Where does College BB go from here

[RamblinRed]

There has been some great discussion in the FBI thread around how college basketball has to evolve. I wanted to pull that out and talk about it separately. I certainly do not have the answers, but I have lots of questions to think about.

Everyone seems to be in agreement that 'players need to get paid' - but that is actually a very ambiguous statement and whatever is decided on will have to be codified into rules and regulations. So here are some thoughts and questions to get off and running.

Assuming that players are going to be paid on some level.

1. Does the University pay them?
Most of the comments I have seen do not have the University directly paying them. No other sport has players being directly paid (outside of scholarship and stipend if you consider that getting paid). If the University starts to directly play players that raises a number of issues.
1a. How much do you pay them? Is it limited to the same amount for every school?
1b. if the University is paying them are they no longer Student-athletes but employees? The recent NLRB ruling with NW students would suggest the answer to this is yes.
1c. If the answer to 1b is yes then are their payments taxed (i'd be shocked if the answer is anything but yes)?
1d If the answer to 1b is yes, can they be 'fired' like any other employee if their 'performance' is not up to standards.
1e. If you start playing bb players do you have to pay students from other sports -especially football?

For what it is worth, my easy answer to #1 above is Universities do not pay college student-athletes beyond scholarship and stipend.

2. Can boosters pay them?
This potentially opens up a huge can of worms and I suspect the NCAA would never approve this route, but I leave it for discussion. Among the questions is how much could they pay them and do the players have to work for the booster to be payed?

My take, is no boosters cannot pay college student-athletes.

3. Can they sign with agents?
This seems to be the biggest one that gets traction. This would start to get closer to an Olympic model as an athlete would likely need an agent for any endorsement deals.

3a. If agents are allowed to sign athletes, what is the age limit (how old does the athlete have to be before they can legally sign with an agent)?
3b. How long can they sign for?
3c. Is there a maximum amount they can be signed for?
3d Is any of this under the purview of the NCAA or is this simply a legal issue outside the NCAA?

My initial take on this is yes, there will have to be an age limit and this will likely fall under the U.S. legal system and not the NCAA.

4. Can the student-athlete have endorsement deals?
This sort of goes hand in hand with #3 and basically creates an Olympic model of amateurism.

4a. Can the student-athlete take any endorsement deal they want?
4b. Is there any limit to the amount of endorsement money they can take?
4c. If a SA signs an endorsement deal with one apparel company and the University has a deal with another apparel company, whose apparel do they wear?
4d. If the student-athlete does any endorsements - whether TV commercial, pKrint ad, etc are they allowed to wear the University's uniform?
4e. If 4d is yes then does the University get a cut of the endorsement money?
4f. If a student-athlete receives endorsement money does it affect how much scholarship money they receive?
4g. If the answer to 4F is yes then do you have to re-look at how scholarship limits are assigned? (For example - a really highly ranked kid gets $500K in endorsement deals and can go to any college and not need a scholly. Do you have him not on a scholly, but still count him against the scholly limit?)

My initial feeling on this is that a SA can have endorsement deals, like any Olympic athlete. There would be no limit on the amount of endorsement money they could receive. But if they do use a school uniform then the school would get a cut. More than likely most endorsement deals would likely not include the SA in uniform. I also think that the University deal would likely trump the SA deal on apparel. i think there would almost certainly be rules on what endorsements an SA could do - for example I can't see them being allowed to do a deal with a casino, or a nightclub. I could see both scholarship limits and money offset for schollys being looked at.


I'm sure i'm leaving alot out but this is just to get it started - saying 'pay the players' is the easy part, the difficult part is deciding what that actually means and how to put it in action.

Allowing endorsement deals will almost certainly push this issues down further into HS as agents (as they already do) will be trying to sign kids as soon as they can.

The relationships between coaches, SA's and agents could change pretty radically. Say an agent signs a highly regarded kid for $150K and the kid ends up at State U. The kid also has $500K in endorsement deals. Now say like many highly ranked FR, he ends up not being a superstar as a FR - think Chaudee Brown at Wake or MJ Walker at FSU. What if the coach feels like the SA needs to play fewer min, or he is not a team player and is hurting the team. If the coach sits him down, how fast are the agent and endorsement company, and probably the kid himself going to start coming after the coach saying he should play more, have the ball in his hands more - because they all have financial interests in the SA playing alot.

if the NBA ultimately decides to change the one and done rule that could have a pretty significant effect as well. Let's say they change the rule and yearly most of the Top 25-30 players decide to go straight to the G-league. You are siphoning off the cream of the crop. The financial potential of the Top 10 players against a Top 50 player is huge. But the financial potential for an agent for a Top 50 player vs a Top 150 player is not really that big. That talent gets alot more compressed as you head down the rankings. So you would still likely see agents signing kids, but the dollar values are likely to be alot lower. And now that Top 50 kid is likely going to Duke or KY or KS instead of the tier 2 schools - but they won't be commanding the same sort of agent signing and endorsement deals that a Top 10 player would be. The total amount of pay in that scenario in college is going to be alot less than if the Top 10 to Top 25 kids have to go to college.

All right, have at it.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Reading this was worse than an E-Mag exam from Dr. Stanford. It was too much to read and my eyes crossed, so I just dropped it and moved on.



But for real, I don't want to throw up my hands and say ah well lets just pay everybody. In my opinion, what should happen is if people are caught cheating then we should shut their programs down or kill 2 scholarships per year for 5 years. And all this vacating wins - the opposing teams should be able to count those as wins. Make it very painful so people think twice before cheating.

But then I woke up from my dream and remembered the UNCAA doesn't give a ****.

 

[Tech93]

Short answer...drop the one and done rule and let them go to the NBA or developmental leagues out of high school and let the NBA pay them. Those that go the college route can pursue their education and play basketball on scholarship.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

EDIT: Adding more after the edit timeout from my first response.

If the UNCAA had any testicles at all, starting right now, they would ban all those teams with probable cause from participating in the NCAA tournament. It doesn't matter if they have to go all the way down to teams that are 15-20 overall - let in people who don't cheat. Our student athletes and many others work way to damned hard to try and do the right thing to let these cheaters just run around taking fake classes, playing video games all week long in their giant hot tub, and just stroll through a fake degree. While getting paid too.

 

[lv20gt]

Short answer...drop the one and done rule and let them go to the NBA or developmental leagues out of high school and let the NBA pay them. Those that go the college route can pursue their education and play basketball on scholarship.

That's something the NBA would have to allow. NCAA can't do anything.

 

[YlJacket]

The NBA controls the one and done rule - and they seem to be on track to doing that. Throw in they are also seeming to want to invest more in the G League and you most likely will have those kids with immediate NBA potential bypassing college basketball. I am not sold it is an all together good thing for college basketball but it seems in our current pitchfork and torches mode the most likely pressure release.

FWIW not "everyone" is in agreement to pay players more than the stipend setup we have now. I would not. Nor would I open Pandora's Box and allow the outside endorsements as that market will be driven by university affiliation (with Jersey or not) and will be a recruiting tool leading to even more competitive imbalance than we have now. IMHO the link to agents is not for current endorsements but rather allowing them (like in baseball) to have outside expertise in contemplating career moves. I am up in the air in allowing signing bonuses with agents as they are specific to a kid and his future athletic potential but I do not want outside endorsements.

Football is a bit more difficult given that most kids develop their NFL potential in college rather than high school. If you want to siphon those kids off then allow them to declare for the draft and see where they get drafted with the ability to come back to school if they don't like it. I think that works for college eligibility (not college coaches for sure) but the NFL would likely enact a rule saying you have only one shot at the draft or you are bound by your draft slot regardless of whether you go or go back to college. But somehow look to siphon off players early since it is such an "injustice" to keep them down on the college farm.

But whatever happens or whatever your personal opinion, recognize this current issue is about the top 1% of college athletes and the vast majority do quite well under the current amateurism model. And I hope whatever is done for the problems associated with this 1% doesn't screw things up for the other 99%,

 

[awbuzz]

The "studs" wouldn't be able to play without the supporting cast (other players).
If they want pay above tuition, books, opportunity for college education, meals, housing, and now some spending money, then go join the developmental league. You want endorsement money, the same holds true.
Same with all NCAA sports.

Get caught, lose eligibility. That's for players and coaches!

Your team gets caught, I like the idea of a reduction of scholarships over a 5 year period. Non of this one or two year stuff.

 

[Peacone36]

I think they should get paid but I don’t know how to regulate it. If a kid is signing autographs for $100 a pop, what is to stop a booster from purchasing 500 of them?

Is it a “not to exceed” agreement? Is here a limit on what they can make? Is there a restriction on who they get it from?

There seems to be a lot of trouble regulating and enforcing the rules as is, if you add more layers to this cake it gets very difficult. The good thing is new jobs will be produced due to this I guess. If something like this happens you will need a full time staff to monitor all the money.

 

[smathis30]

Due to title 9, paying them will open up a can of worms when a female field hockey player has to by law make the same as a heisman candidate. They should be able to profit through endorsement deals and that's about it.

 

[slugboy]

I think there is or was an idea in college athletics that the athletes and the band musicians and the cast of a student play were all students first, and this was an extracurricular activity.
If this isn’t the case, why should the school be involved? Or, if they are involved, then why wouldn’t this be a service like the tv network or food plan?
I love watching it too, but if it’s a professional activity, why not spin it off entirely?


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[MWBATL]

I think there is or was an idea in college athletics that the athletes and the band musicians and the cast of a student play were all students first, and this was an extracurricular activity.
If this isn’t the case, why should the school be involved? Or, if they are involved, then why wouldn’t this be a service like the tv network or food plan?
I love watching it too, but if it’s a professional activity, why not spin it off entirely?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This.

I hate the idea that everyone thinks the only way is to let is all go and just change the rules to fit the behavior.

My guess is that college basketball, and college sports in general, will suffer a decline as a result of making it "pay-for-play". I doubt it will result in the death of college sports. Younger folks apparently don't care much about such niceties but I do think it will cause the phenomenal growth to plateau and perhaps even decline a bit.

The idea of sticking to your ethical guns and (as bwelbo said) and actually punishing those programs who cheat.....??? Bah, let's not do that. Might hurt revenues!

 

[Peacone36]

One thing is for sure....if you pay them....you make them pay for school....

 

[RonJohn]

College should be for students. Period. I know there have been some athletes in GT's history who weren't great students, but even Calvin Johnson worked on research projects when at GT(At least one). If an athlete does not want to be a student, there should be opportunities for them to play sports for money without attending school. That would definitely harm college football and college basketball because at least some of the elite athletes would skip college to get paid. In my opinion that is fine. Athletes who want to attend college should have the opportunity to have the scholarship pay for college. The schools should not bend over backwards to get athletes into the school if they have no interest in college or a college diploma.

Currently colleges are trying extremely hard to be a minor league for professional sports instead of schools competing against each other. In many schools they are being treated as employees instead of student volunteers. If the NCAA and member institutions continue to act the way they do, the NLRB will have to declare student-athletes to be employees.

 

[CuseJacket]

Boeheim summarizes my thoughts for the most part:

1. Colleges paying players does not resolve the agent issue. That is what this current ordeal is about.
2. AAU is partially included in this. I'm not sure how colleges paying players will alleviate an AAU coach or handlers' interest in "getting theirs".
   
3. If the NBA will remove 1 and done, great. That'll take care of the top 10-15 guys out of 3500 college basketball players.

Additional 2 cents: Feel free to pay players more, though I'm of the mindset they're already getting a pretty good deal. If players are going to get paid, it should be nominal and there needs to be a salary cap or something to that effect. The pros have salary caps too, save for baseball. If it goes free market/highest bidder, then I hope that's done via the G-League or some entity outside of college hoops.

 

[Texwood]

I seriously doubt that this will result in any transformational changes within the NCAA. The NCAA leadership was not blindsided by this information. This will force the NCAA to hand down sanctions to their most coveted revenue generating programs, but when the dust settles it will be business as usual.

 

[orientalnc]

The NCAA could fix this problem by changing the freshman eligibility rules.

 

[g0lftime]

There is so much cheating going on the NCAA is overwhelmed in FB and BB. Paying players is not the answer. How much is enough? Loans of 74k and 100k payouts? Schools can't pay that. Colleges are there for education and not minor leagues for the pros but that is what it has become. Too much $ has corrupted coaches and they want to hang on to those big jobs. Everyone wants a piece. Players, parents, coaches, AAU, agents , and even the NCAA with the big tournament. The one and done model could be changed and fix a lot of these problems. Keep them in school for no less than 3 years or go pro. Make the school lose that scholarship for 3 years if the player goes pro early (that scholarship on the team is locked up for a minimum period once a kid has signed even if they leave). Would put student back into the definition.

 

[slugboy]

I'm fine if a player leaves after a year (or 3 months) to go pro, the same as I would be if someone left early to start a business or because they got a movie role. I think it's worth getting an education, and if the players do, they'll get one.

I don't think colleges can control or should control how a player makes a living, but they can decide what colleges are. And I don't think that colleges are primarily a minor league system.

I'm not sure what to do with endorsements, but it looks like allowing them is a problem (maybe stick them in a KEHO or 401(k)?). Maybe the answer is "it looks like you want to go pro. Why don't you go pro?".

I also realize it's a burden to say "here's an extra 30 hours a week of work to maintain your scholarship". Some people work an outside or near full-time job to pay for college, and it's tough, and that's about what athletes are doing too.

On the other hand, I think the answer to "Jimmy could make $750k in the G-League" is "Wow, G-League sounds great!".

 

[YlJacket]

I'm fine if a player leaves after a year (or 3 months) to go pro, the same as I would be if someone left early to start a business or because they got a movie role. I think it's worth getting an education, and if the players do, they'll get one.

I don't think colleges can control or should control how a player makes a living, but they can decide what colleges are. And I don't think that colleges are primarily a minor league system.

I'm not sure what to do with endorsements, but it looks like allowing them is a problem (maybe stick them in a KEHO or 401(k)?). Maybe the answer is "it looks like you want to go pro. Why don't you go pro?".

I also realize it's a burden to say "here's an extra 30 hours a week of work to maintain your scholarship". Some people work an outside or near full-time job to pay for college, and it's tough, and that's about what athletes are doing too.

On the other hand, I think the answer to "Jimmy could make $750k in the G-League" is "Wow, G-League sounds great!".

Let's put some bounds around the G League. Salaries in the G League are $19 or $26 K unless you are a 2 way player (NBA and G League contract) and you can make something like $50K or $75K. $750K is about $200K higher than the NBA minimum salary. There is a myth about how much kids make if they bypass college BB. In the US, the G League pays but not that much (IMHO a whole lot less than the college experience when you include they have to cover their living and other expenses). They can make bigger money if they go to pro leagues in different parts of the world but only the top leagues are going to pay $100K or up and that pathway is full of stories about checks that bounce, owners that say I will pay you when you win, teams that fold, etc. etc. etc.

As the Boeheim interview says, let the top kids go straight to the NBA and that takes care of the 10-15 who actually have real decisions to make about NBA level money. The rest of these guys are getting a better deal IMHO in college basketball than they would ever get in any minor league/international league gig. That may change if the NBA commits more funding to the G League but for now it is what it is.

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/02/14/nba-gatorade-g-league-deal-adam-silver-takeaways

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I refuse to accept that I might agree with Jim Boeheim on something. But I decided to click on the video. Then I saw it was over 10 minutes, which gave me my excuse to be lazy and remain ignorant. So I might totally agree with him, but I will steadfastly refuse to admit it.

The only thing that should change as a result of this scandal is that the NCAA should actually do something. The people who are most scared right now aside from some of the coaches is the NCAA itself. They are probably holding a ton of closed door conversations about how to do something which is really doing nothing to avoid getting negative press about never doing anything.