GT Player Deals

[forensicbuzz]

So you’re telling me if they were to set up a minor league for the NFL and the best players went and played there, got paid, and spent all their time prepping for the NFL people would continue to watch Div 2/3 talent at these schools?

ESPN and the likes would continue to shell out big time tv contracts with these schools?

Highly doubt it. People show up because the players. Schools like Bama, Ohio State, Michigan, ND…etc have some clout, but even they would struggle to make money with the best players having another option.

To another one of your points, I was one of those athletes that never would’ve got into GT without being good at baseball. Being a baseball player, we only had 11.7 scholarships (I believe) for our whole team so you can imagine how much I or anyone else got.

What I can tell you from experience is that the school doesn’t (or didn’t) care about you once you leave unless you “made it” or they want something from you (usually money).

So I’m all for guys having an opportunity to make some money.

I guarantee you that 25,000 GT fans would still buy season tickets and another 10-20k fans would show up for every game. Yes, it's the school that attracts the fans, not the student-athletes. We all want the best athletes we can get because we want to win. But, if D2 or D3 were the top athletes available, we'd still be cheering the Brave and Bold and shouting "To Hell With Georgia," just like our daddies did. If you wouldn't, then you're not a real GT fan.

 

[lv20gt]

The colleges have made their rules and the athletes know what these rules are well before they ever join one of the programs.

So basically the colleges made their rules and we just have to live by them?

 

[forensicbuzz]

So basically the colleges made their rules and we just have to live by them?

Yes. The athletes can go somewhere other than to college. Not 1 single school is making 1 single athlete go to school there.

But, don't misunderstand or misrepresent my point. I've never said the student-athletes shouldn't participate in the fruits of all the labor. I have repeatedly said it is open for discussion, taking neither a pro or con viewpoint. My sole point is that no one is forcing the athletes to go to college. The only sport there is no alternative is in American football and that is an issue with the NFL, not the colleges.

 

[TampaGT]

What a waste of money. You could pay the top 5 guys all $10k a year and get the exact same audience reach for a tenth of the cost. None of the 2nd and 3rd string guys are going to provide any return on that investment. I'm also kind of baffled how an MMA gym has half a million to throw at something like this, seems like there would be more efficient ways to draw new clients in.

This guy isn’t doing it for marketing or ROI he is doing it to buy players for his favorite team. Any HS senior knows from day 1 he is getting AT LEAST $500 per month if he goes to Miami. You are going to see this happen at many school. im willing to bet that this will going on at all the sec schools, most of the b10,b12. Tshirt deals and twitter post deals is not going to cut it When others are just going to be handing out cash just for being on the team.

 

[AUFC]

I guarantee you that 25,000 GT fans would still buy season tickets and another 10-20k fans would show up for every game. Yes, it's the school that attracts the fans, not the student-athletes. We all want the best athletes we can get because we want to win. But, if D2 or D3 were the top athletes available, we'd still be cheering the Brave and Bold and shouting "To Hell With Georgia," just like our daddies did. If you wouldn't, then you're not a real GT fan.

I intend to cheer on my alma mater to conference championships whether we're FBS or D3, but I don't think you can claim that attendance wouldn't drop if we were D3. UChicago is an interesting use-case. They were Big Ten in the 20th century and these days they barely pull 1000 fans a game. That school has undoubtedly done well on endowment and prestige but we'll never know if they would be revered on the same level (or above) as Stanford had they kept D1 athletics.

Highest attendance in D3 in 2019 was 7,000 fans a game. While none of those teams cited have recently dropped from D1, I would imagine Bobby Dodd would be a ghost town if we were playing against schools like Berry.

 

[Pointer]

Oh, you are so wrong. Bagmen will have a field day. Keep in mind it won’t be the bagmen we’ve all grown to love handing out $100 bills or meeting with Kirby‘s runner in a Applebee’s parking lot in Cairo or Bainbridge. Oh no. The bagmen of the future will be way more sophisticated. With the NCAA losing all enforcement power it’s a new era. We’ve already seen Oregon flipping big time recruits. The factories are gonna be a changin!

This didn't take long

LINK

 

[Lee]

No one cares about individual players.

Yes, it's the school that attracts the fans, not the student-athletes.

If both of these are true, can you please explain why the numbers on jerseys made available for fans to purchase almost always coincide with the best players on each team?

Also, why do we still talk about Calvin, Bay Bay, Joe Hamilton, heck even a kicker in But? The players are what make rooting forward a team fun.

Lastly, why is recruiting such a big business? Why do coaches and schools spend millions of dollars trying to get kids to come play for them? To win games for sure, but this is just proof that the players matter.

I’m not saying the schools don’t attract people, but if you think schools like Bama, Clemson, or even GT would have the following they do now with talent like Alcorn St, Middle Tenn, or any other FCS school you’re lying to yourself.

@forensicbuzz you’re right though when you say there aren’t any other options for guys coming out of HS. If there were any legit options college football would take a huge hit.

 

[ugacdawg]

What a waste of money. You could pay the top 5 guys all $10k a year and get the exact same audience reach for a tenth of the cost. None of the 2nd and 3rd string guys are going to provide any return on that investment. I'm also kind of baffled how an MMA gym has half a million to throw at something like this, seems like there would be more efficient ways to draw new clients in.

Well, think of it from a different perspective. Booster A (or MMA?) is a regular contributor to a large brand school to help funnel athletes and support big initiatives. $500k is not a business investment for him every year. He doesn’t need the money. Instead he gives that quietly where it’s needed each year to support the program. Now, he gets to give that publicly and write it off as a business expense. He might actually be better off overall by ‘losing’ money on this particular initiative to offset other business/tax activities. My point is that it’s not a business investment, it’s a ‘donation’ to keep the machine turning in a different form.

 

[Technut1990]

Interesting use of the word free.

If your employer offered you "free" CE, "free" meals, "free" health insurance, and access to "free" gym would you show up to work everyday if they didn't pay you a salary?

If your answer is no, I guess you're no different than the student athletes. If your answer is yes, I encourage you to let your employer know. I'm sure they'd be glad to hear it.

Also, what are the requirements for non athlete scholarship recipients when they get to school? Do they just have to keep their GPA at a certain level? Are they required to do service projects? Are they required to be at the gym at 4:30 in the am and run until they puke?

My guess is you weren't a student athlete. Nothing about that life screams free. The schools and the NCAA make millions to billions of dollars off the backs of these kids. It's about time they can monetize themselves.

first of all if my employee offered these things, especially free healthcare, I’d be paying federal taxes on them at their given values , they are employment perks but I doubt any of these students or you yourself have ever been taxed on the value of your free college degree. Now I’m not saying you should be but comparing employment to free college is apples to orange.

Student athletes are at the gym at 4:30 in the morning because they are earning the FREE education they are being given. If you weren’t an athlete getting that free education you wouldn’t be in the gym of your own free will. Why because all you could do as a regular student is bust your *** on the education you are financing in hopes that you will turn that education into a job from which you will have to pay back your student loans.

everything about a free education screams free. What’s the actual avg value of a Masters Degree at Tech ? I guess it depends on the subject but I can promise you that it Will cost you even if you fail in your 3rd year. How much does a scholarship athlete owe if he fails out ?

as far as effort, every person in college is judged on effort, try not studying or not putting effort into your papers, it’s what non athletes must do because they don’t get drafted and then return 10 years later to finish their degree.

nothing you have said addressed my point though. I said both sides are greedy. You can’t dispute that. Colleges want millions to fill their coffers and players want millions for there services, and they get a huge % of it in educational value that is FREE to them. They could drop the scholly and give up sports, if they did they would stop worrying about how much the institution obtains by hosting sports programs and worry about how they would pay for their own education, which they don’t do right now.

In my area I followed a player closely, he was a stud, got a scholarship from Tech, played 4 years, got his free degree AND signed 3 separate NFL contracts. He then went on to sign in the CFL. All told he played about 4 professional downs. At the end of his career he had received 2.7 million from these teams, just being on the roster. When he retired he opened his own business based on the knowledge he obtained from his FREE Tech degree. The work he put in made his life and that degree set his business career 5 steps ahead of non athletes. Not simply because he had that degree but because he could invest the 3 million in seed money playing at Tech eventually provided. It’s nice that he is successful but by no means is he in the same boat as a non athlete degree holder coming out of Tech, they would be putting their first million back into interest bearing student loans not a business.

this how much do colleges make is just another version of ‘they should pay me because they make a lot of money’.

tell you what, you establish a major state college, do all you can to draw endowment money, hire the professors, purchase the materials of learning as well as the brick and mortar buildings and the land to put it on and then we will sit back and see your reaction when the people who, you‘ve given free access demand you not only give them that FREE access but also a share of your profits, we shall see how you feel after you receive the demand.

either way I’ll stick to my point, both are greedy. How many simple minded people would jump at just a free Tech degree ? No tuition and a chance to graduate from Tech ? 99 out of 100 non athletes would do it with pride and provide all the effort, without anything more than saying thank you.

 

[JacketOff]

first of all if my employee offered these things, especially free healthcare, I’d be paying federal taxes on them at their given values , they are employment perks but I doubt any of these students or you yourself have ever been taxed on the value of your free college degree. Now I’m not saying you should be but comparing employment to free college is apples to orange.

Student athletes are at the gym at 4:30 in the morning because they are earning the FREE education they are being given. If you weren’t an athlete getting that free education you wouldn’t be in the gym of your own free will. Why because all you could do as a regular student is bust your *** on the education you are financing in hopes that you will turn that education into a job from which you will have to pay back your student loans.

everything about a free education screams free. What’s the actual avg value of a Masters Degree at Tech ? I guess it depends on the subject but I can promise you that it Will cost you even if you fail in your 3rd year. How much does a scholarship athlete owe if he fails out ?

as far as effort, every person in college is judged on effort, try not studying or not putting effort into your papers, it’s what non athletes must do because they don’t get drafted and then return 10 years later to finish their degree.

nothing you have said addressed my point though. I said both sides are greedy. You can’t dispute that. Colleges want millions to fill their coffers and players want millions for there services, and they get a huge % of it in educational value that is FREE to them. They could drop the scholly and give up sports, if they did they would stop worrying about how much the institution obtains by hosting sports programs and worry about how they would pay for their own education, which they don’t do right now.

In my area I followed a player closely, he was a stud, got a scholarship from Tech, played 4 years, got his free degree AND signed 3 separate NFL contracts. He then went on to sign in the CFL. All told he played about 4 professional downs. At the end of his career he had received 2.7 million from these teams, just being on the roster. When he retired he opened his own business based on the knowledge he obtained from his FREE Tech degree. The work he put in made his life and that degree set his business career 5 steps ahead of non athletes. Not simply because he had that degree but because he could invest the 3 million in seed money playing at Tech eventually provided. It’s nice that he is successful but by no means is he in the same boat as a non athlete degree holder coming out of Tech, they would be putting their first million back into interest bearing student loans not a business.

this how much do colleges make is just another version of ‘they should pay me because they make a lot of money’.

tell you what, you establish a major state college, do all you can to draw endowment money, hire the professors, purchase the materials of learning as well as the brick and mortar buildings and the land to put it on and then we will sit back and see your reaction when the people who, you‘ve given free access demand you not only give them that FREE access but also a share of your profits, we shall see how you feel after you receive the demand.

either way I’ll stick to my point, both are greedy. How many simple minded people would jump at just a free Tech degree ? No tuition and a chance to graduate from Tech ? 99 out of 100 non athletes would do it with pride and provide all the effort, without anything more than saying thank you.

This is a lot of words with little to no point. Especially any significant ones against young adults making money based on their own name, talents, and/or social status.

 

[Technut1990]

This is a lot of words with little to no point. Especially any significant ones against young adults making money based on their own name, talents, and/or social status.

tell ya what, sometimes I wonder if some of your parents taught y’all any manners. There simply is no need for this response.

perhaps if you read Lee’s response to me you would see that I addressed his points.

The clear point is greed, do you get it now ? Greed. When a person is getting something of value for free but wants more it’s greedy.

I never said anything about the issue of name and image, you did, but thanks for your input on something I never talked about.

 

[bensaysitathome]

I intend to cheer on my alma mater to conference championships whether we're FBS or D3, but I don't think you can claim that attendance wouldn't drop if we were D3. UChicago is an interesting use-case. They were Big Ten in the 20th century and these days they barely pull 1000 fans a game. That school has undoubtedly done well on endowment and prestige but we'll never know if they would be revered on the same level (or above) as Stanford had they kept D1 athletics.

Highest attendance in D3 in 2019 was 7,000 fans a game. While none of those teams cited have recently dropped from D1, I would imagine Bobby Dodd would be a ghost town if we were playing against schools like Berry.

So I watched about half of the Tech baseball games this year. Followed along with the box score for most of the rest. It's fun, and I'm connected. I didn't watch a single minute of minor league baseball.

I watched most Tech basketball games during our ACC Championship run. Maybe 20 minutes of the NBA.

Every Tech football game, a whole bunch of other college games, and I might put on the NFL on Sundays but honestly I just don't care.


Are we talking dropping to D3, and teams like Alabama and Clemson staying competitive because $$$? Or are we talking about a separate minor league, and Alabama and Clemson would still have to field a team?

I seriously don't think college football fans watch for junior-level pro talent. If you offered up a minor league, it would be an investment for the NFL because of player development, not because people would flock to their tvs to watch it. Do I want the sport and team I care about to have a stage? Good players? Be competitive? Absolutely to all three. But if you removed the Trevor Lawrences and Najee Harrises, I'd still rather watch something where I give a **** about the outcome.

 

[forensicbuzz]

If both of these are true, can you please explain why the numbers on jerseys made available for fans to purchase almost always coincide with the best players on each team? Yes, because they're ours.

Also, why do we still talk about Calvin, Bay Bay, Joe Hamilton, heck even a kicker in But? The players are what make rooting forward a team fun. We wouldn't be talkingabout Johnson, Thomas, Halmilton, Butker, or any other of these players if they'd have played on another team any more than we already talk about great players on other teams.

Lastly, why is recruiting such a big business? Why do coaches and schools spend millions of dollars trying to get kids to come play for them? To win games for sure, but this is just proof that the players matter. It's about winning. Coaches know their jobs depend on their ability to win. They don't care which players they get as long as they get what they need to win. As CPJ always said, "they all come highly recommended." The fans, in general, are primarily interested in their team winning. Then, far down the line, some schools' fans are interested in the success of the student-athletes that went to their school. Why? Because it reflects positively on the school. Almost all of us do not know these kids personally. Our interest in them and their success stems solely from their association with the school we love.

I’m not saying the schools don’t attract people, but if you think schools like Bama, Clemson, or even GT would have the following they do now with talent like Alcorn St, Middle Tenn, or any other FCS school you’re lying to yourself. If the talent level at Alcorn St. and MTSU were the top talent at our level and we were competing for championships the schools would attract the same people they do now. Absolutely. To think otherwise is naive and ridiculous.

@forensicbuzz you’re right though when you say there aren’t any other options for guys coming out of HS. If there were any legit options college football would take a huge hit. That's for the HS players to take up with the NFL. It's not the college's job to be an NFL prep school. The schools benefit from this, but it's a secondary concern. If a minor league were formed for football, the college stadiums would be just as full as they are now.

 

[Lee]

Student athletes are at the gym at 4:30 in the morning because they are earning the FREE education they are being given. If you weren’t an athlete getting that free education you wouldn’t be in the gym of your own free will. Why because all you could do as a regular student is bust your *** on the education you are financing in hopes that you will turn that education into a job from which you will have to pay back your student loans.

You still seem to be struggling with the word free. How do you earn something that is free? That’s not how free works.

nothing you have said addressed my point though. I said both sides are greedy. You can’t dispute that. Colleges want millions to fill their coffers and players want millions for there services, and they get a huge % of it in educational value that is FREE to them.

This is America. 95% of the population is greedy. This does nothing to improve your argument.

And again, the vast majority of the athletes that could actually make money don’t care about their “educational value.”

How many simple minded people would jump at just a free Tech degree ? No tuition and a chance to graduate from Tech ? 99 out of 100 non athletes would do it with pride and provide all the effort, without anything more than saying thank you.

Of course they would. They provide no value. Nobody would pay to come watch them sit in class.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

You still seem to be struggling with the word free. How do you earn something that is free? That’s not how free works.

This is America. 95% of the population is greedy. This does nothing to improve your argument.

And again, the vast majority of the athletes that could actually make money don’t care about their “educational value.”

Of course they would. They provide no value. Nobody would pay to come watch them sit in class.

“95% of the population is greedy.”

Source?

 

[FlatsLander]

If both of these are true, can you please explain why the numbers on jerseys made available for fans to purchase almost always coincide with the best players on each team?

Also, why do we still talk about Calvin, Bay Bay, Joe Hamilton, heck even a kicker in But? The players are what make rooting forward a team fun.

Lastly, why is recruiting such a big business? Why do coaches and schools spend millions of dollars trying to get kids to come play for them? To win games for sure, but this is just proof that the players matter.

I’m not saying the schools don’t attract people, but if you think schools like Bama, Clemson, or even GT would have the following they do now with talent like Alcorn St, Middle Tenn, or any other FCS school you’re lying to yourself.

@forensicbuzz you’re right though when you say there aren’t any other options for guys coming out of HS. If there were any legit options college football would take a huge hit.

If 90% of the top talent went to the NFL minor league, that would just move talent ceiling for all of CFB down. Sure, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, etc would get most of the top talent that stayed in CFB, but all the other teams would be way less outclassed just based on talent. If there are only 50 (current) 4-5* players to go around, then a bigger portion of Alabama's team would be filled by (current) 3* players. This would then lead to fewer complete blowout games, more reliance on coaching and talent development, more innovation on schemes, and more competitive games. If only supporting the most talent players was all that mattered, then the fanbases of all the teams ranked outside the top 40 would start to disappear. People generally watch CFB to hope their team wins.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I intend to cheer on my alma mater to conference championships whether we're FBS or D3, but I don't think you can claim that attendance wouldn't drop if we were D3. UChicago is an interesting use-case. They were Big Ten in the 20th century and these days they barely pull 1000 fans a game. That school has undoubtedly done well on endowment and prestige but we'll never know if they would be revered on the same level (or above) as Stanford had they kept D1 athletics.

Highest attendance in D3 in 2019 was 7,000 fans a game. While none of those teams cited have recently dropped from D1, I would imagine Bobby Dodd would be a ghost town if we were playing against schools like Berry.

They changed the goalposts. This isn’t about GT playing D3 teams, the statement was if a NFL minor league were formed and sucked a lot of talent to them. So GT would still be D1 playing the same teams. Some believe in that scenario that no good players would be left and that no one would want to buy the jersey of the best player on their team because that player was a lowly 3 star. It’s just funny that some folks believe fans show up because of the current crop of players. The name on the back of the jersey changes almost every 2 years whereas the name on the front is constant. I’ve never gone to one GT game because I wanted to see a player. Sure, it’s fun to watch high level guys wearing GT jerseys like Calvin, but if it was the player I’d ask how many GT fans attended Lions games? I for one have never spent a dime to see Calvin or Butker play a game not wearing a GT jersey. Primarily because I just didn’t care. But I have watched a lot of mediocre players play games wearing GT jerseys and I enjoyed that.

As for baseball, I watched a lot of games this year because they were solid and I could still only name a few players and if they walked up to me on the street I’d have no idea who they were. I watched because it was GT playing.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Well, think of it from a different perspective. Booster A (or MMA?) is a regular contributor to a large brand school to help funnel athletes and support big initiatives. $500k is not a business investment for him every year. He doesn’t need the money. Instead he gives that quietly where it’s needed each year to support the program. Now, he gets to give that publicly and write it off as a business expense. He might actually be better off overall by ‘losing’ money on this particular initiative to offset other business/tax activities. My point is that it’s not a business investment, it’s a ‘donation’ to keep the machine turning in a different form.

Yep. And we are going to see schools emerge as big time players that we would never think of because they will figure it out and attract players. Those using the old school of thought of under hand payments by bagmen to get kids to go to garbage schools in garbage towns are not thinking forward. No longer will the good schools be beaten by the under the table game. Now you’ll have real schools like Stanford, GT, Miami, Duke, etc. who can pay and offer real degrees. Then you’ll just have the crazy money folks like T. Boone Pickens types who will make this little dude offering 500 a month in Miami seem like child’s play. What we are seeing right now is kindergarten stuff compared to what we’ll see emerge. I think GT will be in a great position to buy players and offer real school. Unlike that idiot Miami guy, it’s gonna come down to buying a handful of players not the entire team.

 

[jojatk]

tell ya what, sometimes I wonder if some of your parents taught y’all any manners. There simply is no need for this response.

perhaps if you read Lee’s response to me you would see that I addressed his points.

The clear point is greed, do you get it now ? Greed. When a person is getting something of value for free but wants more it’s greedy.

I never said anything about the issue of name and image, you did, but thanks for your input on something I never talked about.

I'm mystified that you think the athletes are the greedy ones.

You like to highlight the word free but it's completely irrelevant because nothing is being provided for free. For the stuff the schools provide to the student-athletes to be free would require that the student-athletes not have to do anything in order to get it. It's not FREE. Student-Athletes are not getting something of value for free. They are having to work their asses off for that thing of value (and yes, I agree it does have value). The school is not saying "oh here's a free education and we're just doing this out of the goodness of our hearts and don't want anything from you in return."

The fact that you don't apply the same rationale to the schools as you do to the student-athletes is also very telling. The schools are getting something of value from the student-athletes. They are getting a lot of hard work in practice and a lot of hard work on the field of play. And they are always wanting more and more money. The revenues from TV aren't going down. But they're not greedy? But the student-athletes are the greedy ones for wanting to make money from their own name, image, and likeness? I'm missing something. This whole discussion is about name, image, and likeness. You are commenting in a thread specifically about that.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I'm mystified that you think the athletes are the greedy ones.

You like to highlight the word free but it's completely irrelevant because nothing is being provided for free. For the stuff the schools provide to the student-athletes to be free would require that the student-athletes not have to do anything in order to get it. It's not FREE. Student-Athletes are not getting something of value for free. They are having to work their asses off for that thing of value (and yes, I agree it does have value). The school is not saying "oh here's a free education and we're just doing this out of the goodness of our hearts and don't want anything from you in return."

The fact that you don't apply the same rationale to the schools as you do to the student-athletes is also very telling. The schools are getting something of value from the student-athletes. They are getting a lot of hard work in practice and a lot of hard work on the field of play. And they are always wanting more and more money. The revenues from TV aren't going down. But they're not greedy? But the student-athletes are the greedy ones for wanting to make money from their own name, image, and likeness? I'm missing something. This whole discussion is about name, image, and likeness. You are commenting in a thread specifically about that.

Don't quibble over the meaning of the words. Everyone in the discussion knows that "free education" means that the student is not paying for their matriculation and Room&Board with money.