The Louisville’s men’s basketball program has lost its 2013 National Championship. The people who were a part of that particular game, players, fans, alumni, general basketball fans all know Louisville won that game.
The NCAA has stripped the Cardinals of that title because of a scandal that led to the firing of Coach Rick Pitino. But does stripping Louisville of the title really mean anything?
The NCAA cannot go back in time and punish those players, so it’s are forced to punish the existing players while taking money, scholarships, and titles away from the university.
A friend of mine asked, “If they stripped Ohio State’s 1999 Final Four game away, then I would like to be reimbursed by the NCAA — since the game I paid to witness never really happened.”
My question is “Why not?”
If there was a class action lawsuit against the university or the NCAA that states: Since the games we paid to attend have been vacated, which means they didn’t happen because the schools don’t give those wins to the other teams, we are demanding a refund.
Money talks, to the point that such a measure might serve as a stronger deterrent from cheating than any other disciplinary actions, which have repeatedly proven to be too lax.
If a school or the NCAA is hit where it counts, in the wallet, it would hurt them far more than the “penalties” now being imposed.
For argument’s sake, Louisville vacated 123 wins. If an arena has 20,000 seats (and obviously many games were at locations with various capacities, but we’re just using a benchmark figure here), and the school gets $50 per ticket, a sellout crowd produces a $1 million gate per game.
If a school has to repay ticketholders for each game the NCAA says did not take place, but which ticket holders paid real cash to attend, it doesn’t take long to do the math. Forcing a school to refund money for tickets purchased to games that are not recognized as having been played would certainly get the attention of athletic departments across the country.
Do you suppose an athletics director or university president would be more diligent in policing the athletics department knowing a nine-figure payout could be hanging over their heads if programs are allowed to run amok?
At the very least a school would be more stringent in applying the rules to coaches who too easily break them.
Matt Phillips
Heath, Ohio
