OK, after many texts and calls, I feel confident in saying this:Following the TRO granted earlier today, the NCAA is now granting multiple-time transfers immediate eligibility through Dec. 27 (without punishing them retroactively if the court order is overturned later).— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) December 13, 2023
Well, people wanted the wild West and now we have it. All transfers, including players on their 2nd or 3rd, are granted immediate eligibility. The expectation is that the transfer market is going to see a flood of entrants over the next couple weeks.
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All deals accepted through Dec. 27? No one will be refused?
I think it's possible the NCAA is confusing the transfer portal with a holiday sale.
It's a December to remember!
A festivus for the restless.
That's not quite right. It's a TRO that any transfer that has already transferred a 2nd time is immediately eligible to play now and up to Dec. 27, which mostly only applies to basketball players. But, the TRO does suggest that the court will likely rule in that direction. For football, players that already transferred once could jump into the portal with the anticipation that the court ruling will grant them ability to play right away. Definitely a risk though.
This is correct as I understand it as well.
From here forward, anything the NCAA does to maintain the appearance of levelling the playing field will be an anti-trust violation. Think about it. The reason that the NFL (and any other major sport) can do these things is because the terms are collectively bargained with the players, else the NFL et al would be hit with anti-trust litigation. This has been a long time in coming, and now it's here. And until there's some sort of collective bargaining, which means some sort of umbrella organization representing the players, the NCAA "amateurism" model is going to continue to unravel.
This is the start of the end of major amateur athletics. And I'm not sure I'm sorry to see it go.
Prepare yourselves for the inevitable: a semi-professional league loosely affiliated with universities, collectively bargained with player representatives. An NFL-lite, probably with some minor-league-ish affiliate system. Think the NFL won't spend money on this? Imagine if this semi-professional league no longer has eligibility limits, but retains the connections to colleges: the NFL would step right in to keep them a feeder system instead of a competitor.
It's a brave new world for college football, and it starts now.
Well it is possibly going to be the death of college athletics and title IX. I wish the genie could be put back into the bottle. But Jaffar got his cosmic power and is rampaging.
This, this, this. The NCAA is trying to govern competition between independent universities, conferences, labor forces, etc, and they don't have the authority to do so.
This is why Charlie Baker is asking congress for an anti-trust exemption.
It won't be the NFL-lite because NFL teams are franchises. Think about how Fast Food franchises work - the business exerts a very specific requirements for the franchise: what food is offered, what the decor looks like, how the line is set up, what software is used, etc. The NFL is not that extreme, but everything is legislated; even uniform choices have to be approved by the NFL.
I don't the NCAA will ever follow a franchise model. An anti-trust exemption could:
There's very few things in life in which I agree with Justice Kavanaugh, but I think his opinion in NCAA vs Alston was spot on (emphasis mine):
The reason I love college football has zero to do with how much players do or don't get paid. It's all the wackiness, pettiness, and absolute ridiculousness that happens when you get 20k teenagers in a small place and say 'go wild.' It's Enter Sandman, it's Tacos at Texas Tech, it's it's Saban/Jimbo spats, it's pissing contests between donors, it's the Mike Price, it's Hugh Freeze/Houston Nutt. It's mike leach. It's Max Dugen coming off the bench and leading TCU to a miracle season. It's the air raid, the flexbone, the shotgun RPO, all being in the same league.
I can go on and on and on, but I don't see how players earning money changes anything.
The reason I love Virginia Tech football is because I graduated from Virginia Tech. And until recently, the players were students there that I shared a bond with. You can tailgate, go crazy, go to a packed stadium in the NFL too. Thousands do. The Super Bowl is the most popular thing on TV 50 years running. There are whacky coaches in the NFL, different systems, etc. I love VT football because it's VT. I for one amd not interested in an NFL lite team that plays in blacksburg. I can watch that on Sunday.
Which is why I'm all for bifurcation in college/minor league football. The institutions that want to host the minors can. Most of the $EC will. But if given a choice, I'd prefer VT stay w the student athlete model. Even if it means something more akin to ivy leage pigskin. I'm down for that.
BI FUR CA TION 👏-👏-👏👏👏
That statement of Kavanaugh's is why there will never be an antitrust exemption for college football.
There are four sports with antitrust exemptions: professional football, baseball, basketball, and hockey (i.e. the NFL, the MLB, the NBA, and the NHL). All of these have collective bargaining agreements with their players on how revenues are shared. There is no, repeat no, way that Congress will approve an antitrust exemption for college football without the ones who provide the value having some say in it. Maybe this happens, and the evolution of the sport stops short of a semi-professional league loosely affiliated with colleges. That would be ideal. I just don't know how the colleges, outside of the small group of blue bloods, will take to that model.
Either way, I would be absolutely stunned if an antitrust exemption happens without some sort of collective bargaining agreement. And I don't see how the latter is going to happen.
Can we just get a players union and a CBA already so we don't have to deal with constantly changing rules and restrictions?
This is a difficult thing. The first step would be the players union, but how could you possibly create that, given the potential membership is:
and that's just for starters. It took MLB decades to get the players to the point where they would accept a "Players Association" (they didn't even want to call it a union). How is this huge melting pot of interests going to be brought together?
Not to mention all of the entities with a vested interest in preventing this from happening. How many college athletes are willing to strike? What if striking means their athletic scholarships are revoked? Would this be for all college athletics or just football?
The idea of a union and collective bargaining agreement for college athletics is a massive undertaking and complex to the point of maybe being impossible. It's entirely possible that laws would have to change in order to make this happen.
It may be difficult, but I think it's necessary at this point and the sooner they start the discussion the better it will be. There are huge challenges for sure, but the net benefit for both sides would be significant... and quite honestly may be what kills the NCAA.
Not a legal expert, but at what point can the courts say that the 4 to play 5 is an undue burden on the athlete since all students could stay in college as long as they like/are willing to pay?
I also understand that all students can transfer, but I'd be interested to see where students with similar majors, GPA and course load to athletes end up post transferring. How attractive are those students to other schools and do they still graduate on time/dropout at a lower or higher clip then the average college student.
The "student" in student-athlete has been a farce for a long time, but interesting to see mandating this on the idea that all students can transfer without restriction so the student-athletes have the right to transfer and play their sport with no restrictions.
Again not a legal expert at all and not blaming the players for wanting to improve their situation on a year by year basis.
Well since it is not 1. Amateur football tied to the school /academics and 2. No care for competitive balance - why the fuck not? Why not let 28 year olds compete with 18 year olds? The whole idea of 5 to play 4 anyway. That's out the window now with ridiculous eligibility rules- just open it wide open 12 to play 11- why the fuck not? They aren't amateurs anymore, academics/graduation focus is long a thing of the past, and players play 8 years now. Fuck it.
They could say that, and might, if somebody were pushing for it. You know who might be against that, though? The NFL, because that would make "college" football a direct competitor, as opposed to a feeder system which develops and trains their athletes to an initial skill level. I think this would be the one court decision that would do the most in changing college football, because at that point, the NFL would step in to actively encourage change that benefits them.
NCAA announced that student-athletes who participate in games during the 14-day temporary restraining order will lose a season of eligibility if the ruling is reversed.
Looks like they did the right thing for the "student" athletes
The NCAA is more like guidelines than actual rules.
Update:
NCAA has confirmed all multi time transfers are eligible to play next year at their new school without a waiver
That's certainly not surprising.
It's pretty clear the NCAA is a house of cards.
Only way to stop this is congress passing anti-trust exemption/making athletes officially employees or collectives figuring out a legal way to keep players tied up at one school.
That sounds like the quickest way to a players union and dissolving the NCAA.
At least then there would be regulation.
Hell I'm already hearing some ESPN talking heads going on about how someone should legally challenge the 4 year eligibility standards of college athletics, at which time just pull the plug and make it a straight up competitor to the NFL, as this is clearly what Disney wants to create.
I'm not opposed.