Saban was correct that the courts produced the current state in college athletics

blion72

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When Saban and others went to the US congress, he stated that the lawsuits and decisions by courts have produced the current situation in college athletics and especially CFB. He correctly pointed out that when SCOTUS affirmed the lower court decisions that the NCAA actions violated anti-trust law, that it made it impossible for the NCAA to govern and enforce rules in college athletics.

The NCAA is essentially an extension of the schools who all join in by signing the contract. While this agreement would seem to be constitutional, interstate contracts have not provided immunity to the anti-trust laws. Most people quote Justice Kavanaugh when referring to SCOTUS in the Allston case. The thing is that Gorsuch wrote the court opinion, and Kavanaugh wrote dictum/dicta which was his additional views outside the court findings. He was focused on the paying of players and what they deserved in light of the total $$$ in CFB.

The question going forward is if you replace the NCAA with another organization, they are going to need to get immunity from anti-trust litigation by legislation in the US Congress. Otherwise you will have an ungoverned structure. Would you have to break CFB into several competing leagues so that the anti-trust argument does not work for litigation?
 
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Keyser Soze 16802

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Root cause analysis might point to decades of arrogance and lack of foresight by the NCAA as the underlying culprit here

The clung to their old self-serving model like Kodak clung to the film business despite mounting evidence that change was coming whether they liked it or not

Around 2006 or so, two arrogant former NCAA officials told me with a scoff (of course) that there would never be a CFB playoff
 

GrimReaper

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Oct 12, 2021
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When Saban and others went to the US congress, he stated that the lawsuits and decisions by courts have produced the current situation in college athletics and especially CFB. He correctly pointed out that when SCOTUS affirmed the lower court decisions that the NCAA actions violated anti-trust law, that it made it impossible for the NCAA to govern and enforce rules in college athletics.

The NCAA is essentially an extension of the schools who all join in by signing the contract. While this agreement would seem to be constitutional, interstate contracts have not provided immunity to the anti-trust laws. Most people quote Justice Kavanaugh when referring to SCOTUS in the Allston case. The thing is that Gorsuch wrote the court opinion, and Kavanaugh wrote dictum/dicta which was his additional views outside the court findings. He was focused on the paying of players and what they deserved in light of the total $$$ in CFB.

The question going forward is if you replace the NCAA with another organization, they are going to need to get immunity from anti-trust litigation by legislation in the US Congress. Otherwise you will have an ungoverned structure. Would you have to break CFB into several competing leagues so that the anti-trust argument does not work for litigation?
So the NCAA's governing structure was in violation of the law and the courts should have simply ignored it? Good thing Nick Lou chose coaching over a career in law.
 
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GregInPitt

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Oct 13, 2021
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When Saban and others went to the US congress, he stated that the lawsuits and decisions by courts have produced the current situation in college athletics and especially CFB. He correctly pointed out that when SCOTUS affirmed the lower court decisions that the NCAA actions violated anti-trust law, that it made it impossible for the NCAA to govern and enforce rules in college athletics.

The NCAA is essentially an extension of the schools who all join in by signing the contract. While this agreement would seem to be constitutional, interstate contracts have not provided immunity to the anti-trust laws. Most people quote Justice Kavanaugh when referring to SCOTUS in the Allston case. The thing is that Gorsuch wrote the court opinion, and Kavanaugh wrote dictum/dicta which was his additional views outside the court findings. He was focused on the paying of players and what they deserved in light of the total $$$ in CFB.

The question going forward is if you replace the NCAA with another organization, they are going to need to get immunity from anti-trust litigation by legislation in the US Congress. Otherwise you will have an ungoverned structure. Would you have to break CFB into several competing leagues so that the anti-trust argument does not work for litigation?
Yep, Sabin liked it a lot better when he was the only one paying $ big bucks to load up his roster.....
 

Bvillebaron

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Oct 12, 2021
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Root cause analysis might point to decades of arrogance and lack of foresight by the NCAA as the underlying culprit here

The clung to their old self-serving model like Kodak clung to the film business despite mounting evidence that change was coming whether they liked it or not

Around 2006 or so, two arrogant former NCAA officials told me with a scoff (of course) that there would never be a CFB playoff
Ding ding ding ding. We have a chicken dinner winner.
 

JWB389

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Oct 7, 2021
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Try telling that to the SEC followers who will probably remortgage their double wides to contribute to the NIL at their schools.
There’s a reason those people live in double wides. It’s not sustainable IMO to run your NIL on fan donations. It’s only sustainable if you’re able to get big corporate money.

I have been thinking the NLC model should change. Why donate to a scholarship fund for athletes? The universities have money to pay for scholarships. Change the NLC to an NIL fund.
 

blion72

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Oct 30, 2021
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There’s a reason those people live in double wides. It’s not sustainable IMO to run your NIL on fan donations. It’s only sustainable if you’re able to get big corporate money.

I have been thinking the NLC model should change. Why donate to a scholarship fund for athletes? The universities have money to pay for scholarships. Change the NLC to an NIL fund.
It would help if we could separate the NIL term/process from pay to play (employment status). NIL is for a minority of players who have unique value due to their brand and organizations want to pay them for their brand value (i.e. Caitlin Clark evidently has brand value for several advertisers). Unless there is major brand value for a player in a certain position (i.e. Texas QB), then generally the one paying for the player NIL value does not tie it to where they are going to school.

On the other hand pay to play is akin to making the players employees of that school. if we have a CBA with employee comp, there can still be true NIL, but not payments from a collective to pay a player to play at the school as that will still violate the salary cap - NFL uses this method. Nothing though prevents the player from getting NIL $$$ from say Allstate to do a commercial. Using that as the approach, only a small number of players would have NIL value in the market. Most would exist on their compensation, which might also include free education. Likely would have player contracts so they would not be able to transfer at will (i.e. open ended free agency).

If we wind up there, it seems like Congress would still need to provide the same level of protection the pro leagues have in place. The players would have given up unlimited freedom to become employees under CBA. For that to be sustainable you cannot have players litigating against the CFB pro league rules.
 

GrimReaper

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Oct 12, 2021
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It would help if we could separate the NIL term/process from pay to play (employment status). NIL is for a minority of players who have unique value due to their brand and organizations want to pay them for their brand value (i.e. Caitlin Clark evidently has brand value for several advertisers). Unless there is major brand value for a player in a certain position (i.e. Texas QB), then generally the one paying for the player NIL value does not tie it to where they are going to school.

On the other hand pay to play is akin to making the players employees of that school. if we have a CBA with employee comp, there can still be true NIL, but not payments from a collective to pay a player to play at the school as that will still violate the salary cap - NFL uses this method. Nothing though prevents the player from getting NIL $$$ from say Allstate to do a commercial. Using that as the approach, only a small number of players would have NIL value in the market. Most would exist on their compensation, which might also include free education. Likely would have player contracts so they would not be able to transfer at will (i.e. open ended free agency).

If we wind up there, it seems like Congress would still need to provide the same level of protection the pro leagues have in place. The players would have given up unlimited freedom to become employees under CBA. For that to be sustainable you cannot have players litigating against the CFB pro league rules.
Once a CBA is in place there is no need for Congress to provide "protection." See NFl, NBA, et al