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FWIW, I could see Stanford being valuable to the ACC as a piece with Notre Dame.
This is an interesting opinion piece from the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...onference-realignment-ncaa-college-athletics/
If you cannot read it the 2 biggest items imo are the following:
"The athletes GET PAID either directly from the marketers of the products they endorse or by what are curiously called “NIL collectives,” funds begun in every college town by local businesspeople and other well-heeled folks who function as booster clubs for the hometown team. The collective workaround is so well enshrined that the IRS plans to ensure that these backdoor subsidizer groups don’t claim tax-exempt status. "
"But nothing will change the game more dramatically than a bill making its way through the California legislature that would require Division 1 schools in the state to set aside 50 percent of the revenue they generate from lucrative television contracts and other sources to be paid as much as $25,000 a year to players."
"Colleges, naturally, already are howling at this prospect. The millions they make from TV deals pay for coaches, administrators, and a vast array of facilities and factotums who work there, and all that would be jeopardized by a requirement to pay the actual athletes. "
"Holden’s measure is simple in design if more complicated in execution. After the required revenue set aside goes to the money-sports players, a review board would determine how to allocate what’s left for other athletes. The bill would allow athletes to earn money over a six-year period — a nod to the challenges true student-athletes face going to school — and only if they graduate. Holden also addressed a concern that his bill would weaken Title IX, the law that prohibits discrimination against women’s sports, by requiring that payments be shared equally with male and female athletes — after the money-sport players get theirs."
"It’s difficult to overstate how influential a bill such as this coming out of Sacramento would be for the future of all college athletics. The original name-image-likeness legislation was enacted in California, validated by the U.S. Supreme Court, and then quickly copied around the country."
Both of those have significant potential implications for revenue for schools.
If collectives are not tax deductible, unlike AA's, that reduces the new funds available as taxes will have to be accounted for with any moneys received.
If the bill in CA becomes law, SA's would almost certainly immediately try to make sure it gets expanded through negotiations or the courts. The potential to having to save 50% of TV revenue for athletes is a real game changer. That completely changes the economics of the entire enterprise. First off, it simply greatly reduces the amount of money AA's will have to pay coaches, staff, employees, etc.
But it also flattens the revenue differences between conferences.
In the most recent financial statements ACC schools received about $39M, SEC schools $49M and B1G schools $59M. If each school has to save 50% of its TV revenue to pay athletes, then that means effectively their TV revenue streams are now $19.5M, $24.5M, and $29.5M. B12 would be $15.4M.
Best quote IMO:
"While the smartest move would be to simply acknowledge that a handful of sports are already professionalized — and create a pro college leagues to both pay the athletes and provide for an education if they want one — the odds of that are roughly, to steal a phrase, NIL.
Until then, though, the fairest way to reform college sports is to pay the athletes who are generating big bucks from their hard work — and throw some cash toward the students who still play the games they love."