This is what’s wrong with college sports/the NCAA Tournament…

Spin your passion into a business with Shopify and break sales records with the world's best converting checkout.

Let's hear that one more time. The world's best converting checkout. Shopify's legendary checkout makes it easier for customers to shop on your website, across social media, and everywhere in between. Now that's music to your ears. Anyway you spin it, you can be a smash hit with Shopify.

Start your dollar a month trial today at Shopify.com slash records. Dan Wilkin of USA Today is joining us here now on the Adam Gold Show. I don't like to get angry on a Friday. I reserve Fridays for fun and goofing around on this radio program.

There's so much seriousness that we can talk about on a day-to-day basis. But I saw this Greg Sankey quote, I think it was because of your Twitter, sir, and it just made me mad about just one little line, one little, I guess, maybe two sentences that is loaded with all sorts of, I mean, exactly what's wrong, I think, with college, really college sports, but specific to the NCAA tournament. I want to read the quote and then I'll get your thoughts on this. We're giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers from smaller leagues, which is in brackets, so I guess he didn't exactly say that.

And I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion. There's a lot of things just in that sentence alone, so thank you for joining us on a Friday and your thoughts on what Greg Sankey had to say. Well, I've really been warning about this for a couple years because the rhetoric has been there, maybe not quite this direct, but it's been building to this. And, you know, a couple years ago when the transformation committee was doing its thing, a lot of people probably don't even remember it because it was completely ineffective and I don't think really made much of an impact.

But thank you was on the transformation committee. And one of the things you heard talked about was a number of of automatic bids being reduced potentially for some championships that was on the table. And a couple years ago at the college football playoff championship game, Sankey did a little scrum with a bunch of reporters and he brought up how Ole Miss won the national championship in baseball as the last team in the field. And he was making that point to say, listen, you have these these bubble teams, even in a 64 team tournament from the SEC, because, you know, we're so competitive, we're so mighty, we're so good. You know, maybe our eighth place team or ninth place team, if they were the last team selected over some, you know, unwashed mid-major, they could go and make a run.

And he sort of has been on that as a pretext to eliminate the little guy in some way. And look, I think you can make an argument. Division one's too big. Three hundred and sixty something teams, most of them, frankly, zero chance of being competitive in anything ever in basketball. I certainly think if you wanted to put in different standards for Division one and membership, that's something that I could listen to your argument about why that's necessary. It probably is too many teams. They probably have made it too easy to get into Division one. But when you talk about just eliminating automatic qualifiers for the conferences that are part of your division, your sport. Well, we know where that goes. We know where that leads.

It leads to the little guy getting pushed out and the SEC and the Big Ten and the power conferences. Adam Golden Studio with my man coach Pete DeRuta, Capital Financial Advisory Group. Financial advice industry can be overwhelming for a lot of people.

Is there a way to be sure you're getting the best service when you don't know? Yeah, Adam, it's not just if you gave the money to a planning team and they did good the first year. I mean, anyone could do good for one year, but it's a track record and it's a long term accounts that are very important. We call that a financial fill up strategy, Adam, and that gives you lifetime income you can never outlive. We'll put together for you, the listener, your very own total retirement plan. If you call right now, call and claim your comprehensive review with Coach Pete and the team. 888-843-0013 or text Adam to 600-700. Adam Golden is a paid spokesman. Investment advisory services offered by Capital Financial Advisory Group, a North Carolina registered investment advisor. To save your ass for the SCC.

From getting what is left behind, so it's very transparent. I don't like it and frankly, I think it would be bad ultimately for the SEC as well because it would be bad for the tournament and the tournament. If you mess with it too much, if you were if you take away what people like about it, that will come back to the detriment of, I think everybody involved. here Greg Sankey commissioner of the SEC pushing for as many as four three or four automatic qualifying spots in a 14 team college football playoff seems to be against automatic qualifiers just want to make sure I've got that right here's the other thing about it it seems that he is discussing this at the front of that comment as though it were charity as though the NCAA tournaments first week isn't basically all about the little guy that the charm of the tournament isn't what it is without that and he's basically said well you know we really don't need that because we need Mississippi State in or we need you know Minnesota in because you know he's not just talking about the SEC even though we know that he that he is and at the back end of that I think his comment I'm sure if he if he went back and read it he'd go well that doesn't make sense or maybe he wouldn't when he says we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion well you're you're not taking teams really from the middle you're taking teams from each other or you're taking there's no PAC-12 anymore you know we're probably two two or two years away from there being no ACC maybe no Big 12 so does he think that those just those leagues are just going to regenerate these teams like like what is that mythical creature that when you cut off its head it grows two more does he think that's what's gonna happen they're all gonna be in the in his league or the Big Ten what I think they're afraid of is the notion that all right they were there already it you know 14 teams you add Texas and Oklahoma you're even bigger and you have major league more difficult more competitive because those are two quality programs and you already sort of see in in these conference standings and in college basketball whether it's the Big Ten or the SEC you see a glut in the middle you know you see a lot of eight and eight a lot of nine and nine a lot of eight and ten you know even even some teams seven and eleven who you know are pretty good teams or decent teams and I think they look at that and say that it's only gonna get worse as we add more quality teams so we're gonna have more teams that that might be pretty good but have mediocre records and they're not going to get in and so ultimately we're not going to gain very much in terms of real estate in in that field even though we have added and kept adding quality programs so I understand that's the thinking but I would also say nobody forced the SEC to get this big nobody forced the Big Ten to put a knife in the Pac-12 you chose to expand in this manner you chose to break college sports to break the conference structures as we knew them and the the fix for that the answer for that that you want is to then just go break a bunch more stuff in the name of trying to fix it and that's I think where people sort of look at this and and say alright Greg yeah I understand where you're coming from here but you're the reason this happened you're the reason you know you you didn't have to go add Texas and Oklahoma you chose to so deal with the consequences yeah I mean it's a there Paul Hewitt once said about like the one-year player or some stuff like that that there are unintended consequences for you know the actions that college sports takes this is one of those unintended consequences but the truth of the matter is that I those teams who deserve to get in the tournament regardless of your conference record since routinely teams get in with sub 500 conference records you know play good teams outside of your league win those games and your conference record doesn't quite matter as much so I mean the Big 12 which has 14 teams or whatever they have now I mean they're gonna get probably nine teams in it's more than it's more than half their teams we've seen 11 teams go from the Big Ten or the Big East before so the notion that they're gonna get get the short shrift because they have too many teams there's no evidence to say that that's true just like there's no evidence to say that we're wasting not automatic bids on the likes of you know Ivy League champ Princeton last year Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champ st. Peters two years ago oral Roberts from the summit three years ago Loyola from I don't even know what the league is now where Loyola Chicago is who got to a final four I mean it's just it's fundamentally untrue the stuff that he's saying final thing and I don't want to belabor this point and keep you too long especially since I'm trying to keep it light on a Friday isn't it bad enough that they gerrymandered the playoff what they're doing I mean I thought they were so great I thought the SEC was so great they were just gonna get all the spots anyway why don't why aren't they advocating for no automatic bids and just let the top 14 teams go so we can watch that whole league play itself yeah what you're saying is all these people who run college sports make decisions and take positions based on what they feel is going to advantage them most at the time they say it I mean that right that's how this thing is wrong and it's one of the big problems with why college sports can't get its act together as I've said many many times you know the NFL the NBA the NHL all of these professional leagues right they compete and they all want to beat each other but at the end of the day they view what they do as a collaborative business in which one you know the rising tide lifts all boats right they want what's best for the business overall because you know while one franchise may benefit one year it'll eventually come around and somebody else will benefit later that's not the way it works in college sports they all view each other as as competitors encroaching on each other's real estate they're there they don't look at it as an overall business and what's best for that business they look at it as what's best for their slice of that business and and that's why it's just hard to get anything done and it's why Greg Sankey when he talks to Pete Bammell and says this stuff you know we'll say well you know the college basketball tournament look at look at UCLA a couple years ago going from the first four to the final four that just shows you that that a that a power conference team who was on the bubble can can go all the way yeah well guess what guess who else did the exact same thing as UCLA it was it was VCU VCU did the same thing VCU was was almost not in the tournament and they get in and as the last team in and then they go to the final four that's what happens in a single elimination tournament and sometimes it'll be the big UCLA power conference and some it'll be the small conference that's the way the term has always been but but when you don't acknowledge that you do I think show your hand as having a very specific agenda that is not really based in in what's best for the overall sport Dan Wolken we'll leave it there on a Friday I appreciate your time sir we'll talk again soon you follow him on Twitter at Dan Wolken from USA Today take care man you got it