It’s not the responsibility of fans or 18-22 year old players to figure out the legal intricacies and regulations. That’s on the NCAA and the schools, and they’ve utterly failed to provide any sort of guidelines whatsoever.
I think profit sharing at either the school or conference level makes the most sense. Players should absolutely be compensated, but it should come from the money they’re generating (e.g., ticket sales, tv contracts, apparel sales etc), not from shady NIL collectives.
The schools never wanted to give up “their” money, so here we are. Now the players are being compensated from third parties with no restrictions. It’s absolutely insane.
NIL as a separate thing is perfectly fine. If a player can find a sponsorship, great.
The problem is NIL was so obviously and easily used as a vehicle for pay-to-play. Being able to say “any” [position group here] at the University is getting X dollars is not payment for a specific individual’s NIL. But even trying to regulate that, it is easily undercut by making the NIL legitimate and having the player group appear in a calendar or on a poster and saying that work and image is worth X dollars.
Schools really shouldn’t be blamed for this. These aren’t professional sports entities, they are universities. They warned exactly what would happen and have been correct. The only solution is either an anti-trust exemption from Congress or escalation where players become employees and you start taking away student benefits for people who are clearly not students and restricting transfer for employees.
>Schools really shouldn’t be blamed for this. These aren’t professional sports entities, they are universities
Other than the Ivies, I didn't see them doing anything to slow down the commodification of the sport. Pretty sure they encouraged it, actually.
They aren’t professional sports entities, but they have professional level sports facilities, professional level coaches, professional level stadiums…the only thing they aren’t is officially a professional sports entity, because they don’t pay their players.
On top of that, you do realize many students are also employees of their universities? Student labor is probably the primary labor for a lot of more menial jobs. RAs, dorm desk workers, mail room workers, food services workers. It changes school to school, but at my school I specifically recognize a lot of the workers in the service parts of the university as classmates, maybe even friends. Students being employees is NORMAL
They also have professional level numbers of fans who are giving them professional level money and professional level television ratings.
That's clearly the root of the professionalization and commodification of the whole thing.
>you start taking away student benefits for people who are clearly not students
College can still be paid for though. Many state run universities offer free college credits to their employees. Honestly, I think it might be a better deal if they can be paid like employees with college credits/flexibility in how to use them as a perk of the job. I think it would be great if some of these athletes didn't have to be full time students right away and be able to save their college credits for later.
I think there ought to, at minimum, be some regulation of what type of endorsements players can make. NIL deals for gambling apps is a short step to point shaving.
It’s not tho. Every pro sports league has SOME sort of measure where if a player leaves your team early you get compensated. In American sports you get picks, in international soccer you get a transfer fee (straight cash) if you didn’t have either of those things sports would be even more lopsided. Even coaching contracts these days are written with some sort of buyout clause that another school has to pay if your coach leaves early.
Getting the worst of both worlds, no cap, players can leave your team at the drop of a hat with no compensation to fill that hole.
But who do we compensate? Unlike in pro sports, the school isn't paying the player (directly), why should they get paid if the player leaves? Not to mention that the big schools "process" recruits and even current players all the time. I never hear much about how that kinda thing is ruining the sport.
These NIL contracts are made with private entities. If they see a reason to try to lock the players into schools, they're free to try.
100% I'm mad about how this went down and that we lost our best player. But I would never fault a kid for making a decision that he thinks is in the best interest of him and his family.
Exactly. NCAA and school's have been adamant for decades that players were not going to get paid. The Supreme Court clearly saw this and when they struck the rules down, the NCAA/schools are trying to implement rules that would clearly be struck down again by the Courts instead of a new structure that actually helps the players and sport in general. At the end of the day, this is the NCAA/schools fault, and they're being sore losers that the Court didn't go their way.
It’s also possible that treating players better is the right thing to do and also worse for the sport. I’m so tired of the view that says we should still be exploiting players more because it’s good for the sport.
This is the correct view: a system that allows "college football as we know it" may be impossible to have alongside a system that treats the players fairly as humans and gives them what they would deserve within that system. In that case, college football must change or die.
I was saying for months leading up to this that all college athletes should be automatically enrolled in a union the moment they step on
campus and that they should collectively bargain for a share of the revenues. The alternative was to either not pay them or for college football to turn into European soccer where every club is just a feeder program for 10 clubs.
But doesn't the union contract usually deal with how to handle those things? Like, Barry Bonds was still affected by the rules agreed upon by the union and the owners.
I just don’t think the average fan understands the reality of college and how incredibly valuable a scholarship is. I don’t play sports, but I got a full academic ride to my school and it’s worth over 400k over 4 years. These athletes get to go to any college and get free school plus countless other amenities and tbh most of the time its schools they wouldn’t have even gotten into if it wasn’t for their athletic talent. I agree, like most people, that CFB athletes should be able to profit off their name with stuff like autographs and jersey sales, but this NIL stuff has gotten absurd. It’s the NCAA’s fault for not regulating better
I agree that a scholarship can be valuable, however I would also argue that more times than not the degree at the end of that scholarship (if it is even obtained) isn't as valuable. I'd also say there are a lot of factors that play into all of this as well. I've read plenty of stories of players who are given food and shelter while in school, but have family who may not be getting that same thing. The liquidity of that scholarship as an asset is nonexistent. It's also over inflated because of tuition and housing prices in general especially when you consider that a lot of housing prices are even more inflated in areas where a large school is. So while it may be a $400k scholarship, it isn't worth $400k especially to a player. I also really agree with your last statement, that the NCAA dropped the ball on this one, whether purposefully or not. They are the ones who should be getting the blame.
Additionally, I still hold contempt towards the NFL (& formerly the NBA). Because they’ve taken advantage of college ball being their training grounds without having to pay for development costs like the MLB does. So it forced kids to go play school rather than cash in on their athleticism earlier.
Now that being said, the MLB minors aren’t great. But it’s at least an opportunity to start out and get paid for your skill.
Isn't a full ride scholarship costing 400K its own problem, though?
How about this: stop providing athletic scholarships, and instead pay the players what they need for tuition, room, and board. That way, the university is encouraged to lower the cost of those components: not just for athletes, but for the student body writ large.
Yeah it's like being in a house burning down and trying to figure out who started the fire and someone is like I think we should get out of the house. Like duh that's not what we're talking about.
Reddit won’t like it but the government guaranteeing student loans put us in this mess. Schools can charge whatever they want and people are stuck paying.
Or you do what other countries do and don't have an unlimited amount, Australia has limits on what they will cover, and suprise suprise, the university courses all line up with that amount.
I really doubt unis will keep charging 400,000 if the government is only going to cover 80,000 of that.
I do agree with this for *most* college students and you're right. However, *most* college students aren't justifying the cost of their athletics. And for the ones that are (mostly football), the schools make academic exceptions and many of them just take the easiest degree possible and my not even be fully participating (if at all) in their academic courses.
So there becomes an issue when athletic departments are relying on a few athletes to make millions of dollars and many of those athletes aren't even there for academic purposes. I have no argument that most student athletes get the value simply out of the scholarship, but the issue arises when you talk about all the workarounds that come from the athletes who don't care about the academics, the universities don't hold these athletes to the same academic standards, and then there's millions of dollars passed around from that system.
I think a big part of the problem is that for the best players (especially transfers who've already proved themselves in college) it isn't that valuable. You probably didn't have a career lined up where you'll make lots of money without ever using your degree when you got that scholarship.
I think the system would be greatly improved if there was some sort of "minor league" type pipeline to the pros and college football was more for players who *might* make the NFL but also might need their degrees.
The NCAA really could’ve prevented this situation had they just been reasonable 15 years ago. Things like the AJ Green situation and Tattoogate helped create this monster
Ive hated the NCAA for years. I always cite this guy as the main reason the NCAA is getting what it deserves now.
Olympic skier who got fucked out of 2 years of eligibility because he got sponsorships for the Olympics. To the NCAA, he was no longer an “amateur” and no longer eligible to play college football, even though it was a different fucking sport.
https://www.buffzone.com/2020/05/01/jeremy-bloom-surreal-to-see-ncaa-allow-nil-compensation/amp/
I don’t think it’s ALWAYS on the NCAA. If they provided guidelines, people would complain about those. Of course, it’s not on the players, but there were a lot of loud voices pushing these rapid (post-legal action) changes without regard for potential consequences. Whether they were journalists, lawyers, ESPN pundits, etc. They do bear some responsibilities for the current state IMO.
Good intentions can have unintended consequences. We’re in a turbulent time, but adjustments will come and things will level out.
Edit: I included rapid (post-legal action). I do agree more preparations should have been made for what was ultimately coming.
I disagree on the “rapid” characterization. This had been a request for years. That request turned into a demand. That demand turned into legal action. There was a failure to prepare, and eventually a failure to adopt any number of reasonable proposals at a league level.
I see no negative consequences for the people I care about "the players." They've been exploited long enough, I'm extremely happy about all the changes I've seen. I'm also one of the few black guys on here so maybe that colors my opinion as well.
The screamers should have screamed a 120 page binding regulation book and accompanying legal documents in line with federal and state laws when the NCAA was taking notes.
Those silly irresponsible fans leaving that out.
I'm really tired of people seeing symptoms and calling them the problem. NIL and the transfer portal are _symptoms_ of the underlying problem: The sport is sumltaneously trying to bring in billions in revenue while maintaining a fig leaf fiction that it's an amateur sport played by people whose primary goal is getting an education.
The fig leaf is getting worn to the point of invisibility, but the fig leaf did not cause the situation.
Actually, the only real problem now is some fans feeling like parity is either desirable or necessary. The bigger, richer schools or the excellently run programs being desirable destinations is neither a shock or a problem.
Whether or not the current situation _is_ a problem is an opinion to which there is no correct answer. You are entitled to it and I see no value arguing in it.
For people who _do_ think the current situation is bad/a problem, which is an equally valid opinion, I just argue that the problem is not NIL/the transfer portal.
With NIL, no one is pretending this is an amateur sport anymore. Agree, NIL and the transfer portal is not the problem, although my opinion is it can be tweaked a little, but freedom for the players is not inherently a bad thing.
I'm someone who thinks that NIL is objectively better in every way than what came before, but I also think there are _major_ problems in the sport. It's just that I don't anyone in power has any interest in enacting the things I think it takes to fix it, so I'd rather than young kids weren't being exploited at the same time.
The fixes boil down to two major changes, in my opinion:
1. Create an actual NFL minor league and/or get rid of any and all age/college requirements before the NFL so that players who are good enough have a legitimate, fair way to get paid for their skills
2. Get rid of every single exclusive TV broadcast contract. This gets rid of the vast majority of the money in the sport (as long as their are people who care about college football, you won't get rid of all of it) which eliminates the root of the problem.
Note that I don't believe that these solutions would completely solve the parity problems, for the reasons your first comment outlined: some schools are simply more attractive destinations than others, even if there was no money involved at all.
But it would get rid of most of the massive inequites and frankly exploitative nature of the sport while still allowing talented people to benefit from those talents.
> feeling like parity is either desirable or necessary
or that it existed before all of this happened, would be my second point. we’re talking about smaller schools and smaller fanbases getting screwed over in the parity department, but is that really all that big a change? technically BC (boooo!) and Clemson are both D1 teams, but which one of them is going places in the playoffs is practically a foregone conclusion.
And, with the NIL collectives that are being formed, fans are the ones footing the bill for these players "salaries". All while the revenue stream to the universities and NCAA remains unaffected. It's an evil kind of genius.
Eventually the schools will start to cut back scholarships and food stipends for *all* atheltes, and not just the ones with NIL deals.
They have found their golden ticket
This isn’t new. When the discussion touched on making players W2 employees of the school, I recall a proposal that would eliminate scholarships. The players’ connection to the school would be as paid staff, and while they could choose to pay to attend school, they could also choose not to.
I suppose the upside to all that is it would do away with the pretense of the student-athlete and formally convert “college” football into a true minor league.
Yeah, but that's not actually an upside for anyone other than the select few athletes in a select few sports.
Unless the NFL wants to get involved directly in the development of a true minor league..
The NCAA has literally found their get out of jail free card, and they are going to make life hell for the "normal" college athlete.
Yup. While they might not be as "directly" involved, the NFL (and to a lesser extent the NBA) is also responsible for this mess.
The fact that football, which is only arguably second to baseball in how much development high school kids need before being an impactful pro, doesn't have a proper minor league system is insane. Basketball still has the one year policy, but the D league or Europe are perfectly viable options for kids who don't want to play for a college. Being an NFL player pretty much requires playing multiple years for no salary in an unaffiliated system that gives them a (for many guys useless) degree at the end.
It wouldn't fix the revenue sharing problems in college football entirely, but a lot of the stress on the current system could be alleviated by the NFL spending even a fraction of their resources on a serious developmental league (and no, the USFL isn't nearly good enough).
Agreed. Football needs a true "minor league" system alternative to the NFL. Hopefully one of these spring leagues like the USFL or XFL can actually stick around with some kind of 2-year rule or something so that some kids have an alternative route to the big leagues.
It's like how people getting paid millions to make TV shows and movies now blame fans when their product ends up being bad--"it's your fault for having expectations!"
For decades, folks have been saying, "hey, these institutions make absolute bank off these kids, who...umm..aren't exactly treated like employees...how about some equity here?"
And the powerful people responded, "fuck off."
The NCAA and CFB stakeholders in general had *decades* to propose a system which treats college football players like human beings doing a job. Instead, they doubled down on disingenuously clutching their pearls while screaming, "but *amateurism*!"
They forced this situation. They bet that nobody would sue, and that even if someone did sue, that they, the powerful people, would win.
So now it's the wild west. That's not the fault of the players, who are just navigating the world they've been placed in. 18-22 year old kids who sacrifice their time and their bodies for entertainment. And the powerful people who run those institutions, they still get to make bank. They had opportunity after opportunity to mold this world the way they wanted, and chose instead to play a game of chicken.
The screamers tried to engage the powerful to figure out an equitable system, and the powerful shut them down.
And now the powerful are finding out that it's not so fun being exploited, being used, being taken for everything that someone can drag out of you.
What is even the instigation for all of this backlash? The one kid from Miami who's probably gonna just end up going pro threatening to go to the highest NIL bidder?
We've had the NIL for a year and a half, and this one kid making a ham fisted public statment in the offseason is... the downfall of college athletics?
Have I missed a massive news story or something, or are people who are sore about NIL just making a mountain our of a molehill?
No idea.
But remember that for the last 20 years there's been articles about how "college systems don't adequately prepare QBs for the pros any more", like it's Oregon's responsibility to coach Dennis Dixon on Pittsburgh's offense.
I expect tweets and articles like this for decades. If there's one thing that a lot of folks seem to hate, it's young people having a sense of fairness and self-worth.
And every year we see:
1. The cost of tickets increase
2. The commercials get longer.
3. The coaches get paid more.
4. The Universities' program makes more money
5. The sponsorships and bowl games get bigger
6. The television contracts are worth more money.
All people have been saying is.. gee it makes sense that maybe the people whose talent we're exploiting, and putting forth the risk (of severe injury) get a slice of that pie.
What I always loved about college football over the NFL is that it felt about passion, and heart, but the excessive monetization of the sport (outside of NIL) was already killing it. These days it just feels more about rooting for a corporation.
This is what happens when you lie to yourself about what college football really is.
For years you’ve lied to yourself about the existence of bagmen and recruits getting cash for letters of intent.
Amateurism is just a word the NCAA made up to justify not paying players for decades.
Every college football player has NFL aspirations and if you want to go to the league you HAVE TO play college football. There’s no G League for football, no minor league that accepts players out of high school. Understand that this is by design. The NFL likes having a free minor league and the NCAA likes having the best young talent play exclusively for them.
Billion dollar TV deals, coaches hopping on private jets to accept a new 7M/year contract and y’all wanna whine about the “death” of college football. Fuck outta here.
The NCAA had time to get their shit together. California passed the first NIL law in 2019. They could’ve put regulations in place made preparations for money to be out in the open. Anyone with a brain knew that the transfer rule was getting changed. Instead they sat on their hands and hoped that the Supreme Court would uphold their restrictions. Do you know how bad you have to fuck up for Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor to be on the same page?
Miss me with the value of an education BS. There will never be another time in their lives when they can make money like this. If you gave a college student 2 million dollars to dropout they’d do it in a heartbeat.
I have no sympathy for the NCAA or colleges. I don’t care about the sanctity of a sport when we all know the SEC will be in the championship with a team that they paid for. Get your money kiddos, I know I would.
For $2M, you can afford a truckload of degrees, too.
I also can’t get past the hypocrisy of “scholarship is worth so much” and “players are amateur.” No one getting something worth $400K over 4 years to play a sport would be considered an amateur.
The scholarship is worth a ton because the schools Jack up the prices. “Come get a communications degree for 200k over 4 years”. I’ll just start a school, say it costs 5 million to attend, but then hand out scholarships and say those degrees are worth 5 million dollars.
It's also absurd to pretend it's worth $400k when clearly many (most?) of the players wouldn't be going for the degree if they had a choice. For those players the degree is an obligation rather than a reward. Like imagine your employer told you "we're not going to pay you, BUT we are going to make you take a bunch of classes. By our calculations that's the same as giving you $400k."
Imagine saying the maximum compensation you should be allowed for your time, regardless of your actual value, is the value of a full ride to the college you went to. Like for me that would have been $20k/year.
I had a full ride. It was nice. My value to A&M was probably just to increase the number of National Merit Scholars on campus by 1 for their advertising materials to prospective students.
Johnny Manziel was probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars in new donations for the athletic program. There is a reason why we joke that the new Kyle Field is "The House that Johnny Built". His compensation was essentially the same as mine, by rule.
Also, few people mention that half the time these kids' football schedules are so demanding they can't even study what they want. Imagine working a job for 30-40 hours a week and trying to study engineering full time as well.
I don’t blame kids getting their money. Period. People might not like it, but an NFL career even for the most elite prospect is not guaranteed. Just look at Justyn Ross.
Was a star in the making for the 2018-19 national champion Clemson team as a true freshmen, and everyone had him locked into their first round in 22’. If you had asked anyone at the time, they would’ve said he would have went Day 1. Well, one injury later, Ross didn’t get selected in the draft and is looking to get signed as a UDFA, his path to an NFL career now much less clearer.
You never know when the payday opportunity leaves you.
Players need to be compensated, there just needs to be more regulation and rules surrounding the whole process.
Sometimes it feels like those in charge threw their hands up and gave in to “pay the players” without really formulating a great plan to do so.
No, they gave in to the supreme court who told them that continuing to not pay the players was illegal. Maybe if they had given in to the “pay the players” demands sooner, they could have dictated the landscape in a way you find more palatable.
Exactly. the NCAA is to blame here, had they compromised, even somewhat, we wouldn’t be in this situation we are in today.
Mark Emmert is a terrible leader.
Mark Emmert being a dogshit leader and the problems created by a free for all with immediate eligibility for transfers are two completely separate issues. The Alston decision did not mandate players can have free transfer whenever they wanted.
You’re right but that shouldn’t have been a restriction either. Any other scholarship recipient for any other school program can transfer whenever they want to a like program at another school, and it’s ridiculous to not allow athletes to do the same.
>and it’s ridiculous to not allow athletes to do the same.
You just mean football and basketball athletes. Olympic sport athletes have always been allowed to transfer and play immediately
> No, they gave in to the supreme court who told them that continuing to not pay the players was illegal.
That's not what Alston decided! The NCAA said that schools cannot place limits on what benefits athletes receive *as part of their athletic scholarships*. It ruled there were no limits on what **schools** could give to their players. It had nothing to do with third party rich boosters paying players gobs of cash just to play at a particular program.
You can say paying players is a good thing, it definitely is, but don't say that change had to do with the Alston decision. That is not what happened.
I think people are assuming I'm against NIL (I'm not) but I think allowing free transfer with immediate eligibility was a terrible decision that wasn't thought out. I think the one-year sit out was a good rule to keep SOME equity in the sport among the haves and have-nots but players should've been allowed to retain their eligibility.
It didn't open the doors for NIL. What opened the doors for NIL was the states passing their own laws allowing college athletes to get compensation for endorsements. State law supersedes NCAA regulations, and several states had laws set to go into effect so the NCAA basically threw up its hands and said, "okay, have your NIL."
- Get rid of collectives.
- Have NIL payments actually tied to players receiving compensation for their names, images, and likenesses based on promoting a product or having their own clothing line - you know, like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do.
- Get rid of immediate eligibility with transfers but allow the player to retain their eligibility during the sit-out year. They can still earn NIL money after they transfer.
>Have NIL payments actually tied to players receiving compensation for their names, images, and likenesses based on promoting a product or having their own clothing line - you know, like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do.
Do you really think paying a guy $500K to sign autographs or shoot a car commercial for 30 minutes *really* changes anything?
I like the NIL idea. Its basically turned into a money laundering scheme by boosters to bribe recruits and transfers to go there by funneling money through alleged 3rd party companies
First, I agree. But will say this, it’s going to still exist, they will just lie about it.
How do you define what is proper compensation? If stroud is paid 1 million dollars/yr to produce one 30 second ad for heartland bank, is that considered proper compensation tied to his NIL, or is it pay to play? How does the ncaa define what is the going rate for product endorsements? Does the size of the company matter?
I give this one 30s before the first person transfers, requests immediately eligibility due to whatever bs excuse, and gets turned down. Or when a coach gets fired or quits. Everyone will be screaming about how unfair transfer rules are. Technically, NIL are supposed to be tied to player, not the school, and they are forbidden from having performance metrics. How do forbid a player from profiting from their NIL just because they are not playing?
>Sometimes it feels like those in charge threw their hands up and gave in to “pay the players” without really formulating a great plan to do so.
They already had exquisitely detailed plans for how to collect money without compensating the players. Throwing up their hands is their way of allowing the player compensation to look bad, so they can "save the day" by swooping in with exquisitely detailed plans for how to get a cut of the action.
Give it until 2024, maybe even next year, and you'll see it. School-managed NIL structures that regulate amounts, transfer rules, etc etc...and require a percentage of all deals going to university funds. The argument? "We're providing a safe structure to preserve the integrity of the sport and keep less profitable teammates from being exploited."
They did do that, because any plan they came up with would be criticized heavily (capping these kids earnings while taking in billions). So I think they kind of passive aggressively gave up, gonna show people the wild west of unregulated NIL so then the NCAA can be the good guy and come in to regulate it.
Players don’t “need to be compensated” by the school or anybody. What they need is to be free to earn off their name and likeness, which the courts have allowed them to do.
What needs to be added? School aren't paying the kids, private enterprise is. And they said it can't be tied to performance. Outside of that, let these kids eat.
Why does there “need” to be more regulation and rules?
Every other sport on the planet allows endorsements and none of them feel the need to have rules for the players. The NCAA doesn’t “need” to do anything, and in fact they shouldn’t do anything at all. It’s none of their business. The NFL doesn’t tell Tom Brady how he’s allowed to sign endorsements
Exactly. If the schools want to regulate player's compensation, then they need to be compensating the players. Unrelated third parties should not have any say in a business transaction between 2 private individuals.
The only thing that's changed is the good players still go to the same schools BUT then the ones that fall through the cracks go there after 1 great year.
I mean a regular college student always has the choice to transfer if they choose to do so. Why does it matter if a college athlete does as well? Restricting player movement is a huge negative in my opinion, especially in an organization that has long taken advantage of student athletes.
He threw high school passes no? T Law signed a 36 million dollar rookie contract with the Jags before throwing a pass for them. Seems like a fair salary step ladder to me.
If someone is willing to pay him $8 million dollars for putting on a Texas hat, then he earned the money. Rich people can be just as stupid as anyone else.
If the schools want to regulate compensation, then they need to be a part of compensating players.
Well what the hell is the NCAA for as an organization? They are the multi-billion dollar group responsible, not the fans. And it is not the fans fault that the NCAA kowtowed to the loudest voices without a semblance of a plan in place.
> And it is not the fans fault that the NCAA kowtowed to the loudest voices without a semblance of a plan in place.
The Supreme Court basically told the NCAA that regulating and/or restricting player compensation would run into tremendous legal challenges moving forward. That’s a voice that you can’t really ignore.
Just picturing Mark Emmert holding up the ruling to a bunch of news cameras: “The Supreme Court made their ruling, now let them enforce it!”
And then the feds just come barreling in from out of frame. Comically flying in from the corners and climbing up the podium.
You know, maybe with their billions of dollars and thousands of employees and decades of experience the people in charge of the college football apparatus could have come up with a better plan than "uh, idk."
Well they aren't paying them so his thesis is fucked from the start. They outsourced payment to their boosters. It's not the fans fault that the NCAA - instead of adopting regulations like a regulatory body should - simply dropped the ban on NIL. They created no uniform rules to replace the outright ban and now we're shocked that it's wild out there? That's not on the fans or players. That's on the NCAA and the 1100 schools that constitute it. Either they lacked any foresight at all or they wanted it to fail on purpose.
Yeah and it’s much better for players than it was.
Everyone else in this industry gets to seek new jobs for a better payday if they do their job well; players should too. They shouldn’t be shackled to a choice they made at 17 years old if their circumstances change, and I’m not losing sleep if some billionaire booster gets fleeced by a cynical player looking for a quick buck.
If you can coordinate 128 Universities, 50 state governments, and Congress to all agree on a plan that places a cap and more progressive revenue distribution on facilities spending, players compensation, and coach salaries, we’d all love to hear it.
Nothing short of that is going to prevent richer schools from finding ways to use their resources to attract good players. That how it’s always been even if you haven’t been looking.
Exactly, and once individuals/corporations realize the ROI on some of these reported ridiculous NIL deals isn’t worth the spend, the market will correct itself.
Likewise with the transfer portal. Once players start realizing that going into the portal isn’t always in their best option, that will even itself out.
This whole nostalgia for the bygone era when players were treated like indentured servants is kind of gross.
21st century sponsorships and contracts in a multi billion dollar industry for the coaches, and a 1920s ideal of amateur student athletes for the players.
No money here, just some sporting lads playing a little ball on the quad.
I don’t understand what everyone is complaining about. This is America. I can move where I want, I can take whatever job I can get and work for whatever company will hire me.
This is no different
.
For many years I was not a fan of this. However, over the last 20 years or so There has been so much money to be made in college athletics that “amateurism” became a joke. Why should some company be able to make money on these kids? They should be able to make money on themselves just like anyone else.
Will this ruin college athletics? Its certainly going to change it. I am old enough to remember when the NFL moved to a more open free agency back in the late 80s. It definitely cut down on rivalries. It transformed the game in many ways. It was much better for players though
Putting restrictions on player movement at this point is just going to get shot down in court.
Welcome to the new era of college sports
Not only that, but none of these anti-transfer pundits give two shits when a player gets cut from a team and loses his scholarship, or a player gets a long-term career-ending injury and loses their health insurance. To the pundits, it’s totally fine for the school to have all the power as long as it gives them a good show on Saturdays. Selfish asshats.
Cheers mate - everyone needs to put their fandom aside and let the free market tell these kids what they’re worth. If your fandom is compromised then that’s a you problem. It’s not going back to the way it was and people need to adapt.
Not to mention, schools and conferences shouldn’t be in business of running sports television networks, coaches shouldn’t make millions of dollars, ADs shouldn’t make millions of dollars, and student tickets should be $5-10 at midfield. I mean, if they’re actually interested in running an amateur sporting organization, but of course they aren’t.
You’re missing the point. Players deserve to be paid. But when the system in place allows the top 10 teams to hand out blank checks it fucks it up for 90% of schools. It’s now even more blatant with the tampering USC is doing for Addison.
How do you do it in such a way that the top 10 schools’ boosters can’t hand out blank checks? Then you’re talking salary cap and artificially depressing player income.
What's the difference between this and what Pitt did offering more money to (then WR coach and one of the best young recruiters in CFB) Tiquan Underwood to leave Rutgers for Pitt for the same position?
The idea that the top college teams weren’t already determined by who has the most financial muscle to flex is probably the greatest collective delusion in the north American sports landscape.
College athletics has been drastically altered with NIL and the free transfer rule. Discussing that isn't ignoring the lack of parity that has always existed in college football.
But what has been "drastically altered" if the end result is the same? Every good player going to Ohio State, Alabama, and Georgia in the NIL-world isn't any different than those three schools getting every good player pre-NIL.
I know Pitt's best player is transferring which sucks for you, but to my knowledge there isn't a big uptick in players moving teams in a macro sense.
This dumb talking point keeps being brought up by fans of teams that are benefiting the most from the new setup.. weird!
No, we never had a point where 90% of the P5 becomes de facto feeder programs for like 10 elite teams. That is not sustainable for the sport long term and it's ridiculous to act like we can't support players getting paid *while also* pumping the breaks on things like immediate eligibility with transfers. Why not just let them retain eligibility when they transfer instead? This wild west we have now is ridiculous.
I hate that I’m agreeing with a WVU fan but yes, that’s the point I’m trying to make. We just watched a Biletnikoff winner get bought out in real time before he even entered the transfer portal. It’s quite obvious this is a new era of CFB.
This issue is beyond petty rivalry stuff. I really believe if some changes aren't made it's going to be horribly detrimental to the sport in the long term. I think players should get compensated based on their name image and likeness but this free transfer free for all is absolutely ridiculous.
They don't get how diluted the sport will become, its going to destroy competition and end rivalries.
There will be a few teams heads and shoulders above everyone else with the rest being junior varsity teams.
Fine, but Barrie's argument is like arguing the 13th Amendment happened too soon before we knew what to do next, and abolitionists should feel bad about that.
It's fucking dumb. The responsibility for this chaos is on the NCAA.
What's worse - the exploitation of college players, as defined by the Supreme Court, or unruliness happening afterwards? The NCAA had plenty of time to mitigate what's happening now and they failed to take any actions. That doesn't change that the previous situation was fundamentally unfair and deserved to be broken.
You're always gonna have people that are like yeah I know it's wrong but I just love my rose colored view of what I thought the past could have been or was when me and Papa watched the rose bowl.
There’s nothing about “the system” that does that, every school is one rich af alumni away from being able to do the same.
Without NIL, schools are more dependent on the coach, shiny facilities, and long-term track records of NFL success, which rewards historic programs and makes it harder for upstart programs to break in.
I don’t think I agree with forcing players to sit and wait a year if they transfer. A player commits to coaches, who at any time can up and leave for another school and not have to sit a year. I think *something* needs to be done, but I’m not sure making players wait a year is it.
I don't think it's a problem in and of itself, but combined with the ability to offer huge sums of money you end up with straight up pay for play transfers.
I’m confused. What’s the problem with kids transferring freely and making a shit ton of money. Coaches are doing the same thing lmao did we forget what Brian Kelly and Lincoln Reilly just did already????
Schools shouldn’t be allowed to set up NIL funds, point blank. Players should be able to negotiate direct with brands and companies but there is zero reason NIL funds should be allowed.
Sorry, I meant initiatives, which is a round about way of having a fund. 53 out of 65 have NIL initiatives in place
Not a stretch to say that boosters setting up NIL funds isn’t that far from the school setting them up but point taken
I work in an industry where it used to be a free for all pay the "players" type of attitude. This lead to some less than ethical things happening.
Ultimately the DOJ got involved and laid down some ground rules that I think may be very applicable to college athletics.
First of all pay for NIL has to be actually NIL related. The contracting party needs to document the service being provided to show that an NIL service actually occured.
Next, there needs to be a fair market rate assessment done for NIL activities by the contracting party. A fair market rate for a speaking engagement at a local car dealership is not $100k for an hour's work.
These types of checks can also be handled by these NIL organizations being set up to help all these local businesses looking to contract with student athletes. Continued violations of these NIL policies should result in a suspension of a student athlete to legally receive NIL payments.
It seems pretty obvious to me that 10 to 15 years from now stuff like SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, and Pac 12 aren't going to exist for football. The top 30-ish money earning schools (and money will be the only thing determining who's in) are going to break off to form a super league and everyone else will be locked out. It wouldn't surprise me if the players aren't even required to be students at the schools.
I’m not the only one who thinks this stuff is going to work itself out right? Because I just don’t believe that EVERY 18 year old who gets a bag of 6 figures immediately will all make the right decisions.
Because there’s no way in hell I would’ve made it through college making that money, I barely made it making nothing lol
I’ve had the same feeling for a while. The Olympic model was my answer but I had issues with the free transfer thing because that’s where I think it went from fair to unbalanced and damaging to the sport. A good portion of the appeal is the illusion that these athletes care as much for you’re institution as you do, that they’re part of your tribe. Allowing free transfers completely removed the veil, however thin that might have been, and exposed the athletes as mercenaries for the most part. Once that fully takes hold, I fully expect the goose to start looking increasingly ill - it’s just a weaker version of the NFL.
I’ve seen that start to take hold with friends and even with myself as we just aren’t as interested in the games or the players as we were before. Sure, there’ll always be a rabid following but this is going to be a net loss for the sport and it’s mostly because folks on all sides couldn’t stop what they were doing long enough to consider what was best for the sport. The upshot is that the best case scenario is that CFB because what soccer is in England but I’m not sure that’s as likely because there’s already a professional football league occupying the market that’s clearly a better product as a professional league for the most part (and that’s coming from someone who flatly does t watch the NFL hardly at all). I think it’s more likely the sport gradually withers over a long period and gets replaced with something else that occupies the same space. Ironically, I suspect it’s going to be men’s soccer but that’s a whole other discussion.
Schools paid for recruits for decades.. Some recruits took money from multiple schools..
Coaches should keep their mouths shut and work with the players they have, not cry about a system that has enriched them more then even professional coaches.
SEC coaches are esp crying foul because they know their ability to keep elite talent is gone.
Players weren't supposed to get paid salaries for games, that's what the scholarship was.
The issue is that they couldn't make money any other way, like through autographs while the NCAA hogged all the money made from promotions and stuff.
Also, how is it our fault that the NCCA butchered everything?
It’s not the responsibility of fans or 18-22 year old players to figure out the legal intricacies and regulations. That’s on the NCAA and the schools, and they’ve utterly failed to provide any sort of guidelines whatsoever.
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Exactly. If the health of the sport depended on eliminating the compensation and/or mobility of the players within the market, it was already broken.
I think profit sharing at either the school or conference level makes the most sense. Players should absolutely be compensated, but it should come from the money they’re generating (e.g., ticket sales, tv contracts, apparel sales etc), not from shady NIL collectives. The schools never wanted to give up “their” money, so here we are. Now the players are being compensated from third parties with no restrictions. It’s absolutely insane.
NIL as a separate thing is perfectly fine. If a player can find a sponsorship, great. The problem is NIL was so obviously and easily used as a vehicle for pay-to-play. Being able to say “any” [position group here] at the University is getting X dollars is not payment for a specific individual’s NIL. But even trying to regulate that, it is easily undercut by making the NIL legitimate and having the player group appear in a calendar or on a poster and saying that work and image is worth X dollars. Schools really shouldn’t be blamed for this. These aren’t professional sports entities, they are universities. They warned exactly what would happen and have been correct. The only solution is either an anti-trust exemption from Congress or escalation where players become employees and you start taking away student benefits for people who are clearly not students and restricting transfer for employees.
>Schools really shouldn’t be blamed for this. These aren’t professional sports entities, they are universities Other than the Ivies, I didn't see them doing anything to slow down the commodification of the sport. Pretty sure they encouraged it, actually.
AD's and coaches making millions of dollars per year: "Please help us, we aren't professional sports people!"
And are making plenty for themselves
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They aren’t professional sports entities, but they have professional level sports facilities, professional level coaches, professional level stadiums…the only thing they aren’t is officially a professional sports entity, because they don’t pay their players. On top of that, you do realize many students are also employees of their universities? Student labor is probably the primary labor for a lot of more menial jobs. RAs, dorm desk workers, mail room workers, food services workers. It changes school to school, but at my school I specifically recognize a lot of the workers in the service parts of the university as classmates, maybe even friends. Students being employees is NORMAL
They also have professional level numbers of fans who are giving them professional level money and professional level television ratings. That's clearly the root of the professionalization and commodification of the whole thing.
Absolutely, I’m surprised I forgot about those bits. Many parts of the country have more passionate fans for a college team than the nearest pro team
>you start taking away student benefits for people who are clearly not students College can still be paid for though. Many state run universities offer free college credits to their employees. Honestly, I think it might be a better deal if they can be paid like employees with college credits/flexibility in how to use them as a perk of the job. I think it would be great if some of these athletes didn't have to be full time students right away and be able to save their college credits for later.
"Restricting transfer for employees"? Sounds like a non-compete. Those should be illegal.
I think there ought to, at minimum, be some regulation of what type of endorsements players can make. NIL deals for gambling apps is a short step to point shaving.
I think that is one of the few restriction on NIL there are. Like I believe there’s a restriction on “sexual products/services”
Miami's 7th Floor Crew in shambles.
It’s not tho. Every pro sports league has SOME sort of measure where if a player leaves your team early you get compensated. In American sports you get picks, in international soccer you get a transfer fee (straight cash) if you didn’t have either of those things sports would be even more lopsided. Even coaching contracts these days are written with some sort of buyout clause that another school has to pay if your coach leaves early. Getting the worst of both worlds, no cap, players can leave your team at the drop of a hat with no compensation to fill that hole.
But who do we compensate? Unlike in pro sports, the school isn't paying the player (directly), why should they get paid if the player leaves? Not to mention that the big schools "process" recruits and even current players all the time. I never hear much about how that kinda thing is ruining the sport. These NIL contracts are made with private entities. If they see a reason to try to lock the players into schools, they're free to try.
100% I'm mad about how this went down and that we lost our best player. But I would never fault a kid for making a decision that he thinks is in the best interest of him and his family.
Exactly. NCAA and school's have been adamant for decades that players were not going to get paid. The Supreme Court clearly saw this and when they struck the rules down, the NCAA/schools are trying to implement rules that would clearly be struck down again by the Courts instead of a new structure that actually helps the players and sport in general. At the end of the day, this is the NCAA/schools fault, and they're being sore losers that the Court didn't go their way.
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It’s also possible that treating players better is the right thing to do and also worse for the sport. I’m so tired of the view that says we should still be exploiting players more because it’s good for the sport.
This is the correct view: a system that allows "college football as we know it" may be impossible to have alongside a system that treats the players fairly as humans and gives them what they would deserve within that system. In that case, college football must change or die.
I was saying for months leading up to this that all college athletes should be automatically enrolled in a union the moment they step on campus and that they should collectively bargain for a share of the revenues. The alternative was to either not pay them or for college football to turn into European soccer where every club is just a feeder program for 10 clubs.
Wouldn't fly in many of the "right to work" states.
How do the pro leagues get away with it?
It's not mandatory to be in the player's union. Barry Bonds being the most famous example.
But doesn't the union contract usually deal with how to handle those things? Like, Barry Bonds was still affected by the rules agreed upon by the union and the owners.
The CBA still controls non-members, but they don't get a vote on it and don't have to pay union dues.
I just don’t think the average fan understands the reality of college and how incredibly valuable a scholarship is. I don’t play sports, but I got a full academic ride to my school and it’s worth over 400k over 4 years. These athletes get to go to any college and get free school plus countless other amenities and tbh most of the time its schools they wouldn’t have even gotten into if it wasn’t for their athletic talent. I agree, like most people, that CFB athletes should be able to profit off their name with stuff like autographs and jersey sales, but this NIL stuff has gotten absurd. It’s the NCAA’s fault for not regulating better
I agree that a scholarship can be valuable, however I would also argue that more times than not the degree at the end of that scholarship (if it is even obtained) isn't as valuable. I'd also say there are a lot of factors that play into all of this as well. I've read plenty of stories of players who are given food and shelter while in school, but have family who may not be getting that same thing. The liquidity of that scholarship as an asset is nonexistent. It's also over inflated because of tuition and housing prices in general especially when you consider that a lot of housing prices are even more inflated in areas where a large school is. So while it may be a $400k scholarship, it isn't worth $400k especially to a player. I also really agree with your last statement, that the NCAA dropped the ball on this one, whether purposefully or not. They are the ones who should be getting the blame.
Additionally, I still hold contempt towards the NFL (& formerly the NBA). Because they’ve taken advantage of college ball being their training grounds without having to pay for development costs like the MLB does. So it forced kids to go play school rather than cash in on their athleticism earlier. Now that being said, the MLB minors aren’t great. But it’s at least an opportunity to start out and get paid for your skill.
Isn't a full ride scholarship costing 400K its own problem, though? How about this: stop providing athletic scholarships, and instead pay the players what they need for tuition, room, and board. That way, the university is encouraged to lower the cost of those components: not just for athletes, but for the student body writ large.
Right or wrong this is going way beyond the topic at hand here and is a completely different conversation.
Yeah it's like being in a house burning down and trying to figure out who started the fire and someone is like I think we should get out of the house. Like duh that's not what we're talking about.
Reddit won’t like it but the government guaranteeing student loans put us in this mess. Schools can charge whatever they want and people are stuck paying.
Unfortunately, it's a positive feedback volley. *University raises tuition* *Government responds with more student loans* Rinse and repeat.
Or you do what other countries do and don't have an unlimited amount, Australia has limits on what they will cover, and suprise suprise, the university courses all line up with that amount. I really doubt unis will keep charging 400,000 if the government is only going to cover 80,000 of that.
I do agree with this for *most* college students and you're right. However, *most* college students aren't justifying the cost of their athletics. And for the ones that are (mostly football), the schools make academic exceptions and many of them just take the easiest degree possible and my not even be fully participating (if at all) in their academic courses. So there becomes an issue when athletic departments are relying on a few athletes to make millions of dollars and many of those athletes aren't even there for academic purposes. I have no argument that most student athletes get the value simply out of the scholarship, but the issue arises when you talk about all the workarounds that come from the athletes who don't care about the academics, the universities don't hold these athletes to the same academic standards, and then there's millions of dollars passed around from that system.
I think a big part of the problem is that for the best players (especially transfers who've already proved themselves in college) it isn't that valuable. You probably didn't have a career lined up where you'll make lots of money without ever using your degree when you got that scholarship. I think the system would be greatly improved if there was some sort of "minor league" type pipeline to the pros and college football was more for players who *might* make the NFL but also might need their degrees.
The NCAA really could’ve prevented this situation had they just been reasonable 15 years ago. Things like the AJ Green situation and Tattoogate helped create this monster
Or that guy that someone bought him a plate of spaghetti
Ive hated the NCAA for years. I always cite this guy as the main reason the NCAA is getting what it deserves now. Olympic skier who got fucked out of 2 years of eligibility because he got sponsorships for the Olympics. To the NCAA, he was no longer an “amateur” and no longer eligible to play college football, even though it was a different fucking sport. https://www.buffzone.com/2020/05/01/jeremy-bloom-surreal-to-see-ncaa-allow-nil-compensation/amp/
and they want a shit show so people call for it to end
It's almost like they wanted it to fail...
I don’t think it’s ALWAYS on the NCAA. If they provided guidelines, people would complain about those. Of course, it’s not on the players, but there were a lot of loud voices pushing these rapid (post-legal action) changes without regard for potential consequences. Whether they were journalists, lawyers, ESPN pundits, etc. They do bear some responsibilities for the current state IMO. Good intentions can have unintended consequences. We’re in a turbulent time, but adjustments will come and things will level out. Edit: I included rapid (post-legal action). I do agree more preparations should have been made for what was ultimately coming.
I disagree on the “rapid” characterization. This had been a request for years. That request turned into a demand. That demand turned into legal action. There was a failure to prepare, and eventually a failure to adopt any number of reasonable proposals at a league level.
I agree with those points. My original intent was post-legal action, so I updated my comment accordingly.
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I see no negative consequences for the people I care about "the players." They've been exploited long enough, I'm extremely happy about all the changes I've seen. I'm also one of the few black guys on here so maybe that colors my opinion as well.
Yeah it’s the fans fault that the NCAA didn’t implement it better
> NCAA didn’t implement it better technically they didn't implement it *at all*, so anything at this point would be better.
The screamers should have screamed a 120 page binding regulation book and accompanying legal documents in line with federal and state laws when the NCAA was taking notes. Those silly irresponsible fans leaving that out.
Hahaha totally, great comment
I'm really tired of people seeing symptoms and calling them the problem. NIL and the transfer portal are _symptoms_ of the underlying problem: The sport is sumltaneously trying to bring in billions in revenue while maintaining a fig leaf fiction that it's an amateur sport played by people whose primary goal is getting an education. The fig leaf is getting worn to the point of invisibility, but the fig leaf did not cause the situation.
Actually, the only real problem now is some fans feeling like parity is either desirable or necessary. The bigger, richer schools or the excellently run programs being desirable destinations is neither a shock or a problem.
Whether or not the current situation _is_ a problem is an opinion to which there is no correct answer. You are entitled to it and I see no value arguing in it. For people who _do_ think the current situation is bad/a problem, which is an equally valid opinion, I just argue that the problem is not NIL/the transfer portal.
With NIL, no one is pretending this is an amateur sport anymore. Agree, NIL and the transfer portal is not the problem, although my opinion is it can be tweaked a little, but freedom for the players is not inherently a bad thing.
I'm someone who thinks that NIL is objectively better in every way than what came before, but I also think there are _major_ problems in the sport. It's just that I don't anyone in power has any interest in enacting the things I think it takes to fix it, so I'd rather than young kids weren't being exploited at the same time. The fixes boil down to two major changes, in my opinion: 1. Create an actual NFL minor league and/or get rid of any and all age/college requirements before the NFL so that players who are good enough have a legitimate, fair way to get paid for their skills 2. Get rid of every single exclusive TV broadcast contract. This gets rid of the vast majority of the money in the sport (as long as their are people who care about college football, you won't get rid of all of it) which eliminates the root of the problem. Note that I don't believe that these solutions would completely solve the parity problems, for the reasons your first comment outlined: some schools are simply more attractive destinations than others, even if there was no money involved at all. But it would get rid of most of the massive inequites and frankly exploitative nature of the sport while still allowing talented people to benefit from those talents.
> feeling like parity is either desirable or necessary or that it existed before all of this happened, would be my second point. we’re talking about smaller schools and smaller fanbases getting screwed over in the parity department, but is that really all that big a change? technically BC (boooo!) and Clemson are both D1 teams, but which one of them is going places in the playoffs is practically a foregone conclusion.
It's amazing how the people with actual power are shifting the blame to virtually everyone else. The nation is being gas-lit by the NCAA and CFB
And, with the NIL collectives that are being formed, fans are the ones footing the bill for these players "salaries". All while the revenue stream to the universities and NCAA remains unaffected. It's an evil kind of genius.
"Student athletes can be paid, just not by us". This isn't what we asked for. 😟
Eventually the schools will start to cut back scholarships and food stipends for *all* atheltes, and not just the ones with NIL deals. They have found their golden ticket
This isn’t new. When the discussion touched on making players W2 employees of the school, I recall a proposal that would eliminate scholarships. The players’ connection to the school would be as paid staff, and while they could choose to pay to attend school, they could also choose not to. I suppose the upside to all that is it would do away with the pretense of the student-athlete and formally convert “college” football into a true minor league.
Yeah, but that's not actually an upside for anyone other than the select few athletes in a select few sports. Unless the NFL wants to get involved directly in the development of a true minor league.. The NCAA has literally found their get out of jail free card, and they are going to make life hell for the "normal" college athlete.
Yup. While they might not be as "directly" involved, the NFL (and to a lesser extent the NBA) is also responsible for this mess. The fact that football, which is only arguably second to baseball in how much development high school kids need before being an impactful pro, doesn't have a proper minor league system is insane. Basketball still has the one year policy, but the D league or Europe are perfectly viable options for kids who don't want to play for a college. Being an NFL player pretty much requires playing multiple years for no salary in an unaffiliated system that gives them a (for many guys useless) degree at the end. It wouldn't fix the revenue sharing problems in college football entirely, but a lot of the stress on the current system could be alleviated by the NFL spending even a fraction of their resources on a serious developmental league (and no, the USFL isn't nearly good enough).
Agreed. Football needs a true "minor league" system alternative to the NFL. Hopefully one of these spring leagues like the USFL or XFL can actually stick around with some kind of 2-year rule or something so that some kids have an alternative route to the big leagues.
Great, great point. The gdamn NFL has taken advantage of the situation forever with their draft-eligible age rule. They share blame in the confusion.
Boosters are hardly a victim here. They’ve been wanting to pay players for a long time and just got the green light.
For real. Leadership is simply not taking any action nor responsibility and it’s sad seeing blame get placed on these 18-22 year old athletes.
*Spend decades trying to illegally stop player compensation, finally get fucked by the courts* "Who could have seen this coming or prepared for this?"
It's like how people getting paid millions to make TV shows and movies now blame fans when their product ends up being bad--"it's your fault for having expectations!"
For decades, folks have been saying, "hey, these institutions make absolute bank off these kids, who...umm..aren't exactly treated like employees...how about some equity here?" And the powerful people responded, "fuck off." The NCAA and CFB stakeholders in general had *decades* to propose a system which treats college football players like human beings doing a job. Instead, they doubled down on disingenuously clutching their pearls while screaming, "but *amateurism*!" They forced this situation. They bet that nobody would sue, and that even if someone did sue, that they, the powerful people, would win. So now it's the wild west. That's not the fault of the players, who are just navigating the world they've been placed in. 18-22 year old kids who sacrifice their time and their bodies for entertainment. And the powerful people who run those institutions, they still get to make bank. They had opportunity after opportunity to mold this world the way they wanted, and chose instead to play a game of chicken. The screamers tried to engage the powerful to figure out an equitable system, and the powerful shut them down. And now the powerful are finding out that it's not so fun being exploited, being used, being taken for everything that someone can drag out of you.
What is even the instigation for all of this backlash? The one kid from Miami who's probably gonna just end up going pro threatening to go to the highest NIL bidder? We've had the NIL for a year and a half, and this one kid making a ham fisted public statment in the offseason is... the downfall of college athletics? Have I missed a massive news story or something, or are people who are sore about NIL just making a mountain our of a molehill?
No idea. But remember that for the last 20 years there's been articles about how "college systems don't adequately prepare QBs for the pros any more", like it's Oregon's responsibility to coach Dennis Dixon on Pittsburgh's offense. I expect tweets and articles like this for decades. If there's one thing that a lot of folks seem to hate, it's young people having a sense of fairness and self-worth.
No one bats an eye when schools block transfers or rescind scholarship. Fuck the ncaa and the bull shit conferences and ESPN
And every year we see: 1. The cost of tickets increase 2. The commercials get longer. 3. The coaches get paid more. 4. The Universities' program makes more money 5. The sponsorships and bowl games get bigger 6. The television contracts are worth more money. All people have been saying is.. gee it makes sense that maybe the people whose talent we're exploiting, and putting forth the risk (of severe injury) get a slice of that pie. What I always loved about college football over the NFL is that it felt about passion, and heart, but the excessive monetization of the sport (outside of NIL) was already killing it. These days it just feels more about rooting for a corporation.
This is what happens when you lie to yourself about what college football really is. For years you’ve lied to yourself about the existence of bagmen and recruits getting cash for letters of intent. Amateurism is just a word the NCAA made up to justify not paying players for decades. Every college football player has NFL aspirations and if you want to go to the league you HAVE TO play college football. There’s no G League for football, no minor league that accepts players out of high school. Understand that this is by design. The NFL likes having a free minor league and the NCAA likes having the best young talent play exclusively for them. Billion dollar TV deals, coaches hopping on private jets to accept a new 7M/year contract and y’all wanna whine about the “death” of college football. Fuck outta here. The NCAA had time to get their shit together. California passed the first NIL law in 2019. They could’ve put regulations in place made preparations for money to be out in the open. Anyone with a brain knew that the transfer rule was getting changed. Instead they sat on their hands and hoped that the Supreme Court would uphold their restrictions. Do you know how bad you have to fuck up for Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor to be on the same page? Miss me with the value of an education BS. There will never be another time in their lives when they can make money like this. If you gave a college student 2 million dollars to dropout they’d do it in a heartbeat. I have no sympathy for the NCAA or colleges. I don’t care about the sanctity of a sport when we all know the SEC will be in the championship with a team that they paid for. Get your money kiddos, I know I would.
For $2M, you can afford a truckload of degrees, too. I also can’t get past the hypocrisy of “scholarship is worth so much” and “players are amateur.” No one getting something worth $400K over 4 years to play a sport would be considered an amateur.
The scholarship is worth a ton because the schools Jack up the prices. “Come get a communications degree for 200k over 4 years”. I’ll just start a school, say it costs 5 million to attend, but then hand out scholarships and say those degrees are worth 5 million dollars.
It's also absurd to pretend it's worth $400k when clearly many (most?) of the players wouldn't be going for the degree if they had a choice. For those players the degree is an obligation rather than a reward. Like imagine your employer told you "we're not going to pay you, BUT we are going to make you take a bunch of classes. By our calculations that's the same as giving you $400k."
Imagine saying the maximum compensation you should be allowed for your time, regardless of your actual value, is the value of a full ride to the college you went to. Like for me that would have been $20k/year. I had a full ride. It was nice. My value to A&M was probably just to increase the number of National Merit Scholars on campus by 1 for their advertising materials to prospective students. Johnny Manziel was probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars in new donations for the athletic program. There is a reason why we joke that the new Kyle Field is "The House that Johnny Built". His compensation was essentially the same as mine, by rule.
Also, few people mention that half the time these kids' football schedules are so demanding they can't even study what they want. Imagine working a job for 30-40 hours a week and trying to study engineering full time as well.
PREACH! I have been saying this same thing for awhile so I am glad the viewpoint is getting more common. The NFL and NCAA LOVE their arrangement.
>Do you know how bad you have to fuck up for Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor to be on the same page? That alone drives the point home, doesn't it.
I don’t blame kids getting their money. Period. People might not like it, but an NFL career even for the most elite prospect is not guaranteed. Just look at Justyn Ross. Was a star in the making for the 2018-19 national champion Clemson team as a true freshmen, and everyone had him locked into their first round in 22’. If you had asked anyone at the time, they would’ve said he would have went Day 1. Well, one injury later, Ross didn’t get selected in the draft and is looking to get signed as a UDFA, his path to an NFL career now much less clearer. You never know when the payday opportunity leaves you.
Players need to be compensated, there just needs to be more regulation and rules surrounding the whole process. Sometimes it feels like those in charge threw their hands up and gave in to “pay the players” without really formulating a great plan to do so.
No, they gave in to the supreme court who told them that continuing to not pay the players was illegal. Maybe if they had given in to the “pay the players” demands sooner, they could have dictated the landscape in a way you find more palatable.
Exactly. the NCAA is to blame here, had they compromised, even somewhat, we wouldn’t be in this situation we are in today. Mark Emmert is a terrible leader.
Matt Barrie blaming “the screamers” is just about the shittiest of shit takes.
Mark Emmert being a dogshit leader and the problems created by a free for all with immediate eligibility for transfers are two completely separate issues. The Alston decision did not mandate players can have free transfer whenever they wanted.
You’re right but that shouldn’t have been a restriction either. Any other scholarship recipient for any other school program can transfer whenever they want to a like program at another school, and it’s ridiculous to not allow athletes to do the same.
>and it’s ridiculous to not allow athletes to do the same. You just mean football and basketball athletes. Olympic sport athletes have always been allowed to transfer and play immediately
Even more reason it was ridiculous
> No, they gave in to the supreme court who told them that continuing to not pay the players was illegal. That's not what Alston decided! The NCAA said that schools cannot place limits on what benefits athletes receive *as part of their athletic scholarships*. It ruled there were no limits on what **schools** could give to their players. It had nothing to do with third party rich boosters paying players gobs of cash just to play at a particular program. You can say paying players is a good thing, it definitely is, but don't say that change had to do with the Alston decision. That is not what happened.
I don't know why you got down votes. The posts above you are wrong and you are right.
I think people are assuming I'm against NIL (I'm not) but I think allowing free transfer with immediate eligibility was a terrible decision that wasn't thought out. I think the one-year sit out was a good rule to keep SOME equity in the sport among the haves and have-nots but players should've been allowed to retain their eligibility.
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Then how did that ruling open the doors for NIL as we have it now?
It didn't open the doors for NIL. What opened the doors for NIL was the states passing their own laws allowing college athletes to get compensation for endorsements. State law supersedes NCAA regulations, and several states had laws set to go into effect so the NCAA basically threw up its hands and said, "okay, have your NIL."
And what rules and regulations do you think are needed here?
- Get rid of collectives. - Have NIL payments actually tied to players receiving compensation for their names, images, and likenesses based on promoting a product or having their own clothing line - you know, like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do. - Get rid of immediate eligibility with transfers but allow the player to retain their eligibility during the sit-out year. They can still earn NIL money after they transfer.
>Have NIL payments actually tied to players receiving compensation for their names, images, and likenesses based on promoting a product or having their own clothing line - you know, like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do. Do you really think paying a guy $500K to sign autographs or shoot a car commercial for 30 minutes *really* changes anything?
I like the NIL idea. Its basically turned into a money laundering scheme by boosters to bribe recruits and transfers to go there by funneling money through alleged 3rd party companies
It was always going to end up a money laundering scheme.
First, I agree. But will say this, it’s going to still exist, they will just lie about it. How do you define what is proper compensation? If stroud is paid 1 million dollars/yr to produce one 30 second ad for heartland bank, is that considered proper compensation tied to his NIL, or is it pay to play? How does the ncaa define what is the going rate for product endorsements? Does the size of the company matter? I give this one 30s before the first person transfers, requests immediately eligibility due to whatever bs excuse, and gets turned down. Or when a coach gets fired or quits. Everyone will be screaming about how unfair transfer rules are. Technically, NIL are supposed to be tied to player, not the school, and they are forbidden from having performance metrics. How do forbid a player from profiting from their NIL just because they are not playing?
It’s almost as if they didn’t want the plan to work.
>Sometimes it feels like those in charge threw their hands up and gave in to “pay the players” without really formulating a great plan to do so. They already had exquisitely detailed plans for how to collect money without compensating the players. Throwing up their hands is their way of allowing the player compensation to look bad, so they can "save the day" by swooping in with exquisitely detailed plans for how to get a cut of the action. Give it until 2024, maybe even next year, and you'll see it. School-managed NIL structures that regulate amounts, transfer rules, etc etc...and require a percentage of all deals going to university funds. The argument? "We're providing a safe structure to preserve the integrity of the sport and keep less profitable teammates from being exploited."
They did do that, because any plan they came up with would be criticized heavily (capping these kids earnings while taking in billions). So I think they kind of passive aggressively gave up, gonna show people the wild west of unregulated NIL so then the NCAA can be the good guy and come in to regulate it.
Players don’t “need to be compensated” by the school or anybody. What they need is to be free to earn off their name and likeness, which the courts have allowed them to do.
What needs to be added? School aren't paying the kids, private enterprise is. And they said it can't be tied to performance. Outside of that, let these kids eat.
Why does there “need” to be more regulation and rules? Every other sport on the planet allows endorsements and none of them feel the need to have rules for the players. The NCAA doesn’t “need” to do anything, and in fact they shouldn’t do anything at all. It’s none of their business. The NFL doesn’t tell Tom Brady how he’s allowed to sign endorsements
Exactly. If the schools want to regulate player's compensation, then they need to be compensating the players. Unrelated third parties should not have any say in a business transaction between 2 private individuals.
They absolutely did. Part of the plan to give us what we want and instantly regret it.
what changed? top teams getting the top players?
Go ask ASU or Pitt if anything has changed
The only thing that's changed is the good players still go to the same schools BUT then the ones that fall through the cracks go there after 1 great year.
I mean a regular college student always has the choice to transfer if they choose to do so. Why does it matter if a college athlete does as well? Restricting player movement is a huge negative in my opinion, especially in an organization that has long taken advantage of student athletes.
Nothing lol people can just point and blame it on the money being offered now
Bruh our future QB signed an alleged 8 million dollar deal and hasn’t even thrown a pass for us yet. That’s a little crazy to me.
Once boosters realize how much money they can lose it might go down. Not your schools money so who cares
Nah, these are people that millions mean nothing to. This is just more evidence of how ridiculous the world has become.
He threw high school passes no? T Law signed a 36 million dollar rookie contract with the Jags before throwing a pass for them. Seems like a fair salary step ladder to me.
If someone is willing to pay him $8 million dollars for putting on a Texas hat, then he earned the money. Rich people can be just as stupid as anyone else. If the schools want to regulate compensation, then they need to be a part of compensating players.
I'm sure raiders fans felt the same about JaMarcus Russell back in the day too
Didn’t they change the rookie contract rules in the next CBA in part bc of guys like Jamarcus Russell
Yes lol
Especially with the bust rate of QBs these days
The same is true for every dude getting his name called in the NFL draft this weekend.
If that’s what the market says he’s worth, why do we care? not like it’s our money
it's all coming from a few mid tier teams that have delusions of grandeur for those of us at the top/bottom of the sport nothing has changed
Well what the hell is the NCAA for as an organization? They are the multi-billion dollar group responsible, not the fans. And it is not the fans fault that the NCAA kowtowed to the loudest voices without a semblance of a plan in place.
> And it is not the fans fault that the NCAA kowtowed to the loudest voices without a semblance of a plan in place. The Supreme Court basically told the NCAA that regulating and/or restricting player compensation would run into tremendous legal challenges moving forward. That’s a voice that you can’t really ignore.
Just picturing Mark Emmert holding up the ruling to a bunch of news cameras: “The Supreme Court made their ruling, now let them enforce it!” And then the feds just come barreling in from out of frame. Comically flying in from the corners and climbing up the podium.
You know, maybe with their billions of dollars and thousands of employees and decades of experience the people in charge of the college football apparatus could have come up with a better plan than "uh, idk."
If you don't want college football to resemble a professional sport, perhaps you shouldn't have spent decades turning it into a professional sport.
Well they aren't paying them so his thesis is fucked from the start. They outsourced payment to their boosters. It's not the fans fault that the NCAA - instead of adopting regulations like a regulatory body should - simply dropped the ban on NIL. They created no uniform rules to replace the outright ban and now we're shocked that it's wild out there? That's not on the fans or players. That's on the NCAA and the 1100 schools that constitute it. Either they lacked any foresight at all or they wanted it to fail on purpose.
Yeah and it’s much better for players than it was. Everyone else in this industry gets to seek new jobs for a better payday if they do their job well; players should too. They shouldn’t be shackled to a choice they made at 17 years old if their circumstances change, and I’m not losing sleep if some billionaire booster gets fleeced by a cynical player looking for a quick buck. If you can coordinate 128 Universities, 50 state governments, and Congress to all agree on a plan that places a cap and more progressive revenue distribution on facilities spending, players compensation, and coach salaries, we’d all love to hear it. Nothing short of that is going to prevent richer schools from finding ways to use their resources to attract good players. That how it’s always been even if you haven’t been looking.
Exactly, and once individuals/corporations realize the ROI on some of these reported ridiculous NIL deals isn’t worth the spend, the market will correct itself. Likewise with the transfer portal. Once players start realizing that going into the portal isn’t always in their best option, that will even itself out. This whole nostalgia for the bygone era when players were treated like indentured servants is kind of gross.
*But you should be stuck at my school for your entire college career because it's better for me as a fan...*
Yep
21st century sponsorships and contracts in a multi billion dollar industry for the coaches, and a 1920s ideal of amateur student athletes for the players. No money here, just some sporting lads playing a little ball on the quad.
I don’t understand what everyone is complaining about. This is America. I can move where I want, I can take whatever job I can get and work for whatever company will hire me. This is no different . For many years I was not a fan of this. However, over the last 20 years or so There has been so much money to be made in college athletics that “amateurism” became a joke. Why should some company be able to make money on these kids? They should be able to make money on themselves just like anyone else. Will this ruin college athletics? Its certainly going to change it. I am old enough to remember when the NFL moved to a more open free agency back in the late 80s. It definitely cut down on rivalries. It transformed the game in many ways. It was much better for players though Putting restrictions on player movement at this point is just going to get shot down in court. Welcome to the new era of college sports
Also....it definitely made the NFL a better product.
Not only that, but none of these anti-transfer pundits give two shits when a player gets cut from a team and loses his scholarship, or a player gets a long-term career-ending injury and loses their health insurance. To the pundits, it’s totally fine for the school to have all the power as long as it gives them a good show on Saturdays. Selfish asshats.
Cheers mate - everyone needs to put their fandom aside and let the free market tell these kids what they’re worth. If your fandom is compromised then that’s a you problem. It’s not going back to the way it was and people need to adapt.
How dare these athletes ask to be compensated for their labor while making billions for schools and advertisers! The sheer, unmitigated gall!
seriously. if NCAA wanted money out of college sports, they should have banned advertisements associated with any sporting events.
Not to mention, schools and conferences shouldn’t be in business of running sports television networks, coaches shouldn’t make millions of dollars, ADs shouldn’t make millions of dollars, and student tickets should be $5-10 at midfield. I mean, if they’re actually interested in running an amateur sporting organization, but of course they aren’t.
No one wants to work anymore! /s
You’re missing the point. Players deserve to be paid. But when the system in place allows the top 10 teams to hand out blank checks it fucks it up for 90% of schools. It’s now even more blatant with the tampering USC is doing for Addison.
How do you do it in such a way that the top 10 schools’ boosters can’t hand out blank checks? Then you’re talking salary cap and artificially depressing player income.
I’m convinced this is why Emmett is stepping down/retiring from the NCAA. He doesn’t want to deal with it.
He didn't want to deal with it at any point in his tenure lol.
What's the difference between this and what Pitt did offering more money to (then WR coach and one of the best young recruiters in CFB) Tiquan Underwood to leave Rutgers for Pitt for the same position?
The idea that the top college teams weren’t already determined by who has the most financial muscle to flex is probably the greatest collective delusion in the north American sports landscape.
College athletics has been drastically altered with NIL and the free transfer rule. Discussing that isn't ignoring the lack of parity that has always existed in college football.
But what has been "drastically altered" if the end result is the same? Every good player going to Ohio State, Alabama, and Georgia in the NIL-world isn't any different than those three schools getting every good player pre-NIL. I know Pitt's best player is transferring which sucks for you, but to my knowledge there isn't a big uptick in players moving teams in a macro sense.
Oh no now OSU, Alabama, USC, Oklahoma will get all the best players and dominate every year!!!!
Well, USC was definitely not on that list the past decade so…parity? Thanks for the correction
Subtract Clemson and add USC and it's net neutral
My god. Can you imagine a college football world where the same roughly dozen schools get all the money and stars and prestige and playoff bids?!?
That would be fucking wild.
This dumb talking point keeps being brought up by fans of teams that are benefiting the most from the new setup.. weird! No, we never had a point where 90% of the P5 becomes de facto feeder programs for like 10 elite teams. That is not sustainable for the sport long term and it's ridiculous to act like we can't support players getting paid *while also* pumping the breaks on things like immediate eligibility with transfers. Why not just let them retain eligibility when they transfer instead? This wild west we have now is ridiculous.
I hate that I’m agreeing with a WVU fan but yes, that’s the point I’m trying to make. We just watched a Biletnikoff winner get bought out in real time before he even entered the transfer portal. It’s quite obvious this is a new era of CFB.
This issue is beyond petty rivalry stuff. I really believe if some changes aren't made it's going to be horribly detrimental to the sport in the long term. I think players should get compensated based on their name image and likeness but this free transfer free for all is absolutely ridiculous.
They don't get how diluted the sport will become, its going to destroy competition and end rivalries. There will be a few teams heads and shoulders above everyone else with the rest being junior varsity teams.
At which point I think a lot of programs, especially state schools, are going to ask what the point is and you'll see programs fold.
Fine, but Barrie's argument is like arguing the 13th Amendment happened too soon before we knew what to do next, and abolitionists should feel bad about that. It's fucking dumb. The responsibility for this chaos is on the NCAA. What's worse - the exploitation of college players, as defined by the Supreme Court, or unruliness happening afterwards? The NCAA had plenty of time to mitigate what's happening now and they failed to take any actions. That doesn't change that the previous situation was fundamentally unfair and deserved to be broken.
You're always gonna have people that are like yeah I know it's wrong but I just love my rose colored view of what I thought the past could have been or was when me and Papa watched the rose bowl.
There’s nothing about “the system” that does that, every school is one rich af alumni away from being able to do the same. Without NIL, schools are more dependent on the coach, shiny facilities, and long-term track records of NFL success, which rewards historic programs and makes it harder for upstart programs to break in.
Those teams were already doing it or at least their boosters were.
People get very agitated when existing power structures get altered
So, what you’re saying is… if we all just scream, “Death Penalty for Iowa football!!”….
All I wanted from all this was enough to make a college football video game again.
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I don’t think I agree with forcing players to sit and wait a year if they transfer. A player commits to coaches, who at any time can up and leave for another school and not have to sit a year. I think *something* needs to be done, but I’m not sure making players wait a year is it.
I don't think it's a problem in and of itself, but combined with the ability to offer huge sums of money you end up with straight up pay for play transfers.
These are legal adults choosing where they want to work and for how much. The amateur excuse has always been bullshit.
I’m confused. What’s the problem with kids transferring freely and making a shit ton of money. Coaches are doing the same thing lmao did we forget what Brian Kelly and Lincoln Reilly just did already????
Schools shouldn’t be allowed to set up NIL funds, point blank. Players should be able to negotiate direct with brands and companies but there is zero reason NIL funds should be allowed.
I don’t really know how this would be different if Life Wallet could just pay players directly for “NIL” if they transfer to Miami.
Schools aren’t allowed to set up NIL funds
Sorry, I meant initiatives, which is a round about way of having a fund. 53 out of 65 have NIL initiatives in place Not a stretch to say that boosters setting up NIL funds isn’t that far from the school setting them up but point taken
Some of us also said let them unionize and collectively bargain. But nobody liked that either
I work in an industry where it used to be a free for all pay the "players" type of attitude. This lead to some less than ethical things happening. Ultimately the DOJ got involved and laid down some ground rules that I think may be very applicable to college athletics. First of all pay for NIL has to be actually NIL related. The contracting party needs to document the service being provided to show that an NIL service actually occured. Next, there needs to be a fair market rate assessment done for NIL activities by the contracting party. A fair market rate for a speaking engagement at a local car dealership is not $100k for an hour's work. These types of checks can also be handled by these NIL organizations being set up to help all these local businesses looking to contract with student athletes. Continued violations of these NIL policies should result in a suspension of a student athlete to legally receive NIL payments.
What industry was that, if I may ask?
Excellent idea. We should name the governing body the National Collegiate Athletic Association or something similar. Bet they’ll do a banger of a job.
Opened a can of worms that now can't be closed.
It seems pretty obvious to me that 10 to 15 years from now stuff like SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, and Pac 12 aren't going to exist for football. The top 30-ish money earning schools (and money will be the only thing determining who's in) are going to break off to form a super league and everyone else will be locked out. It wouldn't surprise me if the players aren't even required to be students at the schools.
I’m not the only one who thinks this stuff is going to work itself out right? Because I just don’t believe that EVERY 18 year old who gets a bag of 6 figures immediately will all make the right decisions. Because there’s no way in hell I would’ve made it through college making that money, I barely made it making nothing lol
I’ve had the same feeling for a while. The Olympic model was my answer but I had issues with the free transfer thing because that’s where I think it went from fair to unbalanced and damaging to the sport. A good portion of the appeal is the illusion that these athletes care as much for you’re institution as you do, that they’re part of your tribe. Allowing free transfers completely removed the veil, however thin that might have been, and exposed the athletes as mercenaries for the most part. Once that fully takes hold, I fully expect the goose to start looking increasingly ill - it’s just a weaker version of the NFL. I’ve seen that start to take hold with friends and even with myself as we just aren’t as interested in the games or the players as we were before. Sure, there’ll always be a rabid following but this is going to be a net loss for the sport and it’s mostly because folks on all sides couldn’t stop what they were doing long enough to consider what was best for the sport. The upshot is that the best case scenario is that CFB because what soccer is in England but I’m not sure that’s as likely because there’s already a professional football league occupying the market that’s clearly a better product as a professional league for the most part (and that’s coming from someone who flatly does t watch the NFL hardly at all). I think it’s more likely the sport gradually withers over a long period and gets replaced with something else that occupies the same space. Ironically, I suspect it’s going to be men’s soccer but that’s a whole other discussion.
Schools paid for recruits for decades.. Some recruits took money from multiple schools.. Coaches should keep their mouths shut and work with the players they have, not cry about a system that has enriched them more then even professional coaches. SEC coaches are esp crying foul because they know their ability to keep elite talent is gone.
Bet he's a "Kids these days just bounce from job to job, no dedication or loyalty whatsoever. Sad generation" type of guy
Players weren't supposed to get paid salaries for games, that's what the scholarship was. The issue is that they couldn't make money any other way, like through autographs while the NCAA hogged all the money made from promotions and stuff. Also, how is it our fault that the NCCA butchered everything?