NCAA finally waves white flag on NIL

Maybe we should give the NIL system five or so years before deciding if the government should wade in to try to "fix" it? Because doing it right now feels like firing your new coach after the second game of his tenure.

 

Yes and no. They are losing depth pieces, mostly kids that are 3rd teamers, maybe fringe second team guys that just want to see the field more than being on a coverage team. Alabama losing their third-string free safety to Southern Mississippi isn't going to make a lasting dent. A lot of those guys can be replaced in high school recruiting and those programs still bring in the best high school prospects. And they are still getting the best crack as transfers. It''s not just G5 kids, either. A lot of kids at P5 programs that are either going through coaching chances or in the bottom half of their conference are making the transfer as well.

It REALLY hurts the bottom half P5 schools. The best player at...say Syracuse might end up at Ohio State a year later. For OSU it's a major piece to fill a hole on a championship roster, but for Syracuse it might cost them a game or two and keep them out of bowl. Those coaches have a far bigger gripe than the Saban's of the world because they are losing kids that are making the All-Conference teams. One they can't easily replace in the portal or through recruiting.

And it's absolutely destroyed the academic P5 schools like Stanford and Northwestern because they are losing 4th, 5th and 6th-year players that have graduated and can't get into the ultra-competitive graduate programs at those institutions. And given a lot more of those kids at those programs probably entered school with some college credits, they might not be keeping them for more than a couple years of eligibility. It killed Stanford. And those schools are going to have to consider how to adjust to all this.

 

I do think it will settle down some once the kids who got an extra year of eligibility via Covid filter through. You won't have anywhere near as many 5th and 6th-year guys.

 

The NCAA shouldn't be able to control when and where kids can enroll and play, but at some point the schools should retain control over scholarship funds.

Then we get into the differentiation between D-1 revenue sport athletes who will receive more than the value of full room board and scholarships in NIL money, and those who receive less.

Starting caliber players at P5 schools certainly deserve money beyond room board and scholie, but when you slide below that level, I dunno.

What does a part-time/backup/special teams football player deserve at Iowa? What about the same player at Indiana? Ball State?

If you're talking about marginal players or part time starters at marginal MAC programs, that don't rake in millions in media money or pack the grandstands at the gates, I'm not sure those kids should be making much more money than they'd make at Walmart.

But they should be free to find out.

 

That whole bulge in the roster figures should work through in the next two or three years.

 

It won't, because now you can have guys on NIL money not taking up scholarships. The artificial limit is just that -- you have backchannel conversations and a guy getting whatever million or hundreds of thousands for his final season or two pays his own way instead of taking up a scholarship.

 

The well of NIL money can't be bottomless; how much is thr imagr and likeness of a marginal tight end for Westen Michigan worth??

 

This is a question I've always wanted the answer to, and it applies equally to guys from lesser programs looking to move up to power teams, and vice versa. Where I teach, more than 20 percent of the overall freshman class transfers. Their numbers are nearly replaced by students transferring in. Lots of people make school choices -- with or without sports involved -- that for one reason or another don't work out. Only athletes are penalized for this. It's insane.

That said, NIL does not apply equally across the board. Where I teach, football players get next to nothing (most get nothing), and athletes in other sports get nothing nearly across the board. Still, they get a lot. The annual value of a "full ride" (another misnomer) at my school is worth more than $75,000 for any athlete, more than double what a typical student pays. So they're hardly "indentured servants." At most schools they're compensated at a rate higher than most on this board have ever made and they come out without a dime in loans and an education, should they choose to pursue it, that has a calculated value over time of more than seven figures. Have the universities profited? Some. But for every Ohio State or Alabama there are 50 Bowling Greens and Ball States that are losing money hand over fist and should probably get rid of sports -- which would end educational opportunities for literally thousands of young people who would not otherwise get them. We tend to focus on the few, though, when the many are who the world of education is more concerned with.

 

As I've said before, the decision makers in CFB have no one to blame but themselves. The players never asked for NIL Wild West wackiness. They wanted some level of compensation and the CFB board could have controlled the money and added elements like academic requirements and behavioral requirements to get that money. Maybe add in a players storefront so they could get a small percentage cut of individual jersey sales, a cut of the video game money and maybe a few signing opportunities and call it a day. The players probably would have been thrilled with that.

But they took the risk that the courts would see things like they did and they lost badly. They didn't want to give in an inch.

I don't know that you can control the NIL. It's outside money. Boosters are finally clear to give players the money they have already tried to sneak them under the table. For a lot of those guys, the price of winning isn't too high. They can now have the payroll that 1982 SMU had, but without the punishment.

 

I remember Jim Bouton, in one of his post-Ball Four additional chapters, said something similar about the MLB owners. He said had they just doubled the minimum salary, kicked in some additional meal money, and stopped the worst abuses, the players would have been more than content to just let things ride. Instead, they treated the players like indentured servants.

NCAA, the conferences and the schools only have themselves to blame. They kept up their outdated “virtues of amateurism” bullshit for so long that nobody believed them in court and now are reaping the effects.

 

I agree with your first part.

As for the second part, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing for the Bowling Greens. Drop down to FCS or D-II and deemphasize things.

 

When you're 19, haven't taken your first snap in college, and have the keys to a BMW ...

(Hey, I'm happy for the kid. His dad was a childhood buddy of mine, and his grandpa was AD at my college and taught "Sport in Society" while I was there.)

Penn State Football: Beau Pribula Lands BMW Through NIL Deal