NIL, Transfers, and Stratospheric Salaries. What Is the Future of GT Football and College Football in General?

[orientalnc]

If players want a percentage of th revenues, they should get a percentage of the expenses too. This will have to be transparent… which means unionization.

“Fundamentally, the choices are to move toward unfettered commercialization, allowing relatively free and open labor markets for the athletes, or to move toward a more controlled system that caps expenditures, re-emphasizes education and provides adequate short- and long-term medical coverage to the athletes. The latter path would include committing sufficient funds to enhance athlete education, for comprehensive injury and medical care, and to pay for loss of income insurance to promising athletes whose careers were aborted by injury in college. This path would attempt to resurrect the central purpose of college sports as an extracurricular activity in the university, where students are devoted to learning and live a relatively sedentary and cerebral life.

To be legally acceptable, the NCAA would need a limited antitrust exemption to control coaches’ and administrators’ compensation. The NCAA functions principally as a trade association for coaches, athletic directors and conference commissioners and is unlikely to generate fundamental reform on its own volition. More recent experience indicates that leaving the structure of college sports up to judges is time consuming, very expensive, confusing, and capricious. Nothing is easy in Washington, D.C. these days, but Congress is the most promising venue for defining a coherent and financially viable system for intercollegiate athletics in the 21st Century.”

You have most of this in quotes, so I assume it is not your writing. Can you include a link to the source?

 

[cpf2001]

Yeah, that's largely what I'm saying: high revenues with poor compensation seems like an arrangement that justifies a union to enable players to have a seat at the bargaining table.

It wouldn't be sunshine and rainbows NFL money for everyone at every program, but it fixes the current enforcability problem with the NCAA having arbitrary, non-negotiated rules that the courts are having issues with, compared to how unionized leagues are relegated. Players would have restrictions still, but (a) paying the players will move higher up the priority list compared to vanity projects or facilities arms races and (b) they'd have a larger say in what those rules are.

 

[Vespidae]

You have most of this in quotes, so I assume it is not your writing. Can you include a link to the source?

College Sports

 

[orientalnc]

College Sports

Thanks for sharing.

The situation in which college football finds itself is similar in concept to the Outer Banks in NC. Development in Nags Head and other towns on the beach has grown significantly. The average assessment for the properties has grown at an even faster rate. At the same time, the risk of owning a home on the beach has risen to the point where some insurance companies will no longer insure property on the Outer Banks. The Federal Government instituted the Flood Insurance program and NC has a Joint Underwriting program for windstorm coverage. Still, the rates are ghastly for those properties.

An almost annual discussion along the beaches is whether, and by how much, the government should replenish beach sand eroded due to storm related waves and surge. It is now a common occurrence for significant stretches of the Outer Banks to be over washed during storms. The only solution to curbing the losses is not build on the beach. But that train left the station years ago. Today, the government is partially subsidizing the beachfront homeowners cost of ownership. And those costs are rising every year and the results are less and less effective. Any solution will cost someone (probably a lot of someones) a lot of money. And, the decisions about which someones is very contentious.

That is where we are with college football. Fixing the existing system that's overrun with monies unequally (and some say unfairly) distributed will be a costly and contentious process. I do not see how college football can continue on its current financial path. At some point the economics will tilt downward and the embedded costs will remain. What happens to the SEC and B1G contracts if ESPN cannot meet their financial commitments due to cord cutting. No one knows right now. Saban and Smart have huge contracts with their AA and the AA depends on those payouts from ESPN. Maybe Bama uga will be OK. What about USCe and Miss. State? Who would have expected the PAC-12 to fold quickly? Certainly not Oregon State and Washington State. Are the players at those two schools going to retain their NIL agreements?

There will be losers no matter what. Left unaddressed, there will be a set of losers. There will likely be a different set if thoughtful changes are made. And the new set will be very unhappy.

 

[Vespidae]

Thanks for sharing.

The situation in which college football finds itself is similar in concept to the Outer Banks in NC. Development in Nags Head and other towns on the beach has grown significantly. The average assessment for the properties has grown at an even faster rate. At the same time, the risk of owning a home on the beach has risen to the point where some insurance companies will no longer insure property on the Outer Banks. The Federal Government instituted the Flood Insurance program and NC has a Joint Underwriting program for windstorm coverage. Still, the rates are ghastly for those properties.

An almost annual discussion along the beaches is whether, and by how much, the government should replenish beach sand eroded due to storm related waves and surge. It is now a common occurrence for significant stretches of the Outer Banks to be over washed during storms. The only solution to curbing the losses is not build on the beach. But that train left the station years ago. Today, the government is partially subsidizing the beachfront homeowners cost of ownership. And those costs are rising every year and the results are less and less effective. Any solution will cost someone (probably a lot of someones) a lot of money. And, the decisions about which someones is very contentious.

That is where we are with college football. Fixing the existing system that's overrun with monies unequally (and some say unfairly) distributed will be a costly and contentious process. I do not see how college football can continue on its current financial path. At some point the economics will tilt downward and the embedded costs will remain. What happens to the SEC and B1G contracts if ESPN cannot meet their financial commitments due to cord cutting. No one knows right now. Saban and Smart have huge contracts with their AA and the AA depends on those payouts from ESPN. Maybe Bama uga will be OK. What about USCe and Miss. State? Who would have expected the PAC-12 to fold quickly? Certainly not Oregon State and Washington State. Are the players at those two schools going to retain their NIL agreements?

There will be losers no matter what. Left unaddressed, there will be a set of losers. There will likely be a different set if thoughtful changes are made. And the new set will be very unhappy.

“The U.S. hyper-commercialized system of college sports, which does not exist anywhere else in the world, is in a period of overarching transition and deep financial crisis.”

We are doing it to ourselves.

 

[ilovetheoption]

Wow. Lots to unravel here.

First, who said I am OK with anyone lying or cheating?

Second, are you suggesting GT has a bunch of lying and cheating athletes?

Third, are you suggesting my continuing to make donations to GT and purchase season tickets is akin to supporting lying and cheating athletes?

Let me clear. I am adamently opposed to unions. They had a place when there were no rules on how employees were treated or work place safety. Now, they are used to funnel money to one corrupt political party.

Unions in professional sports are idiotic, but who cares. Let the millionaires fight with the billionaires. Unions in college sports is a deal breaker and ends my support of college athletics.

Thank you for explaining your opinion. I understand you now.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

The market will always adjust. If the TV money gets lower and the schools can’t afford these high priced coaches then the schools will simply adjust as will the coaches. It’s the same thing happening to NFL RB’s. The market will always adjust. It will be amazing if the money slows and the coaches won’t re-negotiate their deals how all of a sudden you’ll see guys like Saban and Smart fired for cause with the dirty laundry brought out into the open. But, as the market adjusts the coaches will too because there will always be someone willing to replace you at a lower price point so a guy like Smart will simply re-negotiate.

Same with the players. The player pool is limitless so if certain players “don’t want to put themselves on the line” for nothing then no problem because there are 10 players behind him who would take a free college education in a heartbeat. Did we have a hard time finding a RB or QB after Gibbs and Sims transferred? Nope, we had plenty of players reaching out.

The players have zero leverage because they have no where else to go. And even if an NFL minor league was formed that still wouldn’t impact college football. Sure, you’d have 95% of every 5, 4, and high 3 star taking the pittance of a salary (like we see in minor league baseball) but you’d still have full rosters of players lining up to play college football for a free ride. That’s why you’ll never see college athlete unions. You need leverage to and they don’t have any.

 

[roadkill]

The market will always adjust. If the TV money gets lower and the schools can’t afford these high priced coaches then the schools will simply adjust as will the coaches. It’s the same thing happening to NFL RB’s. The market will always adjust. It will be amazing if the money slows and the coaches won’t re-negotiate their deals how all of a sudden you’ll see guys like Saban and Smart fired for cause with the dirty laundry brought out into the open. But, as the market adjusts the coaches will too because there will always be someone willing to replace you at a lower price point so a guy like Smart will simply re-negotiate.

Same with the players. The player pool is limitless so if certain players “don’t want to put themselves on the line” for nothing then no problem because there are 10 players behind him who would take a free college education in a heartbeat. Did we have a hard time finding a RB or QB after Gibbs and Sims transferred? Nope, we had plenty of players reaching out.

The players have zero leverage because they have no where else to go. And even if an NFL minor league was formed that still wouldn’t impact college football. Sure, you’d have 95% of every 5, 4, and high 3 star taking the pittance of a salary (like we see in minor league baseball) but you’d still have full rosters of players lining up to play college football for a free ride. That’s why you’ll never see college athlete unions. You need leverage to and they don’t have any.

Kinda disagree with this take, because we have a very distorted market involving irrational actors. Boosters don’t care how much profit a team makes, they care about wins. I don't think the TV money will drop so fast that the rich schools will be scrambling to cut expenses.

Regardless, costs to run an AA continue to rise faster than general inflation. There are several future events that would impact expenses. Some, such as players being ruled to be employees, and/or player unionization, would likely result in significant cost increases to a school’s AA. The biggest problem with this, especially for schools like GT, is that the “rich” schools with deep donor pockets would see this as a minor speed bump on their path toward staying competitive at the highest level, while schools with a lower donor base and media revenue would fall further behind. On the other side of this equation is that any reduction in media revenue, such as has been discussed relative to future ESPN contracts, would have the same effect if not worse for GT since we have a greater dependency on media rights revenue as a portion of our overall total.

A proposed solution is to cap certain expenses such as coaches’ salaries. This could help insulate GT from the ever-escalating cost of acquiring and retaining coaching talent. It would take Congress passing a special anti-trust exemption and the NCAA’s will to do it, but it may be the only thing that can be done to maintain some semblance of competitiveness in Football and Basketball.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Carter. LaBarrie. Thomas. Do you think we are so clumsy at cheating that we always get caught? I am more optimistic about our abilities than you perhaps.

That’s weak. Thomas had a cousin of a player and former teammate give him some swag. Turned out to be about $200+ in value (not cost, but retail). We didn’t get in trouble for that. We got in trouble because Radikovich told Johnson that Morgan Burnett was going to be interviewed by the investigators after the investigators to Radikovich not to.

Laberrie/Carter was a former player paying for a coach/recruit at a strip club.

There were no bags of cash dropped. There was no pay-for-play.

If you’re going to say we “cheated” and got caught, you v need to bring a lot more than that. Those were rules infractions, not cheating.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Athletic Associations also carry enormous expenses, none of which players have to contribute towards. Of the D1 programs, 80% are breakeven or operating at a loss.

”In 2019, only 25 of 130 schools in the high-grossing Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) whose members are large, mostly public universities (with some exceptions such as Notre Dame, Northwestern, and Stanford) reported positive net revenues (see here). In fact, the median athletic program in FBS in 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year) had an operating deficit of $18.8 million.“

This is true until you look at HC salaries. If the salaries were less, there’d be a much better argument that all the revenue is going back intro th program, which is benefiting the student athlete.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Yeah, that's largely what I'm saying: high revenues with poor compensation seems like an arrangement that justifies a union to enable players to have a seat at the bargaining table.

It wouldn't be sunshine and rainbows NFL money for everyone at every program, but it fixes the current enforcability problem with the NCAA having arbitrary, non-negotiated rules that the courts are having issues with, compared to how unionized leagues are relegated. Players would have restrictions still, but (a) paying the players will move higher up the priority list compared to vanity projects or facilities arms races and (b) they'd have a larger say in what those rules are.

High revenue, but where is that revenue being spent? If not for the high coaches salaries, there’d be a huge counter argument.

 

[Vespidae]

This is true until you look at HC salaries. If the salaries were less, there’d be a much better argument that all the revenue is going back intro th program, which is benefiting the student athlete.

You can say that about anything. If only … they didn’t spend money on recruiting, spend money on facilities, spend money on dining, spend money on conditioning, etc.

 

[orientalnc]

That’s weak. Thomas had a cousin of a player and former teammate give him some swag. Turned out to be about $200+ in value (not cost, but retail). We didn’t get in trouble for that. We got in trouble because Radikovich told Johnson that Morgan Burnett was going to be interviewed by the investigators after the investigators to Radikovich not to.

Laberrie/Carter was a former player paying for a coach/recruit at a strip club.

There were no bags of cash dropped. There was no pay-for-play.

If you’re going to say we “cheated” and got caught, you v need to bring a lot more than that. Those were rules infractions, not cheating.

Definition of cheating = act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.

Isn't that exactly what LaBarrie did with Carter? Duke provided a nice house for Carter's family and did not get caught, but that was also cheating.

I agree with you about Thomas, but the NCAA does not. I assume they still consider that a violation since we aren't displaying that 2009 championship trophy.

The point I was making is that we have been very competitive in recruiting throughout our history. If uga has been cheating and UNC has been cheating, then how have we managed to ever beat them? Are we just bad at cheating? It just doesn't follow logically that we are clean and others are dirty. I would be terribly disappointed to hear that we aren't doing everything we can sneak past the "hidden cameras" while others are doing the same. College sports is no place for a goodie two shoes approach.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Definition of cheating = act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.

Isn't that exactly what LaBarrie did with Carter? Duke provided a nice house for Carter's family and did not get caught, but that was also cheating.

I agree with you about Thomas, but the NCAA does not. I assume they still consider that a violation since we aren't displaying that 2009 championship trophy.

The point I was making is that we have been very competitive in recruiting throughout our history. If uga has been cheating and UNC has been cheating, then how have we managed to ever beat them? Are we just bad at cheating? It just doesn't follow logically that we are clean and others are dirty. I would be terribly disappointed to hear that we aren't doing everything we can sneak past the "hidden cameras" while others are doing the same. College sports is no place for a goodie two shoes approach.

No. You’re wrong in your whole premise on what cheating is related to college football. Yes, you’re breaking the law every time you speed. But that doesn’t equate to you brandishing a gun at your local gas station and taking all the cash.

Thomas was never ruled an ineligible player. We were punished because we played him in the uga game and ACCCG before the NCAA made a ruling on his eligibility. GT should have hired a team of lawyers and fought that fraud.

 

[orientalnc]

No. You’re wrong in your whole premise on what cheating is related to college football. Yes, you’re breaking the law every time you speed. But that doesn’t equate to you brandishing a gun at your local gas station and taking all the cash.

Thomas was never ruled an ineligible player. We were punished because we played him in the uga game and ACCCG before the NCAA made a ruling on his eligibility. GT should have hired a team of lawyers and fought that fraud.

When the ncaa notifies a school that a player may have broken the rules, it is up to the school to decide about using the player in competition until the ncaa completes its investigation. They do not rule any player ineligible without investigating. But, if the school plays the accused athlete in a game and it is later determined he/she violated the rules, the team has broken the rules for using an ineligible athlete. GT made its own decision and decided to let Thomas play. It was a gamble that lost. Thomas was ruled ineligible after the ACCCG, retroactive back to when the ncaa notified GT.

That is what happened to Devontez “Tez” Walker at UNC. The Heels withheld him from the USCe game while they waited for the ncaa ruling. We could have done that with Thomas.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

This is why the NCAA needs to be abolished, replaced, burned to the ground, or whatever. It’s all a joke and teams like GT get treated differently than teams like Clemson, UGA, etc. I’m to the point of wanting ZERO rules other than the actual rules of the game. If you want to have 200 man rosters and are willing to pay for it then fine. As long as only 11 play at a time. If you want to have a 32 year old on line student play then fine. As long as the rules are the same for everyone then at least a team like GT can have a chance if they want. Right now and the last 60 years the cheating has been rampant and yet teams like GT and SMU get hammered while the main culprits are protected. H9w any GT fan can like the NCAA is beyond me.

 

[inGTwetrust]

It’s laughable to think tech does not participate in anything under the table. It’s the name of the game. Are we as egregious as other programs? No, but we still do.

 

[forensicbuzz]

When the ncaa notifies a school that a player may have broken the rules, it is up to the school to decide about using the player in competition until the ncaa completes its investigation. They do not rule any player ineligible without investigating. But, if the school plays the accused athlete in a game and it is later determined he/she violated the rules, the team has broken the rules for using an ineligible athlete. GT made its own decision and decided to let Thomas play. It was a gamble that lost. Thomas was ruled ineligible after the ACCCG, retroactive back to when the ncaa notified GT.

That is what happened to Devontez “Tez” Walker at UNC. The Heels withheld him from the USCe game while they waited for the ncaa ruling. We could have done that with Thomas.

That's all BS and everyone knows it. Go read the final findings, he was never ruled ineligible. We got in trouble because we didn't do what the NCAA wanted us to do and "interfered with the investigation." If our President and AD had any balls, it would have never happened.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

If our President and AD had any balls, it would have never happened.

This should be the opening line of the the book “GT and the Era of Modern Football”.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

That's all BS and everyone knows it. Go read the final findings, he was never ruled ineligible. We got in trouble because we didn't do what the NCAA wanted us to do and "interfered with the investigation." If our President and AD had any balls, it would have never happened.

NCAA stated he should have been ruled ineligible.

3. FAILURE TO MEET THE CONDITIONS AND OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP. [NCAA Constitution 3.2.4.3 and Bylaw 14.11.1] In late 2009, the institution failed to meet the conditions and obligations of membership in that the institution did not withhold student-athlete 1 from competition when the institution was made aware of information which raised serious questions about whether he was involved in violations of NCAA legislation and thus should have been declared ineligible.

https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/search/miCaseView/report?id=102346