Everywhere I look I see the “World of Sports” operating from “more is better.” Bigger is “boss.” Lavish is lovely. To be clear, I am not here to advocate the “good old days.” Every era has its problems, issues and concerns. The concern is what it is we do to solve the problem, i.e., we find a solution and then that turns into the next problem (ex. using your phone to make a call while driving, the number one cause of automobile accidents).

In this short piece, let’s look at college athletics. Universities and their presidents are constantly dealing with money crunches. To provide quality programs for their large slate of sports they found a solution — television.

Over time, TV executives discovered that their audiences would watch anything live, in other words, “real people.” You can provide your own examples. The more events covered, the bigger the viewing audience and the more cash to be distributed to schools. Sounds good, yes? Maybe not.

Often times, the more money available to us the more we spend. So to increase revenues, television began to actually change the game. Schools started doing strange things to get a larger slice of the pie. Example #1: the University of Maryland in the Big 10, or Boise State in the Big East (actually considered), give me a break. You fill in your examples. What happened to traditional rivalries? The people who have gone before and did the heavy lifting are forgotten. You may be thinking, “Does that really matter?” A couple more examples and I will tell you what I think.

Example #2: TV changed the game of volleyball. TV said if you can play a match in two hours we will put you on the air. Did volleyball have a choice? Yes, the same decision a person being black-mailed has.

Example #3: TV timeouts have destroyed the rhythm of the game of basketball. UCLA Hall of Fame Coach, John Wooden probably winces in his grave every time there is an automatic timeout for two minutes. This is in addition to the timeouts available to the teams.

Those heavy-lifting folks are the source of the college athletic experience. If you cannot acknowledge the source you cannot honor yourself. The pro sports millionaires have no idea what their predecessors did that allows for their current successes. Change is always happening. Does it transform or does it just create the next problem.