Defensive ends James Djonkam and Keyshawn Burgos are no longer listed on the #Hokies' online football roster.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) September 26, 2025
I wonder if these are some of the players that are involved with that legal situation from Miami. Djonkam has had his entire profile removed from Hokiesports, while you can still Burgos.
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Lol...we may have trouble fielding a 2-Deep particularly on D by mid-October.
2-deep? I'm worried about a starting lineup
Our starting lineup lost 3 of 4.
This roster is taking some hits right now, huh? Obviously we don't know why, but this is definitely going to serve as a warning to other schools thinking about mid-season coaching changes.
You're not wrong but it would be interesting to look at how stable the rosters are for teams that usually make mid-season (especially pre-conference play) firings.
After bringing in close to 20 freshmen and 30 transfers in 2025, I am not quite sure what the warning is? If coaches can overhaul the roster every 18 months, I don't think it's wrong to give the players the same options.
(Though I think there are right ways and wrong ways of handling it, and it sounds like Burgos hasn't done himself any favors and the Holloway situation seems to have had some mistakes from the current coaching staff.)
After running a nation-leading "Statement Wins for Upcoming Teams" program for the past 15 years Virginia Tech's next contribution to college football might be acting as the catalyst for actual employment terms and an antitrust carve out that would let players collectively bargain as a labor force in good faith with the cartels... er conferences... that operate football teams. Cause this ain't it. I don't even feel like I am supporting my university at this point. I am glad that we pulled the plug on season tickets and donating after last year. I knew it was going to be bad but... man. This team straight up quit, like capital Q QUIT.
Maybe this is the new year zero... or maybe this is year negative one. The season at this point was forfeit the minute the team quit in the second half of the Vanderbilt game. I honestly don't know which would be worse, just dead-manning through the rest of the season with a lame duck coach or not being able to field a team at all for the balance of the season because of the transfer rules. The current state of CFB where players are compensated but not employees is just not sustainable. I am all for sharing the proceeds with the players but there needs to be due consideration for putting in the work.
I think this is why Florida is waiting to fire Napier. All good players will have played in more than 4 games.
See we don't have to worry about losing our good players
Miami legal situation?
What legal situation from miami? And I wonder if one of them is the player working with the NIL lawyer
This one 👇🏻
Bad
daymonthyeardecade for hokie news.Pretty sure Burgos is a senior, that profile notwithstanding.
He's only 3 injunctions from being a Freshman again.
They are just prepping for the future.
Burgos didn't return to the field after being berated by a coach as he came off the field just before halftime. And stayed in his face when he sat down. Never saw him on the sidelines during the second half and I was looking for him.
this is so messed up... they want to be paid like pros, but want all the flexibility of an amateur. These kids need a life lesson.
at the same time, the universities aren't willing to give anything up either. The football teams want the right to cut a player at any time but also prevent them from leaving. The athletic departments want to give these kids as little as possible. There are countless stories of athletes being promised NIL money that just never comes through (Rashada, Sluka, cooper Legas, the mass cancelation of NIL at Mich St in 2023, USC, etc).
These kids are playing the game that the universities created for them.
Seriously????
Free Education -- books, room and board. Not only free Room and Board but most all higher-level FCS schools have "Athlete Dorms" with much better amenities than for the general students.
-Regular, scheduled Tutoring at no cost
-Athlete-only training facilities
-Athlete-only dining facilities with Nutritionists and trained chefs preparing meals
-Free Healthcare for injuries that extends 2 years beyond leaving school
-Payment of any co-pays or deductibles while under scholarship
All 105 players on a Football Roster are now entitled to that. Despite the fact that probably no more than half of them are responsible for any part of the revenue and of that probably only a handful create the vast majority (i.e. probably about 5 guys have real "NIL"--the rest is just imaginary). A reasonable estimate for the cost of this would easily be $500k over a 4 year period. To say that universities aren't gving up anything is beyond ludicrous.
Yeah and getting punished for getting cream cheese on their bagels and getting new housing when the current housing isn't any good. All the while playing for the things you highlighted which is significantly less than their market value when conferences are pulling in multi-billion dollar TV contracts and head coaches are averaging like 7 mil a year.
But what is the true "market value" of a college football player?
For 70-80% --- probably zero.
The idea of NIL has been largely been a mass of pre-packaged bullshit from the start.
Here's where the value is----I want my Alma Mater/Favorite Team to beat your Alma Mater/Favorite Team.
That's what interests people. That's what turns TVs on. That's what sells merchandise.
What their chosen team needs to do and who they need to recruit and retain is largely meaningless to most fans. The Helmet sticker has 500x more value than the name plate.
If fans really deeply cared about who was wearing their colors, people like Urban Meyer wouldn't exist and guys like Joe Mixon would have been expelled and shunned.
Their value is not just in NIL, it is in the fact that they are effectively performing labor for these schools and should be paid a salary accordingly.
They choose to do so.
No one forces them to play college sports. No one forces them to accept a Scholarship offer.
They have every ability to either enroll at a University as a regular student or go directly into the workforce.
If Player X doesn't want to play, there are 100 guys willing to take his spot.
And there are a lot of schools willing to pay them market value to win. Those hundreds of players willing to pay for free are garbage compared to the players that schools will pay for. Do we want to be competitive or do you want to sit on your high horse preserving the ideals of amateur athletics?
How many of those schools are willing to keep paying them after they've quit the team and entered free agency?
How is getting your education paid for not like a salary. What if they paid them but then they were forced to pay tuition, fees, room and board like everyone else? As well as pay for the tutoring and other benefits they get.
The key word in Shelton post is "accordingly"
(Pre-NIL) a group of employers (the universities) all colluded together (the ncaa) to artificially cap compensation.
If Walmart, Amazon, and target all agreed to work together to cap wages, they would be sued into oblivion (like the ncaa is now).
The question is not 'are these players deserving of money beyond a scholarship?' Rather, the question is, "under the labor laws agreed upon in this country, is a university allowed to limit their compensation?"
Pretty sure compensation requires the work part
Only in every other industry than College Football
But universities refuse to admit that these kids are 'working'. Because that would imply that they are employees, and thus entitled to labor law.
Because that would be like an employer saying, "We'll give you health insurance and retirement benefits, but we're gonna take away your salary." No, you get both because you as an employee are providing value for the company and in exchange you receive a valid form of currency to build wealth.
The more important point is that the value of a scholarship is not remotely equivalent to the value that P4 football players produce for these hundred-million-dollar money-making operations known as universities.
This is a completely unsupportable statement IMO.
First, there is no clear data on how much actual profit individual University Athletic Depts. are making year over year in profit (at least not publicly available). According to OSU's AD they lost money in 2024.
https://www.thelantern.com/2025/01/ohio-state-athletics-claims-37-7-million-deficit-in-monday-ncaa-report/
So if the National Champion who is in one of the two conferences that actually do have highly lucrative TV contracts is not making money...exactly who is???
Moreover, you use very broad brush-strokes in referring to universities as hundred-million dollar making operations. The B1G and SEC have extremely generous TV contracts which clearly have put their schools ahead in most revenue sports. But what about the other conferences??? We know the ACC doesn't have nearly as attractive of a package. How about the Mountain West? or the MAC? Can we really conclude that because Alabama generates huge amounts of revenue that so does Ball State? That secretly Ball State has millions upon millions hidden away somewhere that they have been hiding from Athletes for years?
Beyond that, even if there is actual profit earned how does one calculate the individual value of each athlete? I think certainly one has to concede that some athletes produce a significant amount of revenue, but the vast majority produce minor amounts or none.
What we do know is that the Social Security Administration estimates that the median increase in lifetime earnings for a male with a Bachelor's degree is $900k. Let's take that number and add that to the cost of a full scholarship (we will use a very conservative estimate of $300k). That's $1.2 million.
You are asserting that all 105 members of a division 1 college football team create revenue of greater than $1.2 million? And not really just $1.2 million...actually a much larger number thats not remotely equivalent to that???
If you have any substantiated resource to back up that claim, I'd love to see it. Until then, I will call this statement utter hyperbole.
It is not hyperbole. The average P4 athletic department probably makes around $150MM of revenue, of which maybe 90% comes from football. The reason schools don't "make money" is because they are non-profits that are designed to spend everything they take in. The money goes to facilities and coaching salaries because schools decided that they did not want to spend that money on the players.
The revenue share figure ($20.5MM) was calculated because it approximates giving athletes half of what the department makes, in addition to the financial benefits they receive (scholarships primarily). Revenue sharing is completely optional. Ball State opted in like every FBS program because they decided they could afford to take out a portion of their $32MM revenue and give it to the players.
NFL practice squad players still get paid. The worst guy on the NBA team still gets paid. The value of each player is for the market to decide. There is no excuse not to pay your labor, and there is certainly no excuse to collude to prevent other organizations from paying their labor, as every Supreme Court justice on both sides of the political spectrum agreed.
Fair enough....let's take those figures and do some Math....
$20.5milllion/ 105 Football players --- $195k
Now let's add Men's Basketball, since I think we can all agree that those programs are largely profitable: 20.5/120 = $171k
The estimated COA for Virginia Tech is ~$40K/year In-state and ~$63K Out-of-State.
So, to get back to the original assertion that Athletes produce revenue that is far greater than the value of their scholarship....doesn't seem to quite compute.
Also, every NIL proponent talks about Revenue. Well Revenue and Profit are two completely different things. Lots of companies that generate large amounts of revenue go under every year because they ultimately aren't profitable.
Rivian generated $4.97 billion (with a B) in revenue in 2024.....their subsequent profit: -$1.2 Billion. Ouch.
We all know quite clearly that the Revenue sports pay for the Non-revenue sports to exist. Yet we act like there is some conspiracy to hide money from Athletes. More than likely, that money is being used to refurbish the bleachers at the Softball stadium or put up a New Videoboard in your multi-sport facility:
https://x.com/Jones_VT/status/1968813011507830988
The end result of this is clear and has been from the beginning. Non-rev sports are going to die for the sake of paying Football and Basketball players that want to transfer freely anytime and for any reason and now (apparently) expect to continue to get paid even after they stop competing.
Time to start cutting coaches salaries then you add about 20 people to your list and get around 150k per person whcih ever football and basketball coachmake more than.
But this is where schools are caught in a quandary in that it doesn't matter that zero female sports are profitable. By Title IX they have to have offsetting sports to 105 football players and 15 basketball players at a minimum. Not sure it's 1:1 either, believe it's in accordance with the school population. That helps VT if that's the case as student population is 57:43 male/female. Still means Hokies must have roughly 103 roster spots for women's sports. That is minimum 4 sports that have to be maintained if you pick the ones with largest rosters. (Soccer, Softball, Lacrosse and then WBB simply because it does bring in some revenue)
After that you can begin to have conversations on shuttering other programs. You get some overlap in maintenance between the two basketball programs, you could look at overlap of facilities for Soccer/Lacrosse and then you only have the softball field to maintain separately. Also would be curious to see what the ESPN contract specifically requires and what the return is by sport.
Have not seen any specifics on if football become employees, does it count against Title IX anymore? If they are employees are they still required to fake school? If they are employees can they switch employers at any time if the antitrust exception hasn't been granted by Congress that allows collective bargaining and contracts that are similar to professional athletes?
Oh....agreed and I think that is a big part of what is lost in this scenario.
Yes, P4 Football programs generally generate large amounts of Revenue, but a significant portion of that revenue then goes to (1) pay their own expenses, which are considerable (2) offset losses from many other sports programs and maintain facilities.
So if you really want players to "get their due," then, by default you also are advocating to eliminate opportunities for other athletes that work just as hard, are every bit as dedicated, and have every bit as much to offer the University.
My opinion is the ultimate outcome here is an eventual challenge to Title IX, probably by an SEC School, because, you know it "just means more" there.
Rivian's employees are still being paid in this scenario despite the company not being profitable.
Actually, that's like saying Amazon employees deserve all the profits of Amazon. This isn't remotely how capitalism works.
In capitalism, the owner gets the profits, and the workers get paid a competitive wage/benefits.
And we are seeing that the players weren't getting markey value and the system is correcting itself.
They aren't getting all the profits, they are getting half of the revenue generated just like they do in the pros.
Capitalism is not when you collude to restrict what workers can earn. The fact that players are being paid millions of dollars is proof that they have value — why do lacrosse and field hockey players not get paid?
They are getting compensated. It is called a free education.
i wouldn't confuse the profits that the team are making with the cost of tuition, room, board, and facilities. Hundreds of thousands of kids would gladly take the perks that these players are spitting on.
Why not? the only reason we aren't talking about these students getting those benefits is because they bring in profit. They are as valuable to the profits as the coaches are. I've watched a greater percentage of VT games coached by Pry and Fuente than Beamer (basically due to getting every game televised). But I've watched every game Fuente coaches and all of them Price coached and Pry and Montgomery. I will watch no matter whose coaches. Same with the athletes. I watch no matter what, because they play or coach or administrate or how ever some one contributes , I watch.
There is a reason WBB is more popular than WNBA, we watch for the logo on their uniform. Everyone has a part of bringing in the profit. So either it just goes to the logo or everyone should get a piece.
I know I watch because of my association with VT, not any individual player.
And that's also why every other fan I know watches - their association with that team/university.
Correct...I am not watching the Blacksburg Ballers ... I struggle to even watch the DC Defenders. If it wasnt the school affiliation I am not giving it my time, my money and then these guys would be hard pressed to find their way to Sundays.
I agree with you but I can't help but notice these were points DC made on here till he was blue in the face. They were rarely met with more than a shrug, and they were certainly never effectively refuted
Well I think we all know that College Education has no actual value.
You know, that's why almost every state has a pre-paid Tuition plan, 529 Funds exist, and SAT Tutors cost almost $100/hr these days.
The last 4 years expenses for VT was $450mil. There are 662 athletes at VT which is $720k spent per athlete for the last 4 years.
Now, coaching and administration is 41% of that budget. So 60% of 450m is 270m. You take out travel for games its down to about $250m, recruiting is another $10m so 240m. Another $5m for paying teams to play us and we are at $235m. That means what you listed costs more like $375k.
Now these numbers include uniforms and other stuff not listed. Another way to look at this is that the football budget is roughly 1/3 of the total budget. This means that it cost VT $300k for all sports not football. Subtracting 105 from 622 and you get 517 for all non football athletes which gets you cost per non football athlete is $580k for 4 years. But that includes everything like coaching, admin staff, game travel, recruiting, etc.
So the $375k number is probably still high but I would think its around the what an athlete is getting.
Out of that $375k, $200k is just tuition, fees, and room and board. So if you have an academic (full ride) scholarship then an athletic one is worth about $175k more, though typically academic scholarship comes with health insurance, and a stipend. And you can work and have summer jobs and you dont have any other obligations except get good grades. Maybe a banquet once a year. That difference can easily be made up and the academic scholarship rarely bring in money to the university.
I'm talking about the modern, post-collective post portal era. Since all these new rules have popped up, the universities have done everything possible to use it to their advantage - new coaches come in and clean house. Coaches and recruiters make promises, and then never follow through.
The situation is fucked right now. Players have no one to protect them. So I don't feel bad when these guy stand up for themselves the only way they can.
This is called capitalism.....
You think Walmart can't afford to pay their associates more than they do and still be massively profitable? McDonalds??
I'm sure your employer could spare some more to pay you and I know damn well mine could create a Benefits package that isn't so putrid that I have to drive to the next town to find an in-network Dentist to see my kids.
No one is in the business of giving away money but Universites should? Why?
They would if they had Agents. Which is how this should have been handled from the beginning. Allow players to profit off their autograph/appearances ect. and then let the truly marketable ones sign with agents. Have companies pay them thru endorsements rather than expecting the public to cough up money to NIL Collectives.
Also, while you point out guys like Rashada (who was probably done as much wrong by his overbearing dad as anyone else) but leave out guys like Kadyn Proctor who completely manipulated the NIL system and fucked over Iowa. So there have been bad actors on both sides.
Sure, and even in our capitalist economy, we have laws that prevent companies from using their market power to artificially limit wages. This is why the NCAA has been sued into oblivion.
I'm not suggesting the university give money away. But also, don't be upset when your labor leaves to pursue more money or better opportunities. That's capitalism.
But you're absolutely are bad actors on both sides. Hell, look at that DE in Pry's first class (Vernon something?).
But to extend the metaphor, don't quit and then expect your old employer to float you until you get a new job. That's absolutely ridiculous
I don't think anyone 'expects' universities to do this. The reality is that with universities doing everything possible to not call athletes employees, the whole enterprise is at best an economic gray area. The only way to get past the ambiguity is to test the system. And that's what these people are doing.
It sucks that VT is stuck in the middle.
Right...but at some point shouldn't common sense win out here?
Is there really "ambiguity" that once you no longer function for an organization you should still be compensated?
There's a difference between testing the system and filing bullshit lawsuits that you know will be paid out simply because it costs more to go to court than to just settle. This is the equivalent of ambulance chasing.
And let's get past the bullshit argument that Heitner put forward (player wanted to stay and practice for a year). The kid was 100% leaving VT and just wanted to have a feasible way to call himself part of the team and continue to get paid.
The thing with these BS lawsuits is so far they've pretty much all favored the player's interest so there's not really a reason to stop pushing.
Didn't Pavia win one because he was essentially not good enough to play in a league that had name image and likeness so he got his 89th year of eligibility because now he's good enough to? Like no one knew his name when he was in juco so how was he possibly entitled to that year or money. No one knows.
This is the real-world version of the Pavia argument:
Well, I know my son is 12 and technically should be moved up to Juniors Football, but he kind of sucked his first year in PeeWee so I don't think that should really count.
Now that he's more experienced than almost all the other kids, he's kicking ass in PeeWee. So I really think he should just get to stay there for a while...maybe forever. He'll just be sitting the bench in Juniors--or even worse, he might not make the team--so that's not really fair to him.
You would be told off and callled an asshole but in College Football somehow this "logic" seems reasonable.
Sir, this is America
Yes. Because the university refuses to acknowledge that they are paying kids to perform on Saturdays. Instead, the universities insist that the athletes play for fun, but are paid for their Name, image, and likeness.
We all know this is bullshit. The fans know it's bullshit, the schools know it's bullshit, and the players know it's bullshit.
But if the universities admitted they were compensating athletes for labor, then the athletes become employees. And universities don't want to do that. THEY are the ones perpetuating the legal loophole.
The university can end this problem at any time by just saying the players are employees. But they don't. So the expose themselves to legal risk. That's their decision. They must live with the risk and the consequences.
This is also not universally true...our laws currently allow companies to enact Non-compete clauses and restrictive covenants that absolutely depress wages and restrict workers to move freely.
Yea but they stuff is all codified. And lawyers challenge non-competes in court all the time, just like this guy.
But again, this feels like taking both sides of the argument:
Side 1: players should be compensated fairly and allowed to organize under a CBA or similar arrangement.
Side 2: well, since they aren't technically employees or an organized group, they should be able to do whatever they want, be compensated how they please and no restrictions or common sense practices should apply to them at all.
I just fail to see how..."well there's really no rules, so fuck it" approach is helpful to anyone. Again, the people that are really benefitting from this system are Lawyers, "NIL agents," and seedy business types like Ruiz at Miami that are playing both sides of system.
A few players are amassing significant amounts of income but the vast majority are probably getting only a modest amount of money, being led around from school to school by dipshit Business School Students functioning as "NIL agents"---have no true prospects of ever playing in the NFL and are getting no functional or useful education. Meanwhile the burden of supporting this system is falling upon the donors, fans, and taxpayers that support these schools.
I don't call this progress.
It is not helpful to anyone.
I'm just saying that the universities could eliminate the grey area at any time but admitting that the players are employees. And they choose over and over again NOT to do that.
One could make a very reasonable argument that College Football players are Interns as much as anything else.
Receiving free training, education, and support services to attempt to find employment in Professional Football. The "labor" they provide is required for them to ultimately have a chance to play NFL Football and reach their economic goals. The "showcase" the University provides in the form of College Football games also forms the basis of the film that will help NFL teams decide whether or how much they would like to compensate them. The costs associated with building, renovating, supplying and maintaining the facilities that train and showcase them are significant to the University. While their prospects of becoming a Professional Football Player are ultimately very slim, that isn't the University's responsibility.
The training they receive clearly has tangible economic value and the coaches that the University hires to train them also cost the University significant amounts of money. Furthermore, if a random non-college athlete decided they wanted to play in the NFL, they would have to pay out of pocket for Trainers for weight-training, football-specific training, film equipment, cleats, ect, ect. All of those things are provided gratis to a D1 CFB player.
In addition to their direct football-specific training they have the opportunity for a free education not related to football.
Again, I'm just having a hard time understanding how these guys are coming up on the short end in this situation.
A lot to unpack here...
Look, I'm not going to make a 'value' argument - your value is whatever someone is willing to pay you. If Tennessee will pay you $1m and VT will pay you $500k, it doesn't matter how much 'revenue' or 'value' you're theoretically responsible for generating: your value is $1m and you should go get that (if you want).
In the same vein - the university doesn't have to pay an athlete if they are asking too much. The Tennessee/Nico situation worked out perfectly.
My final thought here: Each of these individuals has to look out for their own interests because no one else is. There is no bargaining agreement, union, or even labor law to protect them. It's up to them to vet agents, lawyers, runners, etc. Contrast that against the university: Not only does each University have an entire infrastructure supporting them; they have banded together - again: in a way that US law says illegal - with the (historical) goal of limiting the options available to athletes.
I just can't fault these guys for looking out for their personal and financial interests when literally no other organization is there to help them.
I will never say that these guys are 'entitled' or 'deserving' of more money purely due to their athlete status or their skill. But as Americans, they have the right to pursue any options that are available to them under the laws of our country. In the majority of instances that I've seen, I don't think many of these guys are intentionally trying to hurt a university; rather (IMO) they're just looking out for themselves (because no one else is).
Beg to differ. The schools are absolutely looking out for them. Like someone previously mentioned, free education, use of facilities, trainers, coaches, doctors and countless other resources in order to be the best student-athlete they can be, with the goal of playing on Sundays.
Yeah I agree here. And to top it all off with, some of these guys want to voluntarily opt out the rest of the season to preserve a redshirt and transfer, AND still get paid the rest of their NIL deal too? Can't have your cake and eat it too. If I'm an independent contractor and I quit a job for my client a quarter of the way in it, they are not obligated to pay me the remainder of my contract beyond my partial performance. No clue how these NIL deals are structured or if there are guarantees to keep this compliant with the "no pay for play" component, which is a farce really. Just think the whole structure is really stupid.
But the universities can. That's my problem.
Schools will drop a player the minute it no longer serves them. Weather it's due to injury, coaching change, performance, or personality.
The schools have zero loyalty to players. Why should players have loyalty to a school?
Darwinism exists in everyday life in a wide range of ways. However, a lot of schools still honor the scholarship to players that have to medically retire or have to give up football due to a hardship.
Again, the Schools provide the means for these players to have any chance at being Professional Football players. They do it at significant cost to the University and without any requirements for future repayment.
The next Football player to make it to the NFL by filming himself in his backyard Uncle Rico style will be the first one.
There is huge potential economic value to what the schools provide beyond that opportunity at a Free Education that we have clearly now tossed to the side again and again.
Would it be fair for schools to say...if you sign an NIL contract with us, then you owe us 10% of any future revenue made playing football??
My point isn't (and has never been) that players don't deserve any compensation. But they want to continue to operate is this economic fantasy world where they get paid but have zero accountability or restriction in how they are compensated. No one in America functions like that.
You say they don't have anyone looking out for them---I say they have the wrong people looking out for them---Darren Heitner, John Ruiz, and fly-by-night NIL Agents are who they've chosen. They certainly could Organize, but as ltrepeter correctly pointed out above, its not the schools that don't want to have employees, its the athletes that don't want to have any regulation on how they come and go. They'd rather have guys like this paying them:
https://frontofficesports.com/miami-nil-king-john-ruiz-lifewallet/
It is not a sustainable system, that may be the one thing we agree upon. It will collapse and IMO it will end poorly for the players. There are few if any schools that truly have profits to continue to fund the current status quo and the public at-large is fed up with NIL. That will only continue to erode as more and more assholes like Heitner get involved and more players like Pavia are filing increasingly ridiculous lawsuits to extend eligibility into their late 20's.
A good rule in life: if the epicenter of any system originates in Dade County, FL....you should not walk, but fucking sprint away.
But the universities - again, by failing to comply with us antitrust/labor law for decades - have created this 'economic fantasy land'
Because everyone else in America admits that their labor is... labor. And obeys the law on land. Or gets sued lol.
The "labor" is a de-facto requirement to make it to the NFL.
You have no chance whatsoever to advance to play professional football without producing that "labor" and demonstrating the ability to play football at that level.
You cannot do that on your own. The Univerisity which provides you with the training, opportunity, facilities, and eventually gamefilm to do so deserves the ability to create revenue based off of that.
Here's a real world example---Physicians during Residency and Fellowship. They make paltry salaries during this time period, yet are seeing patients or performing procedures that make tremendous amounts of profit for Healthcare systems. But this is necessary because you can't come out at 22 y/o and just call yourself an Orthopedic Surgeon.
Do they get to say...well "I deserve revenue-sharing because I make the hospital money." Also, I'd like to just go over to Mass General for a few months, make some money over there, then maybe I will come back. Also, if you could get together a few of the Hospital donors and have them cut me a nice check for showing up, that would be cool.
Much like a football player, without the requisite amount of training, a Physician has no opportunity for long-term economic gain. The difference is Physicians don't also get their medical school tuition paid off on the side too.
Wish I could plaid this analogy...
Agree with your points.
Though to be fair, some of these same debates are happening in that world as well. There has been a growing challenge to the whole GME system over the past 10 years as being exploitative and anti-competitive for housestaff. More hospital housestaff are unionizing, though not sure how much has been gained. And certain specialties are dropping out of the Match.
The residency analogy is irrelevant because there's not millions of fans willing to cumulatively pay billions for bragging rights.
It's a bit over simplistic, but at the end of the day, my view basically boils down to 'don't hate the player, hate the game' while recognizing that universities (and other stakeholders who care only about profits) have controlled the game for 99% of this sport's history.
There are millions of people that require Healthcare and only a select qualified few who have the requisite skills to provide it. The 2024 U.S. Healthcare budget was $5.3 Trillion which dwarfs the amount of money spent on recreational, college, and pro sports.
Then we can talk about medical cosmetics (Botox and the like) which are completely voluntary procedures which there are absolutely millions willing to pay for ---generally out of pocket as they are not covered by Insurance. They are collectively paying Billions in their disposable income to have Crows feet disappear for 90 days or so, among other procedures.
The only part that is irrelevant is that it doesn't fit the narrative you are weaving.
No one is willing to pay a resident $1m (in addition to all other costs) to come practice/train at their facility. People are willing to pay $1m for a college football player (who by your definition is just an intern or trainee or whatever) to play for their favorite college team, so their favorite college team wins, thus allowing them to brag to their coworkers, friends, etc.
That is the key difference between residents and college football players.
If you want the economic fantasy land to shut down, then don't go after the players. They just play by the rules that our government, our universities, and their respective boosters have put together.
There absolutely is competition for Top Medical Students, particularly in Surgical Specialties, but it is not purely monetary, mostly due to the fact that the funds used to pay for them are Government controlled and set. If not, there would definitely be bidding wars at least for certain specialties.
More to the point, there is clear economic value to someone in training being able to have "Trained at Beth Israel" on their C.V. Much like there is demonstrable economic value to having trained playing Football at a Blue Blood program like Alabama or Ohio State.
But I have a huge problem with the approach that....well the NCAA sucks, so we should just not even try to have a framework and let unsavory people like Heitner, Ruiz, et al. be the ones who set the precedent---because guess what....once there is no more money to skim from the System, those guys are gonna disappear and move onto the next scam. And we should suspend any level of logic or rationale and let players extend their eligibility indefinitely based on arguments that are patently ridiculous.
I vehemently disagree with those that support chaos as a solution to the NCAA having been a unique combination of inept and overbearing.
Let's say it is legally possible for a university to declare the players employees without significant other entanglements, it would make these guys ineligible to play other amateur sports.
For all these guys that have no professional sports aspirations, they'd never be able to participate in non-pro leagues ever again, amount other things.
Sure. Look, this thing is a lose/lose for everyone. The current situation is untenable. The only way out is an antitrust exemption, and for that to happen, the ncaa will have to give up a lot.
You will notice though that the only lawsuit that has been brought to try to bring this change was by Dartmouth College basketball team and they won but later failed to form an actual union.
The players aren't suing to be employees because then it would put structure on the Wild West and they want structure less than the schools. It might derail the money train because as employees they could be fired but unless as employees there are non-compete provisions they could jump from team to team because school would no longer be a requirement.
Agreed, the chaos is perfect for them because it allows them to make any argument they want.
And for people to say...sure, it makes tons of sense that you are 27 years-old and want to take a Redshirt year while still getting paid to transfer to your 6th school.
Also to consider, any College Football Player Union would around 8-10x as large as the NFLPA and we have seen how incredibly well-run and streamlined the NFLPA is recently.
Darian Varner
You must love this new landscape of college football. I do hope you're donating a few mil to Triumph.
I will beat this drum:
Talent is more evenly distributed than it has been in a decade. Thats due to NIL: Nick saban/kirby can no longer hide 4-stars in their third string.
The problem is that - due to conference realignment and the consolidation of bluebloods in two conferences - the talent is distributed across more teams in less conferences.
Undo conference realignment, and the sport is instantly dramatically improved. Roll back NIL and I'd argue the sport gets worse. You'll go back to all the talent being consolidated on 5 teams.
.
The fans are being asked to pay part of the tab.
I agree on conference realignment. These leagues are too big. It leads to unbalanced schedules and "easier" paths to the playoffs. Not to mention going years without games against conference opponents. The fact that multiple schools have scheduled games against conference opponents as non conference games demonstrates how stupid all of this is.
I mean, with all these guys being "disgruntled" with the coaching change, you'd think they would have played harder for Pry. The way we played against Vandy (2H) and ODU, I'm not really missing any of them.
This right here. We can play the rest of the season with cadets for all I care.
Where's Kalvin Cline when you need him?
Posting crap on Hokies Facebook Groups
i'm missing the reference here. This guy?
Old player who tried to do the corps too
Past player, not old player he was traditional college age when he played, got to be careful in this day and age.
Yeah meant old as in not new as in the past not the present
https://hokiesports.com/sports/football/roster/player/kalvin-cline-2
Former Hokies Tight End that posts a ton of stuff now in Hokies fan pages on Facebook.
Has fashioned himself a guy that assists high schoolers looking to get a sports scholarship but don't know how. Has a website called Full Ride U or something.
Yes. They could've always tried winning some fucking football games
The DL played pretty well last night
The bottom line on djonkum and burgos, did we miss them? I surely didn't. Bye, next man up. I love Montgomery, he knows how to coach. He should be commended for a fine performance by the team and him. If you aren't on the bus, you missed the bus. Stay home
This is the way.
The athletes will look out for their own interests, and that's perfectly okay.
Thank you for service, we'll take it from here.
Bye Felicia
Wonder if any of them want to change their minds now... But you really burn bridges when you talk to lawyers...
Read this as them being bitter, not written by Andy Bitter lol