NIL and entitlement

[Mojave Gator]

As if athletes weren't entitled enough already, along comes NIL. Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said that a third string running back came to him and told him that he would hit the transfer portal unless he got $100,000.

[g8rfan]

I’m not opposed to players being compensated, especially for video game likeness etc, but NIL as it currently exists is going to ruin the college game. Especially when the portal gives it real teeth.

[wahhappen]

In all fairness I would also require $100K minimum to play for Mike Locksley.

[tapsgator]

I don’t disagree necessarily but it’s going to have to be a market correction because otherwise it’ll just be the schools and ncaa preying on kids again. It’s the rich versus the super-rich. Except these kids aren’t rich yet. Of course the media is going to side with the super rich because guess who owns media conglomerates? It ain’t the single mother whose kid happens to run a 4.3.

Mike Locksley and the media marks that report this bullshit in that manner can go fuck themselves. Your 3rd string RB wants 100k? Grab some balls (they’re below your fat stomach that you filled with the hard work of the 1st and second stringers at Bama) and say “no.” Don’t cry to the media because frankly it doesn’t make me sad.

How bout we report about the kid you recruited with “I’m going to put you in the league” and promised the single mother you’d take care of and then when he wasn’t as good as the other 4 kids you told the same thing you parked on the scout team or if he blew out his knee you cut bait back in the day. As the coaches made 8 figures, the schools 9 figures and the industry made BILLIONS.

All those guys can be found bagging groceries or collecting welfare or dead. And there’s a helluva lot more of them than one 3rd string RB who bought the bullshit somebody fed him about being worth 100k.

Are some kids entitled? Absolutely in some, probably most cases. Are the vast coaches and universities trying to get back to glorified indentured servants? Across the board.

The federal courts are largely conservative right now. That’s why the NFL always wins. For the NCAA to get destroyed across the board their level of greed, PROVABLE greed to be exact, is disgusting and staggering.

[Mojave Gator]

My understanding about NIL is that it is intended to literally compensate players for the use of their name, image and likeness in advertising and merchandise sales (jerseys, covers of and presence in video games, television and print advertising, etc.). In effect, it is none of these. Players are being signed to paid contracts to play for certain schools, which is not my impression of what it is supposed to be.

[wahhappen]

Mar 17, 2024 11:39:05 GMT -5 Mojave Gator said:

My understanding about NIL is that it is intended to literally compensate players for the use of their name, image and likeness in advertising and merchandise sales (jerseys, covers of and presence in video games, television and print advertising, etc.). In effect, it is none of these. Players are being signed to paid contracts to play for certain schools, which is not my impression of what it is supposed to be.

Yes, I don’t understand (Well, I understand, but it is stupid) how it has become what it is. It should be as simple as them making a percentage based off of revenue on their name. E.g. you appear on a video game, your merchandise sells, they put you on a billboard, etc. and you get a percentage of those profits. Maybe do a small flat percentage across the board for ticket sales (some will show up regardless of which 6th year senior returns to play). Isn’t that where NIL originated? A small minority was making billions off of college athletes, and they couldn’t even accept a free meal without being suspended. That is what I thought we were getting into… didn’t they do a short period of a stipend or something first? I can’t remember, but it went from nothing to stupid in a hurry.

[gatordoll]

The only way to curb this insanity is for fans and alumni stop watching college football. These mercenaries who will play for 2, 3 and maybe even 4 different schools are no longer "student atheletes". They will eventually become employees of the university from what I have been told. If I want to watch professional football I will stick with the NFL.

[Mojave Gator]

One thing that might reel it in: Limit portal transfers to one, apart from urgent family or medical situations. If a player transfers again, he or she must sit out a year if doing so. Do not open the portal until every game has been played for a particular sport. There also needs to be an agreed-upon cap for NIL distributions to a single athlete. If an NIL distribution is other than cash, an independent panel should determine the approximate monetary value of it. Prohibit NIL agreements prior to an athlete enrolling at a school.

[tapsgator]

Mar 17, 2024 11:39:05 GMT -5 Mojave Gator said:

My understanding about NIL is that it is intended to literally compensate players for the use of their name, image and likeness in advertising and merchandise sales (jerseys, covers of and presence in video games, television and print advertising, etc.). In effect, it is none of these. Players are being signed to paid contracts to play for certain schools, which is not my impression of what it is supposed to be.

On it's face yeah to an extent, but it's always been about paying players, the courts ruled against the NCAA in the O'Bannon case damn near 10 years ago. Here's a summary courtesy of Wikipedia:


On August 8, 2014, District Judge Claudia Wilken found for O'Bannon, holding that the NCAA's rules and bylaws operate as an unreasonable restraint of trade, in violation of antitrust law.[5] The Court said it would separately enter an injunction regarding the specific violations found. In September 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, in part, and reversed, in part, the District Court's ruling.[6] In March 2016, O'Bannon's lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.[7] The Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 3, 2016.[8]

In other words the NCAA tried to hide behind the "amateur" veil to avoid sharing billions of dollars with FORMER college athletes. That's billions off video games alone to former players. The bold is what matters though, 10 years ago the judiciary warned the NCAA and it's member institutions that the rules and bylaws restrict trade in a multi-billion dollar industry. Because they do. They gave them roughly 8 years to fix it, with additional shots across the bow the entire time. Funny part is there were so many easy fixes, primarily actually paying a decent standard wage, but that didn't happen because the NCAA is perhaps the most greedy organization in the history of the world. Not sure which is a more apt comparison the Mafia or Plantation owners, but this isn't the CEOs of McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King complaining that minimum wage is too high, this is them saying "we shouldn't have to pay them aside from the stables we let them sleep in and we provide training that they can use after they serve their 4 years."

So, the Courts decided (correctly in my opinion) that the NCAA couldn't be trusted to "do the right thing" as it were, and just opened up a free market. Again, this is not a particularly liberal judiciary, so that kind of tells you just how greedy the NCAA is. I will shed no tears for the NCAA or the "good ole days" when everybody had a bagman and found workarounds. That wasn't better, it's just what we were used to. Just like pro sports weren't better before free agency.

I will say it's hilarious hearing Jimbo Fisher decry NIL and the portal when he's being paid 95 million to go away and left FSU like a thief in the night in order to take the A&M job. Or the Dynamic Delta Duo who are being paid a combined 9 million dollars in 2024 to explain that they are THIIIIIIIS CLOSE to figuring out this whole NIL thing after 18-24 months as if there's different rules unique to the Gators that excuse their abhorrent operation of a 190 million dollar organization. And people buy it! A fanbase loyal enough to spend 190 million on a floundering product is called spoiled. BY OTHERS IN THE SAME FANBASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's insane.

Sorry to go off topic. Short story long, NIL isn't the boogeyman that the super-rich make it out to be, it is only a necessary evil because of the very people we are allowing to spin the narrative, a lot of whom sign the paychecks of the "objective" media. Look up how much money the SEC made in the 2023 fiscal year and then explain to me how the 18-22 year olds who actually generate that revenue are to blame for wanting some of it.

[tapsgator]

Mar 17, 2024 18:10:12 GMT -5 gatordoll said:

The only way to curb this insanity is for fans and alumni stop watching college football. These mercenaries who will play for 2, 3 and maybe even 4 different schools are no longer "student atheletes". They will eventually become employees of the university from what I have been told. If I want to watch professional football I will stick with the NFL.

I mean were they ever really student athletes? I get what you're saying, but it requires us to assume that the kids are going to college and just happen to be playing a sport for extracurricular fun. I think allowing them to unionize could very well be the next step largely because the schools want them unionized or should, it would allow for a measure of uniformity and allow for the control that the schools want while avoiding the Pollyanna-esque "they're still amateurs" crap that hasn't been true in at least 40 years. At some level big time college football is absolutely professional and has been for a long, long time. Everybody knows Herschel Walker got paid to come to Georgia. Bo was paid while he was at Auburn. Miami was the Dallas Cowboys before the Dallas Cowboys.

Mar 17, 2024 20:38:46 GMT -5 Mojave Gator said:

One thing that might reel it in: Limit portal transfers to one, apart from urgent family or medical situations. If a player transfers again, he or she must sit out a year if doing so. Do not open the portal until every game has been played for a particular sport. There also needs to be an agreed-upon cap for NIL distributions to a single athlete. If an NIL distribution is other than cash, an independent panel should determine the approximate monetary value of it. Prohibit NIL agreements prior to an athlete enrolling at a school.

Again understand the theory, not sure it would actually work. At least without some tweaks, just some ideas:

1) The one portal thing is a good idea and has been instituted. I'll go one better though because what's good for the goose is good for the gander (just wanted to say gander it's my version of sustainability and repeatability), a coach can only get bought out of one contract at a time without a waiver. So Lincoln Riley has to stay at USC for the life of his contract or they don't have to buy him out. If you've got a hillbilly from North Georgia who trained on the bayou who you bought out to bring in to ruin your football team and somebody finally fires him, no buy out. If the kids have to bet on themselves, so do the coaches. It'll never happen because the ganders are all assholes, but on its face limiting the 18 year old with family and hangers on in his ear one "do-over" while not having a commiserate level of accountability for the 40-50 year old who in many cases manipulated him into that mistake seems insane.

2) I agree there needs to be a salary cap, standardized pay system (determined by an independent third party), or both. However, that should be limited to people with direct connections to the university. I think they should institutionalize the salary/compensation side. For the actual NIL, that's a market economy, so the Olivia Dunne's and Caitlyn Clarks of the world are free to make their money off their brand. This would also actually improve the quality of play (particularly in non-football sports) because there would be incentive to staying in school and many less stupid decisions because somebody gets in a kid's ear like what happens in basketball.

[g8rfan]

Point #2 is where I land on this as well and what I was getting at in my earlier post in this thread. I fully agree on the points about the coaches too. That scene has been bonkers for years now.

[tapsgator]

I will give the Jimbo Fishers of the world credit, they are either blissfully ignorant of the hypocrisy they spew on their way out one door and into another, or they are so surrounded/insulated by yes-man and Kool-Aid drinkers that they don't care. Then again, being paid 95 million not to work probably buys a whole lot of don't give a damns.