Well this should get a lot of airtime today
NCAA group supports player endorsement plan
The NCAA's top governing body said Wednesday that it supports a proposal to allow college athletes to sign endorsement contracts and receive payments for other work, provided that the schools they attend are not involved in any of the payments.
Hearty LOL on the bolded.
The NCAA's press release said athletes will be allowed to appear in advertisements and can reference their sport and school, but they would not be able to use any of the school's logos or branding in those advertisements.
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The working group's recommendations are not guaranteed to remain the same in the nine months before NCAA leaders are expected to vote on new rules, but they would represent the most significant step forward to date in a long debate over college athlete compensation. It is a process that college administrators, critics, athletes and NCAA officials have said took too long to catch up to the modern reality of college sports. The NCAA gradually relaxed limits on what schools were allowed to provide to their athletes in response to civil lawsuits during the previous decade. The large name, image and likeness push in the past year was prompted by politicians who have created state laws challenging the NCAA's current rules.
I mean, we all knew this was coming. But the flood gates just opened. I want to say that this won't get out of hand and companies that are totally not affiliated with a school or a booster of a school won't just start seriously overpaying kids to speak on a 20 second commercial as a not so subtle bag man fee that is now legal, but shit who am I kidding, that's absolutely going to happen.
Then again, its already happening now, so at least it'll be up front instead of under the table.
And before you ask....
SportingNews: 'NCAA Football' video game made unlikely by NIL recommendation
Student-athletes would not be able to reference trademarks or other intellectual property from the school they attend in any endorsement or sponsorship under the proposal. That could keep "NCAA Football" from being released in the future due to the prevalent use of school logos, uniforms and other properties in the title. Plus, the lack of a player union makes group licensing unfeasible, the NCAA said in a news conference Wednesday.
....
"Right now, group licensing is not a part of the plan," Cavale told Sporting News. "That would prevent the video game concept from coming back."
Comments
Rich are gonna get richer with this, how many car dealerships around bama and lsu?🤔
While those schools will have large payments clearly look for places like Houston, UCF, USF, anOSU, UCLA, USC will see a lot too. They don't need a single business to pay them a massive fee when they have so many business that can pay more modest fees but there are ALOT more of them.
LSU players were already getting cars...have been forever.
Get ready for lots of ads with plain jerseys in the school colors
I mean, for football, that shouldn't really be too difficult. Outside of the logo on the collar, for the most part, they're all devoid of logos or branding.
before y'all get your hopes up:
How hard would it be to as every Div 1 football player and every Div 1 basketball player if they would be willing to have their likeness used in a video game and if a free copy of said video game, with them on the cover, would be acceptable compensation on their part?
And yes, I said every basketball player. Even the women. It works in FIFA, it can work in March Madness.
There's also the problem about money.....
Just because they can be paid doesn't mean they have to be. If the game wouldn't be made if they had to pay, maybe the athletes would want the game to be made with them in it for more exposure beyond their school's market, which might, in turn, increase the value of other endorsements?
counterpoint: EA wants to pay the players and thinks they'll make more money if they could actually use their names:
If this were true then Madden wouldn't exist. Am I missing something?
With Madden they have to pay the NFLPA. With this, they'd have to negotiate and pay each player independently. And they'd have to do that process annually.
Meh... pretty easy to solve. Set a standard fee. Players can choose to sign and get paid or not. You'll get most everyone.
Exactly. What player doesn't want to be on the video game. Kids would gladly take $200 a year to be on the game IMO. Some of these guys will end up in madden but the vast majority won't and this is another thing young men can tell their kids. I was in a video game, lets play it.
You can have an agent, but not a sports agent...lolololololol
Isn't the licensing for video games a two part deal anyway? For EA Sports to create Madden, they have to license the team information from the NFL and the player info from the NFLPA. So if the players didn't want to be part of it anymore, EA could just use the NFL part of the license to create a game with all 32 teams, but completely made up players. Granted, that's what the NCAA game was anyway....
Just trying to understand the deals...
From my understanding, yes - but the college players do not have their version of a players association/union.
EA tried to get around this by using generic names, but the courts ruled that using the likeness (physical appearance, stats, etc.) was enough to constitute a violation and I am guessing EA then decided it wouldn't be worth it/people wouldn't buy the games if they couldn't let people play as Cam Newton (or QB1), etc.
There was this announcement back in October - but I have not seen any updates since then. My money is that the NCAA is still stalling to prevent any type of unionization of their players, which could then lead them to be legally treated as employees.
I guess they'll need to unionize, then. Someone call Northwestern.
We are getting closer and closer to the end of amateur collegiate athletics as we know it. The sport's success will ultimately lead to its demise as we inch nearer to a minor professional league.
I see what you're saying, but since the playoffs inception we've seen about 8 teams total, with 5 of them multiple times and 3 one offs. Plus with the NFL draft this past weekend, those same schools accounted for basically 25% of all picks. I feel like college sports, especially football, has been a glorified minor league for awhile now.
Elite athletes are flocking to those schools regardless of the rules.
And like I said in the OP, payments are already happening anyway. The big change this will cause is making those payments public and not under the table anymore. I don't really think this is going to change anything other than having a much clearer picture on why some schools dominate in recruiting.
Put it this way, I fully expect to get inundated with advertising in this area from kids on the UNC football and basketball team in the very near future.
TBH what we have now is seemingly worse than a managed "minor league" There are plenty of schools not abiding by rules or continuously treading in gray areas that shift the balance of competition to the top 5-10 schools. Managing a true spending cap would IMO (honestly haven't thought deeply about this) on the surface make competition slightly more even in the long run. Obviously this would take a complete overhaul and you'd have to make the jump to paying athletes which would be 'unfair' to other sports and athletes. There's so much money in football its to the point that you would think managing the money rather than trying (and failing) to eliminate it would be a better solution. The NCAA would have no part of this though so I doubt it comes to this anytime soon.
They said this when a coach took a salary, they said this when players got scholarships, they said it when Olympic athletes could have endorsements.
Nobody said this when coaches got salaries. Nobody
You need to go watch the ESPN College documentary they had. College professors, politicians and colleges who didn't think coaches should be paid were outraged when people like Yost and Stagg and Warner started getting paid real salaries.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Public_Opinion.html?id=badDAQAAMAAJ
When everyone except the players are making money, it's not amateur sports.
If you really long for the days of amateur sports, have professors volunteer to coach, etc.
It's been a big business for 40+ years and the unpaid labor is figuring out their worth.
I hope the unpaid labor doesn't take out too many loans. Greg Stroman's autograph line at tech bookstore was 3 people for a 15 dollar autograph. He was a 3 year starter. I hope Hendon Hooker is not baking on huge endorsement money. And the only people that call this unpaid labor are people that have never paid college tuition, room, and board.
Well, I paid for my tuition, room and board at VT and still feel the way I feel, so speak for yourself and not in condescending generalities.
Good for you. You fully understand that the labor is paid then. Good. They get a monthly pay as well. The argument is not that they don't get paid. They don't get paid enough in your eyes. Two different arguments.
I don't see a scholarship as payment. For example, I had a partial scholarship to VT based on my high school achievements and test scores. I was not required to do anything extracurricular at VT to keep it.
When I took a leadership position at the CT, I was paid for my efforts because the paper made money. The reason the paper made money was because we had solid circulation numbers based on the content I and my colleagues produced.
Is a scholarship compensation - yes. But to act like the players aren't worth anything else while coaches make $1M plus at every ACC school is ludicrous.
Also, your example of an autograph line is a bad one. Autographs have no real value. What if Shelor Motor Mile could have paid Tyrod Taylor to appear in their commercials while he was the face of VT football? I think he'd get more than $15 per appearance.
Coaches compensation has nothing to do with whether or not a scholarship is compensation. Are coaches overpaid? maybe, but they can be overpaid, and the players can also get 200K scholarships and monthly stipends. Both can be true. The players are compensated. The argument always boils down to if they should be paid MORE. I'd argue no, in most cases considering the benefits they do get. I think the majority of VT football and hoops fans root for the front of the jersey vs. the back. Lane was sold out when Grant Noel was QB, the same as it was for Tyrod.
So since scholarships are "paying" players and they shouldn't be allowed to get outside payment should the same apply to academic and other scholarships? Should schools that offer music scholarships not allow those musicians to make money outside school?
Well since by definition scholarship academics have to maintain a (very high ) GPA to maintain said scholarship and there are no amateurism rules around sitting in a chem lab - because you don't need them- this comparison doesn't hold water. Also the fact that the next Bill Gates can leave VT at any time and go "pro" without restriction makes the comparison invalid as well. If you blow up the amateurism rules, there is no competitive balance and no academic integrity in sports. Would you buy VT season tickets if none of the players attended VT? They just lived near the school and played football for money? Serious question. It's a false comparison for many reasons. The GT debate team making more money on the side than the VT debate team likely is not going to skew the results much, and they don't draw fans expecting some integrity in the results. Sports is a different animal. I do fully support anyone age 15 and above being able to "go pro" in any sport though. I seriously do. If that were the rule, we wouldn't need any of these new rules. If Hendon Hooker has market value, turn pro- done. They can pay him. Let David Wilson go to the NFL right after 10th grade if they will pay him. Then you can't blame VT for capping his compensation in any way.
If players aren't worth more, than why have boosters been paying them under the table for decades?
To cheat. Simple. If Auburn is not paying him, I'll pay him - insert Harvey Updyke loser here. Anything to win. Watch the Eric Dickerson documentary. The only way he was going to SMU was if they paid him. Why is he valuable to an SMU booster? Because they suck and can't compete with Texas fairly. So they pay players.
Right...so they have value. Hence the payment
that's not value. that's speculation. taking a punt at something having greater future value, but boosters don't care about the player they care about the value add to the program. big difference.
On the black market sure. Let's see the value on the open market -i.e. I don't think Shelor motors is going to pay Devon Hunter what Clemson would have paid him to sign there. All due respect.
A) That's not relevant to the conversation.
B) Nobody was packing the seats to watch Grant Noel throw as many completions to the opponent as to his teammates, they were there to watch The Untouchables and Bud's bad-ass defense.
Fair point, fair point
The labor is absolutely paid. I think there will be a lot of young kids that will find out their "fame" isnt worth as much as they may think. Others will figure out ways to take advantage. But, there is only so much money out there. If the schools direct more directly to the players, something else will have to suffer. Remember that the profitable sports are funding the unprofitable ones too.
The labor is compensated, albeit unfairly, but the amateur coaches said they should get paid, and the did. Then the fought pay scales in the 80s because they should get fair market value. Well compensation is different for each school. Northwestern cost a lot more than VT, so those athletes are better compensated. And what about schools like Stanford, that is a top school in the nation so one could argue that a degree from there is worth more than say one from NC State or Clemson.
To me, it's not amateur sports if any one on the team gets paid wages. So college athletics isnt amatuer.
Professors don't teach for free at VT. Why should Fuente work for free? And if you want to truly address the fairness in pay, etc. then treat them like professionals. Let them unionize, let coaches cut them from the team mid week, let them seek trades. let them pay taxes on football income. You can't have a hybrid model where the QB has an agent, and makes 200K per season, and the women's volleyball player makes nothing. This latest resolution is a compromise - nothing more. So Hendon Hooker can appear on a BW3 commercial in blaskburg and make some cash. Fine. If they go all in with the "pro" stuff, a lot of fans will leave the sport. Those players are there- regardless the TV and ticket money to get an education from VT primarily. They aren't there to play football only. When you start talking about agents, straight pay for play, etc. They are not there to go to school any longer.
I am curious to know what actual marketing value an average player will have if everything VT is stripped from the promotion.
Secondly, I am curious as to how much it is abused just to essentially be a legal bag man.
Either way, I think the money gets largely diluted. I don't think the athletes have enough time to treat it as a volume business. I guess we will see.
I, like you, think that college fans are about the name on the front of the jersey.
I think when it all shakes down, the conversation will turn to - "well yeah the players can do car dealer ads, but the NCAA just signed an extension with CBS for the tourney, so why can't the players get a % of that in cash" That's the next phase. I say this because, in the age of social media, word will get out how much these guys are getting paid to pitch the local waffle house and it won't be much. So it will still be labeled "unfair". This new rule won't bridge the gap between Fuente making 4 mil and Hendon playing for his scholly that much, IMO.
The idea behind it, let them capitalize on the value of their image is a sound one. I can absolutely get behind that. I suspect that it's not as much as a lot of people assume. I also suppose we're not going to find out what the actual 'value' of the image is, because this is 800% going to be a front for bagman behavior.
Maybe it's not on the glossy recruiting shit and saban doesn't say it, but you know the Alabama host is going to know what he and all his homies are getting paid for 'advertising' in Tuscaloosa and probably be able to compare it to those poors in Auburn/Starkville/College Station/Tallahassee.
This is not going to improve Hokie recruiting.
Those schools already get the best recruits. It's not those schools we have to worry about, total recruit limits are still in place.
Absolutely. I was calling out the ones that get a lot of heat for bagman shit already because it was easy and I'm supposed to be working.
Literally every school in a bigger metro area is going to be a problem. The same attitude and culture that got SMU the death penalty is more than likely still lurking under the surface, but now shit's legal. The whole state of Texas (including it's hat and Louisiana) is going to turn into a total shitshow nuclear arms race. Everywhere that wants to or thinks they can buy some prestige and credibility is going to be all over this.
Curious if the money that these local tycoons are going to throw at players will decrease their contributions to the actual university? Whole thing is going to be fascinating.
But a business also has to account on their taxes where the money goes. What stockholders are going to approve a massive increase in PR and advertising budget for say an oil company for such small return?
Sure for public companies with stockholders. But JimBeaux's Crawdad and Okra Emporium with one owner and 5846548 pieces of Local State U flair on the walls can do whatever that owner wants with the 'marketing' budget.
We're not going to be bidding against Exxon and Sunoco, it's going to be 'small' local businesses. The same people that are bagmanning now will just be able to find a way to do it 'legally'.
I find myself agreeing with DC here. It's an unsettling feeling. I had to work my ass through school and accumulate debt doing it. I would have gladly played a sport instead. A good friend of mine ran track for High Point and got burnt out on running after her sophomore year. Her parents sat her down and said, "you can quit if you want, but here's how much you need to scrape together to pay for what that scholarship is covering." She finished out her four years on the team and is enjoying a school debt free existence post graduation.
That said, just because you want to pay players doesn't mean you never had to pay for school.
Agree, I have always argued what is being ignored here is the value of a College degree, not in the short-term, but over a Lifetime.
Sure, you might get $30k in college to be in ads for the local car dealership, restaurant chain, ect. but how long is that money going to last? And how smartly is it going to be spent? 18-22 year-olds don't exactly have a reputation of being shrewd financial planners.
The numbers still say that less than 2% of CFB players will ever play professionally and of that only a very small fraction of that 2% will make enough money to have long-term financial security or consider football a career.
So you're 27, out of the NFL, long since blew through your college football endorsement money....what have we really achieved here?
My feeling has been a much more rational idea would be to force colleges to honor athletic scholarships for an extended period of time --something along the lines of having 6 years to finish a 4 year degree. This would allow the 98% that never play professionally time to complete a degree that isn't an "Athlete Degree" --i.e. in a field or area that has more economic value. At VT for example, we have had a few athletes try to obtain Engineering Degrees, but this is a rarity as the time demands of Athletics does not balance well with the time demands of Engineering School.
I am not saying that all of a sudden, every VT athlete is going to have a B.E., but it would certainly give interested athletes the option to seek a degree of their choice, which they simply may not have the realistic time for when engaged in Athletics as well. To me this, certainly has more economic value that getting a couple of grand for endorsing "Rusty's Shrimp Shack."
Time to make sure we are following players social media accounts.
I need more explanation
There is already an established market for people and their social media audience. This chart shows what that player is worth in terms of his social media following. For example Hooker has about 8K on twitter. A company could pay him to say "after practice I recover by using XYC product" based on his reach he would get paid.
But who made the chart? Seems oversimplified to me.
OpenDorse made the chart
Social media influencing is a whole market nowadays and there's monetization established that scales with followers and engagement. OpenDorse specializes in monetizing social media for athletes
I mean this should be easy to deal with. Players get paid in proportion to their burn rate in the game.
You got Reggie Bush in NCAAF? You play him every play. His burn rate is 100%. Everyone else's is either the same or lower. Proportion it out and you get a number based on backend usage instead of projected value.
Starting OL would get rich.
98% of athletes get more than their worth when it comes to sports scholarships.
Doesn't mean some of them won't make more money on the side now, but a lot of them are about to find out it's really just a side hustle, like any other college student, rather then them actually capitalizing on their "brand".
And? If they make 10 dollars that's 10 dollars they didn't make before.
Oh I agree, good for them. I just don't get those 98% athletes complaining when in reality they are worth less than they are already "making."
The 2% have a gripe that the NCAA is taking advantage of them, but the rest of them are getting more than they'd get in a free market system, so they shouldn't complain either way.
If that were truly the case, there would be a lot fewer athletes being given full scholarships.
A reason the 98% have scholarships is factors within and outside of the NCAA's control mandating that the Tim Tebow's, Zion Williamson's, Katie Ledecky's, and
Sabrina Ionescu's are getting the same "compensation" as everyone else.
If you look at most sports leagues, both major and minor, salaries are dictated by how much money your sport/team brings in, and what your perceived contribution is to the money that comes in.
Obviously this is assuming there isn't a salary cap etc. In a kind if related note, it's crazy that LeBron is making basically what MJ made in 97-98 before adjusting for inflation, where MJ blows him out of the water.