Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
Quick housekeeping note: I am going to next week’s Notre Dame at BYU football game. My plan is to fly to Salt Lake on Wednesday, visit some folks at other Utah institutions and do interviews and journalism, catch the game, and fly back on Sunday morning. If you’re around Salt Lake or Utah County and want to say hi, drop me a line!
Game-day merchandise sales are one of the most powerful ways to boost your team store’s bottom line and keep fans spending long after kickoff. Desert Cactus is the trusted partner that stocks your shelves with creative, high-quality merch without breaking your budget.
We carry easy sell-through items such as flags, sticker sheets and acrylic pieces like keychains and magnets. Plus, all of our items are designed to excite fans and drive traffic to your team store. This merch doesn't just build memories; it drives real revenue for your athletic department and creates the kind of game-day buzz that keeps fans coming back to buy more.
Earlier this week, an interesting new NCAA proposal came across my desk. The Division I men’s and women’s basketball oversight committees have begun the legislative process to potentially allow exhibition games in the summer … including 3 vs. 3 games. From the press release:
The proposals may be amended by the oversight committees based on membership feedback before a vote by each oversight committee in December and then reviewed by the Division I Cabinet by January, leading to a potential effective date of April.
Under this permissive approach, the MBOC and WBOC have aligned in proposing up to three dates of competition either domestically or internationally (as part of a foreign tour) during the eight-week summer access period when college basketball teams are practicing and developing on campus. Schools would have the flexibility to determine the appropriate contest format — exhibition game, scrimmage, joint practice, 3×3 or 5×5 — and whether the contest is conducted in private or open to the public.
Domestic competitions could take place against any U.S. four-year school and provide an alternative competitive developmental opportunity to summer foreign tours. The proposal standardizes summer competitions to a maximum of three dates — either foreign or domestic — providing all Division I teams with flexible, efficient and equitable opportunities. For men’s teams participating in a summer foreign tour, those competitions would be limited to any international club or team.
So tl;dr: If this legislation is approved, schools could decide if they want to go on foreign tours to play against international competition, set up scrimmages or joint practices against other D-I teams, stage full-fledged exhibition games — or do nothing at all. The policy would be permissive, not required.
I have to admit, my initial thought after reading this was: Well, this sounds like it would be fun, but I’ll just wait to see what Matt Norlander thinks before I decide if it’s a good idea. But Norlander is apparently busy with other Serious Professional Journalism, so I made some calls.
Over the past few days, I’ve talked to executives with mid-major leagues, multi-bid leagues outside the Power and the P4, as well as a coach and a few folks in the multi-team event/promotions business. Based on those conversations, here are what I understand to be the potential pros and cons.
Potential benefits:
Players want it. There are summer basketball practices — but, if I understand correctly, only for about 10 hours a week over an eight-week period. Many of the people I spoke said players want to compete and do something beyond the basic structure the schools can provide. And with year-over-year roster fluctuation becoming increasingly dramatic, early competition could help coaches better understand what they really have — or what they need to work on — before the season proper.
It provides opportunities for more budget-focused programs. Right now, schools that can afford to go on international tours every summer are allowed to. On those tours, they play competitive games against international opponents, many of whom are quite good. But going to Spain or Italy or Brazil is expensive. If the NCAA allows teams to scrimmage here in the United States, it would mean all programs could benefit from competitive opportunities without having to foot massive travel bills.
This could help drive more revenue and attention to college basketball. There’s not a ton happening on the sports calendar in June and July — or at least, not as much as there is in October and November. Multiple folks I talked to believed the same companies that set up multi-team events during the regular basketball season could create made-for-TV-showcases, where multiple teams would head to one city and play several exhibition games. If everything went well, the athletes would get a cool experience, the programs would walk away with six figures (which they could redirect to athletes), and fans would get something other than baseball to watch.
But there are also potential drawbacks:
This could really drain already overworked staff resources. You can’t just turn on the lights, roll out a ball and have a meaningful exhibition game. Every new event means more hours for athletic trainers, communications professionals, event services, security and everyone else … plus, of course, the athletes. Late June to mid-July are the closest to a dead period on most campuses, and adding more events during that window would just ask more of folks who might already be pretty burned out. Hiring outside or additional staff, of course, takes money. I heard this from both mid-major and P4 level sources; infrastructure capacity is very much a concern across all levels of college sports.
“Permissive” rules don’t really work. The way the mid-major folks described it to me, any permissive benefit or policy has a way of becoming functionally mandatory as soon as coaches see their peers doing something. If 60 schools play exhibitions in one summer, will the others have the political will to refuse to do it the next? Probably not!
Does it make sense? Is there enough consumer interest to financially support expensive exhibition games in the middle of the summer, especially when rosters might still be in flux and rotations certainly are? Can coaches handle the additional workload without burning out? Is 10 hours a week enough time to do anything truly meaningful over the summer?
Would this just become more buy-game inventory for low-majors, rather than an opportunity to truly develop rosters?
I don’t think I know enough to conclusively say if I think this is a good idea. Even sources who were skeptical of the initial proposal told me they’d be very willing to look at changing the regular college basketball calendar, perhaps to play more preseason games, or tweaking the regular season cadence.
Nothing is official yet. My current understanding is that the proposal will be socialized and tweaked around college sports, before a potential vote in January.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments or in our community.
Get a Free Trial to the College Sports Industry Data You Need to Make Better Decisions
Extra Points Library gives college sports professionals instant access to the contracts, financial records, salary benchmarks and operational data shaping the industry. Whether you’re benchmarking salaries, researching vendor deals, comparing your school to its peers, reporting a story or simply trying to better understand how college athletics actually works, Library gives you the data behind the headlines.
It’s built specifically for professionals who work in college sports. Over the past week, we’ve added over 350 new contracts, from swim coaches to assistant basketball coaches to software and more.
Want a free trial? Reply to this email or sign up here, and we’ll be in touch.
Here’s what else we’ve been working on:
Remember that report we did last week on the finances of college softball programs? We did another one for baseball. It’s useful if you want to understand where the money is going, what sort of spending matters and more.
The Protect College Sports Act probably isn’t going to pass exactly as it’s written right now. But if it did, who would it really benefit? Who really wouldn’t benefit?
We did a reader mailbag, covering the growth of women’s flag football, joke FOIAs, real estate developments and more.
And just like I do almost every week, I’ve added a ton of new stuff to the Extra Points Library. As of last evening, we’re at 17,719 documents, with even more to come today. Recent additions include lots of men’s and women’s assistant basketball coach contracts; updated head coach contracts across swimming, track and football; software vendor agreements and much more.
If you want to read every single story I publish on Extra Points, you’ll need to upgrade your subscription to Premium. That’s only $9 per mont, but it lets you play all of our games, read my book and get every single Extra Points newsletter. Those subscriptions keep the lights on around here, so if you value EP, I’d love for you to join us.
Thanks for reading, everybody. I’ll see you online next week … or in Utah.
