New Executive Order on College Sports

Donate To GopherHole
upnorthkid said:
They’re very ok with losing fans like this but adding gamblers and making money. Same reason they keep expanding playoff.
Click to expand...
I think the casual fan will lose interest in the game as a whole while still following their hometown squad or alma mater, but like you say, bettors and fans with a more salient interest in the game as a whole will likely more than make up for that.
 

50PoundHead said:
I think the casual fan will lose interest in the game as a whole while still following their hometown squad or alma mater, but like you say, bettors and fans with a more salient interest in the game as a whole will likely more than make up for that.
Click to expand...
How many betters weren't watching college football before? I honestly don't know, but for me personally, I haven't started watching a new sport just because I can now gamble on it.

I think it's a mistake to risk losing your base of fans. The new ones might just run off once some other new/shiny thing comes around.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
How many betters weren't watching college football before? I honestly don't know, but for me personally, I haven't started watching a new sport just because I can now gamble on it.

I think it's a mistake to risk losing your base of fans. The new ones might just run off once some other new/shiny thing comes around.
Click to expand...
The gamblers probably aren't even watching the games now. Just checking their phone for results.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
How many betters weren't watching college football before? I honestly don't know, but for me personally, I haven't started watching a new sport just because I can now gamble on it.

I think it's a mistake to risk losing your base of fans. The new ones might just run off once some other new/shiny thing comes around.
Click to expand...
Been a bunch of interesting data points to look at as it’s hard to quantify.

But there is an uptick in viewership when the games are near point spreads even in blowouts late in games, which would argue you’re getting viewership that is gambling dictated. Then you’ve got a bunch of shows now geared towards gambling lines on games (including it being seen on college gameday) and that’s geared by market assessment. Gambling also is incredibly prevalent on college campuses and in no way only for their home team as well as exploding in the app marketplace for casual gamblers (recent article in the economist on this and what it’s meant for LV travel)

Similar stuff happens in Europe with football (soccer) from time spent there.

so yeah I think they’re bringing in people not necessarily interested in the players or teams, but follow the sport because you can “analyze” it and think you’ll make money. Been pretty well discussed that this is particularly common in college men and has driven up percentage of audience there
 

GoldRush said:
The gamblers probably aren't even watching the games now. Just checking their phone for results.
Click to expand...
Hardcore ones, sure.
Casual bettors who think they’re angling the market tune in, especially with scores near the spread late
 


stocker08 said:
One was caused by a worldwide pandemic and Russia attacking Ukraine and the other was caused by a war started by the United States and Israel.

Yes....hard to make up the fact that there are tens of millions of adults in this country with little to no critical reasoning skills.
Click to expand...
Remind everyone again who was in office when inflation began and who was in office when it dropped.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
How many betters weren't watching college football before? I honestly don't know, but for me personally, I haven't started watching a new sport just because I can now gamble on it.

I think it's a mistake to risk losing your base of fans. The new ones might just run off once some other new/shiny thing comes around.
Click to expand...
There are exponentially more betters (betting more games) now that it's legal.
 

CentralGopher said:
Remind everyone again who was in office when inflation began and who was in office when it dropped.
Click to expand...

Worldwide inflation began towards the end of the Trump term and continued for a couple years before dropping back to normal levels towards the end of Biden's term. It's started accelerating once again under Trump entirely due to unneeded trade wars, tariffs, and now an unnecessary war. You can just say that you don't pay any attention to what's happening around you. It's not breaking news.
 

GoldRush said:
We shall see. I know the last couple years I've watched less and less college FB and bb. Still watch the Gophers but don't watch other games like I used to. But maybe that's just me.
Click to expand...

I hardly watch NFL any more and definitely less college than 10-15 years ago.

Getting back to the thread and regarding the loss of amateurism, if coaches and idiot ADs signing multimillion dollar contracts didn’t turn fans off from college sports already… I’m calling BS on free agency and private contracts “ruining the sport” angle conjured up by Don Pedo. It’s already grossly commercial.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
There are exponentially more betters (betting more games) now that it's legal.
Click to expand...
I wasn't trying to deny that - more to point out that, IMO, it's from the same pool of viewers as before. But @upnorthkid brought up a good point about people watching blowouts late since they now have a vested interest.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
if coaches and idiot ADs signing multimillion dollar contracts didn’t turn fans off from college sports already…
Click to expand...
It never bothered me. For years and years and years I'd watch all Saturday long, from when I got up until when I fell asleep.

This new stuff that you refer to as "free agency" and "private contracts" is exactly the reason I stopped watching.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
It never bothered me. For years and years and years I'd watch all Saturday long, from when I got up until when I fell asleep.

This new stuff that you refer to as "free agency" and "private contracts" is exactly the reason I stopped watching.
Click to expand...
Two of my key interests in college sports were (a) every year we'd get a roster of 25% new players (unlike say the NFL where the marquee talent tends to stay around longer) so there was always hope that "this year's cruits are going to make a difference" and (b) the previous year's players that didn't graduate were going to be better and that they were going make it a winning team.

I could watch the recruits get better each season and do a nice comparison of how "this year's team is going to be better than last year's".

Now, that's somewhat gone. Fleck and Niko did a good job in keeping their players, but in general I think you get what I mean. There's such a turnover of players that getting those "diamond in the rough" recruits doesn't matter anymore. If they become great players as they become upper classmen, then they'll become a high-demand NIL attraction with a good chance of portaliing somewhere else (e.g., to the Ducks). You do get a whole new slate of players from the portal, but I don't know that much about them - certainly not as much as a recurit that come on board as a freshman and now as an upperclassman will start playing.

Rant over, just my thoughts...
 

GopherTheJugular said:
How many betters weren't watching college football before? I honestly don't know, but for me personally, I haven't started watching a new sport just because I can now gamble on it.

I think it's a mistake to risk losing your base of fans. The new ones might just run off once some other new/shiny thing comes around.
Click to expand...
There are more bettors. Both Harper's and The Atlantic have had recent cover stories about the meteoric rise in sports betting. I probably should have expressed my thoughts better. The casual fan may lose interest in the sport as a whole and only concentrate on their team. I guess what I'm saying is that will be offset by the increase in bettors and the increased salience of games outside the local team.
 



LOL, a complete joke. EO....Ok dude.
 

If we’re going inflation now it think it was caused by Omar and her gang on fraud.
 

stocker08 said:
Worldwide inflation began towards the end of the Trump term and continued for a couple years before dropping back to normal levels towards the end of Biden's term. It's started accelerating once again under Trump entirely due to unneeded trade wars, tariffs, and now an unnecessary war. You can just say that you don't pay any attention to what's happening around you. It's not breaking news.
Click to expand...
Covid and all the “free” money given out in retrospect somewhat unnecessarily during that period and then the continued welfare policies under Biden are by far of the main drivers of inflation. What any of that has to do with our football squad I don’t know, but that’s the very simple answer.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
It never bothered me. For years and years and years I'd watch all Saturday long, from when I got up until when I fell asleep.

This new stuff that you refer to as "free agency" and "private contracts" is exactly the reason I stopped watching.
Click to expand...

But why

This was the best football season I can recall as a fan of the sport. The CFP was amazing this year. The Gophers do have a shot, and better than we think. The best in 60 years.
 
Last edited:

50PoundHead said:
There are more bettors. Both Harper's and The Atlantic have had recent cover stories about the meteoric rise in sports betting. I probably should have expressed my thoughts better. The casual fan may lose interest in the sport as a whole and only concentrate on their team. I guess what I'm saying is that will be offset by the increase in bettors and the increased salience of games outside the local team.
Click to expand...

We are currently in Biff Tannen’s Pleasure Paradise Hotel as a living dream but I’m hopeful once things hit bottom maybe we’ll return to outlawing easy/legal gambling. And, just a thought, enabling football players to negotiate their true market value like coaches, ADs, and every other worker in America.

I’d like that.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
I hardly watch NFL any more and definitely less college than 10-15 years ago.

Getting back to the thread and regarding the loss of amateurism, if coaches and idiot ADs signing multimillion dollar contracts didn’t turn fans off from college sports already… I’m calling BS on free agency and private contracts “ruining the sport” angle conjured up by Don Pedo. It’s already grossly commercial.
Click to expand...
Fair point. I think TV viewership #'s will always be there. But I think it's going to affect attendance & fan involvment.

My opinion is it has gotten worse the past 5 years for fans. Concession prices are going up, other prices are as well, and it's getting more difficult to justify going to games compared to just watching at home. College athletics isn't the only one facing this though.

I know that if I end up going to hell, the first guy I'm going to see is the guy in the red jacket with the TV timeout clock ticker, only it's going to reset back to 3:00 every time it gets close to 0:00.....
 

Pompous Elitist said:
But why
Click to expand...

I assume this is to why the "new" stuff drove me off, and not the previous comment on coaching/AD salaries. Well, I think the things that interested me about it are not what interest you about college football. I loved an opening weekend where you might have Miami/FSU, etc. and the loser was in a major hole going forward - it was like a playoff game but in week 1. And we'd have those a few times per month where some top team would lose, or get pushed to the edge, and that to me was exciting. Now no individual loss means anything to me anymore because I don't know if it affected said team's playoff chances or not.

Just go back to opening weekend 2024. Herbstreit is talking before the USC/LSU game telling people it doesn't matter if your team loses, they can still make the playoff. To me, hearing that, that was the end for me. Regular season losses used to hurt.

Pompous Elitist said:
This was the best football season I can recall as a fan of the sport. The CFP was amazing this year. The Gophers do have a shot, and better than we think. The best in 60 years.
Click to expand...
I don't wanna sit through a whole season for the hopes of an amazing CFP. For about 20 years, I sat through amazing regular season after amazing regular season. Now it's a mediocre regular season at best and hopefully amazing playoffs.

To me, nothing will top the 2007 regular season. THAT back and forth was fantastic. Michigan losing in week 1 to an FCS team.

Certainly the Gophers have a better shot now than before, but that doesn't do much for me. I'd rather have seen the Gophers go through what Wisconsin did and just get to a Rose Bowl, vs. get into this CFP that means nothing to me.

Two people, fans of the same sport, seeing it totally differently. Cheers.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I assume this is to why the "new" stuff drove me off, and not the previous comment on coaching/AD salaries. Well, I think the things that interested me about it are not what interest you about college football. I loved an opening weekend where you might have Miami/FSU, etc. and the loser was in a major hole going forward - it was like a playoff game but in week 1. And we'd have those a few times per month where some top team would lose, or get pushed to the edge, and that to me was exciting. Now no individual loss means anything to me anymore because I don't know if it affected said team's playoff chances or not.

Just go back to opening weekend 2024. Herbstreit is talking before the USC/LSU game telling people it doesn't matter if your team loses, they can still make the playoff. To me, hearing that, that was the end for me. Regular season losses used to hurt.


I don't wanna sit through a whole season for the hopes of an amazing CFP. For about 20 years, I sat through amazing regular season after amazing regular season. Now it's a mediocre regular season at best and hopefully amazing playoffs.

To me, nothing will top the 2007 regular season. THAT back and forth was fantastic. Michigan losing in week 1 to an FCS team.

Certainly the Gophers have a better shot now than before, but that doesn't do much for me. I'd rather have seen the Gophers go through what Wisconsin did and just get to a Rose Bowl, vs. get into this CFP that means nothing to me.

Two people, fans of the same sport, seeing it totally differently. Cheers.
Click to expand...


No man, I’m with you. I was an ardent supporter of keeping the sport strictly amateur but i was also a proponent of an antitrust exemption (recognizing the unique nature of college sports) to limit coaching and athletics staff salaries and excess revenue above that cap cap being returned to the general funds of the schools. Student athletes, right? Obviously I am hopelessly idealistic.

So when we have a rapacious media rights capitalistic structure built on top of a labor class arguably very illegally restrained under the law of the land with none of the revenue returned to the students with the regular students increasingly coerced for athletics fees to support this monstrosity it became increasingly distasteful to me.

So given all that Im very “for” a redistribution of the capital waterfall to the labor eg via a CBA where the players have a say in how many games, what kind of post-season, etc. but organizations have to reach a breaking point for structural change to happen, especially this one where the money is freely flowing without guardrails or any restraint whatsoever and everyone is very fat and very happy.

So in a way we agree. I’d love for the regular season to mean more, players to have meaningful contracts. But, I still appreciate the spirit of competition and watching these dudes go out there and rise above.
 

Gopherchase said:
Covid and all the “free” money given out in retrospect somewhat unnecessarily during that period and then the continued welfare policies under Biden are by far of the main drivers of inflation. What any of that has to do with our football squad I don’t know, but that’s the very simple answer.
Click to expand...

And the corporate welfare propagated by the right is helpful? Also....there's no remotely intelligent way for you to argue that the uptick from the low 2% range when Trump took over to around 4% now has anything to do with Biden era policies. It's entirely due to decisions surrounding trade, tariffs and war. The definition of shooting yourself in the foot.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
We all know we’ll still watch if there are 32 year old students working on their third degree playing college football making $2.5M at their sixth school.
Click to expand...
At least in this concocted scenario, you're still having the players go to school.

It is sheer, silly fantasy, though. Courts have upheld perfectly reasonable eligibility limits.


But to actually answer the real question you're getting at: absolutely college football will become the UFL, if you take a giant dump on eligibility rules like this.
 

stocker08 said:
These notes are right in the OP. Very vague.....but the third one pretty specifically seems to be pointing to NIL deals. What the hell is an "improper financial arrangement" under this EO?
  • implementing revenue-sharing in a manner that protects and expands opportunities in women’s and Olympic sports;
  • banning improper financial arrangements including pay-for-play agreements facilitated by collectives and similar entities; and
  • establishing protections against unscrupulous agent conduct.
Click to expand...
Collectives are not genuine NIL deals. A genuine NIL deal is an individual player endorsing a local car dealership, or something like that.

No matter how by the book and proper Dinkytown has run things, none of them should be allowed to exist. Player payments should mostly only come from the schools themselves, and then genuine third-party NIL deals on top for the sub-set of players that warrant them.
 

GopherGrit said:
Collectives are not genuine NIL deals. A genuine NIL deal is an individual player endorsing a local car dealership, or something like that.

No matter how by the book and proper Dinkytown has run things, none of them should be allowed to exist. Player payments should mostly only come from the schools themselves, and then genuine third-party NIL deals on top for the sub-set of players that warrant them.
Click to expand...

Why? Why shouldn't players be able to profit off their NIL? Considering all of the ways that big money bastardizes politics in this country......why would anyone draw a line here......at college athletics? Fact is that the NCAA fucked up big time. Selfish piggies had butt loads of time to figure out a way to fairly compensate the athletes and they drug their feet like morons. They opened up the box and now have to figure a way to close it. I don't know what that even begins to look like now that the courts have ruled in favor of the athletes.....but the players should absolutely get their piece of the billions of dollars that they generate.
 

GopherGrit said:
At least in this concocted scenario, you're still having the players go to school.

It is sheer, silly fantasy, though. Courts have upheld perfectly reasonable eligibility limits.


But to actually answer the real question you're getting at: absolutely college football will become the UFL, if you take a giant dump on eligibility rules like this.
Click to expand...

Would you object to eligibility limits on Fleck or Mark. Yes, because it’s stupid. If a guy wants to spend 15 years in college while playing football would that really upset you?

No, it wouldn’t.



.
 
Last edited:

GopherGrit said:
Collectives are not genuine NIL deals. A genuine NIL deal is an individual player endorsing a local car dealership, or something like that.

No matter how by the book and proper Dinkytown has run things, none of them should be allowed to exist. Player payments should mostly only come from the schools themselves, and then genuine third-party NIL deals on top for the sub-set of players that warrant them.
Click to expand...

Never in the course of human history has a person bought a product because of a celebrity endorsement. Did you seek out Hertz because of OJ? Hmm, yeah ok. No. No, it is sheer vanity and indulgence. Ok, maybe Cindy Crawford sold a few Pepsi. Maybe.
 

50PoundHead said:
There are more bettors. Both Harper's and The Atlantic have had recent cover stories about the meteoric rise in sports betting. I probably should have expressed my thoughts better. The casual fan may lose interest in the sport as a whole and only concentrate on their team. I guess what I'm saying is that will be offset by the increase in bettors and the increased salience of games outside the local team.
Click to expand...
I understood that part. I was just pointing out that, for example, I bet on college football - but it wouldn't be fair to say that I'm part of the increase in viewership as a "bettor", because I was watching long before I could bet.

I think a good majority of those betting had been watching prior to it being made legal.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Would you object to eligibility limits on Fleck or Mark. No, because it’s stupid. If a guy wants to spend 15 years in college while playing football would that really upset you?

No, it wouldn’t.
Click to expand...
C'mon....
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom