2024 Football Portal

[roadkill]

There cannot be a cap. The funds are from independent sources to the players. A cap would be like the NBA setting a maximum amount for how much Nike can pay Michael Jordan. It is not going to happen.

Agree.
Some of the legal restrictions being discussed include reducing maximum football roster sizes down from 120 to 85. This would kill walk-ons, but with NIL, scholarship limits don't mean much.

 

[danny daniel]

Agree.
Some of the legal restrictions being discussed include reducing maximum football roster sizes down from 120 to 85. This would kill walk-ons, but with NIL, scholarship limits don't mean much.

Thoughts:

You can certainly play with a roster of 85 as you typically only play about 50 players with meaningful playing time. Without other considerations I like this proposal

The 85 limit appears to help make the lwr/mdl tier schools more competitive but....

With less players to fund the hgr tier teams would have more money per player and this could widen the gap between the tiers? A cap could help here.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

The fix for this is stricter guidelines and enforcement of progress towards degree as a requirement for eligibility. Players constantly transferring to chase NIL money would not be eligible to play, as most will lose credits on the transfer. That is one place where I think the courts will not overrule the NCAA.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Sign a contract for four years. Pay SS, state, and federal taxes. And Union fees.
Might Fix it

 

[stinger 1957]

They first have to get the non players out of the way and then there will eventually be one big major CFB league with rules, limits etc. Don't think it will be stopped - gonna happen IMO.

 

[roadkill]

The fix for this is stricter guidelines and enforcement of progress towards degree as a requirement for eligibility. Players constantly transferring to chase NIL money would not be eligible to play, as most will lose credits on the transfer. That is one place where I think the courts will not overrule the NCAA.

I second this concept. When remedies that touch upon player compensation and freedom to transfer have become very restricted due to the Sherman Act issues and related lawsuits, I think that eligibility requirements may be one of the few things left for the NCAA's competition committee to consider. Hard to argue that "Student"-athletes shouldn't have to be succeeding as students, after all. Of course, schools can still game the system (looking at you, UNC), but at least there could be somewhat enforceable rules.

 

[57jacket]

Sign a contract for four years. Pay SS, state, and federal taxes. And Union fees.
Might Fix it

What do our "legal" minds think of this. The NIL org. signs the kid to attend xx uni for 4 years.

 

[alagold]

Well, if they do that, then they can do away with eligibility restrictions. Why only allow a 4-5 year contract? What you'll end up with is a minor league where some players are journeymen and stick around the minors for their whole career.

yep---i wonder if ANY guy gets put off by a school for poor "academic progress"? in the portal deal.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

What do our "legal" minds think of this. The NIL org. signs the kid to attend xx uni for 4 years.

The NIL payments cannot be tethered to playing for a specific school so there is no way for the NIL to be able to require that the student athletes stay at a specific school for four years. Again, the NIL collectives are independent of the schools so there is way they can make the student sign a four year contract.

 

[yeti92]

The NIL payments cannot be tethered to playing for a specific school so there is no way for the NIL to be able to require that the student athletes stay at a specific school for four years. Again, the NIL collectives are independent of the schools so there is way they can make the student sign a four year contract.

Isn't that kind of what Tennessee and Virginia and a few other states are challenging right now? I mean not exactly, but they are arguing the schools should be allowed to distribute NIL directly, which would obviously be for these athletes to attend the schools paying them.

 

[cpf2001]

Caps/restrictions on NIL aren’t very realistic, the goal of a employee/union bargaining world would have to be to make the fundraising for the “real” salary paying cause “collectives” to lose the ability to raise fund for iffy NIL deals where there’s not a lot of actual sponsorship going on. You’d probably still have people playing games for the super-elite players, though, to get around caps.

 

[slugboy]

What do our "legal" minds think of this. The NIL org. signs the kid to attend xx uni for 4 years.

• We are in the current NIL situation because colleges didn’t have employment contracts with college athletes. Therefore, courts ruled that blocking external income was illegal restraint of trade
• Colleges still don’t give employment contracts to college athletes, so they can’t block outside income, which we refer to as NIL for historical reasons
• All the solutions that people are proposing are solutions that would be enabled if the schools had employment contracts with the athletes.

In short, we keep trying to get the benefits of a contract without having the contract. The schools, conferences, and NCAA aren’t admitting pay for play, and the employment contracts that would go with it.

We’ve seen people work harder to cheat than they would have to work to do something the right way. CFB is doing that.

 

[stinger78]

• We are in the current NIL situation because colleges didn’t have employment contracts with college athletes. Therefore, courts ruled that blocking external income was illegal restraint of trade
• Colleges still don’t give employment contracts to college athletes, so they can’t block outside income, which we refer to as NIL for historical reasons
• All the solutions that people are proposing are solutions that would be enabled if the schools had employment contracts with the athletes.

In short, we keep trying to get the benefits of a contract without having the contract. The schools, conferences, and NCAA aren’t admitting pay for play, and the employment contracts that would go with it.

We’ve seen people work harder to cheat than they would have to work to do something the right way. CFB is doing that.

Yes, you are correct, IMPO. However, I cannot see colleges assume the cost and risk of considering athletes as employees. Can you imagine the risk and cost of an employment related injury for a football player? Independent contractors, yes. Employees, no.

 

[iceeater1969]

Yes, you are correct, IMPO. However, I cannot see colleges assume the cost and risk of considering athletes as employees. Can you imagine the risk and cost of an employment related injury for a football player? Independent contractors, yes. Employees, no.

When a weak leader faces a tough problem, he pivots to look busy fixing easy problems.

Time to replace the NCAA.

 

[stingerman]

Not sure how this will ever end up with some reasonable limit on the maximum NIL allowed. It would likely end up back in court again that the NCAA or whomever cannot restrict compensation. It would require some sort of congressional intervention like the antitrust protection the NFL enjoys with salary caps, etc. Nothing can happen IMO, unless athletes sign contracts rather than the current scholarship structure. I was talking with a close friend that is a UGA grad (transferred from Tech BTW) and he agrees the current system is unsustainable even though UGA is benefiting from it.

I can only dream that we could go back to the amateur model and just have a separate prep development league for kids that want to get paid cash instead of getting paid a scholarship

 

[boger2337]

There cannot be a cap. The funds are from independent sources to the players. A cap would be like the NBA setting a maximum amount for how much Nike can pay Michael Jordan. It is not going to happen.

Sure there can be. The movement is to allow the schools to be the ones to pay the players. That's when you set the cap.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

Sure there can be. The movement is to allow the schools to be the ones to pay the players. That's when you set the cap.

You are wrong. The NCAA has no jurisdiction over how much a NIL collective pays a single student athlete, let alone how much they pay all the players in a program. Further, if they tried to set a cap, it would get shut down by the courts in a second since they would be infringing on the players non school related income. Caps work in professional sports because the players are employees of the league and the league can establish team salary caps for competitive purposes.

Repeat after me....

Neither the schools nor the NCAA pay NIL so they cannot cap NIL.

 

[Lil G]

Sure there can be. The movement is to allow the schools to be the ones to pay the players. That's when you set the cap.

Wouldn’t this result in just more under the table payments? I think most big time schools would happily go back to their other forms of paying players- paper bag and wiring their parents.

Don’t forget every UGA player had a Dodge Charger before NIL.

I’m not saying I like the limitless purchasing of talent but trying to restrict it would be pretty much impossible

 

[slugboy]

Sure there can be. The movement is to allow the schools to be the ones to pay the players. That's when you set the cap.

Without an antitrust exemption? That’s illegal constraint of trade, which is how we got here.

 

[roadkill]

Wouldn’t this result in just more under the table payments? I think most big time schools would happily go back to their other forms of paying players- paper bag and wiring their parents.

Don’t forget every UGA player had a Dodge Charger before NIL.

I’m not saying I like the limitless purchasing of talent but trying to restrict it would be pretty much impossible

Back to the point that @leatherneckjacket and I were making earlier, any attempt to control player compensation, whether from the schools or outside organizations, legally or under the table, is bound to fail. They need to find other means of leveling the field. One way is roster control, another is progress toward a degree. The NCAA already has both of these, so tweaking them shouldn't be too much of a stretch.