oops. Deivon into the portal.
I was hoping this might not happenā¦ but the simple reality of high level college sports is the NIL is here and itās not going away.
Thereās going to be time for people to digest this and somewhere in the future we can talk about how Utah will need to adjust and be competitiveā¦ but I donāt blame any of my Ute brothers here for being angry and disgusted with all of this.
Iād like to think our NIL sources can find a way to keep him here, but regardlessā¦ I appreciated Deivon for the 2023 season.
Trying to be fair from Deivonās perspective, itās unclear if heās an NBA talent - in a league with 6-7 guards where everyone is an elite athlete, heās a little small, and he doesnāt have a lockdown jumper like Trae Young. He has to look out for himself.
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He might be following Slocum.
Damn, we may be unwatchable next year.
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I know this probably made up my mind to not get season tix next year. Sorry, but Iām gonna be that guy. Maybe Iād feel differently if my football tix didnāt go up by 40% and my tailgate passes didnāt go up by 45%. At some point I just have to say no.
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Son of a ā¦ I was and wasnt expecting that.
Maybe we need a strategy of sucking for two years and then saving all of our hoops NIL money for year 3. Rinse and repeat.Every 3rd year we can purchase 2 or 3 high end players.
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So very glad Iām now older and have other hobbies. The NIL issue is driving me away from semi-pro, I mean college sports.
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I hate college sports now. Itās so hard to care nearly as much. Sorry to say.
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A uniquely American experience, college sports have made me smile as much as the Grateful Dead have.
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Rumor online is Deivon wants $600-700K NIL, Utah was at 500K
This, to me, is all absurd.
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Totally understandable. I assume the football renewal rate was not as high as it has been in the past, otherwise it would have been disclosed.
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This fits here, I believe.
Dartmouth Will Oppose Its Basketball Team Union
You could be forgiven for mistaking March Madness, college basketballās celebrated tournament, for a professional sporting event. Yet the performance obscures two realities: First, not all college sports are the same. There is a wide disparity between Divisions I, II and III, and even within Division I itself. Second, athletics plays different roles at different institutions. At many, varsity athletics is a means to a well-rounded education, not the end itself.
That is Dartmouthās model: We organize teams not to sell tickets but because athletics contribute to our studentsā educational experience. Our menās basketball team wishes to change that and, on March 5, voted to unionize. Dartmouth disagrees, and weāll go all the way to the Supreme Court if thatās what it takes to prevent this misguided development from taking hold.
Our resistance to the decision isnāt because we oppose labor unions. Dartmouth has more than 1,500 union employees across five unionsāincluding campus services employees, library workers, and teaching and research assistantsāall of whom we are proud to work with through collective bargaining. Our goal, instead, is to preserve nonprofessional collegiate athletics in the Ivy League.
Many schools are built to optimize revenue in todayās billion-dollar college sports industry. For these schools, National Collegiate Athletic Association President Charlie Bakerās proposal that athletes receive direct payments for their contribution may make sense. Perhaps in these circumstances where college athletic programs are run, managed and monetized like a professional sports league, unions do too. But that isnāt Dartmouth, nor is it the Ivy League.
Dartmouthās menās basketball program doesnāt sell out arenas, make millions on television deals, pay its coach a fortune, or run a program that enables its players to cash in on major name, image and likeness endorsement deals facilitated by collectives and donors. Thatās OK, because we arenāt trying to turn a profit with sports. Athletics are an important part of our studentsā academic experience. Alongside courses in philosophy and neuroscience, our athletes learn about overcoming failure, developing as leaders and working toward common objectives.
Professionalizing our sports programs would fundamentally alter one of the tenets of our collegiate arrangement. The Ivy League was founded as an athletic conference on the principle that academics is the priority. Students donāt receive athletic scholarships; they are awarded financial aid based on need alone. We announced last month that starting next academic year, it will cost no more than $5,000 a year to attend Dartmouth for all qualified undergraduate students from families with typical assets less than $125,000.
Whether students choose to enhance their collegiate experience through varsity sports has no bearing on their financial aid, course of study or ability to pursue a successful career. If we moved to a professionalized model by which we give athletic scholarships or pay students for their time playing, our focus on their education and how we financially support those who need it would become subsumed by their role as employees.
Professionalizing our menās basketball team would undermine Dartmouthās academic mission of educating students to become influential leaders. Only a handful of our tens of thousands of graduates have gone on to become professional athletes. While we are proud of their achievements, our objective isnāt to become a pipeline to the National Basketball Association. Sports are a part of our educational experience because they help produce collaborative citizens and future leaders. Employing students for something that should complement their student life would distort their educational experience beyond recognition.
Such a change also ignores the lessons weāve learned about the benefits of athletics in education and could potentially curtail athletic participation more broadly. I was a competitive soccer player growing up and brought my love of sports into my career as a cognitive scientist. My research on athleticsā effects on the brain has shown that sports can be a powerful complement to a rigorous classroom education, from teaching us how to practice to perform at our best to learning how to tune out distractions that would otherwise cause us to choke under pressure. Yet if our college were to turn toward a professional-athlete model, sports would become the outcome rather than an element of the educational experience. Participation likewise may fall, as sports become simply one job among many and the athlete-coach dynamic is displaced by a boss-employee paradigm.
When our menās basketball team voted to unionize, we could have accepted the result. We could have begun the collective-bargaining process as Dartmouth has done in every other instance of unionization on campus. But a leader must always ask: Is there a principle worth defending, even if doing so is difficult or unpopular? To preserve the integrity of Ivy League athletics and for students who are also athletes everywhere, the answer is a resounding yes.
Ms. Beilock is president of Dartmouth College.
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Is that principle āunion-bustingā, sir?
Pretty soon I will not be surprised if the actual Ivy League schools like Dartmouth simply abolish their intercollegiate sports programs altogether.
The āIvy Litesā (insert U$C here) will continue to chase their tails in the arms race of the new professional world of college sports. Some will have some success - at a price. The others will eventually follow the other Ivy schools to becoming academic institutions only.
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Roll call: which of yāall are union members?
It has nothing to do with unions per se. Itās Dartmouth saying it never wanted the own a minor league professional team and itās done with this.
I refuse to say whether Iām in a union.
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I come from a Union family. Everyone but mom was in a union. In my case as a non merit exempt employee I was at will, but joined so the rank and file could benefit from it.
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Given the oligopoly landscape of this country, union is essential. That said, to me, itās not about having unions, itās about fair access. Having seen inside the board rooms of Fortune 500 companies a bit, it really pisses me off.
Look at Boeing. Look at Warner Brothers. Look at Tesla. Look at pharmas. Look at Utah. Thereās no end.
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My dad was a member of the United Steelworkers of America for his entire adult working life. His life at home and at work were better as a result.
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I know where you work, but your secret is safe with me.
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