NCAA just announced that this year they have reduced the transfer windows to 30 total days, down from 45. The dates are December 9th to December 28th. The Spring portal will be April 16th 2025 to April 25th 2025.
This seems rather dense on their part, not surprising for the NCAA. The spring one doesn't pose a huge issue but the winter one means many players will be forced to declare before bowl games. Seems a rather stupid decision and I expect their will be backlash for it.
The 30 day exception in event of a coaching change is still in place.
Graduate transfer are now required to use these same windows to declare.
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This will get appealed (sued) and overturned.
Why is college football supposed to have no rules now? Why will this be overturned? just because?
NCAA consistently loses simply because they claim that athletes are students; but then they don't allow those athletes to have the same rights as other students i.e., the student-athlete can't do the same things as the student-engineer, student-musician, etc.
In order to foster fair competition among members, the NCAA consistently...and illegally...restricts the students' rights. The NCAA doesn't do what they actually could; which is much more tightly regulate what its members put into the infrastructure for each sport. Instead, they are heading in the opposite direction...unlimited assistants, unlimited salaries, unlimited movement, buyouts...
"athletes to have the same rights as other students" - Rights is not the correct word. College football is not an amendment in the constitution. And you do realize that when an athlete signs a letter of intent, there are rules/restrictions that go along with that? Like I'm guessing you can't download porn or shoot heroin at work? You know employment rules? Joe math major doesn't sign a letter of intent to play Virginia Tech football. Joe quarterback does- and thus must follow the rules- not some god given right. If your argument is to get rid of LOI's and amateurism rules, well just say so.
Name-Image-Likeness is a property right (at least in Florida). NCAA sold property it didn't own, kept the money, and the court appropriately handed them their ass.
The NCAA is a collection of member institutions, not member students. If the NCAA would focus on the members and not the students, they could pretty much foster any kind of competition between members that they want.
But, IMO, they continue to miss the mark by focusing on what some (but not all) students can and can't do, rather that what the members can and can't do. Instead, they've been treating the athletes like employees, not students; so guess what's next?
Not really sure how this would apply. Not sure if a player's NIL was taken by the government for public use... Interesting to consider though. And if it did, that would mean the government would be able to use eminent domain to take away your NIL as long as it provided just compensation. Imagine not having the rights to your own name, image, or likeness anymore because the government was using it for public use.
you are correct and I'm not. But NIL are property
I do think it's an interesting legal question. And NIL is a type of "property" that has value and can be "licensed" or contracted out for use. But, it is inherent to the individual and should be "nontransferable." But theoretically, one could sell their likeness, giving up ownership. It's an even more interesting idea when you think about the advancement of AI technology where someone's image and likeness can be made into a video that wasn't a recording of the person. You could have someone's likeness say anything, do anything, etc. And like any property, that person could break it up and sell it for parts (e.g., selling the likeness for cereal commercials to Post and for car commercials to Ford). And then, the U.S. government could use eminent domain for anti-drug PSAs. Now, that would be an interesting world.
"image rights" has been a significant talking point (and sticking point) in european sports contracts for a little while now.
you're absolutely correct that AI only complicates things
Multi-Millionaire Phil Mickelson conspired with terrorists to form a new golf league ........because.... his relatively worthless NFTs were "controlled" by the PGA tour- that made him millions, BTW. Greed knows zero fucking bounds. I think I'll associate with terrorists because, well my NFTs.
geez dude we get it lol
scholarship agreements no doubt covered the student granting permission to the school and the NCAA to broadcast a player's participation in team sports and even for marketing / advertising of said team sport(s).
Apparently not sufficiently...wasn't that the crux of O'Bannon?
didn't NCAA scrap their transfer rules as part of a settlement because the DOJ sued them for violating antitrust laws?
Welp
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/41702974/ncaa-approves-el...
student athletes can transfer just like any other student. They just have to agree to follow the rules if they want to continue participating in college athletics*. An optional activity.
*they used to, now various courts have determined that college sports leagues aren't allowed to have rules that encourage competition and stability for the teams and the students. (e.g. conditions on transfer students that discourage team-hopping every season)
they used to, now various courts have determined that college sports leagues aren't allowed to have rules that encourage competition and stability for the teams and the students.
My point/opinion is I believe that they can; they've just tried to do it with restrictions on the student-athletes more so than the institutions...their actual members.
They could effectively do the same thing simply by changing the wording and direction of the action to the various school institutions.
IE, students are not banned from using the transfer portal at any time. Accredited Colleges and Universities, etc are banned from using the portal for any reason except during the following 2 annual periods. Definition of using follows....
Different wording and parties under regulation, same impact.
they could decide that participation in their sanctioned competitions is limited to full time students who have been enrolled for at least x semester/quarter hours AT the member institution with at least some identified minimum gpa in the previous grading period...say nothing at all about who can transfer, when or how often they can transfer, or how they are compensated. just limit individual participation to x number of total events. if you dress for a game; you "participated"
That would makes sense... but this is college football- where you can't have any rules, else you be sued.
they could be sued...but that kind of framework would hold up in court. NCAA keeps trying to recover the control it once had on the students instead of focusing on controlling what it can (the competition) and adapting from there.
the portal puts limitations on transfers...that's a losing proposition...they can't keep students at a school who want to transfer. but they CAN control who is eligible to play in their sanctioned events...for example, universities control prerequisites and class size all the time.
0.0 is an identifiable GPA.
Whoa, whoa! I resemble that remark! I earned that when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour!
Oh great! Participation trophies/certificates. Me likely. /s
Now that we have a 12 team CFP bowl games are pretty much meaningless anyway. Its just going to be a warm up for next year's team, because any senior expecting to go pro or any good player looking to transfer is going to opt out. This already started to happen last couple years and will continue to get worse.
Yep- its like the UFL that zero people watch once your team is eliminated from the playoffs. How exciting.
We only need one transfer period. Why is this so hard?
No idea. Maybe the "student athlete" concept theoretically means they need to be able transfer at the end of a given semester, just like a regular student?
They have always been able to quit school, transfer, take a year abroad, etc. They ARE regular students. They can leave college at any time- nobody is holding a gun to their head. What they want is preferential treatment of course- not the other way around as you are suggesting.
Right, but for us regular folks, we have to pay for college - if a regular student transfers after fall semester, that regular student still pays tuition at the new place. In other words, the time of year in which the transfer takes place has no bearing on the student's financial situation.
But for college athletes that are on an athletic scholarship, the athletic scholarship is only good for so long as you're associated with the school giving you the scholarship.
If there's only one transfer window, the athletes can only transfer during one semester, unless they want to do a semester with no scholarship.
Now, you can say "that's life, sometimes choices have consequences," and I might agree with you, I'm just suggesting a potential rationale for two transfer portal windows instead of one.
"If there's only one transfer window, the athletes can only transfer during one semester, unless they want to do a semester with no scholarship."- right you mean like a regular student would do? yes. My issue is with the fucking entitlement which is 100% ridiculous. Johnny QB wants his scholarship, he wants to quit anytime he wants, he wants no rules, he wants his new school to pay without him being enrolled, etc. Fuck off. Here is the time when you can transfer so we don't have more of the wild fucking west farce we have.
Like I said, I don't think having one transfer portal period would be unfair. I can get in board with "if you want to be a student, you have to be a student, just like everybody else."
But if I had to guess why they have a transfer portal window in each semester, my guess would be that it's because they want the athletes to be able to transfer at the conclusion of any given semester and remain on scholarship.
That's my understanding as well. But how about 'if you want to play on Team X in 2025, you need to transfer before the end of 2024'
Speaking of Portal. Big credit to Baby Beamer.
Shane had one of his rotational players come into his office to announce that he was taking a redshirt year so he didn't lose eligibility for when he decides where to go next year. Shane tried to persuade him to stay, you are a big part of the defense etc. When the player said he had made up his mind to redshirt, then Shane said okay, you are off the team. No access to meals, services, etc. If you aren't with us and don't want to be here than no special privilege's you are just a regular student now.
Good for him.
If you don't want to be here, get outta the room. Go for a soda.
Amen- fuck the entitlement. good job Shane
There are a lot of shitty things that have been done to athletes by coaches which is why I've always supported the players getting more of the pie. I think the xfer portal is a good thing that has a ways to go to be implemented well. But this is 100% right for Shane to do. The guy said I'm not going to play, so he's not part of the team. I think the xfer portal should open after the 4th week and close once all teams have played 5 games so these transfers can leave as soon as possible and not be a distraction to the team.
I dont know if NIL or the portal can be fixed but it's a new era of college football and lots of people are going to play stupid games and win stupid prizes
Yep- many a golden goose has been killed. Many more to come.
NCAA also announced they have done away with National Letters of Intent in favor of a Financial Aid Statement.
This article touches on the potential to tie the FAS to a contract. Can't see that happening.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/41702974/ncaa-approves-el...
I think they're setting things up for a future where football players are considered employees.
In our lifetime, they will not be required to be enrolled in the school at all. That is where this is going.
They'll get a fake curriculum. UNC was actually way ahead of their time.
And there's this too...
I quote this and the Jameis Winston "if we gonna do it, we gonna do it big then" on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, Cardale's quote has lost some of its humor as the CFB landscape has changed. Good thing Jameis is still putting out quality content.
Just allow them major in football, coaching, and leadership. Give your athletes a degree that will directly apply to a career in coaching.
Nice idea in theory..but how many football coaches does the world really need?
And how many of those jobs are actually compensated?
I can't speak for every locale but every place I have been in order to have a paying job as a High School sports "coach" one has to actually be employed by the school system..i.e. would need a teaching degree. Private schools can do as they please and I would imagine that football crazy places like Texas may pay for private Football only coaches but I'm sure those jobs are limited.
More to the point, there are less kids playing Football now than ever. Many high schools in my area don't have JV teams at all anymore, everyone makes Varsity.
So when your $40k in NIL money is long gone by the time you are 25 and now your career prospects are being a volunteer youth football coach hoping you can find a spot that actually pays you a meaningful wage, that Degree starts to look a lot more valuable all of a sudden, huh???
How many communications majors do we need? English Majors? PR people?
That said, I don't disagree with your point, I just think it's irrelevant. Schools are creating sham degrees for (some) football players already. I'm just saying that if the kid is going to school primarily to have a career in football, then lean into that.
If that's a bad choice, then so be it. There are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people who pursue worthless degrees.
An English major can at least get a teaching certificate and teach in schools. Or go to graduate school and find a field that has better employment potential.
A "sports coaching" degree is a total waste of time. It has no economic value. Most guys that get into coaching do so based on connection to a current coach or networking. A "field of study" in coaching means shit. You get into college coaching more by who you know that what you know.
Case-in-point...my son's youth team has an OL coach--he is a former Lineman at UF. He gets paid zero for his work, does it in his freetime and sometimes has to miss practices due to commitments to his real job. He's an awesome guy and deserves a ton of gratitude for doing what he does out of pure love for the game. But there is no one lining up to pay him for this. No one.
This is really the central bullshit illusion of NIL--that somehow being really good at sports between the ages of 16-24 creates a substantial economic value for an individual and this applies to the masses. For 98% of the college athlete population it doesn't.
Truth is, working at the local grocery store will be more likely to pay their rent when they are 25+ than anything they do athletically or even athletic-adjacent.
If you structure the degree correctly, then a degree in coaching is a degree in teaching, or a number of different things that impact coaching at the college level. A coach has to be able to teach the players. A coach has to be able to sell the program and their abilities to teach. Nutrition, physical fitness, etc. There are tons of things that coaches need to know about. That can help in many other ways outside of coaching. I assume Pry is in charge of a budget and has to understand the accounting at some level. Fuente could have learned a lot in public speaking. We haven't even touched on sports media. And while there would probably be classes on play design and other pure football things that don't translate as much, there are tons of things from my EE degree that I have never used.
I don't have any faith that a D1 university would structure the degree correctly though.
If Virginia Tech - through legit channels and with AAU and reputation in mind- adds a "sports coaching major" I would not be opposed. IIWII at that point.
From a quick google search...
While you HEAR about the big value NIL deals, truth is the majority are just about double the previous stipend allowed under the previous NCAA rules.
And those stats are for 17% of NCAA athletes. Not everyone is getting NIL money or deals.
Everybody out here always taking shots at comms majors smh
English majors, too...
I think offering a sports coaching major is a pretty good idea, so much so that I'm surprised this isn't already common everywhere. If schools did offer sports coaching degrees that would itself increase the demand for people that graduated with that degree, in order to teach those classes.
Peep the PGM program. Professional Golf Management. Only certain schools are certified to offer up this degree. Similar in thought....
Sadly the only people that make real money in golf are professional players and top caddies. Elite greenskeepers as well I supposed- I'm talking like Upper end private clubs. Teaching pro's, course supers, etc don't get paid dick.
You could also intertwine it with leadership. VT already has this. Expand it with a student athlete segment that doesn't require VTCC enrollment.
https://vtcc.vt.edu/join/citizen-leader-track.html
Well thank god most "athletes" are still pursuing useful degrees. A very small % of football and mens hoops players have made higher education a farce, but these are the ones we see/care about. The folks on the VT swim team are there to get an education from Virginia Tech, because they know they aren't Michael Phelps. Our top boosters and Kyron Drones still think he is Patrick Mahomes... thus the system- bogus classes, no pretense of academics - must cater to him. Go Hokies is the most important thing after all.
I think about Joe Burrow, who never took a single in person class, and never went on campus for anything not football related.
Manziel never took a class at aTm- period. "There were too many people around him, so we pulled him out of school" . Fucking joke.
I hadn't heard that about Burrow, I knew about Manziel.
I think that schools are trying to avoid that ever happening. If they become employees they would be eligible for workman's comp, if deemed full disability those bills start to add up fast.