House vs. NCAA

[orientalnc]

The judge did not accept the proposed settlement yesterday.
Basically said that putting limits on NIL collectives or restaining how much money athletes make probably would not pass legal muster.
Gave the parties three weeks to come up with a new deal or there might be a trial. The lawyer for the NCAA Said that based on the judge's comments he is not sure there is a deal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/09/06/house-v-ncaa-settlement-on-hold/

Frankly, it feels like Congress is going to have to get involved and pass something similar to pro leagues with anti-trust protection and collective bargining or the college sports industry is likely to go completely off the rails with a handful of schools spending insane amounts of money and everyone else being left behind.

I wonder if the NCAA might actually win a case where NIL collectives are portrayed as pay-for-play vehicles. I do not think most people want a few schools to be able to buy talented players while others struggle to keep non-revenue sports afloat. People actually like college sports and the NIL collectives are the beginning of the collapse. But, if Judge Wilken is correct in her opinion, an NCAA victory won't survive an appeal. We may be years from an end to this case.

 

[Bogey]

The fact that our justice system is actively involved in coming up with a viable working plan to mediate this complicated issue is very troubling to me, and the possibility of our congress also becoming involved troubles me as much or more.

 

[Root4GT]

They are doing their darndest to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs. They don't care, as long as it get theirs.

Who is they?

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Who is they?

The Deep They

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

People actually like college sports and the NIL collectives are the beginning of the collapse.

I just don’t understand this way of thinking. NIL collectives have been around for decades (just under the table) and is the main reason we have the ”haves” and “have nots” and is why this sport has been fake. It’s basically been watching 230lb wrestlers play against the 155lb classification. And the NCAA protected the 230lb group.

The current form of NIL will level the playing field because it is available to all schools. Bama, OU, Nebraska, UGA, Auburn, USC, Ohio St all bought Natties with under the table NIL and yet Georgia Tech gets put on probation.

Georgia Tech just bought our first 5 star ever and we are ranked because we bought guys like King and Singleton and whoever else we are paying. And the portal has been the biggest positive tool GT football has ever had handed to them,

If you are a Georgia Tech fan and want to go back to a system where every team (except Vandy) within a 5 hour drive of our campus is buying players (UGA, Auburn, Clemson, FSU, Florida, South Carolina, Bama) under the table and then these same teams turn us in to the NCAA because a player of ours gets a free t-shirt or a free meal then you obviously don’t know how this sport is run.

 

[orientalnc]

I just don’t understand this way of thinking. NIL collectives have been around for decades (just under the table) and is the main reason we have the ”haves” and “have nots” and is why this sport has been fake. It’s basically been watching 230lb wrestlers play against the 155lb classification. And the NCAA protected the 230lb group.

The current form of NIL will level the playing field because it is available to all schools. Bama, OU, Nebraska, UGA, Auburn, USC, Ohio St all bought Natties with under the table NIL and yet Georgia Tech gets put on probation.

Georgia Tech just bought our first 5 star ever and we are ranked because we bought guys like King and Singleton and whoever else we are paying. And the portal has been the biggest positive tool GT football has ever had handed to them,

If you are a Georgia Tech fan and want to go back to a system where every team (except Vandy) within a 5 hour drive of our campus is buying players (UGA, Auburn, Clemson, FSU, Florida, South Carolina, Bama) under the table and then these same teams turn us in to the NCAA because a player of ours gets a free t-shirt or a free meal then you obviously don’t know how this sport is run.

I agree there was cheating before the NIL collectives opened a new way to cheat. Paying a player to play at your school is against the rules now, but isn't being enforced. Look at the uga Clemson game to see what is the future of college football with unregulated NIL.

The problem now is the House case is likely going to trial and that will take years before there's anything close to a new set of rules for how players can share in the money pot legally and according to NCAA rules. Until then we are playing without enforced recruiting rules. Maybe we will be OK, but I have my doubts. Do you think we will be able to outspend uga for 4* and 5* athletes long term? Or even keep pace with them?

 

[RamblinRed]

Non paywall article

What's next for NCAA, NIL collectives after House settlement talks hit roadblock from federal judge

Judge Claudia Wilken paused preliminary approval of the House v. NCAA case over concerns on limiting NIL pay

www.cbssports.com

"If I had to bet, in three years, five years, whatever it is, some college athletes are going to be employees because that's really the only way you can solve all these antitrust problems and actually legally create these restrictions that they want to create, like we see in pro sports," said Mit Winter, an attorney specializing in NCAA sports law and Title IX at the Kennyhertz Perry law firm.

I think the issue from an NIL perspective is that there ultimately has to be some form of salary cap like pro leagues or you are right back to where we have been. A handful of schools simply out buying everyone else.

The new system doesn't really level the playing field unless there is a cap. If there is not a cap then the richest programs simply swamp the others, the only difference is it is out in the open rather than below the table. Right now the $20-23M number is seen by most schools as a floor, not a ceiling. There are going to be a handful of schools that will spend way more than that number and no one else will be able to match them.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I agree there was cheating before the NIL collectives opened a new way to cheat. Paying a player to play at your school is against the rules now, but isn't being enforced. Look at the uga Clemson game to see what is the future of college football with unregulated NIL.

The problem now is the House case is likely going to trial and that will take years before there's anything close to a new set of rules for how players can share in the money pot legally and according to NCAA rules. Until then we are playing without enforced recruiting rules. Maybe we will be OK, but I have my doubts. Do you think we will be able to outspend uga for 4* and 5* athletes long term? Or even keep pace with them?

I just disagree. We have spent decades playing without enforced recruiting rules. And actually it’s been worse than that - it’s been unbalanced enforcement. The entire world knew UGA paid Herschel yet nothing. The same for Cam, half the “U” teams, Pete Carroll at USC was buying houses, etc. And what happened to GT during this era? We didn’t cheat and fell off the map and got put on probation.

And did you not just see where we did just outspend everyone for a 5 star? Everyone keeps saying things like “we’ll fall further behind” and ”we won’t be able to outspend”. You just described the last 30 years where due to NCAA threats we fell behind and couldn’t outspend because they would have hammered us. That we just bought a 5 star player and haven’t received a Notice of Allegations letter from the NCAA is amazing. Sure, UGA will continue to buy players but that is business as usual for them. Now, they’ll have a lot more competition for a player than in the past.

Think about this - take a player like Roquan Smith or Josh Petty 7 years ago. Kirby walks in the living room and the players dad says - Bama and Clemson each offered 100K and use of a car. Kirby has to decide how much to offer going up against 2 schools.

Same scenario except today - Kirby walks win and dad says Bama and Clemson each offered 100K and a car, while Vandy and GT offered 100K and a real degree, and another 20 schools offered 75K. The reason the big teams have all been whining about NIL is they realize their competition just increased 5 fold and their success rate for getting a player has just decreased due to simple math. The auction just went from 10 bidders to 70 plus.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

I just disagree. We have spent decades playing without enforced recruiting rules. And actually it’s been worse than that - it’s been unbalanced enforcement. The entire world knew UGA paid Herschel yet nothing. The same for Cam, half the “U” teams, Pete Carroll at USC was buying houses, etc. And what happened to GT during this era? We didn’t cheat and fell off the map and got put on probation.

And did you not just see where we did just outspend everyone for a 5 star? Everyone keeps saying things like “we’ll fall further behind” and ”we won’t be able to outspend”. You just described the last 30 years where due to NCAA threats we fell behind and couldn’t outspend because they would have hammered us. That we just bought a 5 star player and haven’t received a Notice of Allegations letter from the NCAA is amazing. Sure, UGA will continue to buy players but that is business as usual for them. Now, they’ll have a lot more competition for a player than in the past.

Think about this - take a player like Roquan Smith or Josh Petty 7 years ago. Kirby walks in the living room and the players dad says - Bama and Clemson each offered 100K and use of a car. Kirby has to decide how much to offer going up against 2 schools.

Same scenario except today - Kirby walks win and dad says Bama and Clemson each offered 100K and a car, while Vandy and GT offered 100K and a real degree, and another 20 schools offered 75K. The reason the big teams have all been whining about NIL is they realize their competition just increased 5 fold and their success rate for getting a player has just decreased due to simple math. The auction just went from 10 bidders to 70 plus.

This is the new norm and I think GT can embrace this and be succesful. I was against NIL at first but this may be one of the few things to allow us to level the playing field. The progress toward degree, I thought would help us but that one hammered us real bad while others schools setup sham degrees, we could barely get transfers because they were so behind on their degree progress.

I am all in for the NIL

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

The new system doesn't really level the playing field unless there is a cap. If there is not a cap then the richest programs simply swamp the others, the only difference is it is out in the open rather than below the table. Right now the $20-23M number is seen by most schools as a floor, not a ceiling. There are going to be a handful of schools that will spend way more than that number and no one else will be able to match them.

You aren’t taking into account the punishment factor. Everyone assumes the same teams will outspend everyone. I totally disagree. A lot of teams didn’t buy players before, not because they couldn’t afford to, but because they knew they wouldn’t be protected by the NCAA. SMU is 100% proof of what happened to teams that had the temerity to do what Bama, Oklahoma, Ohio St, UGA, etc were all doing. When they got the death penalty it stopped everyone, outside of the protected few, from even trying. Look at Notre Dame. Like GT, they have fallen because of this. But, make no mistake, they can buy any player UGA can. They have just chosen not to so far, but will.

I absolutely believe as we get more into this new era that schools will emerge and many others will fall back now that the punishment factor is gone. I do not equate large fanbases with large NIL expenditures at all so no I don’t believe an Ole Miss has more money than Stanford or Cal just because they fill up a stadium 6 times a year. It’s gonna take time for a lot of schools to embrace this new era and GT is a perfect example. We are just now getting into the game even though it’s been available for 3 seasons now. Petty is proof.

 

[cpf2001]

I think the transfer portal helps even it out more than NIL imbalances it. Yeah, you can lose key contributors to factories, but I think overall it’s outweighed by the ability of players to move rather than be buried on the depth chart forever. Makes it harder for a program to have a stable of superstars that just reload every year, especially looking at the spread of QB talent.

Stability has benefits that still take program-building to achieve, and now if you’re a GT you can accent your program building with some big gets from people who for whatever reason didn’t like or win out at the initial factory who landed them.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I think the transfer portal helps even it out more than NIL imbalances it. Yeah, you can lose key contributors to factories, but I think overall it’s outweighed by the ability of players to move rather than be buried on the depth chart forever. Makes it harder for a program to have a stable of superstars that just reload every year, especially looking at the spread of QB talent.

Stability has benefits that still take program-building to achieve, and now if you’re a GT you can accent your program building with some big gets from people who for whatever reason didn’t like or win out at the initial factory who landed them.

I totally agree. Look at our game tomorrow. Two high level QB’s that were buried on depth charts or with high level teams who were always looking at the next shiny QB recruit. Both portal QB’s have revived mid level programs. For a school like GT, who is in the middle if a flaming hot bed of talent and offers high level coaching and meaningful diplomas, the portal and NIL can make us a legit top 25 program consistently. As for reloading, even Kirby has stated his depth is way thinner. UGA may be ranked #1, but they are not nearly as strong from top to bottom. No one is which is why I say the field is being leveled.

 

[MACHETE]

Y'all better get on board. There's no putting the NIL genie back in the bottle.

 

[LT 1967]

House agreement has preliminary approval by the Judge. Still a couple of steps before it actually goes into effect. Looks like April 7 of 2025 will be the effective date if the agreement is finally approved at a hearing on that date. However, for now, the Parties can still object or opt out. See below for details.

MSN

 

[slugboy]

Plaintiffs asking for a player’s association (union) and collective bargaining

Letter adds new wrinkle to $2.8B NCAA settlement

Three athletes are calling for major changes beyond those in the pending $2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement, including enabling college athletes to bargain collectively.

www.espn.com

 

[stinger78]

Plaintiffs asking for a player’s association (union) and collective bargaining

Letter adds new wrinkle to $2.8B NCAA settlement

Three athletes are calling for major changes beyond those in the pending $2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement, including enabling college athletes to bargain collectively.

www.espn.com

TBH, and I never thought I'd say this, but it's probably the best thing. The schools would then get representation.

 

[a5ehren]

Collective bargaining would make it much easier to fix some of the current issues around recruiting and transfers while giving the players something in return.

 

[iceeater1969]

I dread the offseason legal pontificating.

Note that I used pontificating instead of blabbing.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I dread the offseason legal pontificating.

Note that I used pontificating instead of blabbing.

Yes, “pontification” is much more erudite.

 

[cpf2001]

Yes, “pontification” is much more erudite.

We are getting quite bigwordalicious in this thread now.