When your rivals helps you promote your NIL collective:
https://twitter.com/yea_ala/status/1624449044239065090?s=46&t=Kr7cjxSLukylA5GUde2L9w
$13 million deal falls apart. This is just the sort of thing everybody expected. I was struck by the discussion about two highly organized Florida NIL collectives, and discussions about how their “personnel” might be switching back and forth. Then there’s this:
The NCAA might investigate, too. The sanctioning body has rules regarding NIL deals. Boosters and NIL entities are not allowed to engage in recruiting conversations or activities regarding prospective student-athletes, and no promises can be made between family members and boosters or NIL entities that are contingent on the prospective student-athlete’s enrollment at an institution.
Collectives have circumvented those rules with zip code clauses, according to Florida-based attorney Darren Heitner, who works with the Gator Collective. The clauses use contract language to stipulate that student-athletes must reside in a certain jurisdiction for agreements to be payable.
Sounds like the adults in the room got a little greedy and cost Florida a QB and Rashada a great chance to play, get a degree and take care of his family. Also, this is 13 million over 4 years. Not sure HE IS worth this but if he ends up being a top QB then maybe? They are basically committing to paying him a rookie NFL contract. If he’s able to make that money and get an education why should we care?
Remember, this is a school that made 7 million off of licensing of Tim Tebow’s image in 2007.
Nobody here cares about athletes making money - at least none that I’ve seen on this board. You keep arguing that people do, and then attempt to paint people concerned about NIL as bad people.
I’ll attempt to break it down why these stories are concerning:
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The notion that “everybody was doing it, now it is in the open” is a fallacy - no not everyone was doing it, or you had a lot of kids in Utah hiding it very well.
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The concern isn’t about kids making money it is about wiping out any hope of parity in college sports, as limited as it was. That is what made college sports fun, particularly because it favored the under dog a lot. That is also why the NCAA tournament is fun.
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Most fans I know are fans of a school, and so ultimately this could lead to destroying athletics programs for most schools who can’t keep up. Utah or Boise St busting the BCS, or going to the Final Four or any of that stuff will basically disappear.
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Whittingham said that if things remain as they are then the top 25 schools would be the top 25 schools with NIL deals - making college sports worse than professional sports. It’d be like the Lakers winning every NBA championship from here on out. I don’t think that’d even be fun for the Lakers fans after a while.
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And if the product on the field gets worse, then the money will go down and the sports will die.
There are actually a lot of things I can see that if properly applied could make NIL great for college sports. For example, I can see a lot more athletes playing for four years at a school now, when many would’ve jumped to the pros or attempted to do so.
It will give more money to students and hopefully help a lot more families who need it.
Finally it would stop the spending race that happens in athletics right now to build the craziest facility, the coolest uniforms and all that garbage that goes on now.
What I’d rather see though is as you mentioned Florida making $7M off Tebow’s name, image and likeness is that NIL shift to a ‘pro-like’ system. Athletes become employees of the school just like the coach. They have contracts and some general salary cap rules that are indexed on the profitability of the athletics in general which would do a number of things - protect the schools, give substantial money to athletes and protect some parity. It also would get all of these bad actors out from taking advantage of athletes like in the story above.
So count me as one among many who are happy athletes are getting money - awesome. But don’t pretend there is no better way to do this. That’s not true.
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I like everything but the paragraph on employees (which has been discussed). But the athletes should ‘profit’-share (that was Ed O’Bannon’s main point in his case) and on top of that get ‘endorsement’ deals or make money off social (there was some kicker a few years back or a 2-sport athlete that had some weird eligibility ruling).
The point of the blown up FL deal is that these groups are going out, making deals (which they shouldn’t) and stipulating ‘pay-for-play’ at that particular school which is also a no-no. But it is problematic as kids are making decisions - “if I end up at your school [perhaps asking a coach], how much could I get in NIL?” Well, theoretically, you’d have to sign and then see what deals could be made, but people are giving assurances wink-wink. Chicken and egg type problem that currently doesn’t have the governance that will be needed to level the playing field a little bit.
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You need to read the board more. The title of this thread should make it clear that there is plenty of concern.
Spot-on, in my opinion.
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This is the most glaring problem right now, I think. (There are others, and reform should start with this one) Rules are needed but I am not optimistic about the NCAA’s ability to enforce them. I think federal legislation is needed, but I remind myself that all the top 25 schools have powerful senators and congressmen who are their fans and whose donors also donate to those officeholders.
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I assume you are talking to me. I have never said anyone is a bad person in opposition to my POV. I even said above I disagree with CNS who coaches my team (So do you assume I think he’s a bad person, I do not) but I also see the need for more oversight. I see it more as people are coming at it from an outdated angle of amateurism. Which hasn’t existed in college football since probably the early 1970s. But I will respond to your points above:
- You and I will just have to disagree. Working in the past with compliance officers at programs they always said the rules were written where there was not a way for a school not to break the NCAA rules. It was more up to the NCAA when and how they would drop the hammer. See how Notre Dame who egregiously broke the rules of payment skated and how Utah who gave a sammich and some chips to a player and were hit harder than ND. How SMU got the death penalty and others were not even given similar treatment. Also, people in Utah were paying players is not something I can prove. That said I personally witnessed it from P5, G5, and FCS schools. So maybe the citizens of Utah were beyond reproach.
- Again, this is an old way of looking at things. The idea the old system favored the underdog is laughable. This also completely ignores that NIL got players who would have never considered an HBCU to finally look their way. NIL actually levels the playing field because the old way only rewarded traditional powers.
- Maybe it’s the region I live in but NIL has not dampened the way people pull for their school. Granted the way I experienced college sports in the west people had ties to the school. In the Southeast, it’s more about regional pride than school pride.
- Whitt could be correct but he’s also a coach at a P5 school so the old system benefits him.
- You said field but NIL has helped more women athletes and basketball players than football. It’s always the focus on football but let’s not forget that there are sports where the money was not flowing to in the old system.
This can’t be just about football. It has to be about all players of all sports being compensated.
I get your POV but I just think the framing and thinking is outdated. Will there be some bad things to come from NIL? Sure. Will it be outweighed by the positive and helping young people be compensated for their value? yes. I just value the compensation of the players more than the value of the old system that took advantage of the labor of these young kids. I don’t see where a system that values them devalues parity. I in fact think it puts stress on Universities to treat players like they would want to be treated. Many of players were injured and dropped from scholarships in that old system.
If the old system was great, why did universities make sure they were never listed as employees or able to access healthcare past their time on campus? Why did they continue to profit off of their labor post-graduation in licensing deals without compensating their players? The old system was negligent of the health and fairness of the players at best and predatory of these young people at worse.
Legit question, what do you think of the inhouse nature schools like Alabama and others taking it in-house and having Learfield handle it? I think Utah is a Learfield school. It would probably be more manageable and professional that way. Because I think we both know the NCAA is bad at enforcement and the Congress is all over the map right now with things like this. Do we really want Mike Lee and Kyrsten Sinema making the rules?
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You are thinking of Jeremy Bloom, who was a wide receiver at Colorado and was a skier the Olympics. If I remember, he had to give up his football career to ski.
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Yeah, because of his deal with whoever supplied his skies. My brother was a sponsored mogul skier for a few years. He never had to worry about NCAA eligibility though. Whereas Jeremy Bloom was screwed by NCAA amateur rules. If IOC and the national/international skiing bodies weren’t concerned why should the NCAA be concerned?
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That’s the one! Was silly because he had endorsements for skiing or something so could play football. I’m glad that one got cleared up. Was so weird. I’m glad we got a former skiier as a kicker 
! I think that’s where I was mixing it up
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Remember what happened to Steve Alford, he helped with a calendar that raised money for charity, and got in hot water. Nothing was more needlessly byzantine and onerous than those NCAA rules.
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Remember the cookies and an order of brains and eggs got us in trouble…the NCAA put themselves in the corner of shame. No one did it to them. No one is going to let them out either.
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Sorry, but I can’t help it. Isn’t this big government regulating?
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I want to see CFB implode. Please let it happen. 
Regulation of something this important is ok!!
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Meanwhile, the NCAA lawyers are having a day. Just a reminder the NCAA works for the Institutions and not the men and women who sacrifice their bodies each week (All her tweets are amazing to see come out):
https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1625959158930411520
A summation of the lawsuit if you don’t want to read the tweets
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