SEC fans say “hold my beer”….
When you really think about it, intercollegiate athletics with a goal of anything other than being a fun activity for students to participate in is kind of stupid. Higher level learning institutions lowering their own standards to bring in students who’s sole purpose of being on campus is winning athletic events makes zero sense.
It makes no sense until you recognize that it gives the school name recognition and prestige. There are several kids up here in the Chicagoland area, who are bright kids with great grades and scores, talking about uga. Why? Because they have won, and that matters to kids. Same for Alabama. It draws kids to their school that would otherwise never consider them.
That is the definition of pay for play regardless of what you want to call it!
Not necessarily. One could be dressed and cleared to play but not go into the game at all. No breach.
When you require a player to dress for a game to be paid it's pay for play. NIL money has basically only one rule - it can't be pay to play!
But there is no entity to enforce it. That’s been the issue with college athletics for 100 years. The NCAA has walked away as the rule enforcer. Which is great because they sucked at it. They destroy SMU, take a title away from GT, put us on probation all while the blue bloods bought Natty after Natty. The entire sport has been pay to play for decades so why are fans who have been fine with it for decades now upset? It’s just absolutely comical. And I can’t understand how one GT fan isn’t thrilled with what is happening. Every one of our southern rivals who took the pay to play path decades ago while we did not are now having the field leveled and y’all are mad about it. It simply doesn’t make sense. UGA, Bama, Ole Miss, Auburn, FSU have all been pay to play for decades while they beat our head in and relegated us to a mid pack ACC team and yet now that we can also can utilize pay for play many of you GT fans are upset about it.
Well guess what … it is.
If a rule is broken in the forest and there’s no one to enforce it…does it make a violation?
So the kid gets the money when he doesn't play in a playoff game. If not he sues the company/LLC for breach of contract as the law says it can't be pay for play. Kid, actually lawyers, win. Company actually decides to settle and pays the kid what they promised. They don't want the bad publicity.
Neither the company nor the student control who plays.
Agree. Saying they won’t get paid if they chose not to play in a Bowl or Playoff Game is BS. That’s what I have responded to.
I know it’s not “pay for play”, but I would be surprised if there aren’t some type of “pay sliders” based on the kid’s marketing visibility. This isn’t cash in a bag. NIL deals are contracts written by savvy lawyers. If a company is providing the $100k to $1M to use the kid’s Name, Image and Likeness, that company has an expectation that the kid is playing in the high visibility games
And if the kid doesn't play in any of those games what do you think occurs?
The only way to have any sort of enforcement is to pass laws that can legally subpoena emails and texts. That is how they got the AAU in payoffs to steer players to certain schools. The NCAA has no real enforcement now. It is up to the presidents of the institutions to abide by their self imposed rules. Yeah -- like that's going to happen.
And the minute they do that we go back to having runners and burner phones. Just don’t have any rules. That is better than uneven, or worse, targeted enforcement. We just spent 60 years of that and I’m glad that era is over. Just drop all rules. If a human is enrolled in your school he should be eligible and whatever it took to sign him is no one’s business. Chris Weinke won a Natty as a 28 year old and Malcolm Mitchell was illiterate. Joe Mixon beat a girl on video. Cam was bought. Bush’s momma got a house.
