Wren Baker: ‘You don’t want to mess it up’ as he discusses changes in college sports

EDITOR’S NOTE: College athletics are at a historic crossroads as they realign conferences, redistribute revenues and redefine what is a college athlete and their rights. WVU athletic director Wren Baker discusses his view of the future of collegiate sports and WVU’s place in it in a three-part series. Today, the relationship between the professional leagues and college sports and what to do about the NCAA cash cow, the basketball tournament.

MORGANTOWN — West Virginia center Zach Frazier has just embarked on his journey into professional football, having been the only Mountaineer drafted by an NFL team this season.

The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted him in the second round and expect him to be their opening day starting center.

What does this have to do with the future of college athletics?

A lot, for it was college athletics that prepared Frazier to be in a position to move directly from the college game to the NFL game.

See, the NFL has for a century avoided the necessity of having to spend its money on a minor league system of player development. That belonged to the colleges and, until the NBA got into its G League, it was the same in that sport.

Jerry West jumped from WVU to the NBA and became the sport’s logo. Some players went directly from high school.

Should not the NFL and the NBA now enter into the player development process for their sports with a financial obligation to helping the NCAA — or whatever body may replace it — bear a financial burden for developing its star players.

“It’s a good question,” WVU athletic director Wren Baker said recently. “I think the NFL should be very vested in the future of college sports. I’m not sure they want to get into competing for talent. I’m not sure we would want to do that. It would make sense to work together.

“Maybe some type of revenue share or whatever. I always thought the age limitation that doesn’t allow an 18-year-old to play in the NFL, even if a team would want them, is a tough rule. But it’s a collectively bargained rule [between the league and the NFL Players Association], one the NFL veterans want in place so they can get as many years in as they can get.”

Well, guess what? With the changing finances coming in college, players are not rushing off to play professional sports.

“You’re starting to see in some other sports people starting to forego entering the draft because they can make money in college. They delay a year in entering the draft. Those are things we have to consider,” Baker said, well aware that WVU’s own Dante Stills played an additional year of college ball because he didn’t feel he was ready to jump into the league after his junior year.

Compensating college athletes financially and allowing them transfer rights are in their infancy. Discussions and negotiations are in full swing trying to put structure into both NIL and the transfer portal, items that revolutionized college sports.

The movement was away from “Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame” to “how much will you pay me and how much will you play me?”

There was no equity and, over the years, losing the loyalty of the players to a school well could turn into losing the loyalty of fans of those schools.

“We need to figure out as we figure out the revenue share what that means for some NIL and find a way, maybe, to bring collectives and NIL in house,” Baker said.

Currently, NIL deals are being made through collectives separately from the colleges themselves, which takes administrative power out of the “employer,” which is the school, and which leads to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

The courts currently are hearing landmark cases with decisions expected to be offered shortly.

“When we talk about the potential case settlements, right now that will answer some question but at the same time create other questions,” Baker said. “I don’t think anyone can sit there like they know exactly what that means.”

Nothing is so sacred as to avoid change.

Not even the cash cow that is the NCAA men’s (and maybe now women’s) basketball championships, which are being scrutinized over a push for enlarging the 68-team field.

“I am for all conferences having automatic qualifiers (from smaller conference champions). You hear some administrators talking about wanting to move to having all at-large bids, but I think what makes the NCAA special is every conference is represented,” Baker said.

“With that, by proxy, every school and fan base is represented because if your school is not in it, you generally will root for your conference team. That’s important.”

Generally, but …

“But, there’s become such a divide between the conferences in what they have to spend and what benefits they provide, that it’s very reasonable that teams that get in as an at large end up making a big run and go to the Final Four or further.”

Baker uses N.C. State’s run this year as an example of how a team can get in and “have the right mojo and could advance and be more deserving than some automatic qualifier that gets in.”

Baker doesn’t want to expand the tournament field just to tinker with it.

“It’s not about tinkering and wanting to change the NCAA Tournament. I think people recognize it’s the best sporting event of the year,” he said. “But it is about giving the teams that deserve to be there the chance to be there. If you have the opinion I have and don’t want to cut out automatic qualifiers, the only way to do that is expand the field somewhat.”

But it isn’t just so simple as to say “we’re expanding.”

“There’s a lot that comes with that. You have to add weekends and there’s play-in games and for those in play-in games their experience is not as good as those who don’t have play-in games,” Baker said. “I hate to be non-committal but I’m still in the evaluation mode of how many teams we should take and what that format should be.

“I would say there are power conference teams that get left out that should be in and I would not be for removing the automatic qualifiers from non-power conferences. I’ve been in those leagues. They deserve to get one team in.”

Baker issues a warning to approach with caution.

“The change would be gradual because the one thing you don’t want to do is mess it up,” he said.

TOMORROW: The Olympic sports.