Stretching the season in search of revenue

The longest major-college football season ever began last Thursday in Charlottesville, Va., and will end Jan. 3 with the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz. In between, many schools will play 13 regular-season games. New Mexico, for example, will play six games by Sept. 27.

The jam-packed schedule came about because of a calendar quirk. This year, there is an extra Saturday during the ever-expanding window defined as the regular season, which allowed college-football officials to justify a 12-game regular season for all Division I-A schools.

The real motivation is money. At football powerhouses such as Nebraska and Texas, a single home game is worth nearly $3 million, and for most cash-strapped athletic departments, no other source can generate such revenue.

"I think it speaks for itself: Our football tickets are 88 percent of our total revenue," said Bill Byrne, athletic director at Nebraska, which could play 15 games. "I've heard the argument that we're asking too much of the student-athlete. Yet if you talk to them, they like to play."

Critics say those ticket sales and television dollars come with substantial costs — all of them familiar conflicts in the debate over what is best for student-athletes in the big-money world of major college sports. More games may mean less time for schoolwork, a greater chance for injuries, a further step toward professionalism and a possible justification for increasing the football scholarship limit.

NCAA officials decided in 1999 to add the 12th regular-season game in 2002 and five seasons to come in which the calendar provides an extra weekend between the last Saturday in August and the last Saturday in November. That meant extra games in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2019.

Already, though, talk has begun that athletic department officials are not going to be content to enjoy the windfall only occasionally, and that the 12-game regular season is here to stay.

"There's no question they moved to the 12th game because they need money to pay the bills," former ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan said. "I think eventually they'll just go to the 12th game. That's what usually happens with those things."

College administrators, mindful of criticism that student-athletes are being exploited for financial gain, are quick to point out the obvious: Football players would rather play than practice. And had a 12th game not been added, players certainly wouldn't have gotten the weekend off. They would have been blocking and tackling on the practice field anyway.

Baylor wide receiver Bobby Darnell, among two student representatives on the NCAA's football issues committee, backs up the assertion.

"It makes it lengthy when you have teams playing 14 games, with a conference championship and a bowl game," says Darnell, 23. "But I really don't know if football athletes have a problem with playing games. That's what we like to do."

College presidents are concerned that adding to football players' workload on the field flies in the face of the higher academic standards they're seeking for athletes in the classroom.

Coaches worry about attrition. An extra game will likely mean more injuries. If so, they want more football scholarships (the limit is 85), which would enrage Title IX advocates who say football is the primary culprit for the funding disparity between men's and women's athletics.

Others eye the 12-game season as the next step toward a football playoff and, with it, the professionalism of college sports.