If you are rooting for the NCAA to go away, you got your wish. This will 100% bankrupt them and beyond. Players - yes I know you are surprised- are retroactively suing for NIL money. That's right folks, Mike Vick highlights?- pay him his retroactive NIL. The NCAA is done. Over. Not enough money in the world to pay these back fees. This is only the beginning. Yay college sports!!!
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/40480858/basketb...
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/40322068/1983-nc...
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This is the end. My only friend, the end.
/shrug
Well, lawyers need new shoes.
And houses, And boats.
And all those players got to get paid.
This was always going to explode at some point, in a giant ball of greed. Didn't those players sign something when they played, and didn't they get room, board, tuition, and professional training?
But you can't blame a girl for trying. And lawyering up, because those lawyers are definitely going to get paid.
I do need a boat.
Oh fuck off with this. This is the same level of bullshit that gets tattoos censored in media because the artist wants a cut of having their work displayed in video games or videos.
This is greed for the sake of greed.
Amen. Instead of seeing history of the great upset NC State pulled off and keeping those guys "famous"- nah, we need our money. Money money money - so CBS will never show them again. Greed in the highest order.
This is wonderful. Gives programs the ability to build something new from the ground up. We could have promotion/relegation. Different conference affiliations for different sports. A sustainable modal for distributing revenue to players. This isn't bad at all.
There will have to be a CBA of course. So that the Duke players will have to agree to CBS showing their game winning shots when they sign with Duke. They will get a % like the NBA players do. And if that is not enough, several of the top players can cut a deal with Saudi Arabia to start an NCAA league and get paid per NFT and ad, etc. You laugh....
I thought they already agreed to something like that.
This is just more squeaky wheels, wanting to get greased.
Oh yeah that would be great!
Won't happen in the slightest, but yeah that would be great!
Honestly if the moved football and basketball out of the ncaa and let the ncaa handle all other sports it would be great. Then you can solve the money make sports issue differently with out messing up the actual student athlete sports.
Nah, swimmers deserve millions to swim in college. a 200K scholarship/room/board package is slavery.
Who is this comment meant for?
King James, who insinuated that the NCAA could handle the non money sports and let football and hoops become pro leagues paying huge bags to players. My argument is that an elite swimmer is also entitled to millions- cause Go Hokies and America.
I mean I can't say I didn't insinuate that, however I am not sure a pro league is what football/basketball will be, it could be injust don't know what that would look like.
And it's hard to say a swimmer deserves that money when the balance sheet is all red. I would be incredibly surprised if any college had any sport. Can the NCAA manage this, honestly I have no clue. But they aren't making money so like the WNBA, any compensation is good because there isn't money there and they are subsidized. So maybe the ncaa can work, I dont know.
The NCAA and college athletics has never been truly amateur coaches and players get compensated (unlike highschool sports). College players can't have jobs, but high school players can. So the NCAA has really had its hands tied behinds it's back, so who knows what it could do if the money sports didn't fight them.
eh... those kids, all of them, were compensated in some form or another, above board or otherwise. Nobody can convince me otherwise that kids on scholarship are not compensated. BS. Degrees, room, board - that all costs money, and they all got that in exchange for them working their asses off on the field and (some of them) in the classroom. For them to think that they can retroactively go back and demand (more) pay after they signed their scholarship offer is legally on shaky ground at best.
Being compensated amd being fairly compensated are two different things.
That being said, game footage and it's usage in by the ncaa should be covered. The argument that the NCAA used in game footage of a player that was playing in the NCAA is just stupid. If the ncaa was AI generating a former player standing around in a suit, sure have at the suit, unlimited likeness isn't agreed too, but in game footage was part of the deal you got for your tuition.
"A sustainable modal for distributing revenue to players." - In my dreams I hope this comes to pass and is a hard agreement. Let's look shall we... The Virginia Tech football program paid out $37,820,809 in expenses while making $52,962,813 in total revenue. This equates to a net profit of $15,142,004 for the program. So 15 mil divided by 126 players = 119K a year. It also = no more women's sports programs at the school. So the football players don't get close to Lynn Kidd money, and women's sports is gone- or club teams at best. This sounds awesome to me.
At what point does this just become pointless trolling? This isn't a realistic (or legal) outcome, it's fully ignoring the streams of money CURRENTLY being used to pay players, it assumes that some walk-on is getting paid the same as the starting QB (which is silly). It also ignores the other roughly HALF of the athletics budget/revenue that isn't football related.
This isn't a sustainable, or reasonable, model for distributing some of the revenue to players. Which doesn't mean that model doesn't exist. Just setting up useless straw-men to tear them down doesn't seem like it's advancing the conversation in any useful or interesting way.
OK, a useful conversation would be fantasy island where Drones gets 6 million and his receivers get 100K. THAT is a reasonable and not silly discussion. Since you missed the point. There is a football pie of money. Its not unlimited, its not billions. You can not like that, and deny it's used to fund other sports, but it is fact. Lets have a serious discussion and not troll though, where we pay APR 2 million and his back up nothing. THAT is more realistic and not silly.
That $15M goes back into the athletics dept to fund all the other non-revenue generating sports (at least that's what I'm telling myself). If the football and basketball kids want to get paid it will have to be at the expense of other kids having no sport to play at the collegiate level, which also will likely negate many of them getting any kind of college education.
And this kind of goes along with my earlier comment - life lesson for these kids. They are part of the organization that is generating revenue for the larger business (ie the school). Does it suck that the other business units can't make a profit or are otherwise not capable of it? Yup. Are you going to run into this problem after your college days and are working for or running your own business? Abso-freakin-lutely.
"This is gonna ruin the tour"
I'll bite
"what tour?"
"The NCAA tour"
Someone take that man's car keys before he does something dumb... again...
Start a semi pro league and let players that can play good get paid whatever it is their playing good is worth. Separate this from institutions of higher learning because they now have nothing to do with one another. Have Virginia Tech and other regional schools field a varsity team from student athletes enrolled in the university. Have these teams compete against other similar teams. Call this college football. I don't need all the pageantry, I just like my university, I like Blacksburg in the fall, and it is nice to have a game televised every once in a while on a Saturday so I can kick back and drink beer while I watch. If the TV deal fucks it up because of $$, then just put it on the radio. Go Hokies.
Makes too much sense. The problem is that a semi pro league will bring in zero revenue. ESPN won't pay to air the games, and fans won't buy tickets. We have seen this with the G League- no fans, no revenue to speak of. The players want their cake and eat it too- they want Virginia Tech on the helmet and they want to be on ESPN, while also pretending that they are the value and not the brand. The reason that players have not started their own semi pro league is that they aren't worth anything without Alabama on their jersey's. People here will deny that, but the UFL and G league drawing flies with little to no TV money proves my point. If there was an appetite or value for semi pro football, the UFL would be huge.
Would the G League have fans and revenue if there were no college basketball, and the G League teams were affiliated with universities?
How would they be affiliated with the universities? The same way the DC Go Go is affiliated with the Wizards? and have zero wizards fans that made the crossover? Why would I watch a VT "affiliated" minor league team anymore than I would watch mountain view high school- which has VT colors? What is the exact "affiliation"? They say they like the hokies?
Just spitballing here, but maybe instead of a university team filled with "student athletes" playing in Lane Stadium with a Virginia Tech logo on their helmets, you'd have a semi-pro or minor league team, affiliated with the Washington Commanders (or some other NFL team), playing in Lane Stadium with a VT on their helmet, where the players occasionally (but aren't required to) pay to take classes.
Not that I'm advocating this to be the future of college athletics. I'm just saying that you'd see more support for this team than you currently see for NBA G-League teams.
So the students at VT- who may or not be a fan of the affiliated NFL team playing in Lane are going to support these players that aren't fellow students? Color me very skeptical. Would you get a few commanders fans following their minor league team ? sure
I'm with DC here this would take all the air out of the fandom of college football for me.
The use case is already out there and people are willfully ignoring it. The G league Ignite team is a team of kids that would have gone to Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Michigan State- big time recruits, ballers, 4 and 5 star type talent. The NBA created a franchise JUST for the scenario we are talking about. These basketball players that are scarce elite talents that in turn have this huge market value. Right. Nobody on this board could name a G League Ignite player without googling it, and zero people go to their games. Zero.
All I'm saying is that the use case is not the same. There's a big difference between a random G League team and a minor league football team that is AFFILIATED WITH YOUR ALMA MATER. Sure, there are some, maybe lots, of people that will have nothing to do with it if all of the players aren't students. But I contend there will be a non-zero, possibly significant, amount of support above and beyond "minor league Commanders affiliate" that would be due to the affiliation with Virginia Tech (or with Ohio State, or with Alabama, etc.)
Again, what is the affiliation? They play games in blacksburg?
what if (and hear me out now) they don't just play in blacksburg, but they actually play on virginia tech's campus
I guess my question is, why is a professional team affiliated with a public university? What ties do they have to the college other than the name and location? Are taxpayer dollars going to help fund the salaries, equipment, infrastructure, etc? Why are the players playing for this team?
I don't have any interest in my alma mater or my favorite public university donating facilities, staff, or capital of any kind to a professional sport's team that does not have direct ties to the student body. And given that the current model is seemingly broke while at the same time constantly asking for handouts in the form of charitable donations that are directly related to the entity being a public institution of higher learning, I don't see how you can get the numbers to work out if this is strictly a for profit venture. My interest in for profit ventures largely end at the front door to my office.
The number 1 tie of course is that people like T Boone Pickens will pay millions of dollars to see his OSU Cowboys win football games, and he'll do it with a smile on his face. The argument is that he would still do that (if he were alive) if the people wearing the OSU uniforms were simply pros with no ties to the school.
I don't disagree, and good for Mr. Pickens if he chose to do that. I would just have very little interest in watching. I'd likely rather watch club rugby.
Why are the players playing for us now? Why does anyone employed by VT work there? We cheered Fuente when he was here, we cheered Buzz when he was here, we cheer on Pry and Young. We cheered the emotional sport dog at Cook. We support the employers of the university. We have support a number of employees of the university over the years so what is the difference between the players being employees and not employees?
Rugby is 100% amateur sport and more pure than any D1 sport in that respect. So in theory you should watch that over football because its what was intended for college sport a century ago.
My interest in Virginia Tech sports is tied to student athletes. I understand the university has likely a few thousand paid employees. I guess I assume they are all employed to largely promote the university as such. I don't support a branch of the university that solely promotes professional sports. I'm fine with athletes getting paid. I just don't have interest in following or supporting a professional team whose only tie to the university is location and name based. Maybe I'm naive and maybe my thoughts will change over time. But I just don't feel nearly the same about a professional model as I do the student athlete model. I guess it's tied to a feeling of shared interest in Virginia Tech as a public university. Dunno.
So if Whit Babcock fired Pry tomorrow, then that's okay (other than the obvious lack of confidence in Whit)? He's not a student he's not part of the football team. He doesn't matter to your support?
I'm cheering for Virginia Tech, I'm cheering for everything done in the name of Virginis Tech, the research we do whether the professor stays or not, they are part of the VT community. I am not saying you should have the view have, it's just mine.
But for everyone that says they don't want a professional team, I just want people to think about the current situation (even pre-NIL). The players are compensated for their efforts, they have strict guidelines on what they can and can't do which includes anti work clauses which is similar to my job where I have to get approval to work somewhere else. They also get forced into certain majors that isn't their real choice. The players get all the expectations of having a job with out any of the protections while they have none of the benefits of being a student. Many jobs have classes/training that you have to pass tests (certifications) to keep the job. So if they are employees in mostly every way but actual name, what's the difference than a student-athlete and employee-athlete based on the expectations the players have had. Even with the "protections" on time spent practicing is worked around because coaches can pull the scholarships if players don't do things on their own time.
I can play in amateur golf tournaments and no one has any say in where I work, or how much time I play. I have never been a pro-athlete and I have competed many amateur sporting events and never had to follow rules that football players have to. So are they really amateur? Does the student part matter more to you, so a student/employee/athlete is more preferable to some.
Dunno. Life is complicated. Go Hokies.
I am, and always have been in favor of keeping it amateur. For me, you could have limits on what you paid the staff and coaches - just make them the same for all universities. You don't have to pay the athletes, as room, board, and tuition are valuable and worth playing sports for.
Clearly, those teams who get some advantage of more money would disagree.
That we need professional athletes playing college football is a made-up construct, created by cable companies and athletic wear companies, because they actually DO make money on college sports. Now you also have betting sites making coin.
And you STILL have pressure on college football fans, who are expected to pony up money to support the scholarships.
I would love for amateur sports to be the goal but the NCAA doesn't have the power to do that and the courts have constantly knee capped what was never a strong organization. Congress has to get involved otherwise there isn't anyway to fix anything. No one with money wants it fixed.
Yeah, the displacement just feels silly and I wouldn't feel the same about it either.
Let's also make it very clear. When you say support you mean financially support through astronomically expensive tuition, because that's what we are talking about.
Even if those funds wouldn't go directly to the athletes they would go to facilities built to attract them, and for quite a few of them would be off-limits to the general student population. Which, we are already there, but it can and would get so much worse.
Bingo. Because there would be no "conferences" to share and distribute the non existent TV money. ESPN is not airing semi-pro football. College Presidents aren't going to join conferences with teams that don't have college students on them. Where is the money going to come from? The NFL? lol
Why would you watch a pro league that is affiliated with VT, plays in VT facilities, and has the same color and staff as VT any less than if the team was 'just semi-pro'? Suppose the players had the same financial stake/salary/etc as professors - why does that make a difference?
I understand why no one would donate to a minor league team, but I don't understand why you would give up your fandom just because the players are getting paid a proper salary?
Then it's not really anything close to what it is now. It's more like plopping a minor league baseball team in Blacksburg. Cool...but I'm not going to be a rabid fan of them. Might catch a game here or there, but I'm not scheduling my fall Saturdays around it. Not making treks back to Blacksburg to see old friends, tailgate, go to the games, spend money in the bookstore. Those players are just attached to VT by a color scheme.
I don't understand why it's not the same... There's a team in Blacksburg that is still closely tied to the university and has the history of the university. What is college football other than an opportunity to revisit one of your favorite places in the world with some of your favorite people in the world?
Were you born and raised in Blacksburg or move there with family? If not, we can assume you went to Blacksburg to go to school at Virginia Tech? I can rather confidently say that since you pass a million fast food places off 81 in christiansburg before you get to Blacksburg, that I never in my life would have gone to blacksburg virginia for shits and gigs if I did not go to Virginia Tech to study in college. I had zero connection to that town without VT. If there is a pro college aged football team that aren't students of the school squating in lane stadium I have no interest. None. There will be other teams with higher salaries that aren't students either beating their ass because blacksburg is a small market. No interest. None.
But I spent 5 of the most formative years of my life in Blacksburg, and it's a special place to me because of those 5 years I spent there. VT is my connection to the town, but I still care about the campus, the town, the local economy, the restaurant and bar scene, the nature, etc.
I could root for the Blacksburg Hokies. If VT eliminated their Blacksburg campus, moved to NoVA, but kept their football team, I might stop rooting for the Virginia Tech Hokies. Because I don't have a strong connection to Northern VA. I have a strong connection to Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus.
I just don't understand how a player getting paid to play makes you lose interest in the team? I get why you would not want to financial support the team, but that's a different conversation.
"I just don't understand how a player getting paid to play makes you lose interest in the team? I get why you would not want to financial support the team, but that's a different conversation." - I don't know why you keep bringing this up? I am supporting the 2024 VT hokies- I renewed my donations and tickets- and Drones is getting paid, so is Tuten, so is Delane, etc. They are getting money from NIL. That's not my issue. My issue is if they aren't students at all. That's a different ballgame. If you were a harford whalers fan, you do not have a moral obligation to root for the Carolina Hurricanes- they are not the Whalers, just like the blacksburg pro's aren't the hokies. I see no difference.
If you can't see why student athletes vs semi pro is not the same...then nothing staed will change your mind.
But hey, the players there now signed on the line and made the choice to attend VT. Any pro kids would be drafted and told they will be playing in Blacksburg. That's not the same.
This is exactly my point - NCAA football has been semi-pro for decade, the only difference is that fans no longer have plausible deniability. Many (not all) players have barely been students (12 credits of online classes per semester, basket weaving majors, professors being pressured to pass kids so they stay eligible, student tutors doing homework for athletes so they can pass, etc).
In my mind, we've been a pro/semi pro league for decades. We're just now dropping the facade.
So, if it's been this way for a long long time, and we were okay with it then, what has changed?
See my second paragraph. The players now want to be in Blacksburg. In a pro league, they don't have a choice. They are only associated w Virginia Tech because we've subsidized the stadium, color scheme, fast tracked "traditions", and someone picked them and told them to show up in Blackaburg.
Paying a kid under NIL is not being a pro player. And it's not binary that if you get paid that you are absolutely a professional. There is a difference.
Right we're at the point of parsing the definitions of amateurism and professionalism
Is "pay for play", which is widely being used to describe the landscape under NIL, amateurism? Or professionalism?
I caught heat above (edit: might actually be below, but either way it was yesterday) for saying we havent had true amateurism in a few decades (and it goes back farther than early 2000s but that's when it accelerated) but we really haven't.
If anyone wants the team to be made up of VT students, sure. The flip side of that is that it then also doesn't make sense to a) restrict their transfers and b) restrict what they could receive compensation wise.
I don't think this is the case. Drafting is something really unique to North American professional sports leagues. The two most popular team sports in the world - Soccer and cricket - don't have a draft. No reason the future iteration of professionalized college sports needs a draft.
You honestly believe that the future of American football for 18-24 year olds looks like euro soccer clubs? We can't do the MLS correctly. And no shot that those in Bammer or anosu reach across the pond for a direction or blueprint. 'Merica.
We can't do the MLS correctly because it was instituted in a top-down franchise-style approach with a strong central "league" that handled all the teams.
CFB is already structured more like a bottom-up grassroots league pyramid like the have all over the world. It would not be "difficult" to institute pro-rel and a league ladder with academy systems and so forth. Signing 17 year olds to come play as freshmen is already closer to what global soccer does than it is to what other professional american sports leagues do (in large part because those other professional american sports leagues have relied on the collegiate academic system to develop athletes)
Getting the member schools and tv execs to agree to such a system is a non starter, but it's intellectually dishonest to say it could never work
What is the incentive for the NFL or any NFL team to move from a system where:
- all the expense of the farm system is done at the college level
- the draft provides an open source for all teams to choose the best available players nationwide
To a system where the NFL organizations:
- bear the expense of recruiting, developing, maintaining players
- are limited to the narrow scope of their farm teams
- the busts from high school to college are absorbed by the franchise
"To a system where the NFL organizations:
- bear the expense of recruiting, developing, maintaining players
- are limited to the narrow scope of their farm teams
- the busts from high school to college are absorbed by the franchise"
Keep in mind, this is not a concern because these players are rare, elite talents that are worth millions in the market on their own, independent of the colleges. The supply is rare and elite, thus there will be no "busts".
Jamarcus Russell enters the room...
Ryan Leaf was a All pro compared to Jamarcus Russell.
Point was that Lynn Kidd, Sheduer Sanders, Arch Manning other kids raking in half million to million a year are elite- and thats why they get paid, not that they play for Lets Go U... so elite=no busts.
What bearing does "what the nfl wants" have on how CFB chooses to organize its own competition?
Who is suggesting the NFL has "minor league" CFB affiliates that the NFL pays for?
Pardon if I'm missing something but i dont see how your comment is relevant to "what if CFB was structured like european domestic soccer leagues"
Sorry responded to the wrong comment. Meant to write this above in the discussion of semi-pro team in bburg vs VT.
Semi-pro team would no longer be CFB and would need to be subsidized by a professional league. The value of the organization is different depending on how it's structured and what it is. I don't think a semi-pro league with or without relegation is worth what CFB even in its current dysfunction is worth.
Yes - in fact I think it's more likely - we already see coaches giving out scholarships to 8th graders. I expect that trend continuing into whatever future college football follows.
You realize those aren't real or committable, right?
1. Same stake as professors? sure. Make them go to class and advance towards a degree and pay them 85K per year to start- across the board. Star QB or walk on. Lynn Kidd or other meh hoopster. Same pay. Like a professor. OK- I could live with that. But, I've said it 100 times. If they aren't students at VT, I'm not interested. Simple.
not to mention ... what exactly has the sport truly been for the last 20 years if not the illusion of true amateurism? and yet we still follow along and fill the seats
Revisionist argument that zero people stated at the onset of NIL. Nobody was parroting, well they aren't really students anyway. Nobody. Convenient to do that now, and the fact is that 95% of total athletes at VT are in fact students that take academics seriously. The star QB? maybe not. But its a small number.
nobody is saying that now either, nobody.
Maybe not on here, but I've definitely heard that before.
Edit: granted, more at other schools, but I had heard Michael Vick didn't really go to class.
It goes on here and all over the place. I'm going much further back than that. None of these are from the 21st century.
One famous VT athlete had a designated test taker. She said he would usually do the multiple choice, but she would write the essays.
A friend of mine's roommate was dating another big name VT athlete. She said he had to be the dumbest person at Tech.
One of my professors at Tech told me that at the place he taught before coming to VT, there was this one guy that there was no major easy enough for him. They tried all kinds of things. Eventually, they settled on "Hospital Recreation" as his major. He would go to hospitals and dribble the ball for the patients.
My, at the time, sister-in-law was a TA at one of the Texas schools. The class had a writing assignment. Something like write a descriptive assay of someplace. She is grading papers and one is incredibly familiar. She realizes that she wrote that. It was from a pamphlet for a resort that she wrote. She showed it to the professor, clear cut plagiarism and wanted the student flunked. The professor said he agreed, but it won't matter. The kid was the starting (I think) fullback on the football team. He submitted the grade as F but, sure enough, when the computer spit out the final grade, it said C.
Dexter Manley finished college and could not read - I give the specific name here as it should be common knowledge, but if not: https://www.commanders.com/news/one-haunting-night-led-dexter-manley-to-...
I'm sure people could add hundreds of cases.
Indeed it does and it's sad. That's why the Brandon Facyson's and the Rolle's of the college sports world are so special. Not only are they top notch athletes, but also too notch students. Combine that with being top notch people and they are the poster people for NCAA student-athletes.
Yep, totally with you. In the Biochemistry Department, my year, was a swimmer. Real nice person. Had something like a 3.4 or 3.5 GPA - and this was in the late 80s/early 90s. Grade inflation had hit, but not even remotely close to what it is now. She told me her schedule. Do not remember exact details, I know I'm messing this up, but it was something like:
Swim twice a day 5 days a week for hours
Swim once a day the 6th day
Do dry land weight training the other day
She was what should be celebrated as an NCAA student athlete.
That was my time period as well, and I was friends with many of the swimmers. (First college party I ever went to was with a bunch of swimmers, but that's a different story for a different thread...) As I recall, they had to get up for 5am workouts six days a week. Three days they swam for an hour or so, and the other three they lifted or ran. Then they all had to be back at the pool in the afternoon for 3 hours of practice. I did not envy them at all.
One of the swimmers you knew wouldn't have been a lady with initials P.B. would it? Wondering if you knew her.
Man, that was like 35 years ago. My memory isn't that good. I can barely remember some of my old teammates names from back then! 🤪
When I was at the top of my swimming career I woke up at 7, was at the gym at 7:15, finish at 8:30 then work by 9:30 M-F with lifting on Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday to match practice.
I would work 8+ hours a day and then I was in the pool 90 minutes Tue/Thurs, 2 hours MWSat and 60 minutes Sunday. I had scheduled times to eat and sleep. Practices during the week started at 8PM, hence not the early wake up.
Saturday practices were 6 am so I didn't practice Friday night. Sunday Gym was 2 hours.
So 7.25 hours at gym, 10 hours in the pool, and then probably another 3 hours of stretching every week. All on top of 45+ hours of work. Amd another 8 hours of meets minimum a month, it was a lot.
The only reason I wasn't in the pool more was actual time and pool availability. And I did this all as a hobby, not a way to pay for school. It would have been so much better to practice earlier than 8PM too. And none of that was time spent watching tape, planning meals, or any of the other stuff it takes to compete at a high level.
When I was in high school, summer had 2 hour practices at 7 am and 3 hour practices at 6 pm. But it's easier when you don't have a job.
At least now you have players going to class so they are fellow students. Once you take that away, completely sever any ties between the schools and the teams because I don't want any form of tuition or any expectation on alumni to financially support their operations. I struggle with that enough already as it is, the more this is spiraling toward TV deals and paying players, the more I am absolutely convinces that we should not be bankrolling this bullshit.
I get this. In my opinion, supporting the football team is really about creating a 'college experience' for current students (not student athletes). At the end of the day, most major universities are now selling an experience, not (just) a degree. You can dislike this - that would be quite reasonable - but I think most people who have recently graduated from college or are putting kids through college would agree. VT football is part of the VT culture and the VT student experience. That's why I give to the athletic department - There were people who gave before me, and their giving positively impacted my experience as a student. I want to pay it forward to current students.
I have had season tickets for 25 years. Including the last 2 seasons where I am 2K miles away from Blacksburg. I paid out of state tuition for my son to attend VT from 2015-2019. So I can speak to this point. I donated at the platinum level and re-newed my tickets this year because I am a VT fan and the players are students of the school. They are representing my alma mater as students- that is THE key point here. I am not buying a fucking Kentucky Amoore jersey. Why? She represents Kentucky as a student, and I am not a fan of Kentucky. Rather simple logic. If and when VT football players are not students representing the school - whose mission is to be a school- not the Dallas Cowboys, if this happens that is the last day I donate a dime to VT athletics. And I won't be the only one.
I concur. Again, scrap this shit show, let professional athletes play professional ball, and have student athletes play college ball. Let the best of the best go on to have a career in sports or whatever their heart desires. Let the rest use their talent as a means to get a degree from an institution they choose and represent in kind. It's not a difficult concept.
Amen- if the NCAA was smart, they would have negotiated with the NBA and NFL for a no age limit/no college requirement and then we aren't having this conversation. You want to get paid to play football? Go to the NFL. Done.
Perfectly stated '04. I feel exactly the same.
I follow tech sports because they were a part of my undergraduate experience. Going to games was something easy and fun to do so I have a lot of memories with friends doing it. An added bonus was the continuity of having players for 4-5 years. You'd be excited for the little brother of a famous player to commit then you'd get to watch him develop into a star in his own right.
When I got out of college, tech sports was a way to feel connected back to the community I was missing. As the landscape has changed, it doesn't hold the same appeal. I want to watch what I experienced in college. I want to cheer for players across their careers, not just for one year before they transfer. That said, if the minor league model had been the thing when I was in school, maybe I'd feel differently.
Now here i agree with you about one thing -- the transfer portal has changed the way i watch the sport significantly more than NIL has. But hey, if we are so tied to the players being students, it feels unethical to restrict their ability to transfer as they see fit since any student can do that.
Basically it just opens a can of worms and we talk about the worms all day in every thread and it makes me tired
Welcome to the offseason GGC, I think you've been here before
This a bazillion times!!!
It'll never happen. But my head is in the clouds with ya.
And still, somehow, there isn't a copy of the full 82yd run game up on youtube. Maybe this will make that happen?
At the end of the day, the NCAA and schools have only themselves to blame. They could have gotten ahead of this and done the right thing decades ago, but they opted for the "amateur student-athlete" route and then punted time and time again until now when it's the endgame and they can't fathom how they ended up down 3 scores with time running out.
Ah yes, the Iowa method of problem solving.
What would they have done, exactly?
They were always constrained by "fairness" with women's sports and the idea that these teams were amateurs associated with the university, which contrasts with the "every man for himself" and "I gotta get PAID for my potential" concepts.
This was ALWAYS going to be a bumpy landing.
As well, when the U.S. was the only country in the world limiting their Olympic athletes to amateurs, the NCAA had to continue with the fiction that scholarships and coaching were not a form of pay for all the college athletes across the various sports.
Without continuing that fiction the Olympic teams would have been a a shadow of itself.
Oh of course you can't have amateur anything really in America. Non starter. Thou must get paid cash for getting out of bed. Must get your money.
As I understand it, the NCAA used this amateur status/student-athlete moniker to avoid paying benefits to and being judged liable in a lawsuit filed in the 1960s by the widow of a football player that was killed in a game back in the late 1950s. This pre-dated Title IX. If they had taken responsibility in the first place, I bet they would have been able to enact improved safety regulations, player pay structures, and hashed out subsequent legal issues 40-50 years ago; back when coach and pro player salaries weren't astronomically high and billionaire donor money wasn't in the sport. No, the college football product in this alternate reality would not be the same as what we have now, but is what we have now better? I'm of the opinion that it's probably not.
Different reason, but another sign of the end of days. There has got to be some kind of salary cap put in
Just screaming the quiet part into a bullhorn facing a microphone that is being broadcast to the world.
He's been doing it for years and hasn't worked yet...
So if you get 85 millionaire players, how many are going to be prima donnas that can't play together. The entire WR is going to want the ball every down, the RB's are going to want the ball every down.
This is what the fans wanted. Athletes in America are entitled to the Bag. as much as you can possibly get. After all, coaches earn a salary. The fans wanted a watered down NFL with unlimited free agency and open bribery. This is what the people wanted. The players were slaves after all- playing for a measly 200K scholarship plus room, board, and a stipend. It wasn't fair that a coach made more than that in raw dollars. The people spoke and Phil Knight listened.
This is not what the fans wanted. This is the slow avalanche where if a then b, if b then c, if c then obviously d, if d then e, if e then f, and well if you are doing F then I want h.
The large portion of fans didn't watch a->f but there has been a gradual degrade in the management of the sport for 40 years that created a lopsided system that is completely unmanageable. The fans didn't take issues to the courts, the fans didn't applaud the courts decisions, the fans by in large hate the state of the sport. The fans didnt care if the NCAA was allow to choose who got broadcast as long as the best games were broadcast and now it doesn't even matter because there are so many ways to watch a game. I haven't met anyone from USC or UCLA that likes the idea of a nooner in Piscataway.
Phil Knight isn't listening to anyone but himself. HE wants this because then HE can have some control over winning a title. Oregon fans only want it because they have Phil.
Disagree. The moment the false arguments were accepted as truth and widely supported- scholarships aren't payment; the players are entitled to coaches salaries; the players should share TV revenue; the players are indentured servants- the moment the majority of fans endorsed those arguments, is the moment you want what is happening now. Be careful what you wish for.
So if scholarships are payment then the athletes are being paid and it's a pro sport. If the athletes are compensated then you can't limit the compensation and they have the right to try and obtain fair market value. That was settled in the courts for coaches over 30 years ago. You're arguing about fans changing their opinions after 40 years of shitty decisions. They've just accepted the players should get a piece of the pie because everyone else gets a huge slice. But no one wanted the others to get that huge slice. Fans were outraged when Spurrier got a $1 mil contract. Fans were outraged at the locker room upgrades, until their school followed suit. No one outside of Nebraska wanted them to leave the Big12. Where were the fans that wanted Colorado in the Pac12? Maybe Oregon needed a smoking partner.
Fans hated this shit all along the way, they have just been brow beaten to accept all the shit that now they agree that if everyone has robbed the system blind that the players should too.
And why shouldn't players and coaches have similar pay? How is that a false argument? Just a decade ago full ride scholarships didn't cover the total cost to attend a university. Yet coaches were making millions. They are all part of the same team. Why shouldn't players get part of TV revenue, I dont want to see Pry on the TV I want to see Drones. In my perfect world the camera would never cut away from the field.
The entire system has been moving to make the sport less fair since the early 90s and 1996 was the last time we had a first time National champion (unless you count UCF which gets in under technically correct). Have the fan bases really been clamoring to make it harder to win? Less than 1/6th of the power teams have a chance at winning a title under the current rules. Overall fans don't want that Sure Michigan and OSU and Bama and UGA do, because their at the top. They want the game rigged. They want coaches pay to be unlimited because they can afford it. They want to put bid every school for athletes. But that's a small number of fans compared to all fans.
If you offerd fans college football where the students were compensated by the school with scholarship and decent stipend, and limited staffs and limited coaches pay, and regional rivalries with scheduling mandates fee OOC games so that we had more P4v p4 games almost all would buy in because at the end of the day most fans just want sports to be fair, and the gap was set 40 years ago and has only widened since.
You don't need a salary cap when the fans will pay for the players. The Go Team fund of donations is endless. And the universities will go to that well like you have never seen. Welp if you want us to compete with Oregon, we need more of your money.
Yet another reason to prefer Asics over Nike.
I'm here for this. I would do the exact same thing if I had Phil Knight money.
How pissed would you be when your millions of dollars of "investment" gets upended by pre-determined game outcomes and bought off refs affect the Playoff winners?
Phil Knight- same guy that brought out dozens of NBA shoe deals because they weren't making money. Same guy that uses child slave labor to stich shoes together. Same guy that farmed out the swoosh to low rent Fanatics to the point MLB players refused to wear the gear. Phil Knight who wouldn't meet Tiger fucking Wood's escalators, Phil Knight who resisted Jordans profit sharing idea tooth and nail, Phil Knight- how soon we forget - that pays VT 200% below market rate for our deal. This Phil Knight is going to accept little ROI for his beloved Ducks- because Go Ducks. THIS is why there will never be a salary cap.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/40541501/court-ruling-see...
Add another nail with Court of Appeals sending this case back for fact finding, allowing for further consideration on whether athletes are employees. If they are ruled employees, I would expect all non revenue sports to hear a death knell.
As a non lawyer, I think that's why the court is sending it back for "fact-finding". Figure out who's doing it for fun (does a scholarship non revenue count as fun though?).
If they determine any non-club team isn't "for fun" then most non-revs would bite the dust. Have always thought that 1-2% of athletes get less from the NCAA/School than their "fair share" which in turn benefited the 98% of other athletes, coaches, and administrators.
If you say they are all employees, less schools will be willing to hold pure cost centers with limited upside.
Only the district court can perform fact-finding, which is referred to as discovery. The appellate and supreme courts can only make judgements on the law. So, that's what happened here.
So many people do not understand this.