How 'direct dollars' have totally changed college football recruiting
- Thread starter Nitt1300
- Start date
part of it:
The most recent trend in recruiting has been the so-called facilities arms race. Bigger and flashier buildings and locker rooms and so on were needed to wow recruits. The richest spent with reckless abandon. Consider that in 2017 Alabama, as part of a multimillion dollar facility facelift, renovated its so-called “recruiting room” inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in an effort to impress high school prospects when they visit for a game.
It was considered one of the best, if not the best, in the country.
By 2020 — just three years later — the school ditched the entire thing and moved into a new, expanded “recruiting lounge” that doubled to 12,000 square feet.
It was even better.
“Absolutely first-class,” said Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who himself donated $1 million to the overall funding drive.
Alabama had to do this. Georgia, after all, was in the middle of a $200 million facility glow-up in an effort to tip recruits to the Bulldogs. So was LSU and Ohio State and Texas and Clemson and so on.
Secondary spending was skyrocketing. In 2013, Georgia spent about $581,000 on recruiting expenses (scouting, mailing, travel), per school records. By 2018, it was almost five times that — $2.65 million.
Places such as Ole Miss — or Indiana or Wake Forest or Georgia Tech or Wisconsin — couldn’t keep up. The more slow and entrenched the spending — and building facilities is slow — the better for the establishment.
Now, the script is flipping.
Forget dropping $500,000 on some video boards inside a recruiting lounge that may or may not impress a wide-swath of recruits. Just give the very best recruit the $500,000 directly. If he doesn’t want it, move onto the next best recruit. And so on.
The most recent trend in recruiting has been the so-called facilities arms race. Bigger and flashier buildings and locker rooms and so on were needed to wow recruits. The richest spent with reckless abandon. Consider that in 2017 Alabama, as part of a multimillion dollar facility facelift, renovated its so-called “recruiting room” inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in an effort to impress high school prospects when they visit for a game.
It was considered one of the best, if not the best, in the country.
By 2020 — just three years later — the school ditched the entire thing and moved into a new, expanded “recruiting lounge” that doubled to 12,000 square feet.
It was even better.
“Absolutely first-class,” said Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who himself donated $1 million to the overall funding drive.
Alabama had to do this. Georgia, after all, was in the middle of a $200 million facility glow-up in an effort to tip recruits to the Bulldogs. So was LSU and Ohio State and Texas and Clemson and so on.
Secondary spending was skyrocketing. In 2013, Georgia spent about $581,000 on recruiting expenses (scouting, mailing, travel), per school records. By 2018, it was almost five times that — $2.65 million.
Places such as Ole Miss — or Indiana or Wake Forest or Georgia Tech or Wisconsin — couldn’t keep up. The more slow and entrenched the spending — and building facilities is slow — the better for the establishment.
Now, the script is flipping.
Forget dropping $500,000 on some video boards inside a recruiting lounge that may or may not impress a wide-swath of recruits. Just give the very best recruit the $500,000 directly. If he doesn’t want it, move onto the next best recruit. And so on.
We are watching the demise of college football.
no doubt about it- and it's coming sooner than people think
When do schools like ole miss give up? They’re making money on TV. Why continue spending when you aren’t going to be bama anyway? Take in the money while you can.
How soon will people turn off their TVs once they realize that their preferred school will never buy enough prime cut players to win it all?
I'll bet it won't be all that long.
I disagree completely with the idea that money is how you get prime recruits. Billboards. Billboards are the key.
Yes! You know our brand Bob! That is a Rutgers billboard outside Piscataway.Is fairgambit enterprises into billboards? I was wondering if this was yours.
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how about having the state police helicopters tow banners while they are strafing tailgaters?
I can't even predict where this is going. If people no longer follow their favorite teams, what happens to other college "games of interest" where the participants are largely considered to be bought and paid for? Are networks that have or will pay record sums for media rights going to be saddled with ratings that are in the crapper? Maybe, then, some good can come of it.
Impossible that billboard is far too well maintained and creatively imaginative to be associated with Fairgambit.Is fairgambit enterprises into billboards? I was wondering if this was yours.
Why, though? We've known that schools were "buying" recruits in the past, and that they were actually cheating in order to do this ... so it made it worse, IMO.
Regardless, we've known that only a select few teams stood a chance to win it all for decades now.
Why? I don't understand this reaction at all. We've had a system where some random kid chose to go to a school you used to attend (or maybe didn't even attend, but you rooted for them, for some reason), and so you cheered for him to win a football game ... because why? Recruit A decides to attend that school and it's "rah rah rah shish boom bah! he's our man!" He chooses another school and "boo! we don't like you! you better lose!"
Meanwhile, the kid is putting in a 40 hour week to get his education paid for (usually), and he may or may not even graduate ... but if he does, it's usually with some throwaway degree because of his football workload ... and all these people are making gobs of money to persuade them to come to their school, and gobs of money to coach them, and gobs of money televising their games, and gobs of money advertising on these broadcasts, and even gobs of money ranking these kids and speculating where they will go to college, before they even get there ... and all sorts of shadiness to convince players to come to their favorite school is going on ... and a few programs dominate the landscape.
So why does openly giving money to these players suddenly make someone lose interest in all this?
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They’ve always “openly” got money. It’s called a full ride scholarship, and most students would give their left nut to have one.
If these crybabies are going to make a complete joke out of the whole process, then pay them strictly out of gate receipts, NIL, and TV revenue. Dump athletic scholarships altogether, and stop raping REAL students with additional costs such as “activity” fees.
I already acknowledged that they get their education paid for, in exchange for the 40'ish hours per week they put in as part of their job of playing football.
Why, exactly, are they crybabies? Why is their stance making a "complete joke out of the whole process"?
It seems like your actual issue is with the NCAA allowing football to become a big entertainment business, and not with the students trying to get a piece of that big business, but as you see the potential destruction wrought by the development and success of these "power 5 conferences" that you enjoyed watching so much, you're trying to find a fall guy for the fact that the system you enjoyed was set up for self-destruction, unless you kept the kids down. You just wanted them to be mindless worker drones, for your amusement. With that said, what, exactly, changes for your entertainment experience when/if these kids get paid in college? The "haves" have already been hoarding all the talent, and spending out the nose, while getting all the glory. How will that change now that the kids make more money for their full-time job?
These "activity fees," charged to regular students, were already subsidizing athletics ... was it an issue before athletes started complaining that NCAA schools were prohibiting them from making more money from their efforts?
You want to pay these mercenaries their “fair share”, pay them. Give them that “piece of that big business” you guys are saying they need so bad. TV money, NIL, Gate receipts, go for it. But no more scholarships, and no more student “activity” fees. These leaches don’t give a crap about Penn State or any other college.
Make them a separate, taxable business entity of the University. If they want to use some of that play for pay money on a scholarship, and they qualify academically, fine. But make them actually pay for it.
What this garbage is quickly turning into is nothing more than a money grab at the expense of REAL students. What the crap do you have against them???? They’re the ones that the Government has to now bail out. The $10,000 per person government bailout being proposed right now is going to cost you, me, and every garbage man and plumber in America an estimated $321 billion dollars. And that will only take care of 1/3 of all student loan borrowers.
In 2018, Nationwide, 35% percent of all athletic department revenue came from direct University and Government support. 8% percent came from student fees. The rest came from media rights, ticket sales, and donors.
So give these bush league players their “fair share” of those ticket sales, media revenue, and donor/NIL contributions everybody is screaming so loud about. But make them pay for their own education and room and board like everyone else. No more scholarships or funding from student fees or general university funds.
Not that I disagree with some of what you say, but a more likely scenario is that university-sourced compensation of athletes is going to increase and so will subsidies of athletic departments.
I just don't get the vitriol toward the players. Why are they suddenly "mercenaries"? For the longest time, they were just athletes that some multi-millionaire coach thought could help him win football games. And they had to go to class in the meantime. That's the reality.
Why weren't they mercenaries before, but now they are? Because they actually want a piece of the pie that they created?
I don't understand your rant about student fees. They could have just baked those costs into tuition. Would that have made it any better or worse? THIS was the system you guys wanted ... "big time sports!" Sports! Sports! Sports! Every decision that's been made about recruiting, or conference affiliations, or ... whatever ... over the last few decades has made this spectacle more and more about professionalism, and improving the on-field product, and getting more and more money, and less about amateurism, and actually caring about the student-athletes. And everyone cheered. A more professional, higher caliber product. More money rolling in to coaches, athletic programs, TV networks, advertisers, recruiting services ... everyone, except the actual players.
Why shouldn't players get scholarships any longer? If I get an academic scholarship, I can also get a job and make extra cash. I can transfer freely, as well. I'm a "mercenary." Why can't student-athletes have the same treatment?
Again, throughout this process, any time something transpired that made the game more professional, that made it easier on/better for the coaches, the programs, what-have-you, everyone seemed to give the thumbs up ... "redshirting let's us manipulate our roster to get better players for longer .. awesome! a new conference means more money ... let's do it! can't play for a year after a transfer? good. Early signing period so young kids can commit even earlier in the high pressure process? Hey, coach will have a better idea of his roster even earlier .. it's awesome!" Over and over again. Any time a decision was made that could benefit a student-athlete, it was "whoa! how will this affect our roster? Our coach's ability to field the best team? Transfer portal? OMG! How are we going to know who to cheer for if they're just free to leave when they're not happy!?! What?! Now they can make money!?! It's broken!!"
I'm someone who thinks the whole process is ridiculous. College sports should actually be amateur sport. A coach shouldn't be able to contact a prospective player until after that player has applied to, and been accepted at, that college ... and that acceptance would be blind to athletic prowess/accomplishment. You know, actually make it about learning ... and then playing a sport on the side. If you wanted a quicker/more definite pro career ... go. Skip school. It's not for you. But, nope, it's all about chasing that almighty dollar, making everyone as rich as possible in the process ... and everyone was fine with that, until the actual athletes wanted to be treated as something more than chattel ... then it's "how dare these mercenaries stand up for themselves! what about the other students?!" It's sad, and it's transparent.
The funny thing is no one cared as coaches were making millions of dollars in salary, receiving massive buyouts (for sucking), and leaving one job for another on a whim without a care or thought in the world about it. Their kids get free tuition and they get tons of other benefits. Players are way overdue for getting their fair share, which is to say a lot more than any coach deserves.
One of the main issues at play is this is not possible. There is no direct avenue to the NFL from high school due to the NFL's requirements. The NFL sources their talent (employees) from college football, so alternatives are basically not an option. Athletes that don't have an interest in more academics are essentially forced into college in order to prepare for their desired career path. And I don't see the NFL changing this anytime soon. Why would they? They have a farm system for their league that they don't have to support operationally or financially, so there's no incentive for change.
If you think a full ride athletic scholarship is nothing more than “chattel”, then why should you care if it’s given to a REAL student, or if the athlete himself has to pay for it out of his salary????? An athlete selected strictly on physical superiority over kids with IQs of 140 or 150 will still get his “piece of the pie”. He will be getting it from gate receipts, TV revenue, and donor/NIL contributions. He will pay tax on that money just like every other professional.
You can still make the REAL student have to pull their own money out of their own pockets to buy a ticket to the games if you want to. But make it voluntary. Don’t strap these REAL students with mandatory additional athletic fees when they are already having to be bailed out right and left with astronomical school loans they don’t have the money to pay back as it is.
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I think that in the past, there were families that wanted to do things the right way and wouldn't take the side payments. Now that everything is OK, it's hard to blame them for taking the highest offer.
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