Penn’s hard truth? In the case of college sports and the Ivy League, it isn’t all about the money

The news ricocheted around, not just among Penn basketball fans, but around the Ivy League. Jordan Dingle, 2022-23 Ivy League player of the year, had transferred to St. John’s.

Dingle didn’t just transfer — he was forgoing his Wharton School business degree within a year of graduation.

How could this be?

Sure, Dingle is from New York, and St. John’s, out of the Big East Conference, is New York’s college hoops team. Even more, coaching legend Rick Pitino had taken over. Nobody could argue with a player with NBA dreams wanting to learn from Pitino.

But look at this move in strict financial terms. Dingle was trading in the value of his Wharton degree for money he could make from basketball, including getting paid right now from a St. John’s name, image, and likeness collective.

Does Penn have such a collective? It does not.

Could alumni start a collective? Let’s assume they could have a robust one up and running by next week.

“More than anything else, learning about Jordan Dingle’s departure may have put a spark underneath everybody’s butt, to be honest,” said Carl Robbins, a former Quakers player.

So bring on the collective? Not so fast.

We have donors who want to see a seven-figure collective started tomorrow and we have others who think that’s not the Ivy League way.”

The Ivy League was formed in 1954 very much in opposition to big-time athletics. The Penn Quakers used to be the big football enterprise in town, filling Franklin Field while the Eagles and their forerunners were an afterthought.

Nope, the Ivies decided big-time athletics was evil. They’d go another way. And it’s a concept that has been wildly successful, including financially.

“There’s always been this steadfast belief that higher-caliber athletics or academics is an either-or proposition,” said another former Penn basketball player.

Ivy League rules prohibit athletic scholarships. No merit aid, only financial aid. Couldn’t collective stipends exist outside of this? Couldn’t a group of wealthy Penn alums fund a collective whether the university or the Ivy League wants it or not?

“They can’t stop it,” said Richard Kent, an attorney who teaches a sports law course at Manhattanville College and is a consultant for a company that helps set up collectives. “Every one of these collectives started organically.”

They can’t stop it, yet they have so far. Right now, it’s all just a debating point.

» READ MORE: More from the Inquirer's Collective Effort series: Here's how Villanova basketball transformed itself into a pro team

“We have donors who want to see a seven-figure collective started tomorrow and we have others who think that’s not the Ivy League way,” said Penn athletic director Alanna Shanahan.

Early score: Ivy League Way 8, collectives on any campus 0.

There are NIL efforts set up to allow athletes to profit from name, image, and likeness deals. But the collective moves closer toward the pay-for-play model. Not the Ivy way.

“There’s always been this steadfast belief that higher-caliber athletics or academics is an either-or proposition.”

You talk to enough people, you hear about the power of the Ivy League presidents being dictatorial, with trustees often in lockstep.

“You’re wrong that it’s independent of the school,” a third former Penn basketball player said. “They set the tone. They let it be known what they want.”

Steve Bilsky, longtime former Penn athletic director and a Quakers hoop legend himself, said he doesn’t think the collective route will happen, nor does he think it should.

“You don’t bully the Ivy League presidents,” Bilsky said. “You can subtly change them if you have good arguments.”

Why not a collective? Bilsky’s thought: Where would it stop?

“If you’re giving everyone $20,000, that’s not enough to keep them,” Bilsky said.

Increase that 10 times over, you still can be outbid.

“I get a lot of calls — what are we going to do?” Bilsky said. “I’ve got to tell you, whatever we want to come up with, it’s going to be trumped.”

Bilsky isn’t above a little dreaming of his own.

» READ MORE: In the new money era of college sports, what’s the plan for St. Joseph’s, La Salle, and Drexel?

“If they want to be a variable in this new world — all the crazy things going on at once,” Bilsky said, referring to conference realignment above all else. “The idea of UCLA coming back East to play Rutgers in softball — I can’t wait till they make that trip and get rained out. ... This might be the time to create a niche for schools like Stanford, which is out there wandering around. Duke is not Duke. How about an elite conference of academic schools that does care about athletics?”

A fun mind experiment. But hard to see all (or maybe any) of the participants signing on. Bilsky also suggests maybe trying to get Ivy presidents to sign on to one merit scholarship per class for each team. That alone could be a game-changer, he said.

Completely changing the system, Bilsky said, “You’re not going to win the popular vote,” referring to all Ivy alumni, not just athletes.

“We have an incredible product, a world-class university,” said Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue. “We’re going to continue to give them that experience, an incredible experience.”

This comes at a fascinating time for Ivy athletics, with a number of Ivy schools the defendants in two separate lawsuits. A class-action antitrust lawsuit filed in March in United States District Court in Connecticut seeks to upend the Ivy League’s system of awarding financial aid to athletes only on the basis of financial need, alleging that under what is termed “the Ivy League agreement,” not awarding athletic scholarships “constitutes unlawful price fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.”

» READ MORE: Federal lawsuit takes aim at Ivy League’s policy of no athletic scholarships

The month before, there was a hearing inside the U.S. Federal Courthouse at Sixth and Market, arguments made about whether Ralph “Trey” Johnson, Plaintiff, v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, et al, Defendants, should move to a discovery phase.

I get a lot of calls — what are we going to do? I’ve got to tell you, whatever we want to come up with, it’s going to be trumped.”

Johnson is a former Villanova football player, but the suit arguing that athletes should be employees includes Ivy League schools as plaintiffs.

The 2021 unanimous Supreme Court Alston vs. NCAA decision has changed this whole landscape, not just because it declared that the NCAA can’t limit education-related benefits like computers and paid internships that colleges can offer athletes. The whole tone of the conversation has shifted. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote: “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate.”

The court cases could force the Ivy to change in certain ways. This current collective landscape isn’t being argued in a courtroom, just in the court of public opinion. Yes, there are wrinkles. If an Ivy athlete receives financial aid, could a collective stipend impact that? (Not below a certain level, Kent said.)

“I think our message, [is] we are pro-NIL, but in a way that can’t be at the expense of hurting our programs generally,” said Shanahan. “We have a lot of athletes in this space; we’re doing NIL as I believe it was originally intended. We really can’t see [donors] step away to be all-in on a collective.”

It only takes one outlier, one wealthy alum to say, hey, this is legal, I’m doing it. Wharton has more than its fair share of such alums. So far, though, they apparently all are buying the company line.

“I think all of us are in lockstep with the league,” said one ‘80s-era Penn basketball alum, adding: “Unfortunately.”

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