NIL

[BigDawg0074]

I’ll give it a few years before saying college sports is ruined. The previous status quo certainly wasn’t fair and I see the same teams getting top talent now as they were back then. There’s a lot of talk about potential doom and gloom but I have yet to see anything that spells the death of rivalry and quality in college athletics. The Supreme Court made the right decision but the NCAA has displayed their typical lack of leadership in NIL and Covid.

 

[patdog]

On the other hand, it’s very easy for a group of schools to leave and form a new SEC with schools like Michigan an Ohio St. it’s how the MWC was formed. They couldn’t just kick the schools out of the WAC they didn’t want. So they just left. Same with the AAC leaving CUSA.

I really think it’s going to come down to how many schools will be in the breakaway group. If it’s 30, us and UM are screwed. If it’s 50, we’re in.

 

[Smoked Toag]

That's similar to pro football where highly paid athletes often change teams and retire. How much of a dent has free agency put in football revenues?

That's inaccurate. The NFL carries the BEST of the best. That's why it's successful and other leagues aren't. That's why the EPL is successful is soccer and the MLS is an afterthought. That's why MiLB doesn't matter.

College is different than all these other things in the fact that the recruits can choose their own school, just like alumni.

 

[Smoked Toag]

On the other hand, it’s very easy for a group of schools to leave and form a new SEC with schools like Michigan an Ohio St. it’s how the MWC was formed. They couldn’t just kick the schools out of the WAC they didn’t want. So they just left. Same with the AAC leaving CUSA.

I really think it’s going to come down to how many schools will be in the breakaway group. If it’s 30, us and UM are screwed. If it’s 50, we’re in.

I really don't think this will happen for a long, long time. I see the other conferences expanding a little bit but I don't see the super league any time soon. I think NIL will help some usurpers rise up and drop some of these smaller town 'alumni' schools like Alabama, and the breakaway talk will quiet down with more parity. ACC and B1G will go to 16, not sure what the Pac-12 and Big 12 do, not much left for them to take at this point. Pac-12 may not even care, they may just ride with USC.

ETA: Like I said in the other post, I do think the 12-team playoff will do a lot to quell the appetite for this as well.

 

[Smoked Toag]

It is going to level the playing field somewhat, between current blue bloods and schools that have the alumni base and money but haven't done as well in the past. You are going to see some schools like UNC get better. Not sure it will be UNC, but they have a good sized alumni base that is relatively affluent. It wasn't feasible to tap into that for under the table payments, but even with a fan base that is not as invested in football, they can probably dwarf what Ole Miss and MSU can put together if it gains any steam.

I think it will mostly stay the same, with the current blue bloods that already have crazy fan bases staying on top, but larger richer schools overtaking schools like MSU and Ole Miss, and maybe even schools like Auburn, that are really only ever good because they care more than other schools and are in a talent rich area.

Correct. MSU and Ole Miss will stay the same, but Alabama and Auburn may lose ground (small town 'alumni' schools). You're seeing two types of schools taking advantage - HUGE alumni schools (Texas A&M) and big city schools with NIL opportunities (Louisville is one that I've seen benefitting in recruiting). USC and Miami are obvious ones, they've already had success. I could see UNC too, just not sure they have what it takes.

I'd like to see SMU alumni get together and tell the world to 17 themselves.

 

[Smoked Toag]

my prediction,
The SEC is about to distance itself from other conferences regarding TV contract $$$ and athletes. Eventually Ohio State, Michigan and etc will want to join. The sec becomes a national conference (No just the southeast) splits from the ncaa and rebrands. A new college football organization is formed. State OM and a few others are not invited the "new organization" because of few cable tv subscribers.

I don't know that all these teams would be willing to play that grueling of a schedule, and abandon all the conference rivalries. I do believe this will happen later on, but not really anytime soon. 12-team playoff will help quell this.

 

[johnson86-1]

I got tuition paid for and a stipend as a grad asst. That's what I'm referring to.

Holy ****, you are going to have to explain how that is different from what football players get now. Are you just arguing that it's not the exact same amount you got, so therefore it's not a stipend?

Businesses making money and paying for labor used to make money isn't profit sharing (Publix does that, though, and I like shopping at Publix). I agree that the NIL is something else. My argument is that the enormous amount of money generated by college football went to a small number of people. Some of it should have been given to players.
The Supreme Court noticed who was really being exploited and who benefitted economically from that system.

A lot of it did and does go to players. The majority of the money went into the coaching and facilities arm race because of federal law, not because players were being exploited.

I like being paid for my labor and paying others as well. It's all now in the hands of the courts and vested interests to figure out how to make this NIL work without ruining the cash cow that is college football.

NIL isn'g going to ruin the cash cow. It's going to ruin it for some schools and some fans, and probably "hurt" athletes in non-revenue sports, or at least stop them from benefitting as much from revenue sports. Going to be interesting to see how the court squares NIL with existing Title IX rulings providing that schools can't get around Title IX obligations just because funding is being provided by a private party. If they are going to be consistent, schools are going to have to come up with a way to make sure female athletes are getting similar money. Of course the original ruling was ******** so hopefully they will just overturn it and not take the chicken **** route of claiming it's distinguishable in a meaningful way.

 

[johnson86-1]

Correct. MSU and Ole Miss will stay the same, but Alabama and Auburn may lose ground (small town 'alumni' schools). You're seeing two types of schools taking advantage - HUGE alumni schools (Texas A&M) and big city schools with NIL opportunities (Louisville is one that I've seen benefitting in recruiting). USC and Miami are obvious ones, they've already had success. I could see UNC too, just not sure they have what it takes.

I'd like to see SMU alumni get together and tell the world to 17 themselves.

We will stay the same in the sense that we will be well behind the blue bloods, but we will not stay the same in the sense of being able to compete against non-blue bloods with big money advantages. It was fun beating A&M semi-regularly. That's probably not going to happen going forward. Their recruiting ranking won't change that much, but they will be able to load up enough to overcome their lack of efficiency.

 

[Smoked Toag]

We will stay the same in the sense that we will be well behind the blue bloods, but we will not stay the same in the sense of being able to compete against non-blue bloods with big money advantages. It was fun beating A&M semi-regularly. That's probably not going to happen going forward. Their recruiting ranking won't change that much, but they will be able to load up enough to overcome their lack of efficiency.

Yeah but now we might can beat Alabama. We might have more trouble with Arkansas, as they seemingly have some NIL opportunities in NW AR. But more parity at the top seems like it may help us pick some teams off more. I see South Carolina falling, Clemson too probably. Georgia probably won't, as they have ATL in their pocket. Florida will likely stay up. Auburn may drop. LSU has NOLA and a lot of oil money, they won't fall. Will Kentucky leverage Kroger or whatever else? Hard to really know.

Bottom line, our record probably won't change from the average, but we'll beat different teams.

 

[Smoked Toag]

My argument is that the enormous amount of money generated by college football went to a small number of people. Some of it should have been given to players.

This is the talking point that's false and dangerous. The only people you can truly put in this "small number of people" is coaches, and head coaches at that. And I agree that those salaries were out of control and didn't match the market. Who else was making this money? It was spread out all over the universities.

NIL now gives the ability for players to make money if they truly earn it, by being good, popular or both. We don't need to pay them as employees.

 

[Go Budaw]

I got tuition paid for and a stipend as a grad asst. That's what I'm referring to. Businesses making money and paying for labor used to make money isn't profit sharing (Publix does that, though, and I like shopping at Publix). I agree that the NIL is something else. My argument is that the enormous amount of money generated by college football went to a small number of people. Some of it should have been given to players. The Supreme Court noticed who was really being exploited and who benefitted economically from that system. I like being paid for my labor and paying others as well. It's all now in the hands of the courts and vested interests to figure out how to make this NIL work without ruining the cash cow that is college football.

The Supreme Court actually made no distinction on exploitation. If the rules were actually that every college football player got an annual salary of $150,000 (plus scholarship, housing, etc.), but could not receive one cent above that, their opinion wouldn’t have changed a bit. That’s still a limitation on what the student athlete can earn. If the rule was a student athlete can’t make more than $10 million, that is still a limitation. The Supreme Court stated in no uncertain terms that ANY limitation on what a college athlete can earn off his own likeness is a violation of anti-trust law.

 

[ronpolk]

The difference is that if a competitor league to the NFL showed up (say Football version of LIV) and managed to pull away the top 650 players and play a 12 team league, NFL fans wouldn't remain NFL fans for long, at least in the cities where the 12 best teams are. The fans would largely go to watch the best league. The NCAA isn't like that. They aren't watching because they want to watch the best players in the world. They know they are watching inferior players but don't care because it's their team.

If the NFL sold all the saints IP to the USFL and replaced the saints with a new branded team in San Antonio, how long would you continue to pay NFL prices to watch the saints? How long would you really remain invested in them?

And if Mississippi state moves to the sun belt and starts playing getting far inferior players, do you think we will continue to put 50k+ in the stands on saturdays? Like I said earlier, it’s not a coincidence that the schools that have the biggest fan bases also have historically been the most successful.

 

[johnson86-1]

The Supreme Court actually made no distinction on exploitation. If the rules were actually that every college football player got an annual salary of $150,000 (plus scholarship, housing, etc.), but could not receive one cent above that, their opinion wouldn’t have changed a bit. That’s still a limitation on what the student athlete can earn. If the rule was a student athlete can’t make more than $10 million, that is still a limitation. The Supreme Court stated in no uncertain terms that ANY limitation on what a college athlete can earn off his own likeness is a violation of anti-trust law.

This isn't correct. The Supreme Court's decision dealt with limits on educational benefits. There were other issues that the NCAA won at the lower courts that were not appealed to the supreme court that dealt with non-educational benefits, but only the educational benefits were before the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence pretty clearly telegraphing how he would rule on any restrictions challenged on an antitrust basis, but nobody joined it. Now whether they didn't join because they didn't agree or because they did not want to opine on issues not before the court (and really, I don't think Kavanaugh should have written what he did since it seemed to pretty clearly intended to address issues not before the court) there's no telling.

 

[paindonthurt]

what do you not get about this?

They get stipends.

They get tuition
room
board
monthly spending money
free meals

Want to do away with all of that and pay them $50k/year? Ok great. They won't have **** left to pay tuition and such by years end in most cases.

 

[paindonthurt]

They get this now. They get more than you did in grad school most likely.

 

[Smoked Toag]

And if Mississippi state moves to the sun belt and starts playing getting far inferior players, do you think we will continue to put 50k+ in the stands on saturdays? Like I said earlier, it’s not a coincidence that the schools that have the biggest fan bases also have historically been the most successful.

USM will be a good case study, to a certain extent.

And if we got demoted to the Sun Belt, but the top half broke away and started their own division, therefore allowing schools like MSU to compete for a P5-2 title or something like that, I don't think our attendance would drop that much.

People want to have hope, and the current apathy right now is due to everybody knowing they can't win. The 12-team playoff is the main thing needed in college football at the moment.

 

[Go Budaw]

This isn't correct. The Supreme Court's decision dealt with limits on educational benefits. There were other issues that the NCAA won at the lower courts that were not appealed to the supreme court that dealt with non-educational benefits, but only the educational benefits were before the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence pretty clearly telegraphing how he would rule on any restrictions challenged on an antitrust basis, but nobody joined it. Now whether they didn't join because they didn't agree or because they did not want to opine on issues not before the court (and really, I don't think Kavanaugh should have written what he did since it seemed to pretty clearly intended to address issues not before the court) there's no telling.

You can get wrapped up in the semantics all you want. The fact is that Kavanaugh invited the next plaintiff with his opinion, and the NCAA knows it. There is a reason why the ability to pay players in exchange for NIL benefits went immediately from not allowed at all to fully allowed with practically no limitation whatsoever (provided that the proper avenues are exercised and everything is out in the open), and that transition happened immediately after the Alston ruling. That reason is Kavanaugh’s opinion.

The NCAA now has to play ball within that framework in order to sustain their existence. If they try to implement NIL restrictions / limitations, and get taken to the SCOTUS and lose, they no longer have any utility or purpose as an organization, and college football / basketball will move on without them (and, more importantly, cutting them off the money train). So now they are in this hilarious predicament where they essentially rewrote all their compensation limitation rules on the fly in the most broad language possible. This is fine for them of course, because they have no real intention of enforcing any of them.

 

[patdog]

Even in the worst-case scenario, Mississippi State would wind up in the AAC (or whatever the comparable to that would be). Attendance wouldn't be much different than it is now. TV/streaming money would be way down though.

 

[ronpolk]

Even in the worst-case scenario, Mississippi State would wind up in the AAC (or whatever the comparable to that would be). Attendance wouldn't be much different than it is now. TV/streaming money would be way down though.

That’s not the question though. If state got relegated to some other p5 of course attendance would be about the same because the talent level would be about the same. The question was if we get demoted to a non-p5 conference does attendance suffer… because the talent would absolutely change.

I’m not arguing the name on the jersey does not matter, it does. I’m simply saying that the talent level is an equally important factor in the size of a fan base. There are too many G5 schools that have similar alumni sizes and enrollment as state but don’t have half of the fan support as state. Those alumni don’t have less loyalty or support for their school, their school just does not have top football talent.

 

[johnson86-1]

You can get wrapped up in the semantics all you want. The fact is that Kavanaugh invited the next plaintiff with his opinion, and the NCAA knows it.

The part about Kavanaugh is true but it's still incorrect to say the Supreme Court was clear in stating it wouldn't change the ruling if athletes were capped at $150k.

There is a reason why the ability to pay players in exchange for NIL benefits went immediately from not allowed at all to fully allowed with practically no limitation whatsoever (provided that the proper avenues are exercised and everything is out in the open), and that transition happened immediately after the Alston ruling. That reason is Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Kavanaugh concurrence was the final straw. The NCAA already had significant challenges with handling NIL because of California (and I think a couple of other states) basically barred the NCAA from making people ineligible for receiving NIL funds. So the NCAA was already going to have to remove itself from California in order to keep the same rules. The Kavanaugh opinion just clarified that somebody was going to file a federal suit based on antitrust and unless they could get Congress to pass legislation exempting them from parts of antitrust and preempt the entire field of college and amateurism/eligibility rules, they weren't going to get any relief.

The NCAA now has to play ball within that framework in order to sustain their existence. If they try to implement NIL restrictions / limitations, and get taken to the SCOTUS and lose, they no longer have any utility or purpose as an organization, and college football / basketball will move on without them (and, more importantly, cutting them off the money train). So now they are in this hilarious predicament where they essentially rewrote all their compensation limitation rules on the fly in the most broad language possible. This is fine for them of course, because they have no real intention of enforcing any of them.

There are still plenty of reasons to have an NCAA to coordinate on rules. There's arguably less need for them to have one organization over FBS, FCS, etc., but there is going to be some organization (or several) doing what the NCAA does even without enforcing NIL restrictions or limitations.

In fact, in hindsight, it seems pretty clear the P5 should have broken off and made their own eligibility rules so they could claim that the NCAA was significant competition to them.

 

[patdog]

The AAC isn't a P5 conference. It's schools like Memphis, Tulane, Houston, South Florida, etc. Worst case is that's where we wind up. Attendance would be about the same as now. We'd lose some because of the marquee value of the conference opponents, but add some because we'd win more. We definitely won't wind up in the Sunbelt.

 

[Maroonthirteen]

I don't know that all these teams would be willing to play that grueling of a schedule, and abandon all the conference rivalries. I do believe this will happen later on, but not really anytime soon. 12-team playoff will help quell this.

You may be right that it will take a long time to happen. However the sec now has $3 billion tv contract. The big 10 is trying to negotiate a $1 billion contract. $2 billion is a huge difference. However that money will have to pay off in the form of kicking the big 10s tail every year for them consider moving.

rivalries, schedule difficulty mean nothing if you're losing billions to the other guy.

 

[Smoked Toag]

You may be right that it will take a long time to happen. However the sec now has $3 billion tv contract. The big 10 is trying to negotiate a $1 billion contract. $2 billion is a huge difference. However that money will have to pay off in the form of kicking the big 10s tail every year for them consider moving.

rivalries, schedule difficulty mean nothing if you're losing billions to the other guy.

No question, and money has been killing rivalries for years now (Oklahoma/Nebraska, Texas/Texas A&M, etc.). But I do think they'll eventually catch up, I figure they are going to raid the ACC for a few teams to get to 16, thus competing more with the SEC. I would be ALL OVER Georgia Tech and North Carolina. If you're going to break up rivalries, may as well break up UNC/Duke basketball, which will probably fold anyway under a coach not name K.

 

[ronpolk]

The AAC isn't a P5 conference. It's schools like Memphis, Tulane, Houston, South Florida, etc. Worst case is that's where we wind up. Attendance would be about the same as now. We'd lose some because of the marquee value of the conference opponents, but add some because we'd win more. We definitely won't wind up in the Sunbelt.

My apologies I thought I read ACC in the initial post. And I’m not saying we will ever end up in the sun belt or even aac for that matter. I’m simply making a point that the p5 has more fan support because the talent is better. Hell the aac is a perfect example of that. Memphis is comparable to state in enrollment, much bigger MSA and draws less than 40k per game. Houston has a huge enrollment, huge MSA and draws less than 30k per game. Both programs have been successful as of late too.

You know what Memphis does draw a lot of fans for, basketball… wonder why?

 

[Joe Schmedlap]

I can foresee a future where the power brokers in the SEC break away to form a mega conference and leave out of few of the smaller, less affluent schools. If and when this happens, the state of Mississippi is likely going to be left out. Only way I see a team making the cut is if there is only one school to choose from. State and Ole Miss seem to be pretty good at keeping each other down just enough to avoid the big time (baseball being the exception). Joining forces would ensure a seat at the table, but there is too much hostility among the fan bases and the state government to allow it to happen.

 

[Dawgtruc]

I think the Missouri State basketball star wanted to come play for Coach Jans, but we can't compete with $250,000....AND a HOUSE.....AND a CAR.

 

[harrybollocks]

I agree. College football is different from the pros. There are differences. But there are similarities which is why I used the word similar. There are actually quite a number of similarities even though they're different. And that afterthought of a league just got a deal with a non-afterthought of a company, Apple, worth a couple billion. College football is successful too, not EPL successful, but neither is the Championship, although it's successful too.

 

[harrybollocks]

"false and dangerous"??? How many people who benefitted represent a large population? And, how in the world is that dangerous? Harry Bollocks, international man of danger, dangerous falsehoods.

 

[harrybollocks]

I know that. They do get something because the NCAA saw what was coming. They likely deserve to make more than I did. They generate a lot of revenue. Maybe grad assts should earn more too. They free up profs to teach less and cash in on big grants.

 

[harrybollocks]

How is it different? I should have added a decent stipend rather than the limited amount they receive. A few thousand a year doesn't amount to much.

"not because players were being exploited." That depends on the definition of exploited and who is defining it.

 

[harrybollocks]

They get small stipends and all of that other stuff. I'm aware. But, try that out on coaches and admins and see what happens. I suspect $50,000/year would go a long way, maybe more than what they currently receive. Or maybe not considering how Pell Grant funds are allotted. Maybe a uni should pilot that and see what happens.

 

[johnson86-1]

How is it different? I should have added a decent stipend rather than the limited amount they receive. A few thousand a year doesn't amount to much.

"not because players were being exploited." That depends on the definition of exploited and who is defining it.

It's not a few thousand a year. It's a few thousand plus room and board. I think when I was in school players got something like 500 a month if they didn't live in a dorm. So something like $7-10k plus free food? Throw in the cost of tuition, which granted some players may not appreciate, and you get compensation somewhere in the range of $30 to $40k a year, plus harder to value stuff like tutoring, some healthcare, etc.

Certainly nothing wrong with their stipend being higher, but you have to remember that they have to balance any payments to football players with Title IX considerations. Plus most football programs are money losers. Even at P5 schools, they are largely responsible for paying for not just football, but along with basketball, paying for every other sport, so it's not crazy that ADs felt their hands were tied.

And the only people that can credibly claim they were being exploited were football players that were good enough to go pro before they were eligible under the NFL rules. To my knowledge they are the only ones without the option to go pro instead. Baseball players I guess sort of have an argument since the skip college or wait three years (or two depending on birthday) decision is a little tough.

 

[harrybollocks]

We agree on several things. Football covers the costs of sports at a number of schools and loses money at some schools. Thus, my comment that some money generated by football should go to players and more than what they're receiving now. Don't have a figure but maybe $10,000. Some schools won't be able to do that but oh well. I agree with your comments about the "system" in place where revenues generated from football are spent elsewhere.