College Football Players Learn an Ugly Truth About Getting Paid

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What a joke. At least in pro sports it’s regulated and everyone is playing by the same rules more or less
 

Get your shit in writing and with guarantees. If people are willing to pay them, it’s their own stupid waste of big money. If you didn’t get it guaranteed, people are going to take advantage of you. 0% surprising to see
 

the thing is, the original idea behind NIL is fine. Let athletes make some money by marketing T-shirts, posters, doing autograph signings and endorsements. and then the big boosters saw a way to buy players for their favorite school, and the whole thing turned into a giant mess.

I know the schools don't want it, but at this point, I think the 'best' way forward would be to declare D1 football and basketball players as employees of the school. have a union and negotiate the terms of contracts. players could still do their own NIL marketing deals, but taking outside "pay for play" money could be construed as a contract violation.

I don't know if that approach would survive in court, but I think it would be better than the current situation, which is no rules of any kind.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
the thing is, the original idea behind NIL is fine. Let athletes make some money by marketing T-shirts, posters, doing autograph signings and endorsements. and then the big boosters saw a way to buy players for their favorite school, and the whole thing turned into a giant mess.

I know the schools don't want it, but at this point, I think the 'best' way forward would be to declare D1 football and basketball players as employees of the school. have a union and negotiate the terms of contracts. players could still do their own NIL marketing deals, but taking outside "pay for play" money could be construed as a contract violation.

I don't know if that approach would survive in court, but I think it would be better than the current situation, which is no rules of any kind.
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I’mall for them being employees, but it won’t stop all the pay for play unless someone (with some actual teeth unlike the NCAA) to look into each deal and decide if it is actual fair market value for the contract amounts. It would disincentivize it a bit given the players would be getting some money already so giving them enough to sway becomes less likely, but don’t think it’d go away
 


short ornery norwegian said:
the thing is, the original idea behind NIL is fine. Let athletes make some money by marketing T-shirts, posters, doing autograph signings and endorsements. and then the big boosters saw a way to buy players for their favorite school, and the whole thing turned into a giant mess.

I know the schools don't want it, but at this point, I think the 'best' way forward would be to declare D1 football and basketball players as employees of the school. have a union and negotiate the terms of contracts. players could still do their own NIL marketing deals, but taking outside "pay for play" money could be construed as a contract violation.

I don't know if that approach would survive in court, but I think it would be better than the current situation, which is no rules of any kind.
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Yep, the concept of NIL is a great thing for college athletes and is probably working pretty much as intended at the non-revenue sport level.

At this point I don't know how they solve the issues created in football and basketball with the mess this has all predictably become. It would take some sort of oversight to actually make sure things were legit and being done properly but that is a pipe dream at this point.

In the end it will be up to the schools to figure out just how much of all this they are willing to tolerate and then go from there.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I know the schools don't want it, but at this point, I think the 'best' way forward would be to declare D1 football and basketball players as employees of the school.
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I agree and have been saying this for awhile. This MSU situation is interesting and might show the powers that be why change needs to happen sooner than later. Let’s imagine that the booster club pulled their money and the team boycotted the game which would be totally understandable.

The TV network, which is paying biiiiig money for TV rights, would be pissed at the Big Ten, and would likely refuse to pay some of that money. The Big Ten would suffer and schools would see their $60 million top line drop, all because of the actions of a third party booster. Is the conference really going to let themselves be this vulnerable to the finances and whimsy of every big booster group in the conference? Given the amount of money on the line, the conference needs to get more control of the situation. Hopefully they do this by making them employees.
 



matt said:
I agree and have been saying this for awhile. This MSU situation is interesting and might show the powers that be why change needs to happen sooner than later. Let’s imagine that the booster club pulled their money and the team boycotted the game which would be totally understandable.

The TV network, which is paying biiiiig money for TV rights, would be pissed at the Big Ten, and would likely refuse to pay some of that money. The Big Ten would suffer and schools would see their $60 million top line drop, all because of the actions of a third party booster. Is the conference really going to let themselves be this vulnerable to the finances and whimsy of every big booster group in the conference? Given the amount of money on the line, the conference needs to get more control of the situation. Hopefully they do this by making them employees.
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The issue is how do you get control of things at this point, especially when you know that any sort of control you try to exert is going to be challenged in the courts by the people that want to keep exploiting the current system for every penny they can get.

It is clear that the current model is unsustainable for college football and basketball but how they get it under any sort of regulation and control is the bigger challenge. The employee route is probably the first step and then once they are employees other controls will need to be put in place to stop extra benefits.....but this will all take years to sort out.

It's a shame. I will keep following college football and basketball but it is getting harder and harder to be a fan with the stupidity of all the stuff going on right now in those sports.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The issue is how do you get control of things at this point, especially when you know that any sort of control you try to exert is going to be challenged in the courts by the people that want to keep exploiting the current system for every penny they can get.

It is clear that the current model is unsustainable for college football and basketball but how they get it under any sort of regulation and control is the bigger challenge. The employee route is probably the first step and then once they are employees other controls will need to be put in place to stop extra benefits.....but this will all take years to sort out.

It's a shame. I will keep following college football and basketball but it is getting harder and harder to be a fan with the stupidity of all the stuff going on right now in those sports.
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Employment and collective bargaining is a solution. Collective bargaining can have restrictions on whatever both sides agree to, and it can also require players to not boycott if they want to get paid.
 

I’m not sure how one designates group A athletes as employees but group B athletes not when they perform roughly the same duties, are subject to roughly the same rules, direction, oversight, hours,. I’ve never seen amount of revenue generated as a factor in the definition of an employee. Unproductive employees get whacked.

Some other non-school entity will need to be created to avoid an even worse situation for non-revs. I don’t think the U of M will want to pay 600+ athletes and a staff full of dead weight, share TV revenue with a powerful union that holds huge leverage.

Bob Iger can only do so much for the BIG TEN.
 




Hire them all as Athletic Consultants and 1099 them. No equal treatment there in terms of merit and duties. Cold and cruel but completely legal.

Job openings might read:

"The University of Minnesota is now hiring a Tight End Athletic Consultant. Minimum qualifications include..."

And so on...
 

beating the dead horse - one way to end all of this is for Congress to pass a national bill establishing clear rules and regulations for NIL. Of course, it would have to pass review by the Courts, but having one national bill and set of rules is far superior to the current state-by-state patchwork of rules.

and a national bill passed by congress would have more weight than the NCAA in terms of enforcement. A bill makes it a law, with potential civil and criminal penalties for breaking the law. that would have more teeth than the toothless NCAA.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
beating the dead horse - one way to end all of this is for Congress to pass a national bill establishing clear rules and regulations for NIL. Of course, it would have to pass review by the Courts, but having one national bill and set of rules is far superior to the current state-by-state patchwork of rules.

and a national bill passed by congress would have more weight than the NCAA in terms of enforcement. A bill makes it a law, with potential civil and criminal penalties for breaking the law. that would have more teeth than the toothless NCAA.
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Yeah, it would be optimal for Congress to regulate spending. Works now.
 

I’ve gone from a hardcore fan to a causal one.

The fees for televising sports will crest at some point and then fall as technology continues to revamp everything and it becomes harder to attract and keep eyeballs for advertising.

Maybe once the 💰spigot isn’t gushing whole hog, collegiate sports will get right sized again. I don’t know if it’ll take 15-20 years or possibly longer, but the cash grab can’t last into perpetuity.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
beating the dead horse - one way to end all of this is for Congress to pass a national bill establishing clear rules and regulations for NIL. Of course, it would have to pass review by the Courts, but having one national bill and set of rules is far superior to the current state-by-state patchwork of rules.

and a national bill passed by congress would have more weight than the NCAA in terms of enforcement. A bill makes it a law, with potential civil and criminal penalties for breaking the law. that would have more teeth than the toothless NCAA.
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LOL. Congress. You think that cluster $#@% is going to accomplish that. Please. Nevermind their are very REAL issues they should be focused on, not a bunch of amateurs fighting for NIL breadcrumbs. I mean, we have Haitians eating cats and dogs and geese who need to be shipped back to Venezuela asap, according to some really smart people.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
beating the dead horse - one way to end all of this is for Congress to pass a national bill establishing clear rules and regulations for NIL. Of course, it would have to pass review by the Courts, but having one national bill and set of rules is far superior to the current state-by-state patchwork of rules.

and a national bill passed by congress would have more weight than the NCAA in terms of enforcement. A bill makes it a law, with potential civil and criminal penalties for breaking the law. that would have more teeth than the toothless NCAA.
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USAA! 🕺
 

BilldGopher said:
Hire them all as Athletic Consultants and 1099 them. No equal treatment there in terms of merit and duties. Cold and cruel but completely legal.

Job openings might read:

"The University of Minnesota is now hiring a Tight End Athletic Consultant. Minimum qualifications include..."

And so on...
Click to expand...

Maybe, but if employers aren’t careful and misclassify W-2 as 1099 contractors, well, that’s gonna be a beatin’ if Jonny regulator comes sniffing. That seems like something a Miami or Texas program might try…
 

Is it possible football players and staff could be employed by or affiliated with an outside “athlete provider group” with its own governance which then contracts with the school to provide athlete services at their facilities on game days.. Sometimes these arrangements exist in eg healthcare/hospitals. The collective bargaining by these groups could, maybe, be organized and guided by a separate entity than the NCAA and could set rules on eligibility, contracts. Stipulations on attendance at schools, so on to preserve some student athlete resemblance. Negotiations with schools on revenue sharing.

No idea.
 

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