On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division announced that it had joined a lawsuit against the NCAA over transfer restrictions.It marks the first time the DOJ has signed onto a state-led lawsuit.@achristovichh's breakdown ⬇️— Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 18, 2024
Never a good thing when the DOJ comes after you under antitrust pretenses. On one hand, I still think it's crap that players like Brock Hoffman get screwed over. On the other hand, I can't sit here and say that I am enjoying the direction that revenue generating college athletics is headed right now, and it makes me sad.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
ugh
I just hope VT goes out with a couple decent seasons in football, basketball (M&W), wrestling, baseball & softball before college sports descends completely into chaos
At the rate is going I just hope we're competitive in the B league.
For some reason, I couldn't find which tweet you were talking about. Here's a summary of the lawsuit:
If you want to know about the lawsuit
The fact is that the NCAA has proven that they absolutely have no business being in charge of NCAA football (or any other sport). This lawsuit in particular has to do with limiting player transfers between teams, now that unlimited money is involved.
Any rule at all will now be limiting commerce. Nice going, idiots. You blew it up real good.
Just sell the teams to the NFL, make them change their names, and get them the hell off of college campuses. I'd be plenty happy to watch amateur students who are content with college tuition, room, and board compete again. What this has become has nothing to do with college.
A couple of devil's advocate points (just for arguments sake):
The NCAA has been watered down and bashed relentlessly by fans over the years to the point of impotence. Now that college football fans actually need a governing body that can enforce common sense rules, it's too late and we're all fucked. Everyone hates rules until you realize the alternative is worse.
I'm not sure you would because that product would be absolutely terrible on the field.
I would prefer terrible to a semi-pro heavy NIL teams beating up on teams that are actually college students.
That's why they need to figure out a system where the two things aren't playing in the same pool.
People say this, but their actions suggest otherwise.
me: I'd be plenty happy to watch amateur students who are content with college tuition, room, and board compete again.
You: I'm not sure you would because that product would be absolutely terrible on the field.
I am absolutely saying I'd prefer that to the nonsense that college football has become. I liked the amateur aspect of it. If we want professional football, there's the NFL.
Do you also prefer to go to restaurants where the cooks work for free but is doing because they allegedly love cooking?
Would having flight attendants that are paid in plane flights and hotel room instead of cash (because they allegedly love traveling) improve your in-flight experience?
I just don't get how a kids paycheck (or lack thereof) impacts your viewing experience. If you made this argument in any of line of work, it would make no sense.
This one is actually pretty close to true on why a flight attendant likes their job. The perks of free travel anytime a seat is available, working 3 days on 4 days off, working flights to cool locations (e.g, Hawaii, Europe) in which they give you a free off day before working a flight back, are some of the reasons the flight attendants do it, because the pay is meh and the actual report hours typically suck.
Now, as patron, I guess I don't care how they're compensated as long as they're happy about it.
This is my point
I have multiple family members and friends who are both Flight Attendants and Pilots. The free travel perk is just that - a perk - it's not the primary form of compensation.
My ex-wife was a flight attendant not because of the financial compensation, but because of the perks (she grew up with the perks with her dad is a pilot and she loved to travel). To improve her financial compensation (and because she can with her number of off days), she works part-time as legal secretary. It's also common for senior flight attendants to not retire but continue to work the minimum amount (and thus minimum pay) to maintain their job, perks, and seniority. It's great being a "semi-retired" 60+-year old flight attendant that can travel for free. Flight attendant is one of the few jobs where you can actually use tens of thousands of dollars in perks a year, which can "increase their pay" by 50%.
So, yea, of course it's not the primary form of compensation, but many in the field would not be in that line of work but because of the perks. And the airlines know this, so they keep the flight attendant pay low and rely on perks to maintain a staff force.
A college education, and free room and board isn't a "perk". These things add up to real money.
As far as travel perks, flying around for free is a pretty good one, particularly if you can do it after you retire. Free travel has always been an important part of the compensation for people in the travel industry.
I see two problems with this argument:
The current market is absolutely distorted. Just not how you're suggesting. Like others have said, without the college associations they lose most of their viewers.
If we stopped the association with college (and billing college students extra for the privilege), stopped contributing as alumni for the glory of our universities, and stopped paying for all the infrastructure as taxpayers, we could give this a fair market value for the sporting side of it. The bottom would fall out.
Without the college degree, most players are REALLY wasting their time. They're mostly NOT going to the NFL. And in case you didn't notice, it's up or out. After their eligibility, they have to leave to make room for the new NFL applicants.
The most valuable thing most of them are getting are those college degrees. Many have turned their degrees into careers after they graduate. It's only a small minority of them who are able to continue in professional sports.
For most athletes, the college degree is the most valuable thing, but for college football players I am not so sure. They get famous. anOSU has a bunch of Alumni that hire ex-players to work for them. They get hired because they played football, not because they have a degree (lots of car dealerships hire ex-players). The ones that go into coaching get hire because of what they learned playing football, the degree is just a requirement, but what your degree is in doesn't often matter. In lots of cases the degree is secondary to the name you made on the field. Look at everyone here that wants VT to hire ex-VT players. Everyone here loves Sam Rogers. Everyone would be excited for VT to hire him, but I have no clue how good a coach he is. Lots of alumni have stupid money to spend on paying a guy that you loved as a player, and that's worth a lot.
That certainly works for the stars, and maybe some more well-known players. But not for the majority of the 85 players on the team.
It's a symbiotic relationship. Do the athletes have value without the school? No. Do fans lose interest in the football team if the school has lesser players? Yes.
Certainly you want your team to be competitive in whatever league they're in, and you'd like to see them win.
If unlimited NIL would get us to an equitable league with competitiveness throughout the P4, I'd be all for it. I have my doubts if that is possible, as past performance is a great indicator of what we should expect: haves and have nots. More money absolutely distorts things. I'm uncomfortable with sports overshadowing the universities themselves.
All that said, if VT ends up being one of the haves, I'll probably overlook all the shortfalls of the system.
So if you think NIL is bad because it drives inequity/an uneven playing field...
That said, IMO NIL is the least of the problems in college football right now. It's not going to ruin the game, but it's not going to save the game either. I feel strongly that conference realignment is the #1 problem with college football, and it's not even close. The next problem (which is closely related) is the way the media covers the sports (with a focus on the playoff).
Taking a system that's already inequitable and injecting a LOT more unregulated cash is probably a bad idea if some kind of equity is what you had in mind. "What about the student athlete?" is often a way to cover up a bigger crime. See incidents at Penn State, SMU, Michigan. Any rule enforcement at all can be eliminated with that phrase.
NIL without limitation is bad. TV revenues without limitation is bad. The way the media covers football is bad. The way we treat athletes is bad (and inequitable).
It's not that capitalism is bad. It's more that unregulated capitalism doesn't really work if your real goal is equal distribution. What we currently have is unregulated capitalism mixed with the occasional "feel good rule", which generally results in the worst of all worlds.
Pretty much all of this.
But it is not fungible, therefore it is not primary compensation.
The argument in your quote is equivalent to saying, "The credits to the mill store are significant, and add up to real money."
I don't know why you believe compensation has to be fungible.
If I told you I'd give you a gold watch if you painted my house, the gold watch would, in fact, be the compensation for painting my house.
In the case of student athletes, they get tuition, books, room, board, and a stipend, as well as NIL.
Right, but if every hoMEOWner in the world conspired to only offer gold watches for compensation for house painting, then you can bet your bippy that that would be illegal. It's the 21st century equivalent to the mill store, where the the business paid their employees "dollars" redeemable only at the store run by the business. Because those dollars were not fungible (meaning, usable elsewhere), that was deemed illegal labor practices.
It's not like that at all.
Are college educations only valuable at that college? NO
If you get a decent degree, it has worldwide value.
The "non-fungible"/company store analogy isn't a good one.
No, it's a great analogy. A college education is not, in the moment, tradeable for goods and services anywhere. Does it have value? Yes, absolutely. Is it a great investment? Yes. But you can't spend it anywhere. You can't use it to get something to eat when you're hungry. You can't use it to buy shoes if yours have holes in them. You can't use it to get a suit to wear to a friend's funeral. Any other investment, those are made when you have enough money to make sure that your needs are taken care of first. And compensation with just a college degree is not sufficient to take care of one's needs.
Okay, so college enrollment (and tuition) gives you access to classes, educators, and classmates. True, once you leave the school, you no longer hold anything tangible, and cannot trade the past experience for new goods.
If someone pays you with free food, it also is no longer fungible once you've eaten it. If someone pays you with free shoes, you're not realistically trading them once you've worn holes in them.
At least people are inclined to give you more consideration for future earning if you have a record that you once finished a college curriculum. That helps your life more than a piece of paper that says you once were given a meal.
This whole subthread came up because it was a discussion on compensation in an employer/employee relationship, which has to be fungible. I don't believe that the "college tuition for play" model will be legal going forward, if it's ruled that there is an employer/employee relationship with the players. While it's nice that the guy down the street will paint your house for a gold watch, or free food, or whatever, if you're an employer, and you hire somebody to perform a task, compensation needs to be in dollars.
The point of compensation being fungible, in dollars, rather than in mill store bucks or food or watches or whatever, is that dollars are universally accepted as legal tender, and the employee (not the employer) can make their own decision on how it's utilized. They can use those dollars to purchase food or watches or whatever, but they have the choice in that situation. Right now, they do not have a choice in compensation because every college that offers scholarships for athletics offers essentially the same thing. It's like the every homeowner agreeing to only offer gold watches for house painting; the housepainter has no opportunity to receive their preferred compensation because a collection of homeowners has conspired to limit the compensation artificially. That's what the court case is about, and the NCAA is about to get their heads handed to them by the courts.
not to be dense, but it does? part of my compensation package is access to subsidized healthcare benefits.
edit: and also coincidentally, free goods at the company store! but i suppose the argument is that it is not the entirety of the compensation
Part of, yes. But would you accept a job that was fully benefits and no pay?
Now that's a good point, what percentage of compensation needs to be fungible? I'm not even sure anymore if there are laws about that. I know that the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was the one that essentially got rid of the mill store voucher concept and implemented minimum wages and stuff, but I'm not sure that there are any laws about the total percentage of fungible compensation beyond minimum wage. Maybe somebody can look at the stipends athletes are given and compare that to minimum wage, I don't know.
Per the SBA the actual total cost of an employee to the employer ( https://www.sba.gov/blog/how-much-does-employee-cost-you )
Other costs beyond salaries-(some mandatory/some optional) include:
Mandatory added costs of an employee
Hiring an employee means considerable payroll tax costs, including:
Employer share of FICA (7.65% on compensation up to the annual wage base, which is $132,900 in 2019, plus 1.45% on compensation over the annual wage base).
Federal unemployment tax (FUTA) of $42 per employee. The FUTA tax rate is 6%, but most employers can take a FUTA credit of 5.4%, resulting in a mere 0.6%.
State unemployment tax, which varies with your state and your claims experience (the more claims made by former employees for unemployment benefits, the higher your state unemployment tax rate will be).
You can learn more about these costs from the IRS and your state revenue department.
You also need to address insurance coverage for your employees. This includes:
Workers' compensation. Costs vary from state to state.
Other insurance that may be needed for the work performed. For example, if you have a professional firm, you may want or be required to pay for professional liability coverage. Similarly, you may need to have a bond, a type of insurance, for an employee to protect a third party (your customer). For example, a bond may be needed for employees who clean homes so that homeowners' valuables are protected from employees' damage or theft
Other costs of an employee
Think about employee benefits you may want or need to offer an employee. Under federal law, only large employers (those with 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees) must offer health insurance or pay a penalty. However, there is a federal tax credit for small employers that choose to provide at least 50% of the cost of health coverage.
Offering retirement savings plans, such as 401(k) plans, to employees isn't mandatory under federal law, but employers may choose to do so. The cost of employer contributions needs to be factored into the total wage package.
Federal law requires employers with at least 50 employees to offer unpaid family and medical leave. But a number of states have paid leave laws. Some put the cost on employees (through wage withholding), while others require employers to share in the cost. And the District of Columbia puts the entire burden on employers.
These are only some of the employee benefits you can offer. Learn more about tax deductibility as well as exemption from payroll taxes for various fringe benefits in IRS Publication 15-B.
In addition to fringe benefits, there is a slew of other employment-related costs that may be difficult to quantify. These include:
The cost of recruitment, including background checks and drug testing where applicable.
The cost of initial and ongoing training.
Miscellaneous items, such as uniforms and protective gear where needed.
Many people don't know that health insurance and other benefits only became a large part of the comp package due to wage freeze laws implemented during WW2. and only grew from there. https://www.thehartford.com/insights/employee-benefits/fringe-benefits#:....
There are also often tax benefits to these "fringe benefits" as well. But ultimately, each of these "extras" reduces the amount a business can afford to pay in actual "salaries". The successful companies are the ones that find the "sweet spot"/balance of all these different compensation forms especially as the work force demographics change.
It's the same line of thinking that leads people to defend the concept of unpaid internships because they "compensate" the intern with "valuable experience".
This.
Unpaid internships need to just go away, but that's a topic for another thread on another site.
Do you believe in "total compensation"? Leave, benefits, etc? Or just cold hard cash for work? The best companies in the world compete on total compensation, not hard dollars/salary only. Internships have value- a ton of it- beyond "cash". I won't mention that nobody is forced to intern for free. It's a choice, and a smart one for many.
It's also limited to those who have some financial backing. Poor people need not apply.
It's an anachronism. They may have served a specific function in the past, but in today's world, they're mainly used to obtain free labor, and in some sectors, have replaced the entry-level job. They need to go.
Not exactly. many "poor" people in Chicago and NY work 3-4 jobs to make ends meet while they intern at a top bank. Its not only for "rich" people. And the year 2024 has zero to do with it. I see no evidence of a spike in these interships compared to 30 years ago.
No problem to see here... yikes.
It's called sacrifice. It's called not being handed a career for showing up for work. It's called work ethic. Doctors in residency work 16 hour shifts attending to people that could die. Junior lawyers work countless hours on cases. Finance executives work round the clock. Everyone has a choice. If you want to be a hedgefund manager in America, competing on a global scale against others- BTW- You take the unpaid intership if necessary. In utopia, yeah maybe everyone works a straight 8 hours, makes bank, and interns are paid 6 figures. That's not reality.
IDK about you, but I'd prefer not to be cared for by an overworked resident who's on their 15th hour and 7th cup of coffee that day. Seems like a pretty stupid system!
That system is a learning system. It's OJT and its supported by real Surgeons, Radiologists, Anesthesiologists in the hospital at the same time and multiple of those on call should the resident need to order the Operating Room- admittedly they don't like to do because of ego. They learn to deal with emergencies- priceless experience. Its not like they are the only doctors caring for you should something arise.
It's a system designed by a doctor who ingested copious amounts of cocaine. I have no clue why it still exists as their is zero logic or science behind the hours worked in residency.
It still exists because those who went through it want it to continue, just because they had to go through it. =^/
It still exists because people in power want to stay in power.
interns in the financial industry are compensated and compensated well. Unpaid internships are not a "sacrifice" in 2024. It's an employer taking advantage of young people. If you are working an unpaid internship these days, outside of sports media (and even they are coming around), you are being taken advantage of. There are plenty of paid internships available in any sector
Yet people volunteer to do them. The Baltimore Ravens and other teams used volunteers- yes- to man consession stands. These organizations are usually charities that get pennies from the ravens compared actually paying people to pour beer. The Ravens are a multi billion dollar corporation and they dont "force" anyone to pour beer for free. Miraculously people do though.
What kind of take is this? Charity organizations work concessions to earn money for a charity. No one is there for expierence, they are there for a cause they believe in this has nothing to do with unpaid internships.
Tech does this too with concessions and clean up
So, you mean like high school and college athletes? Who are there because they like to play organized sports, the support is there, and it's an opportunity to participate in something they consider to be worthwhile?
The take is simple. Nobody on earth is forced to take an unpaid intership- it's a choice. If they aren't smart enough to see they are being exploited- so you say- then its a good life lesson. Nobody is forced to volunteer, nobody is forced to take an unpaid intership. Nobody.
If there was an award for Boomer click bait Fox news hot take of the year this post would get my vote.
LMFAO- the concept of volunteerism and unpaid internships is a "right wing" talking point now. LMFAO.
this thread needs to die. Everyone should go outside and get some fresh air
not until we get it skinny enough to be one letter wide
Enough Already!
thanks for trying
Not right wing, just uninformed, unsophisticated, unilluminating, and emotionally reactionary.
The internship comment is interesting. I don't think CFB is like an internship at all. I do see similarities with the apprenticeship model though. And I don't see any issue with an apprentice generating NIL income on the side. For me, the issue is that it's being abused as a pay for play scheme. I personally don't think universities or university affiliated entities should have anything to do with NIL and that it should all be tightly regulated. But if an athlete wants to take the initiative on their own to get an agent and generate some income on their own as an influencer... I don't have a problem with that....
I find it hard to argue that getting a degree and not being saddled with $200k in student debt, of which interest rates are absurdly high and more than we'd like to admit spend decades only paying ever increasing interest, is not a tangible benefit. These players are already being paid 6 figures just to attend. No, the payments aren't going directly to them, but the payments are being made, because they don't have this debt to pay that everyone else does.
But that isn't good enough. No, now we have to pay them another 6 figures every year into their pockets just to go to school. Its bullshit. They already are getting more benefits than the average student could ever possibly imagine.
Don't get me wrong. It is absolutely a substantially tangible benefit. But don't say they're being paid 6 figures. They aren't. They are given a benefit. It's not pay.
" absolutely a substantially tangible benefit." - oh you are 18 and can throw a football? ohhhhh you are entitled to significant cash compensation on top of that. Makes sense.
And I'll even further go in on this. You want to pay the players, fine whatever. But lets completely sever the ties between colleges and these players. If we want this to be a juniors league, then set up professional franchises and treat is as such. But stop with this student athlete bullshit where you have professional players masquerading in class who are getting paid at least 6 figures (at a minimum getting 6 figures of debt forgiven by being there) rubbing shoulders with a student body that is getting forever crunched with ever rising tuition and fees for no substantial increase in academic quality.
Lets cut the crap. You want to pay the players, the pay em in a pro league. Stop having these schools, who do nothing but whine about how poor they are in fundraising while building lavish buildings both athletically and academically foot the bill. Stop subsidizing tuition for this arms race. (and spare me the 'oh but there are walls, and they don't share money... we all know they all find ways around it)
Stop it. Its long past time to start treating the wellness of the average student with the same level of attention that the athletes are getting.
Amen. And there is not a person on this board that is AS passionate about- insert pro team here- football as they are the Hokies. So choke on the G league that has nothing to do with VT the university. Enjoy those semi-pro games. I'm sure Lane will be packed.
Do you also prefer to go to restaurants where the cooks work for free but is doing because they allegedly love cooking?
I go to a variety of restaurants, including Michelin star restaurants. But it doesn't mean I take every meal in one. Sometimes I eat in high end restaurants. Sometimes I go to the corner restaurant. Sometimes I cook at home. Some of the restaurants I enjoy the most are where the food isn't all that expensive, but the cooks (and other people in the restaurant) do in fact love what they do. Sometimes simpler is better.
I just don't get how a kids paycheck (or lack thereof) impacts your viewing experience. If you made this argument in any of line of work, it would make no sense.
You totally missed my point, and are distorting it into something you'd like to argue about. I'm not saying you can't pay players, or if you do, that it hurts my enjoyment of it. I just don't want universities to become an appendage of the NFL training camp, where alumni and taxpayers get stuck with the bill.
I go to high school games, and quite enjoy them. Not because the players can hire the best coaches, but because it's sport. I also sometimes play sports. I'm no professional in any sport, but I quite enjoy them. Not all sports have to be at a professional level to be enjoyed. See also, triathlons, marathons, etc.
My feeling is that college sports are getting distorted because of the inequitable money distribution. We appear to be well past the point where that can be remedied. Yes, I think something is lost in that.
My thoughts on this isn't because I don't want people to get paid for what they do. It's more that if they're doing it exclusively for the money, maybe they should have an option for that OUTSIDE of university sports, and not have to pretend to play school.
I couldn't agree more with that. I was also about to add that I think everyone can agree with that, but now that I think about it, I'm not sure a fan of Michigan or Georgia world would agree.
I hope this isn't true, but I think you're probably right about this as well. It would probably take the Big 10 and SEC deciding that it's in their own self-interests to regulate and limit their money-grabbing insticts.
This is a really fair take - and I wasn't understanding this from your previous post - I thought your issue was around athletes getting paid.
I get why no one wants to the NCAA to become the NFL - the NFL has a vice grip around all of it's franchises and has turned each one into a corporate monolith. The league is void of personality and uniqueness, hence the nickname 'No Fun League' - I don't want the NCAA to become mini NFL either.
Also, a very reasonable take - personally, I believe the NCAA anti-trust exemption also needs to target coaches and staff. You can't tell me that you can't afford to fund olympic athletes, but you can pay Jimbo Fisher $75m to not coach.
Again, I agree. I think my issue is that everyone in this game is a complete professional EXCEPT the players. The coaches, the broadcasters, the AD, etc. We can't have this quasi-professional league for some people but not others. It isn't working.
Good points.
While I don't mind professional-level coaching, the pay (particularly for head coaches in football and basketball) has become crazy.
It would be one thing if the college coaches weren't out earning NFL coaches. 53 NCAA coaches make more than Mike McCarthy, and he's not the lowest paid coach. Top coordinators in NCAA are making more money than the NFL coordinators too.
Being a coach of amateur athletes is worth more than coaching in the highest league of the sport coaching professional players. That is insane, but that is what happens when coaches and staff are the only members of the teams that can get paid. If a high school coach got paid $1 million to coach everyone would be up in arms over that. But in college, paying coaches insane salaries is just normal.
Everyone in the office of a professional sports team gets a ring, the janitors get a ring because they are part of the team. So if you are okay with coaches being professionals then in college football half the team gets paid, the other half doesn't, how is this amateur sports?
they are paid more because it is a lot more work to be an NCAA football coach. in addition to coaching, development, game planning ... there is recruiting
So with that argument the players in college should get paid more cause they have more work than pros. Pros don't have to go to school or tutor sessions, they don't have to study for tests or write papers for class.
Pros also practice significantly more than college players, who are limited to 20hrs per week to accommodate being students
That 20 hour limit is only practice with coaches, the players "have to" practice outside of that. They have to do so much more on their own. They have to get creative because they can do drill with a football so they run them with a tennis ball. Learning playbooks isn't practice.
George Kittle has said his day is normally 7am to 7pm with travel 4 days aweek in the offseason. That includes meals, time with doctors, recovery time (ice baths, etc). So normal off season is 48 hours a week for NFL player which includes travel, meals, and other down time. College students taking 12 hours a semester means that they should work 36 hours a week (standard suggestion from multiple sites) and then they have 20 hours of pure coaching practice time. So they have 46 hours without including travel, meals, trainer/doctor time. And you know their isn't down time in those 20 hours of practice because it's limited.
Part of the problem with "sell the teams" is that the universities are now for-profit companies more than anything and the college football team is their primary branding/revenue stream.
Say what you want about the NCAA being feckless or disorganized, the universities created the problem.
They're "for profit" companies that often depend on contributions to break even, as the TV revenue is disproportionately allocated.
Didn't say they were well run. Just for-profit.
I also feel like this line of thought is possibly splitting hairs on the "contribution" vs. buying. Either way there is a transaction in which tender is traded for a product. (Product being loosely defined as whatever you get - not necessarily goods, but maybe "membership" or the sense thereof anyway.)
Overall yeah it's all pretty dumb, I just don't see colleges willingly give up the shill.
Something I think about a lot: what if we just turned the NLI into binding contracts?
In other words: we offer you X number of years of tuition, room and board, and meal allowance in exchange for services. You could build in termination provisions, condition it upon academic eligibility, etc.
That way, if a player leaves, he's in breach of contract. I get it that it would be a mess to enforce, but maybe you build in a streamlined arbitration process. It may be better than what we have now and preserve collegiate athletics.
I dunno. Hopefully some folks smarter than me figure out how to save the game.
This is the issue with everything related to the NCAA. They can't do anything to prevent the movement of players, schools, or conferences, because doing so would be an anti-trust violation. This is why they're chasing the anti-trust exemption from congress.
Problem is, they have 3-4 lawsuits against them, so they need to get the anti-trust exemption before these lawsuits go anywhere. BUT it's an election year, so no one in congress is going to be interested in driving this initiative until 2025.
Right. I'm not saying there is some collective agreement necessarily. Those exemptions need to be statutory.
But, if the schools themselves started setting the national letter of intent up more like an actual contract, just like any other sports contract, we might have something.
There would still be the issue of "who goes first" but, a school could set itself up to really be forward thinking if/when the NCAA got smacked down for good.
I feel this.
On one hand, I'm well aware that (in the past) coaches took advantage of players, put them in shit situations, and were not held accountable (unless they lost). On the other hand, I get why fans dislike the transfer portal - part of the excitement of college football was watching a player developer over 3-5 years.
Also, I guess this is the most recent "NCAA Vent thread" so I'll post this here - I'm happy to move it elsewhere if mods/posters prefer...
The whole system is so ridiculous right now on so many levels. It needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
It is very ridiculous. Especially when framed thusly
On one hand, yeah this is absolutely ridiculous.
On the other hand, lets not pretend that the constant hounding and begging for donations from the people who make $70k would go away if you allowed coaches to kick some of those funds back. At the end of the day, the customer (fan) is always going to be squeezed so the executives (schools and coaches) can make more money. Its not like if schools could suddenly pay players money directly that coaching salaries would decrease. They'll just divert money from other areas, like Olympic sports, and then tell us fans that if we want those sports to continue, they desperately will need us to increase our giving.
The only way this stops is when we as fans just stop giving. And yes, that would fundamentally break the entire system, but that's probably what the whole thing needs at this point anyway.
That's the argument for fully professionalizing. When it's fully professionalized, you stop asking the fan to 'give' and instead ask the fan to 'buy'.
I do think that it would be hard to professionalize the athletic department, but that may be best. The question is how exactly is that done?
Do universities keep revenue and nonrevenue generating sports under the same professional entity? Do universities to establish one for profit entity (i.e., revenue generating sports) and one nonprofit entity (i.e., nonrevenue generating sports)?
And how is this branded? To maximize profits, the revenue generating sports will want to sell memorabilia, jerseys, etc., but how is that done where the sale is for revenue generating sports and the not the University generally? Will the revenue generating sports need to develop their own brand distinct from the nonrev?
It's complicated. And if athletics was purely professional, you can pretty much kiss nonrev sports goodbye.
Yes - 100%. I don't mean to over simplify it.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Matt Brown dropped a really, really good piece today that sort of addresses this. One of the topics he hits on is that the NCAA has seemingly has zero interest is an anti-trust exemption that limits coach compensation - thing is, decreasing coach pay and buy outs would be a great way to fund things like olympic sports.
Anyways, it's a really good piece that tackles a lot of the concerns around Olympic sports
There are franchises throughout the world that are owned by fans (two examples I can think of are the Greenbay Packers, and Wrexham AFC pre-acquisition). Some situation similar to that where the school was a major stockholder makes sense.
But again, it's not a straight forward answer, and there needs to be buy in from a lot of folks for this to ever happen. But the current situation is not tenable either.
I am not sure the Packers are a great example. After Green Bay bought the Packers the NFL and other Owners immediately changed the rules to prohibit that ever happening again. The Packers (as a public organization) release the NFL and Owner share distribution publicly. The NFL doesn't want that information getting out.
For sure - the implicit assumption is that every team in this mythical semi-pro/semi-college-football league would be structured similarly.
To the branding issue, isn't this already sort of split, with the university logos/branding separate from the athletics department logos/branding (and I think separately registered under VT Athletics rather than the university)? Athletics already operate as an auxiliary revenue function of a university financially, I don't think it would be hard to make it a truly separate enterprise fund/function and create separate bylaws/articles of incorporation and a separate governing board (of which the university could have majority membership still). Similar to how counties/cities/towns and other governmental bodies can create enterprises like utilities, recreation authorities, economic development authorities, etc. Would likely need to be legislation at the state level to enable creation of this type of authority or enterprise (recreation and athletics authorities I believe are already authorized but created by local governments.) Now thinking about it, the town could also be part of the membership of the board for a separate VT Athletics organization.
This is why I never have, and never will, donate money to college athletics. It's like donating money to Apple or Anheuser-Busch.
I have to admit, Tech called me Wednesday to ask about my renewal for my football and basketball tickets. I let them have it with both barrels and then reloaded.
Football ticket prices increasing, constantly reorganizing, and you are giving us a chair back? You changed the concessions to only credit cards, eliminating the people who came through the stands with drinks. You promised with the concession stand credit card only food would be more reasonable in price. It was, for a total of one year, and now the prices are higher than they were before!
Basketball, changing the men's tickets to not include the non-conference games. Fine I can understand that.
But I was part of the 35% that attended all games so you are taking away significant value (6-8 games). But you aren't lowering the price accordingly or even offering an option to get the full season package. So you want me to pay the same for less, and if I want to go to the same number of games I have to pay significantly MORE? He then tells me basketball games are very hard to get season tickets to. I agreed I have been at least a silver Hokie for over 20 years and I have CRAP seats.
Not only that but you change the deadline for donations from the end of March to March 1st. Then he lies and tells me it is due to tax reasons. I called him on that bullshit. When you are asking for big donations, it is nice to be able to spread them out. They are willing to spread out the tickets over 6-8 months, but not the donations! Those are due the day you renew the tickets.
Not to mention, you are keeping or increasing donation values to keep the same tickets, asking for increases every year, and now pestering at every game to give to their NIL program. I work for a living, I am not made of money.
Now, I will go tell the kids to get off the lawn.
Couldn't agree with you more. I made the decision to let go of my Hokie Club donation and will gladly just watch games on TV or get tickets to maybe one game this coming season on StubHub. The entire system is broken, and hounding working people to pay for what basically now is the NFL light is the dumbest system ever. Can you imagine the NFL asking for donations from fans?
Contracts for players and revenue sharing is coming, and frankly it couldn't come fast enough. Just cut all the BS and pretenses and acknowledge CFB for what it is - minor league professional sports.
I had Redskins tickets.
That cost a WHOLE LOT MORE than VT tickets, even if you include all the required/voluntary donations.
I just get frustrated when I think that each ticket is a minimum of $100 per game in addition to the ticket face value (based on my seat location) and they want more money.
As a fellow Redskins/Commanders fan, I can agree with this.
The cost to my soul the last 30 years has been immeasurable.
I don't donate to a football program that has 50 million in revenue, and 14 million in profit, but I don't mind donating to non-revenue sports, especially women's sports, in order to keep them operating.
The problem is that external money earmarked to be donated to those non-rev sports just means more money internally that is able to be routed to the revenue sports. They say they don't do this, but come on, we all know every school does.
I know, but there's enough plausible deniability that keeps even my jaded millennial soul optimistic.
Sort of like how lotto revenue go into education funds, but we all know they take from those funds what the revenue generates.
I really appreciate the honesty of this statement. So many people say they want to go back a time when players weren't getting paid - in reality, players were always getting paid, and fans just had plausible deniability.
and every level of government.
any time a single expenditure qualifies for more than one pot of money, then an administrator has the option to choose where the money comes from
Well, I for one must shamedly admit to donating money, a lot of money over the decades, to Anheuser-Busch. Thing is, I've enjoyed every minute of the game.
Let them sign with Agents. Let Nike, Adidas, ect give them NIL money for wearing their shoes/gear/clothing.
Make the agents and endorsement contracts transparent and/or standardized.
This accomplishes 2 things:
1. Regular folks don't have to give their hard earned money so their team can buy players while Billion dollar corporations sit on the sidelines
2. NIL will actually be NIL. The 3rd string RT isn't gonna be getting alot of calls. Stars are gonna get the money, just like in Profesional sports. I think alot of college athletes would be in for a rude awakening in this scenario, but this is how a real NIL system works...you make money based on your economic value..
not simply for joining a specific team.
Envy is the root of all evil... People like Jay Bilas and many on here don't think its "fair" that college coaches make money. They are jealous, they are envious. College coaches should work for free- like the players. So they push emotional arguments with false equivlencies to paint the players as "slaves" and say stupid fucking shit like "trombone players can get endorsements"- as that is a fucking thing. Professional musicians make pennies outside of the stars. but im sure the trombone player or the kid really good at math are gettng "endorsements" Bilas. Fucking clown. Envy got us here. Players jealous of their coach earning a salary.
Look, here's the thing: fans are willing to pay players to be on their team. You can hate that that is the case, but you cannot reasonably argue that it is false.
College athletics (specifically football) is undergoing a major change. We can either build a system that fits into the legal structure of our country, or the NCAA can keep getting challenged in court and losing.
And that's fine. That's totally fine, I don't care that people want to pay to have players play for them.
What I care about is that these players are currently representing institutions that annually hold fundraising events and fundraising campaigns whining about how utterly poor they are while at the same time jacking college tuition through the roof, building lavish structures all over campus that are more about the flash and glam for their administration to look at than they are about helping the students get a better education and even on the athletic side are in a facilities arms race that has everyone spending 8 or 9 figures on expansions every decade while cutting non rev sports and increasing athletic fees for the students. All while now actively working with institutions that are directly paying football and basketball players 5-7 figures annually to wear their logo.
All the while we have 2 tv networks that are essentially deciding the fate of the majority of college athletics fans going forward based on whether ESPN or FOX thinks they are worthy of their money. And if they're not, they're kicked to the fucking curb with no legitimate hope of ever contending again, because those networks control the narrative around who is good enough to deserve to compete for titles, even after the games have been played.
Fuck the whole system. Burn it to the ground. I cannot wait for this bubble to burst.
Great- I get it. It will be like the NBA G league in your life time. Check the stands for those games when you get a chance. Minor league pro mercenaries hasn't caught on yet in America. Maybe it will. Maybe people will sit in traffic on 81 to watch the Blacksburg Bears wearing maroon and orange coached by Braxton Pffaf. Color me skeptical
Attendance is so bad for WNBA and G League that Ted Leonsis convinced DC to build a separate tiny arena rather than look at an empty Capital One for over 100 events a year so they can schedule concerts and stuff that fill seats. The best G League teams average about 4300 in attendance each game. WNBA average is about 6600. Those averages though are in highly dense populations in major cities not in small towns.
Which is very similar to minor league baseball where the biggest minor league baseball stadium is 16k and very much the outlier, with the vast majority at the AAA level clocking in around 10k in a sport where MLB stadiums are solidly between 40k and 50k capacities, with only a couple going anything significantly under that.
And that's the problem. Everyone knows that the main draw here is the school, not the players. Put the same players in a legitimate development league, and they'll get only a small fraction of the visibility that they get now. Their worth is purely based on being a good player at a certain school.
Only 4 MLB teams average over 40K attendance at home. No teams are over 40K home/away average. Dodgers are almost at 40K.
Oakland this year was just over 18K but will be in Vegas next year so that may change.
14 teams average under 30K attendance. MLB hurts themselves with so many weekday daytime games to really maximize attendance.
MLB hurt themselves when they held the strike for a season a couple of decades ago. Before that strike Baseball was America's sport and viewership numbers (to my recollection) supported it. After that strike, Football was America's sport.
But at the same time, a school that can't compete because the players aren't good enough will lose viewership/interest/whatever. Give Michigan Bowling Green's roster for 10 years, and fan interest will subside drastically.
Just look at what Mike Vick did at VT vs what Justin Fuente's rosters did at VT. Mike Vick helped VT get to the national spot light, kicked off a post season streak, got college game day invited to campus, etc. Fuente had a shit roster, and we lost the sellout streak (I know, I know the sellout streak is tickets sold not butts in seats, but it's still relevant).
Fans - even diehard fans - want to watch good teams. This gives players value. The school being the 'main draw' is also why NCAA will never have the apathy that a g-league team does.
Purely anecdotal, and I hate to admit it at the risk of looking like a fair weather fan, but bad on-field product coupled with poor HC culture fit during the Fuente years really hurt my interest in the program. Pry and his team have got me engaged again (shoutout TKPC).
You are not alone.
Thousands of examples... aTm 2x more valuable of a brand than when Manziel was there. Alabama bigger than ever post Derrick Henry. OSU has sold out every game since CJ Stroud left and will for the next 10 years. Washington survived post Warren Moon amazingly. Stanford post Elway, and yes VT post Vick- we have more conference titles and a bigger stadium long since Vick left. This argument doesn't hold water. Yeah- you need talent to win- your issue is that these generational talents aren't that different from the next man up- fact on the college level.
10000000x Yes.
5☆ QB at BFE Highschool has what value from a branding or endorsement standpoint????
You add Notre Dame/Alabama/USC ect to the equation and what happens?
So who really is creating the economic value here?
The disconnect that doesn't seem to be talked about much (except here) is what do institutions of higher learning have to do with professional sports? And what is the worth of a professional athlete, especially one that has no history of playing professionally? I'm afraid the bubble is about to burst. Field a varsity team from walk-ons. We won't be able to compete with the NFL G league but who cares. Let them play each other. Let us play college football.
They bring in millions in revenue (not billions and not profit) for the school. People disagree but I argue the reason is the alumni comnnection to the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. And I bet I'm right if they go full on pro/employee. Interest will drop like a rock like it did when NASCAR got away from the reasons the sport is popular. College football drew millions of fans when offenses were handing it off in the zone read with 1 route receiver trees- all the while NFL plays are 3 sentences long. Tebow was plowing into the line. - Its a DIFFERENT game. To pretend that the primary interest in college football is because Tebow had one read to Harvin, and it was an elite show of talent you are mistaken. Army Navy outdraws SEC games on TV. Watered-down pro football with rando's in orange and maroon won't draw flies. bank on that.
Agree. I would try to elaborate but it's been a long day. I love Virginia Tech. Go Hokies!
But the NFL will never create a league-sponsored developmental league. Why? Because the colleges are providing the farm league to them currently at no cost. So really, a decision point is coming that is going to separate college athletics from the programs who want to compete at the highest level and provide compensation to players as the pro minor league, and those who simply deepmhasize athletics like the Ivy League schools did and go full amateurism. And that's going to absolutely be devastating to a lot of programs and local economies who get left behind. Agree 100% that the schools and their branding are driving the value, but the ones who choose the minor league pro path are going to receive all the attention and get the best players and all the money. The rest will be basically like FCS football. And I don't think VT can afford to do that - VT football means far too much economically to the state at this point.
An equal reason is liability. The NFL doesn't want to provide CTE payments to minor leaguers, etc. Even though they have more money than god. So do NBA owners and until recently they were throwing their WNBA teams on random southwest flights. SO yeah money- but not just short term- lawsuits, collective bargaining, etc. MLB clubs are notiriously stingy with their minor league teams too. Which opens another pandoras box- double A players - most "better" than college baseball players generate zero tangible revenue. Why would football be different?
NFL tried and failed in Europe although I do think they would be more successful now if they tried NFL Europe again or a minor league in smaller US Cities.
I do agree though that the NFL is happy to sit back, let colleges spend millions to develop their product and reap the rewards.
Yes. Look at Travis Hunter when he signed at Jackson State.
True, but don't act like the those universities benefit from 5-star talent to ensure they stay relevant and keep entertaining millions of alumni and fans. Also, a 5-star talent is going to a blue blood because he's a 5-star talent. The blue blood instantly provides that 5-star talent millions of fans. That 5-star talent further builds his image with those fans and beyond.
Both. They build upon each other. And neither does nearly as well without the other. Look at any school when the talent level drops. Many VT alumni quit watching VT when the talent was low, and VT fanhood was near a brink of complete collapse (or at least many posters on this website suggested as much). Now, Delane, Strong, Tuten, Drones, etc. are household names with VT fans. And compare the value of those names with the stars of 2021/2022 (such as Dax Hollifield and Braxton Burmeister). Their brand value is not nearly the same.
And consider the brand value of Faheem Delane right now, the day he commits to VT, the day he steps on campus, the day he gets his first INT, the day he's an All-American, and the day he sets some VT record. VT and Faheem give each other value. And honestly, Faheem will bring more personal brand value to VT than any other recruit since Kendall Fuller and Tyrod Taylor before him.
Note: I believe in the power of speaking it into existence. Also, if Pry and Mitch are selling Faheem his brand value in a VT uniform vs an SEC uniform, then they're not doing right. His brand will be worth way more in a VT uniform.
There definitely is a level of symergism in this scenario.
Alabama with Vanderbilt's roster is intrinsically less valuable.
The issue I have is this: in order to be compensated for "NIL" one must have actually accumulated enough individual value to be worthy of compensation. And save a select few (e.g. Arch Manning) nearly No H.S. athlete has true economically valuable NIL...maybe 1-2 per Recruting class have a value more than a couple thousand dollars max. Yet they are being reportedly paid 5 and 6 figures just to show up on campus. That's simply a broken and unsustainable system.
I 100% agree that the current system is likely FUBAR. I haven't seen a solution that would solve half the issues that are associated with this quasi-amateur, quasi-professional sport.
I don't think the earlier system is fair to the players. But I also think that education is part of a fair compensation, but probably not the only compensation deserved. I also think it is unfair to the players in revenue sports that their "earnings" are used to lift up and support the nonrevenue sports. I think it's silly that we "donate" dollars for our football team.
And I think the wrong entities (e.g., ESPN, SEC commish, playoff commision) have too much power and the ADs, coaches, and players have way too little power.
Judge-made law is unique in that it can cause paradigm shifts but is often piecemeal and terrible for establishing rules that are easy to follow and equitable. We have a similar issues with in my line of work of patent law right now in that judge-made law made a mess and Congress has yet to clean it up. And, honestly, it's hard to trust Congress to get it right either. So, here we are.
I don't think it will be. This League is 150 years old. There are generations of Michigan, OSU fans etc. Like I said below - the school is the main draw, but fans want (and are willing to pay more than the value of a scholarship) for their team to get better. That's just the reality.
I think this could happen IF (and only if) promotion and relegation is brought to the states. But I don't see leagues here doing promo/relo.
I work closely with several hardcorps Michigan Fans. 2 season tix holders. To a man they hate NIL. And I can say with great confidence, that if you don't require those football players to be students, they will never support Michigan again.
How old are they? Anecdotally, Feels like around 40ish is the age between supporting NIL and despising it.
If you have ever been around a Michigan fan- old or young- they take extreme pride- all of them at getting into what they feel is the best school in the country. They are Michigan men. For reference these guys are in their late 40's, however one has a son there that hates NIL more than his dad does. Michigan is different. OSU oTOH? academic pride is not nearly a big a deal.
I work with 6 Michigan fans under 35, half give to a collective. The others don't have no issue with players getting NIL.
My cousins wife is 47, and he's very Michigan man (despite being a fair weather fan, which is annoying but I digress)
I'm well over 40 and I don't hate the NIL. I think it's about time players get some of the value the have almost exclusively created over the past 30 years.
I just hate this awkward middle stage we're in, where we want to cling to the vestiges of amateurism and layer on professional fixings as necessary. We end up with the worst of both worlds: all the money of the pros (with some finally going to the actual players) with none of the guardrails in place to ensure both fairness and enjoyability (both of which are closely related).
Edit to note that the ideal solution, that of going "all in" on the pro aspects, will ruin the game, as dc has indicated elsewhere. Which means, simply, that we need to acknowledge that the sport we enjoy is fundamentally flawed and doomed. And maybe we're not good people for enjoying it.
Being a Michigan fan immediately makes you a middle aged person with an aggressive fascination in history. So I think all Michigan fans despise NIL
(very TIC)
EDIT for typos
People under 40 think everything should be free, and that making playful videos is "influencing", which is serious work and deserves compensation.
did you comment this from your rotary phone
From my brick size mobile phone, seaside. The view is glorious.
ah yes, anecdata
True- also anecdotal is the incessant begging for NIL donations, complaints from major coaches like Kiffin, Harbaugh, etc. High School players demanding appearance fees. Everyone loves NIL though. Everyone.
The problem is there is no "system to build" here. This system is a house of cards based on a fallacy that is NIL.
Pro athletes have NIL...which are rewarded to only a select few thru endorsements and they are truly based on recognition and ability to sell a product.
There is no logical system where a 17 year old who is able to run faster and catch the ball better than other 17 year olds whom they compete with in a very very limited region getting $50k (and up) to sign up to play college football for a specific school makes sense. THESE KIDS HAVE NEAR ZERO NIL. Once they leave their immediate surroundings, they aren't even recognized. They could waltz thru LAX and chances are 99.99% no one will be able to separate them from a random guy flying to Omaha.
But wait...what about their social media???
I posted a video of my cat spilling orange juice on itself and got 70k views..does that mean I deserve a free car?
The truth is, what is happening here, is schools are frantically trying to Strengthen their football programs as quickly as possible in order to try to make it into a "chosen conference" so they don't get left behind by Fox and ESPN. Fox and ESPN are desperately trying to prop up their own business models which are failing. Fans are caught in the middle of this crumbling system and the sooner it collapses the better IMO.
The only question is will there be enough left to put the pieces back together once this shitshow is over?
And you didn't include the link here? C'mon- TKPC could up those views at least a bit. And thus increase your (AND Joe's) NIL value... /s (mostly- WOULD like to see the video though...
Cue the "Cats deserve to be paid in fungible currency" discussion.
The NCAA has zero defense; they are either students or they aren't. If you don't want a court running your program, don't flagrantly violate the law.
I'm not a lawyer but I wrote and implemented policies and regulations for decades; in 7 trips to federal court I never had a decision overturned. Compliance is easy when you to stick to the letter.
NCAA ran a very profitable bluff for a very long time; but they are toast, imo.
for any kind of organized competitive endeavor to be sustainable there has to be an agreed upon set of ground rules. Colleges voluntarily signed up to be part of the NCAA and abide by NCAA rules. Players voluntarily signed up to attend those colleges that are subject to NCAA rules. They could have gone to an NAIA school or USCAA school, but they chose NCAA.
Yes NCAA schools are the top tier of development and attention - mostly because the framework all the athletics programs had to abide by created a stable forum for sports and facilitated a modicum of even competition - key ingredients for fan interest, media attention and therefore the accumulation of resources that enhance player development.
Your line of reasoning is that the NCAA is basically a victim of its own success, and the framework that made it successful competitor against other college athletic associations is now what makes it illegal to operate in the way that made it actually appealing to fans, players & coaches.
anti-trust action against the NCAA should be in context of its engagement with competing organizations, not in terms of how it operates internally
Sooo Colleges created a cartel - which is defined as "a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market."
Not really... the only reason the NFL, for example, is able to operate as a monopoly is because they have an anti-trust exemption granted by congress. To get this, teams agreed to do things like collective bargaining with players (and much more) in exchange for this anti-trust exemption. The NCAA does not have said anti-trust exemption
Tough to make the argument that the NCAA was appealing to fans, players, and coaches because it artificially capped player compensation will not fly in any court (see Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion in NCAA vs Alston)
lol yep, harvard, yale, duke, stanford, Virginia Tech have created a monopoly. yes. They aren't colleges, they are colluding to keep Bishop Sycamore type "associations" down. lol - a monopoly over the NAIA, Marathon Oil club teams, and fake schools. I love it.
"Coach Saban don't you call me, 'cause I can't play
I owe my soul to the NCAA."
-Tennessee Ernie Ford, probably
NIL restrictions and movement restrictions on students (especially on some and not others) are flagrantly illegal whether member schools agree to them (and take advantage of them) or not. "But we've always screwed people over, it's how we're set up!" isn't going to fly whether I enjoy watching sports on TV or not.
Back to my previous life, I had employees (and even Departmental solicitors) tell me, "but that's how we always do it!". And I'd just say we have enough flexibility to do almost anything we need to do, but we have to comply with the law or a judge will run our program for us. And that's where the NCAA is right now.
I could be misinterpreting what daveinop is saying, but I believe his argument is that the old system worked because players couldn't be paid . Yes, they received a benefit in the form of a full scholarship (and later the addition of the stipend), and yes, the value of the scholarship differed from school to school. But the benefit was the same - a "free" college degree. But now that athletes can be paid and it's an unequal benefit based on various factors, if the NCAA continues to try and limit transfers, they're now limiting commerce. And that's where the problem lies.
If they are employees, do they really have to do school any more?
The labor board has grad assistance that teach are employees and can organize unions and collective bargaining. There aren't grad assistance that aren't also students, those are instructors. So yes you can make them be students if you want.
pretty much
a scholarship musician could make money off of NIL; a scholarship athlete could not (and not only that, the schools/NCAA could; and did; keep the money).
academic scholarship students could transfer whenever they wish without penalty; an athlete couldn't unless they sit out.
that's why I've said they are either students or they aren't. the NCAA's insistence that they are students doomed their old control/profit-centric model
Question for you. Do college musicians compete with each other on television? Can VT load up on musicians to crush the clemson musicians by paying them more? Or allowing more free movement? Are there musician competitions posted with odds on Bet MGM? I haven't followed college music recently. Can you bet on academics? Does VT compete on TV in academics?
lol, exactly. that's why the NCAA student model was ludicrous (or should it be Ludacris)
Virginia, Minnesota, Mississippi and DC joined the suit against the NCAA as well.
In a separate court decision, Illinois star basketball player Terrence Shannon got clearance to play while facing a rape charge as judge issued an injunction stating this:
I am all for innocent until proven guilty but people get put on administrative leave in actual workplaces all the time when facing charges. Will be interesting to see what kind of carryover this decision has in the US.
I'm admiring the irony of a judge named Lawless
Yeah laughed at that as well.
Now, has the coach been instructed to put him on the bench and he doesn't get a minute of play time?
.....
1. Why not just let players transfer in season? hell, in game? If a hoops player for UNC has a bad first half, let them tansfer to Duke at half time. Why not? Wouldn't want to "restrict" them in any way right? Anti trust. lol- any effort to have any type of amateurism or competitive balance, you get sued. Players are entitled to their bag at birth of course, with no restrictions or pretence of academics. 2. Just like American institutions like the Sears catalog, affordable single family homes, muscle cars... college sports are done. finished. I hope you all enjoyed it. It's done- over. It's pro sports now- with more free agency and less restrictions.
Capitalism wins again! Just like it killed the sears catalog for not adapting, or affordable single family homes because charging rent is more profitable than selling. And muscle cars cause they sucked as transportation. Or Apple Bees because well it sucks, they have no idea what the words "eating" or "good" mean.
And now it comes for the sports that have has only been paying half the team for 80+ years for no fucking reason. We have UGA bring in what $55 mil a year from TV and still needs donations to run amateur sports. It should be killed for that fact alone. $55 mil isn't enough for 513 athletes to compete? That doesn't include ticket sales or any other revenue. College sports are failing because it takes billions to fund so call amateur sports. High schools aren't asking for million dollar donations to fund their sports and they are doing just fine. Players move around schools all the time with out issues. And sure the travle costs are different but travel isn't THAT expensive. The total revenue generated by college sports is more than any professional sport in American. Without donations they beat everyone except the NFL. Now that's more sports and more athletes, but it's still insane that there is THAT much money in amateur sports.
Amazon is totally different in concept than ordering from a catolog. soooo innovative. You choose something and order it. Wow. Sears was fucking stupid. Single home inventory in desirable areas is scarcer than ever. yeah nobody wants single family homes, rent is better. And dodge cars are on back order because they are going all electric in 5 years. Nobody likes muscle cars anymore.
I didn't say sears didn't innovate, they didn't ADAPT to do what everyone else does now even though sears was letting everyone order useless crap in their underwear before anyone else. Just like Kodak, they got killed for poor management, not lack of innovation.
Homes are scarce because corporations buy them because they make more money renting them. The money is in renting them. In addition scarcity is good for builders cause then they can see the new homes for hire prices.
Just about every car brand has a back order. I had to call 4 different places to find a battery for my car two weeks ago because there aren't any. The AAA service guy didn't have any either. Then the dealer that had one tried to order more while I was there and couldn't, so they now have none.
It matters not if you buy the house or reddit does- makes zero fucking difference. People bring this up all the time. Who gives a fuck who owns the house before you buy it? In desirable areas- key point I made- inventory is very low for single family homes. "corporations" don't leave home vacant. They sell them, just like you and I do.
That's the entire point though. Corporations are not selling the homes. They're either long term renting them or listing them on Airbnb.
That's not entirely the case. Time is money. Reddit makes more money if they sell the home outright quickly in most cases. Also they want to rid themselves of risk as soon as possibile.
Much as I want to bash PE for buying SFH's to AirBnB (they absolutely are, and it's absolutely having an impact on rents), the biggest issue with the cost of housing currently is new construction inventory. And the biggest barrier to inventory is restrictive zoning/covenants and NIMBY regulatory abuse ALL of which make it impossibly difficult and expensive to build new inventory in desirable locations. This is similar to the ACC basketball schools making it very difficult for the football schools and subsequently like ESPN now making it impossible for the ACC. Dominant existing players keeping new/smaller entrants out.
Construction across the board, not just residential, is experiencing significant changes leading to cost inflation. Material costs, regulatory requirements, code revisions, stipulations placed on public funds, OSHA policies, stormwater requirements, skilled trades leaving the market, worker recruitment, on and on. Not sure what the next 10 years has in store but there's a lot to be concerned with.
Availability of materials and skilled labor is absolutely scarce when building. This is a great time to be getting into the HVAC business and house insulation business based on my experience building over the last two years. I called 8 HVAC companies to get quotes, only two actually ever called back and gave quotes. The others responded we are too busy working for big companies to do SFH's.
The problem is without the resources needed to complete work, it's impossible to service the increased demand. Starting the business is the easy part. Finding the workers and materials to complete the ample available projects is the hard part. Overbooking backlog thinking you can magically find those resources is making matters worse. Strange times.
This is the first I've heard that Amazon wasn't innovative. And it's original competitor wasn't sears, but Barnes & Noble. Taking advantage of an online market place that could have inventory greater than any brick and mortar store or catalogue was the principal innovation. And that's why they started with books, because the vast number of book titles is impossible to house or to efficiently catalogue for browsing.
True- they started in books but then expanded to...everything. Sears already had the distribution center network from their (over a century old) a century old catalog sales division. (For that matter so did Montgomery Ward and even Best Products). What they failed to see was that many folks no longer needed to see the products in person as they could in those companies bricks and mortar showrooms; and were instead willing to browse online - especially as the websites got much more user-friendly. AND delivery became a matter of 2 days or less usually - or even one day for lot of things ...and hours/same day for some.
Sears COULD have been what Amazon grew to become; but lack of vision doomed them to the dustbin of history.
Like Blockbuster declining to buy Netflix for $50M.... womp womp
I know you are intentionally being over the top here, but something that is 100% going to happen soon is Portal transfer players being eligible for bowl games.
Can you imagine Alabama this year with a QB who could actually throw an accurate forward pass?
We are racing toward the point of making the regular season completely pointless. Make the 12 team playoff, then start tampering with and picking apart the rosters of anyone else. By the time the CFP ends, you could have a whole new team!
Again if already unfettered transfering is allowed, and they are still suing the NCAA- what the fuck do they want? DJ Ugialila wants 6 transfers instead of 3 in 4 years? Like i said, why not fucking allow in season transfers? Like trades in pro sports? since unlimited transferring is "too restrictive" and anti trust. Fucking laughable
This is essentially the early years of fantasy football when your team has no shot at the playoffs so you trade all your best players to your friend so he wins the playoffs.
The Mississippi St starting QB was on the sideline in uniform (no pads) for UW this year during the NCG. Its only a matter of time before guys like that are playing.
and then hitting the portal again after the game when the coach leaves.
I think McCord was at the Syracuse game as well
The enrollment requirement would have to be dropped. Or maybe schools make a winter semester of 3 weeks starting mid-to-late December. Both seem unlikely, but nothing seems likely anymore.
Once they become "employees" enrollment will just be optional.
At this point, we've already decided that a few thousand dollars in NIL money far outweighs the value of a free education, boarding, and nutrition.
There aren't many more logical leaps to overcome anymore.
They can make the employment contract contingent upon qualifying and enrolling at the university and maintaining academic eligibility.
They could and probably would at least attempt to, but how long before they gets challenged too?
Is it not in some way unfair to limit one's economic opportunity because they can't maintain a certain GPA?? You can transfer anytime you want, as many times as you want and we're still gonna pretend like there is any thought about education here?
To somewhat steal a line from DC...we've now decided as a society that if you are 14+ and have seemingly superb athletic ability that you deserve compensation of some kind immediately. Despite the statistics clearly saying there is a 98% chance that you will never earn a wage that way.
I think it's unmitigated insanity but it's only a matter of time before the academics are completely cast aside.
Well that's the problem here - the NCAA has just thrown their hands up and decided to not do anything and just let the courts decide how this plays out. They could have regulated NIL, made some attempt to level the playing field, but they just decided to do nothing because they're so incompetent. Some group at some point needs to get ahead of this and start laying the foundation here and establishing some rules and regulations, whether it's the NCAA or a new entity from some power conference breakaway.
It could be challenged one day in court, but there's nothing patently illegal or wrong with requiring for an employment contract with a university-sponsored athletics team that you also maintain certain academic requirements. There are all sorts of student-only jobs and fellowships at universities that require enrollment. And I don't think anyone would be so draconian to nullify the whole contract if your GPA slips or you fail a class, there would be procedures in place for academic eligibility and ways to cure it.
I just don't think this is as black and white an argument as some want to make it (either strictly students or strictly employees). There are all sorts of things written into employment contracts. It could work.
I mean as a non-athlete engineering student in the 1980s who had a four year full scholarship , it was indeed tied to GPA as of each year end. And due to my enjoying the social aspects of college my gpa after first year fell just below the required minimum 3.4 and I lost the remaining three years of it. No chance to re-instate or cure- that was just the rules. Life lesson learned-actions have consequences. No reason to treat athletes any differently.
College sports is dead as I said. Done. No putting the genie back in the bottle. I hope you all enjoyed it.
Lots of very good points being made here but I need to ask how in the hell did things get so outta whack? Back when we used slide rules on the tests ( no this isn't about those good old days when snow was six feet high and we used dog sleds to cross the drill field), the football, basketball, baseball and all sports players went to classes and worked towards actual degrees. We paid a small events fee for our student IDs to get punched for free tickets to ball games and would line up outside of Cassell for our tickets a week before the ticket office opened to get the best block of tickets at the games.... Fraternities OWNED the midfield lower levels of the the East Stands and we made life hell for the visiting team.. Frank Beamer once left work late, drove by the lines of students out front of the box office a week before they went on sale and came back with pizza for everyone to show his appreciation.
Today, the influx of obscene amounts of money from media AND boosters to some of the blue bloods have made the tables so heavily tilted that almost no top talent considers anywhere else when considering facilities, exposure, and perks. That is sad because they have stolen a lot of the essence of what made the college sports so great from us. We can't blame the athletes from doing what is best for them, even if in the long term it isn't. The best thing that college athletes on the whole can get is a degree (which counts as a pedigree no matter the major) and the networking that was always a part of the deal for every graduate to some degree. The percentage of athletes who can make a career of the sport is minuscule and while everyone thinks they can make it, most never do.
Back in the 60's and early 70's there were semi-pro leagues that NFL teams aligned with for talented football. players who couldn't swing the college deals to develop and maybe move up. It didn't last as some colleges "made room" (I looking at you Oklahoma and Tennessee (course in chairs stacking???)) for challenged athletes and the pool became too diluted and wasn't sustainable.
Like some have said, there may be no going back, but I fervently hope that some who a smarter than me can figure out a way to return the sport to its roots and not kill the golden goose as it were. ESPN is slashing its talent pool to save money, and Sports Illustrated has laid off most of its staff. At some point maybe the behemoth will fail and hope may emerge......
Money. Winning is fun, so people decided they were willing to throw money towards winning.
Also, money. People realized that other people were willing to throw around money, so they found ways to milk and bilk those other people.
Lack of structure. Winning is fun, so people decided they were willing to bend/break/change the rules to help their team win.
Positive feedback loop. Builds slowly, then suddenly, until everything breaks apart.
The problem is that the system is working for the folks making the most money, and the handful of "blue bloods" who were always allowed to keep their structural advantages.
"But we're giving you what you want! The possibility of anyone making the playoffs, with Alabama and Ohio State virtually guaranteed spots and good seedings!"
Oklahoma board of Regents v NCAA in 1984 allowed all of this and set the stage foe all this to happen. This couldn't happen before because the NCAA had control.
I've only been following CFB since 2008, but from my perspective, theres a handful of instances that I think really eroded public trust in the NCAA and Amateurism - in no order:
There are other moments/cultural movements that have also contributed (Nebraska leaving the B12, the Alston case, OU vs Board of Regents, the Ed obannon case, the general distrust of higher ed, etc), but these are 4 things I personally think of that took us from the casual fan supporting USC sanctions to where we are now.
I think all of theses are great examples of tipping points. But it's the how we got there is important. The Bagel /cream cheese issue is so insane but happened cause everyone is getting paid under the table that the NCAA had to look like it's doing something but as they did more and more the boosters got better at hiding the pay and the NCAA was left with nothing but stupid ahit to crack down on.
It was just as jarring for Spurrier to make $1 mil. It wasn't as insurmountable but at that point they weren't making amateur athlete coaching money they were making pro level money. It turned a lot of heads FSU soon followed with Bowden because how could you not. Then VT made their staff the 3rd highest paid publicized staff which really reset the marked. Frank probably never took a shit on campus in the time he signed the contract to the time he was pushed out of the top 5. I don't think he coached a game with the staff in the top 10.
The NCAA backing off the death penalty after SMU hurt the sport. Why wouldn't you cheat? What's going to happen a couple of scholarships are gone? You can lose trophies because those aren't from the NCAA. If PSU didn't get the death penalty then no one will. They got a slap on the wrist for their atrocities. So you're right that PSU hit the point home, but the NCAA already said they'd never really punish a school prior to that.
The UNC is very odd because it's a bunch of people saying it'd some one else's problem. I think the NCAA was probably more correct here in stating that if UNC wants to give away degrees without education that is an academic accreditation issue. I think the NCAA should state that a member should be in good standing for their academic accreditation to participate, but that's not their place to judge. However, I dont understand how UNC is allowed to give out degrees after ehat they did.
Here's the thing - If the NCAA handed out death penalties to Miami, UNC, PSU, Baylor, etc, then schools would have left the NCAA. Then NCAA is just the presidents of the member institutions. Charlie Baker is very aware of this reality.
The PSU thing... I dunno, I get why the NCAA backed off - it's out of their jurisdiction IMO. The problem was that they tried to come down hard, and then reversed course. They needed to either choose be involved or choose not to. By walking back their decision, they lost all credibility.
I'm not sure what Miami would do outside the ncaa, they would need enough teams at one time to actually do something. But that's the thing the NCAA is worried about leaving so it can't upset anyone by punishing them.
I agree the walk back was worse than the not death penalty, but it's all the same as the NCAA has no ability to do anything. And if they tried to give out the death penalty today they'd be sued for anti-trust.
I'm not saying just the teams who got the death penalty would leave, I'm saying any team that felt threatened would... Miami, FSU, OSU, USC, etc. If OSU leaves, then Michigan and PSU leave. If USC leaves, they bring Oregon, UW, UCLA, etc. The fastest way to see the bluebloods breakoff and form their own league would be to hand out death penalties.
And - say what you will as a fan - but no non-blueblood school president wants the bluebloods to leave the NCAA completely. Charlie Baker is very aware of this, and if you've been following his lobbying, it's very clear
Didn't need 'dog sleds' but the commuter parking lots were almost all gravel and dirt and the drill field diagonal path from War Memorial Gym to McBryde was woodchips not asphalt. S you needed galoshes on bad weather days or your shoes would get soaked!
And yes- I loved the student athletic card which guaranteed you free seats to every basketball and football game (the only games you had to truly wait in line for were UVA and WVU for football and Memphis State and Louisville for basketball (good old Metro Conference). And the ticket distribution was days ahead of game time, so you knew if you had to find a place to watch in those few games you couldn't get tickets for. Basketball allowed max of 8 seatstogether; football 24; and one person could stand in line for up to themselves and 7 other people as long as you had their physical athletic cards(which were separate cards from main student IDs.
And for Cassell 4500 (the entire east side basically) of the then 10,000 seats were set aside for students. Guarantee my friends' and my voices were heard by the people -refs and players-on the court!c Duke allowed for 4000 but didn't have "tickets; they just opened the doors and when the turnstile count at student entrance got to the4000 limit at the door game day, they stopped allowing entry (even if that meant that a group of two people were separated(one getting in while the other didn't); the students who didn't get in then needed to scramble to find somewhere to watch the game on TV
Side note- in the program, it mentioned that the max attendance at a game at Cassell was it's opening night in 1964(?) against Purdue- 11,500 folks! While waiting in line for tickets one night, I asked a long-time employee of Cassell HOW they did that; they said there were folks sitting in ALL the aisles of the stands! Apparently the fire marshall was there and told VT that if thatEVER happened again, that no game would ever be allowed to be played there in the future!
Sports Illustrated lost the license to print this past month according to a news article. They were late on payments to the trademark holder.
The sooner that NCAA football becomes a professional sport the better IMO. At least in that scenario there exists the possibility of a governing body capable of enforcing some sort of guard rails. As it currently stands, it'll only take a few years for some teams to be completely priced out of competing in any meaningful sense. Just have to hope the Hokies are on the right side of whatever happens. As much as I don't like where this is going, I continue to give to the program in hopes that we can still be playing football worth watching in 10 years.