This week at the Southeastern Conference’s annual meeting, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier presented a plan that would pay 70 football players a $300 stipend.
Spurrier realizes that the plan wouldn’t have a chance of being approved by the SEC’s athletic directors and presidents, much less getting any support from the NCAA.
But Spurrier’s initiative does provide the SEC with a dynamic marketing tool that other BCS conferences have yet to present.
Applying the math using Spurrier’s plan, every team in the SEC would pay varying amounts based on a minimum of 12 games and a maximum of 14.
For those teams playing 12 games, each program would outlay $252,000 – an amount that represents less than one percent of the SEC’s television deals with ESPN and CBS.
For programs that play 13 games, each school would give players a stipend of $273,000 and for the schools that play 14 games the outlay would be $294,000.
When talking dollar amounts less than $300,000 compared to the millions the SEC generates each season, it’s a small price to pay.
Of course a plan like this is open to a lot of questions, not just about how it could be implemented but how would the other BCS conferences – especially the non-automatic qualifying conferences – compete against the power schools in the SEC.
And while everyone is speculating how and if a plan like Spurrier’s could ever come to fruition, the attention will be placed on the SEC as the first conference to suggest it.
The Southeastern Conference obviously doesn’t need any help in setting itself apart from the rest of the college football universe, but think of the potential benefits if recruits know that the league is at least interested in sharing the millions of dollars it generates every year.
Alabama’s Nick Saban, Florida’s Will Muschamp, LSU’s Les Miles, Ole Miss’s Houston Nutt, Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen and Tennessee’s Derek Dooley all signed Spurrier’s proposal, putting all of those coaches in a different light.
Without even mentioning it, those coaches can now walk into a recruit’s home having a reputation as someone who wants to give back to the players that make the SEC millions every year.
Considering teams from the SEC have won five straight BCS national championships and have signed the most talented high school football players over the past decade, the league has a distinct advantage over every other conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
But now that Spurrier has presented a plan that has made headlines around the sports world, the Southeastern Conference just gave itself another huge advantage in the eyes of football players around the nation.
The SEC’s stranglehold on the BCS title may have gotten even tighter thanks to Spurrier.
