Is college football near the end as we know it.

[YellowJacketFan2018]

How much money does the NCAA make on merchandise and TV licensing?
Take that money and divide it up evenly among all the players. There, players got paid.

Someone posted a while back about how the perennial top twenty teams in generating revenue for the NCAA get slapped on the wrist for violations.
The exception being Southern Cal...but everyone else gets handled with kit gloves while teams like us get clobbered.
This tells me the NCAA will protect their cash cows when possible.

My point is the NCAA is corrupt and maybe a huge shift is needed. The objective was to keep all schools on a level playing field. This will destroy any semblance of that and kill college athletics.

I dont know how all of this will end up shaking out....but if involves raising money we are hosed.

That could knock schools like Georgia Tech into a new version of DlAA

 

[JorgeJonas]

Very little will change. Most players just aren’t worth all that much. Even the best minor league baseball players don’t have huge endorsements.

A handful of players will likely get some money, and I will be happy for them. I can think of no good reason to prevent a person willing to pay another from from doing so in this context.

 

[FrostedOrange]

They should just start a minor league football system like baseball. This kind of money has perverted colleges and higher education. Let colleges continue to feature "student athletes" and kids who just wanna play football can go that route

 

[GT_EE78]

doesn't look good,not sure what happens. Best case is just make the cali teams forfeit all games and be eligible for bowls or playoffs.
Maybe the kids won't accept the payments. unpredictable

 

[southernhive]

They should just start a minor league football system like baseball. This kind of money has perverted colleges and higher education. Let colleges continue to feature "student athletes" and kids who just wanna play football can go that route

This times 1000!

 

[Jim Prather]

The problem is not just paying football players... With Title IX, as soon as you pay the FB players, you have to pay EVERYONE... It will really hit the non-revenue sports hard as many of them will get dropped entirely to save money...

 

[chris975d]

Very little will change. Most players just aren’t worth all that much. Even the best minor league baseball players don’t have huge endorsements.

A handful of players will likely get some money, and I will be happy for them. I can think of no good reason to prevent a person willing to pay another from from doing so in this context.

I’m not sure if that’s a good comparison. There’s not a whole lot of money in and around minor league baseball Certainly not enough of a fan base anywhere to fill up an 80,000-105,000 seat stadium week in, week out like in college football. There’s HUGE money in and around FBS football and D1 basketball. And because of that money, I think it’ll have more than a small effect. Particularly in D1 basketball, where 1 or 2 key players CAN make a huge difference to a team and season results. Much more so than 1-2 players can in football.

 

[chris975d]

The problem is not just paying football players... With Title IX, as soon as you pay the FB players, you have to pay EVERYONE... It will really hit the non-revenue sports hard as many of them will get dropped entirely to save money...

Well isn’t the workaround there to allow the players to be eligible to sign their own endorsements/get paid for their own likeness? That way the money isn’t coming from the athletic associations/schools, and it’s driven by popularity/performance of the individual player.

 

[herb]

The problem is not just paying football players... With Title IX, as soon as you pay the FB players, you have to pay EVERYONE... It will really hit the non-revenue sports hard as many of them will get dropped entirely to save money...

This isn't a pay for play law, despite the name. (at least based on what i read) Isn't it more that the school can't stop the player from getting outside income? If that is the case there are no title IX issues as the money comes from outside the school

 

[BonafideJacket]

There are some legitimate constitutional questions regarding the commerce clause at play, but those are limited to the relationship between the school, conference, and the NCAA. I'm all for an individual profiting from their own likeness whenever and however they want. However, I do think there will be unintended consequences for non-revenue sports, facilities, and other cost centers for athletic departments. Some portion of the current legitimate donations being funneled through athletic departments will instead now be given directly to the player. The big winner here (besides the 1% of football and basketball players who will actually profit) is the government. Former donations now paid to players will not longer be tax deductible, and the recipient will be responsible for income tax (recruiting advantages for Texas and Florida schools as they have no income tax).

 

[Jim Prather]

This isn't a pay for play law, despite the name. (at least based on what i read) Isn't it more that the school can't stop the player from getting outside income? If that is the case there are no title IX issues as the money comes from outside the school

Ah, I understand... Booster says, "Come play for u(sic)ga and I will buy an autographed picture from you for $1,000,000.00" and it will be all above board...

 

[chris975d]

Ah, I understand... Booster says, "Come play for u(sic)ga and I will buy an autographed picture from you for $1,000,000.00" and it will be all above board...

Exactly. Or I own a car dealership, and tell Tua’s younger brother that I’ll use his image in advertising for chris975d’s Chevy dealership for the next 4 years and pay him a half million a year, IF he’s in a GT jersey in the “ads”/marketing.

 

[chris975d]

There are some legitimate constitutional questions regarding the commerce clause at play, but those are limited to the relationship between the school, conference, and the NCAA. I'm all for an individual profiting from their own likeness whenever and however they want. However, I do think there will be unintended consequences for non-revenue sports, facilities, and other cost centers for athletic departments. Some portion of the current legitimate donations being funneled through athletic departments will instead now be given directly to the player. The big winner here (besides the 1% of football and basketball players who will actually profit) is the government. Former donations now paid to players will not longer be tax deductible, and the recipient will be responsible for income tax (recruiting advantages for Texas and Florida schools as they have no income tax).

You bring up some VERY good points...If I’m currently donating to GT football at a high level, and not seeing the product on field I want (aka elite level players), I just start using that money instead to go directly to big impact/high skill level players to influence them to come here.

 

[JorgeJonas]

I’m not sure if that’s a good comparison. There’s not a whole lot of money in and around minor league baseball Certainly not enough of a fan base anywhere to fill up an 80,000-105,000 seat stadium week in, week out like in college football. There’s HUGE money in and around FBS football and D1 basketball. And because of that money, I think it’ll have more than a small effect. Particularly in D1 basketball, where 1 or 2 key players CAN make a huge difference to a team and season results. Much more so than 1-2 players can in football.

Sure, hoops is different. But with football, I doubt anyone is going to be giving the center a car or cash. There might be a handful of players who get real money, but that’s no different than anything in life. The best get paid the most.

And hell, if people are willing to pay, for the life of me I can’t wrap my head around why we should care.

 

[stech81]

Very little will change. Most players just aren’t worth all that much. Even the best minor league baseball players don’t have huge endorsements.

A handful of players will likely get some money, and I will be happy for them. I can think of no good reason to prevent a person willing to pay another from from doing so in this context.

Think about how many crazy alumni with money would be willing to fork out money to get an athlete to come to his school. Johnny come to our school and I can pay you 10k to endorse my company. Not saying some colleges don't hand out money bags and I guess you could say now you would know but I see this as the end of what I liked about college football. All I see is colleges that have the backing will now find a way to pay players to come.

 

[chris975d]

Sure, hoops is different. But with football, I doubt anyone is going to be giving the center a car or cash. There might be a handful of players who get real money, but that’s no different than anything in life. The best get paid the most.

And hell, if people are willing to pay, for the life of me I can’t wrap my head around why we should care.

I’m not saying I’m against it. I certainly think if a player is popular enough that his/her numbered jersey is selling like crazy, or someone wants that player’s face on billboards or to pay then to play in their golf tournament, then I’m all for that. It’s their performance and popularity driving those jersey number sales or that endorsement demand. Art majors at a university can sell their paintings if they are good enough someone wants to pay for them, what’s the difference? All I’m saying is I think it does change things a great deal.

 

[99in99]

Between this, the declining numbers of young kids taking up football due to concussion fears, declining attendance across America for all sports....yeah, I think we've seen the high-water mark of both college and pro football.

 

[BonafideJacket]

Sure, hoops is different. But with football, I doubt anyone is going to be giving the center a car or cash. There might be a handful of players who get real money, but that’s no different than anything in life. The best get paid the most.

And hell, if people are willing to pay, for the life of me I can’t wrap my head around why we should care.

There are a lot of reasons to care, even for those of us who support the idea in theory. There's a lot to work through.

Who determines what is a legitimate vs fraudulent contract for NIL? Hopefully not the NCAA. Bigger question is do we care?

How does this work with agreements the schools have? What happens when a RB endorsed by Nike refuses to take the field in an Adidas jersey? Or perhaps more importantly, how much influence will the shoe companies gain beyond what they already have in recruiting?

What about non-competes? Can I pay a monster middle linebacker to hawk my cleaning products but only if he agrees not to transfer to UGA in the next three years?

What about players who leave early or flunk out or transfer? Does the donor/booster have recourse for failure to fulfill the contract?

Will there be a place for incentives-based contracts? Will that implicate gambling laws? Will players have standing to sue for tortuous interference with a contract if a coach doesn't play them for arbitrary reasons?

You could adopt the pro leagues' stance on a lot of these issues, but is that really the best approach?

Michael McCann at SI is putting out some great stuff on this topic for those interested: https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/09/30/fair-pay-to-play-act-law-ncaa-california-pac-12

 

[JorgeJonas]

Think about how many crazy alumni with money would be willing to fork out money to get an athlete to come to his school. Johnny come to our school and I can pay you 10k to endorse my company. Not saying some colleges don't hand out money bags and I guess you could say now you would know but I see this as the end of what I liked about college football. All I see is colleges that have the backing will now find a way to pay players to come.

Let’s say that happens. Who’s being harmed?

 

[chris975d]

Think about how many crazy alumni with money would be willing to fork out money to get an athlete to come to his school. Johnny come to our school and I can pay you 10k to endorse my company. Not saying some colleges don't hand out money bags and I guess you could say now you would know but I see this as the end of what I liked about college football. All I see is colleges that have the backing will now find a way to pay players to come.

Or what’s to stop Nike University (Oregon) from having the nations best QB, RB, WR, recruits all on the same team, since with this, Nike would be able to pay the players directly as “ambassadors”/spokespeople? Does anyone have the money to compete with Nike If they did that? Or even Under Armour University (Maryland) for that matter? You don’t think the founder of UA, and former Maryland football player, would throw money directly at high level recruits to play at his alma mater?