1. More scholarships. If the college game wants to produce more excitement and attract more players, they need to become a fully funded sport. The game needs more Garret Cole's and Stephen Strasburg's. Bryce Harper would look great in an Arizona State Uniform, wouldn't he?...but, there's no incentive in that...no free education to entice the best players to want to go to college. Why would any top prospect that had a chance to go pro want to dig in their pockets and pay up to $10,000 to play ball? 11.7 scholarships is a total frickin embarrassment.
2. Which brings me to #2. If the NCAA allows more scholarships, they need to eliminate the high school draft. If baseball was fully funded, the the scenario I painted above would be more desirable for a high school top prospect. I think most kids would benefit greatly by going to college anyway. Once change to make it even more enticing to the top prospects and keep them from going to a JC...make players eligible after their sophomore season.
3. Conferences need to push for TV contracts. Why the Pac 10, Big West, WCC and WAC don't have TV contracts is beyond me. That needs to be their number one priority...Listen up conferences...You all work at a university...call the Marketing 101 professor and ask him what to do if you don't know yourself. It's an easy formula...Make money...fund your program...build awareness...fill the seats...Done.
4.Test wood...or at least wood composite bats. Give it a try for at least one year. Yes, stats will suffer, the scores will get lower...maybe...If all of the top prospects end up going to college instead of going pro, it will even things out...The college game would then mirror the pro game. I think it's ridiculous that on some of the better teams, there are nine guys batting over .300 with metal bats...Folks, that's not reality. Look at your favorite pro teams stats. How many per team are batting over .300? Two...maybe three guys at best? That's reality. Look at the Cape Cod, Northwoods and Alaska Summer leagues. As I wrote last week, those teams are all like All-Star teams, yet only one or two per team at best is batting over .300. Does it affect the interest of the fans? The Madison Mallards average 6,600 fans a game...the rest of the league averages anywhere from 1,500-4,000 fans...that's more than many college teams..outside of the SEC and any college in the state of Texas. So the answer is...No...wood doesn't affect fan interest in any negative way.
5. Finally, the NCAA needs to step up and eliminate the dogpile in all sports. Actually, I can't believe coaches haven't already done so already. Why do they call it a dogpile anyway? Dogs don't do that. Dogpiles are idiotic and always result in some sort of injury....always...Some are publicized...some are not...but believe me...someone always sustains an injury. Stop them now, before an injury that is really serious happens.
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