NCAA Rules

NCAA Rules prohibit a lot of things. They are generally good and keep schools in line. I'd be afraid to know where the NCAA would be without those rules. However, all rules can have unintended consequences.

Mainly there are a lot of rules that are coming out now that limit what teams can do via new technologies. There are rules that limit what you can and can't put on the internet and because the definitions are so broad of what you can and can't do sometimes you don't want to chance anything.

I think that rules limiting social media and posting of videos etc. is good for sports that generate a lot of publicity. People don't have to go too far to find information on college football or college basketball and it's good that there are rules in place to help prevent recruiting from getting any shadier.

However, the majority of NCAA sports don't generate a lot of publicity and it would benefit their sport in general if they were allowed to do more things with social media. Teams are allowed to do lots of things with it, the NCAA doesn't limit everything, but there are other things that can't be done and I think they come at the expense of smaller sports and female sports in general. Those sports don't get as much media coverage and maybe the rules should be different for those teams and basketball and football teams.

One example is that teams aren't supposed to post stories from local newspapers or newspapers that report mainly on a certain school or team. That's fine for big time programs like North Carolina Basketball because ESPN is always talking about them, however it does hurt Western Duluth Ice Fishing (totally made that up, so don't go googling the school...ice fishing isn't a NCAA sport) who only gets local media coverage.

NCAA Rules are a complex issue. They are full of good things, but they also have some bad things and unintended consequences. Football and Basketball need a lot of policing and rules. It would be nice if other sports were allowed to do more things with social media and marketing. Football and basketball got themselves in trouble, they don't need to bring everyone else down with them.