Wisconsin NIL Bill

Donate To GopherHole


MaxyJR1 said:
Click to expand...
This is interesting and poor wording in the tweet imo. Some better context from an article on the subject:

With a one-vote margin, the state Senate on March 17 approved a bill to provide taxpayer funding for athletic facility debt service and formalize rules around name, image and likeness. Eleven Republicans and six Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while seven Republicans and nine Democrats voted against it.
Click to expand...

The legislation would allocate $14.6 million for debt service and maintenance of athletic facilities at UW-Madison – the one power-conference athletic department in the University of Wisconsin System. Another $200,000 each would go to UW-Milwaukee and UW-Green Bay for its athletic facilities.
Click to expand...

It also would codify existing rules around athletes’ ability to profit off their name, image and likeness. Athletes also would not be allowed to sign NIL deals that conflict with the university’s existing contracts, involve the athlete’s performance or endorse tobacco, alcohol, gambling, banned or illegal substances or illegal activity.
Click to expand...

“I don’t want to have to choose between a competitive football team and a highly successful Olympic sport program,” McIntosh told the Journal Sentinel.
Click to expand...
 


The tweet is not worded correctly, but it is a HUGE help to the Badger budget.

The state will cover $14.6 million of maintenance previously paid by the athletic department.

That expense being paid by the state now frees up $14.6 million to be used for revenue share payments (not NIL). That is huge if given final approval. The Gophers could absolutely use a $14.6 million subsidy to help the athletic program. The $14.6 million coincidently is roughly the amount the football program uses for revenue share payments.

The NIL portion of the bill simply says athletes can't cut deals with companies that don't align with University ethics, etc.
 


Next time we beat them, I'll be sure to remind their fans that their tax dollars are being put to good use.
 

Yep that tweet was shit. Basically looks like 14.6M goes to pay other expenses, not to the athletes. But it frees up other money. If there is still a cap on what schools can rev share I am not sure it really helps outside of the overall bottom line. Although maybe I am misunderstanding it...
 





gopherbadgerman said:
Yep that tweet was shit. Basically looks like 14.6M goes to pay other expenses, not to the athletes. But it frees up other money. If there is still a cap on what schools can rev share I am not sure it really helps outside of the overall bottom line. Although maybe I am misunderstanding it...
Click to expand...

It is a huge help.

The revenue share money just doesn't show up. It comes from the operating budget. A budget that prior to last year didn't include the revenue share expense. So, schools all over are struggling trying to "free up" $20 million to pay players. Outside of cutting expenses or some windfall, there isn't an easy way.

This is one way to do it painlessly for the athletic department.

Mark Coyle would kill for this from Minnesota legislators. Of course, it would never happen here.

It'll be interesting to see if it ultimately happens in Wisconsin.
 


WI has employed the post war Oklahoma athletics strategy since 1991 and to some success.
 

Problem with these bills is they’re always in perpetuity. What if revenue share goes up or down or goes away ( they become contracted employees)?

The argument that all taxpayers should forever pay kids who play sports at Wisconsin a real tough sell. Schools and athletic directors along with the ncaa did this to themselves making crazy profits and building in a non sustainable fashion. Why we just keep pumping in money rather than set caps is so impressively dumb
 



upnorthkid said:
Why we just keep pumping in money rather than set caps is so impressively dumb
Click to expand...
I know it's been discussed a million times, and no one has ever come close to providing a good answer, but for argument's sake, who would you have set the caps? The players won't agree to it and no one has any leverage to do anything to them for not agreeing to a cap.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I know it's been discussed a million times, and no one has ever come close to providing a good answer, but for argument's sake, who would you have set the caps? The players won't agree to it and no one has any leverage to do anything to them for not agreeing to a cap.
Click to expand...
The schools have good plenty leverage if they’re weren’t all infighting and some making profit. Why do you think no other professional league has had someone usurp them in any recent memory and the only one without a cap is about to have a lockout?

They’d simply say you have the privilege of going elsewhere then. There’s not another “league” that’s magically going to come into this level. People thought the G league was going to poach a bunch of players as well and it hadn’t even before they started paying like this.

There already is a cap on revenue sharing as a percentage. Why did it get capped there? The players should sue it’s too low if they have all this power.

If the schools wanted to play PR on it, hire an arbitrator who has done this for the pros. They won’t because the haves also get a hella good deal as they just get to press on their fan base. OSU sharing 20 mil is easy enough when their donation based is over 3-4x that.

I’m all for making schools pay the bill and figuring it out. You’d see this all happen faster if you did so and you’d find players agree to it when the other option is nothing
 

upnorthkid said:
The schools have good plenty leverage
Click to expand...

Please explain further. I don't think they have any. If there is no college football season, most athletic departments won't survive. This isn't the NFL or NBA, etc. where the owners can sit and wait and have the players feel the pain first. The athletic department NEEDS the student athletes to play.

upnorthkid said:
They’d simply say you have the privilege of going elsewhere then.
Click to expand...

Who is "they"? You're glossing over details here, and that's the issue. Is "they" a school like Minnesota or WI? If so, the athlete will just go to a different school. Is "they" the Big 10? If so, the athlete will go to another conference. Is "they" all the schools put together? If so, they still need the athletes to play in order for the athletic department to make it. I can't see 120+ schools coming together and threatening to not have a football season. No one in the SEC would tolerate that, when the alternative is to just keep paying them like they are now.
 

ergopher said:
Next time we beat them, I'll be sure to remind their fans that their tax dollars are being put to good use.
Click to expand...

Is it better or worse than Minnesota charging existing students a $100 fee for essentially the same use?

Honest question.

Probably just different.
 
Last edited:


Every little dime helps, I guess.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Please explain further. I don't think they have any. If there is no college football season, most athletic departments won't survive. This isn't the NFL or NBA, etc. where the owners can sit and wait and have the players feel the pain first. The athletic department NEEDS the student athletes to play.



Who is "they"? You're glossing over details here, and that's the issue. Is "they" a school like Minnesota or WI? If so, the athlete will just go to a different school. Is "they" the Big 10? If so, the athlete will go to another conference. Is "they" all the schools put together? If so, they still need the athletes to play in order for the athletic department to make it. I can't see 120+ schools coming together and threatening to not have a football season. No one in the SEC would tolerate that, when the alternative is to just keep paying them like they are now.
Click to expand...
We're going to go back and forth for forever because details? More than one way to skin a cat. This is all hypothetical because its a message board. To be very clear, none of this will happen because those who hold the cards are profitable and winning.

Campbell approach, which has minimal traction purely because Trump wants to be involved and it's a PR point: he wants congress/gov't to do it because he knows the schools are caught in this juxtaposition or what you say.

If colleges went for this, it actually may make their case a little more obvious. The schools are all operating on media rights deals which are negotiated up front and for the amount of stuff they give access to, which BTN frankly doesn't give a shit about other than as filler (this is a portion the push cited, which I am dubious about coming from him but it is true, is that putting in legislation will save Olympic sports, which become bygones because they spend about $60million on football and men's basketball, which is the size of the media bill.

This argument that athletic departments wouldn't survive acts like they didn't do so for forever without media rights deals and without paying players. Again they did this to themselves and they continue to do so because the B10 and SEC are ahead and want to remain so and are happy to pass the bill along to others. They won't do any of the above cited (which is what I'd argue for) because it would jeopardize what is an easy advantage for them. Hence why this discussion of "details" won't matter because they use it as leverage to whine and complain to their fanbases to get them to donate more money.

Probably the easiest potentially real way this would happen would be that a new governing body comes into place which caps costs to be renegotiated at a certain set time period (same as a CBA) that schools all elect to enter to be part of it, play in postseason, etc. You'll still have NIL existing outside of this with the actual guardrails that NIL was intended to have.

The other option., which will never happen because the schools with the power are doing fine right now and foresight into problems down the road is not something an AD who has a very short lifespan compared to the entire University will care to do, would be to have the B10 and SEC (which would require their commissioners to go there, which again won't happen because they like being paid their 4-5million a year) to say this is what we're doing.

Another option, which maybe has the most reasonable chance of happening, is people stop donating to the tune they currently are and the money dries up (comparatively). this is reality is probably already happening many places with many schools being floated by big money donors. Do people keep donating places like Minnesota where your chances to contend nationally are pretty low?

A further option would be the severance of certain sports from Universities or cutting Olympic sports. If we're leaning into the profit model and away from amateurism, you can't really support swimming or men's golf. Cuts are happening all over but they're bandaids. An option would be for development of a league that effectively moves these sports off University books and makes all the players contracted employees (akin to a CBA). I would put this as highly unlikely as the school names are more what matter (one watches the QB play at Michigan, not Bryce Underwood who happens to be at Michigan).

There's so much nuance and detail to this that none of this outside of Congress doing something is likely to change because there are too many wildly discrepant parties across CFB and even within conference (OSU is not ever going to view things equally with MD when their athletic dept revenues are 336mil vs 124mil, respectively, or will they want to compare with Rutgers who without state subsidies is like 500mil net negative in revenue).

The schools would all survive if they didn't play any sports for a year. It'll be real curious to see what happens once it hits the point where some schools in a bigger conference cannot continue in the facilities arms race. We'll see if they decide to act before any of that happens. Again lots of ways to try make this work, but imagine all would be contingent on the B10 and SEC choosing to do so, which I really do not see happening, and instead they will continue to press fans and donors to donate to fill their cash gaps.
 

Ope3 said:
Is it better or worse than Minnesota charging existing students a $100 fee for essentially the same use?

Honest question.

Probably just different.
Click to expand...
i don't think they changed student bills to charge this, just had to note it was being allocated for this.

I guess in theory, as an informed consumer you could just go to college elsewhere. Uprooting your home, selling your house, etc., is probably a little tougher sell. Though for all the stupid shit we get taxed on, I can't imagine the $7 is really that worth it
 

upnorthkid said:
i don't think they changed student bills to charge this, just had to note it was being allocated for this.

I guess in theory, as an informed consumer you could just go to college elsewhere. Uprooting your home, selling your house, etc., is probably a little tougher sell. Though for all the stupid shit we get taxed on, I can't imagine the $7 is really that worth it
Click to expand...

Minnesota did change the Student bills for the $100/semester fee.

mndaily.com

UMN to charge $200 fee for Twin Cities students following athlete pay settlement

This fall, the University of Minnesota is implementing a new $200 fee for students on the Twin Cities campus to support its athletics department. The $100-per-semester fee, approved by the Board of Regents in June, comes as schools across the country have gained the ability to pay student...
mndaily.com mndaily.com

The reasoning is that students also have access to the facilities the Athletic Dept manages. It basically a frees up other funds for the Department to spend elsewhere, just as the Wisconsin Tax proposal.
 

Ope3 said:
Minnesota did change the Student bills for the $100/semester fee.

mndaily.com

UMN to charge $200 fee for Twin Cities students following athlete pay settlement

This fall, the University of Minnesota is implementing a new $200 fee for students on the Twin Cities campus to support its athletics department. The $100-per-semester fee, approved by the Board of Regents in June, comes as schools across the country have gained the ability to pay student...
mndaily.com mndaily.com

The reasoning is that students also have access to the facilities the Athletic Dept manages. It basically a frees up other funds for the Department to spend elsewhere, just as the Wisconsin Tax proposal.
Click to expand...
More meaning, I don’t think they “raised “ tuition for this IIRC (though did raise tuition overall so maybe it was baked in). Just carved it out as allocated out of the already ridiculous fees the U charges (the paymaster is fascinating with charges from each of the colleges, health insurance plus a fee to run boynton, long term disability, an academic records fee, etc).

Obviously higher education has some big affordability problems outside of this and students do benefit from having sports on campus, so I get the fee (which is also pretty paltry compared to other schools).
 

upnorthkid said:
We're going to go back and forth for forever because details?
Click to expand...

Not sure it has to go back and forth forever. My point is simple so this will be my last reply, but you wrote a lengthy post so I'll respond to the rest. But in basic terms, my point is that neither side, but especially the athletes, have no motivation for a cap. IMO, any benefit from a cap is outweighed by the benefits of not having one, and hence that's why I conclude there won't be one.

upnorthkid said:
To be very clear, none of this will happen because those who hold the cards are profitable and winning.
Click to expand...

Who are these people you speak of that "hold the cards"?

upnorthkid said:
This argument that athletic departments wouldn't survive acts like they didn't do so for forever without media rights deals and without paying players.
Click to expand...

That's ignoring the concept that they started changing their behavior/spending once the media deals became large. The departments have evolved to a point where they are now dependent on that money. Think back to covid and how hard they tried to get a season in so the checks would keep coming.

upnorthkid said:
Again they did this to themselves and they continue to do so because the B10 and SEC are ahead and want to remain so and are happy to pass the bill along to others.
Click to expand...

This part I agree with, and it makes sense. They weren't operating as a "union" or anything, each school/conference acted in their best interest.

upnorthkid said:
Probably the easiest potentially real way this would happen would be that a new governing body comes into place
Click to expand...

This is what I find impossible. If the NCAA couldn't do it, good luck on someone else....

upnorthkid said:
that schools all elect to enter to be part of it
Click to expand...

The schools that don't enter into it will be much more attractive to high-end recruits.

upnorthkid said:
You'll still have NIL existing outside of this with the actual guardrails that NIL was intended to have.
Click to expand...

How?????? You just said it's outside of the new governing body you proposed.

It just seems to me that you want some kind of cap to happen and you're ignoring all the reasons that it won't happen.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Not sure it has to go back and forth forever. My point is simple so this will be my last reply, but you wrote a lengthy post so I'll respond to the rest. But in basic terms, my point is that neither side, but especially the athletes, have no motivation for a cap. IMO, any benefit from a cap is outweighed by the benefits of not having one, and hence that's why I conclude there won't be one.



Who are these people you speak of that "hold the cards"?



That's ignoring the concept that they started changing their behavior/spending once the media deals became large. The departments have evolved to a point where they are now dependent on that money. Think back to covid and how hard they tried to get a season in so the checks would keep coming.



This part I agree with, and it makes sense. They weren't operating as a "union" or anything, each school/conference acted in their best interest.



This is what I find impossible. If the NCAA couldn't do it, good luck on someone else....



The schools that don't enter into it will be much more attractive to high-end recruits.



How?????? You just said it's outside of the new governing body you proposed.

It just seems to me that you want some kind of cap to happen and you're ignoring all the reasons that it won't happen.
Click to expand...
it said it right in the first paragraph that you highlighted. Those that hold the cards are the SEC/B10 and their commissioners, and within those leagues you'd also need OSU to feel like they should sign something to be equal with MD (will never happen). Nothing happens at this level now without their full buy in because they drive the revenue. Given they can't even agree with each other on the basics of a playoff, yeah it's not happening. It's just things we talk about on a message board that personally I think would help make the sport more sustainable.

they spend what they do because they think they have to to be competitive, which they did to themselves. Again, my issue is 0% with the athletes being paid, more with the Universities who never foresaw this coming and got way over their skis in budgeting and rather than dealing with the issue are willing to kick the can down the road at others expense. They hate the cash cows because it costs to play, but they also fucked themselves in bloating costs (it's part of why I laugh at "record revenue" because you could do the same with "record expense" almost every year as well) so they need those cows to support their other poor spending.

The idea that the NCAA couldn't do it so no one else will be able to is a little naive. The NCAA had no incentive to do it because they were making money. At some point, schools will not be able to keep up. Maybe its where the super league forms (as has been talked about ad nauseum) or maybe the rein it in for competitive balance. Hard to say.

But once again, all discussion points are for naught unless you see the B10 or SEC (not just the coaches within those conferences) come out and say it needs to happen. More and more coaches on are on the record for it, but otherwise its all just speculation/message board fodder.

That athletes wouldn't be for it, well what if you say we'll cover your medical expenses for life as related to football injuries, we'll cover your education costs for continuing ed in perpetuity, a 401k (ie basically pull from the NFLPA negotiated down to college level dollars). The schools also have next to no protection on players leaving (small schools would love having kids locked in for 4 years but they don't want them to be employees because again they all get the best of all worlds in that average joe or big whale donor pay the players and the schools get off on tuition and revenue sharing).

On your question on NIL outside the governing body, as in you can still pay players for it, but you have an actual organization with some amount of backing that all schools are in on who reviews the deals and what they're for. What's supposed to be happening now with literally zero enforcement at present though supposedly there are deals being denied.
 

upnorthkid said:
More meaning, I don’t think they “raised “ tuition for this IIRC (though did raise tuition overall so maybe it was baked in). Just carved it out as allocated out of the already ridiculous fees the U charges (the paymaster is fascinating with charges from each of the colleges, health insurance plus a fee to run boynton, long term disability, an academic records fee, etc).
Click to expand...

That's not how I interpret it. From the article.

University athletics declined an interview regarding the new fee at this time.

To me that means an additional $100 Fee itemized on each students bill each semester, unavoidable and separate from tuition (as with many already pre-existing fees).

$200/yr that was not there before.
 

Ope3 said:
That's not how I interpret it. From the article.

University athletics declined an interview regarding the new fee at this time.

To me that means an additional $100 Fee itemized on each students bill each semester, unavoidable and separate from tuition (as with many already pre-existing fees).

$200/yr that was not there before.
Click to expand...
just because the fee is new, does not mean it changed the overall cost (if you're pulling it from somewhere else). If they're using it for that, they're required to earmark it as such. that's what I'm saying
i'd have to see the fees year over year but given they jump almost every single year (As does the tuition), really hard to compare.
 



I t
#2Gopher said:
On top of many other requirements that makes taxes much higher. People need to look at the total picture where everything adds up to break your back.
Click to expand...
Totally agree. Was not saying I was for it. Just doing math
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom