Recent Comments

Egbert's picture Egbert
BEER
| 9 months 3 weeks # | NIL lawyer goes on the attack against VT over redshirts

And if a player DOES redshirt with the team's approval, shouldn't the NIL be reduced?

I think this can negotiated, from the team standpoint to include assurances the player will return for future seasons.

HokieinFLA's picture HokieinFLA
| 9 months 3 weeks # | Bitter: Sr DL James Djonkam and FR DL Keyshawn Burgos are no longer with the football team

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.

theMattBoard's picture theMattBoard
.COM
| 9 months 3 weeks # | Virginia Tech at North Carolina State Game Time, TV Info, and Open Thread

If we only win these two games: Thank you. You made something out of nothing.

If he gets us a bowl game: Thank you, that was amazing! You're going to do great wherever you get hired.

If he gets us to the ACC Championship: Wow, what a turnaround, you're in the conversation for sure.

If he gets us to the playoff: Top of the pile. The next guy better be Nick Saban working for free or something

If he wins the playoff: build the statue.

HokieinFLA's picture HokieinFLA
| 9 months 3 weeks # | Bitter: Sr DL James Djonkam and FR DL Keyshawn Burgos are no longer with the football team

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.

SheltonMoss21's picture SheltonMoss21
| 9 months 3 weeks # | Bitter: Sr DL James Djonkam and FR DL Keyshawn Burgos are no longer with the football team

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.

HokieinFLA's picture HokieinFLA
| 9 months 3 weeks # | NIL lawyer goes on the attack against VT over redshirts

Yep, complete bullshit.

Because saying..."hey this guy really wants out of VT, but also wants to keep getting paid til January while not playing" doesn't evoke public sympathy and pull on the heartstrings like---this massive, monolithic University is unilaterally forcing my client out.

bar1990's picture bar1990
ATLIEN
| 9 months 3 weeks # | Bitter: Sr DL James Djonkam and FR DL Keyshawn Burgos are no longer with the football team

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.

But the universities - again, by failing to comply with us antitrust/labor law for decades - have created this 'economic fantasy land'

No one in America functions like that.

Because everyone else in America admits that their labor is... labor. And obeys the law on land. Or gets sued lol.

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