - 63,18,56...

Looks like the high was 70 games in 1999,
and the low was 18 in we-all-know-what-year.


Regular season has been 56 for at least 25 years. Look at the records of the teams in Omaha in the mid-80's. Lots of teams with game totals in the mid-70's.
94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
Rongagin71
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Besides a lot more playoff games (most years at least SEC playoffs) they also spend more time traveling.
I'm not saying go back to 40 games a year and pass a bucket to collect donations from the "crowd" - but I did enjoy it when it was that way.
Refresh
Page 1 of 1
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.