Yet another NIL bill. This one is from a couple of Democratic senators and is less a name and image bill than a complete overhaul of the NCAA. It includes name and image rights, naturally, but keeps going. The biggest component:

• Athletes in sports that generate more revenue than the total amount of money that is spent on scholarships in that sport would be entitled to share 50% of the money left after scholarships are paid. In FBS-level football, for example, the commission would add together the revenue generated by all 130 football programs and subtract the total costs of scholarships at all those programs. Half of the money that is left would be distributed evenly among all players at the FBS level. The sports that currently generate enough money to qualify for this revenue sharing, according to Booker's office, are football (both FBS and FCS levels), men's and women's basketball, and baseball.

This is a terrible idea. It is a slightly different version of paying the money to people who don't earn it since San Jose State's punter is going to get as much as Devonta Smith under this regime. It is a massive transfer from P5 schools to everyone else; it does nothing to help break the current playoff hegemony. It does not allow schools to get anything in return, like an agreement to actually play in bowl games, in exchange for paying them. Once you pay them, you get to ask things of them. That's what the money is for.

It's also uselessly complicated and nonsensical when we have this whole "market" thing that could be applied and is applied in all other sports. Just ban restrictions on compensation and be done with it.

[After THE JUMP: various other options]

At least it's not a capitulation. Dan Murphy rounds up the other bills in Congress. There are six, although two seem DOA now that their authors are no longer going to be in the House. The still extant in addition to the above:

• Marco Rubio's NCAA lobbyist bill that allows the NCAA to rewrite their own rules and gives them an antitrust exemption. It seems like nobody except Marco Rubio is interested.
• A bill from former OSU WR Anthony Gonzalez and some guy from Missouri that gives athletes NIL rights, prohibits them from endorsing naughty things, and allows schools to prevent athletes from directly conflicting with their existing sponsors at games—but does not prevent them from signing deals with competitors generally. It attempts to prohibit boosters from using NIL as a recruiting tool, which isn't going to work, but whatever.
• A more restrictive version of the above bill where anyone defined as a booster would not be able to pay athletes for their endorsement.

If I had to bet I'd say that the Gonzalez bill is the closest to whatever eventually passes congress.

Meanwhile in lawsuits. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Alston case. If you don't remember what that was: NCAA was sued by former WVU player Shawne Alston. The judge in the case made a weird nonsense ruling that the NCAA was violating antitrust law by capping compensation, and then limited that ruling to educational expenses:

Wilken limited her ruling to include only benefits related to education, such as covering the costs of "computers, science equipment, musical instruments" and other similar items. She wrote that the NCAA's unique business model justified some limits.

Congratulations, everyone gets half a baby.

Anyway, a parade of appeals ensued. The NCAA was unsuccessful at overturning the Wilken ruling. Interestingly, it seems like even though the Alston lawyers nominally won the lower court lawsuit there was some prospect that higher courts would expand that W:

Alston's attorneys asked the appellate court to expand Wilken's initial ruling and allow schools the option to compensate athletes however they wanted, rather than limiting those options to education-related expenses. The trio of appellate judges declined to broaden the scope of Wilken's ruling.

"We believe we had a good legal argument for it, but sometimes progress on difficult things requires you to take one step at a time," said Jeffrey Kessler, one of Alston's attorneys. "You don't get to the end of the road all at once."

So that might be on the table for the Supreme Court, as well. Sports law talking guy Michael McCann thinks this is probably good for the NCAA but points out that traditional notions of conservative and liberal don't map onto the NCAA very well, probably because everyone hates the NCAA.

Tom Allen: not going anywhere, probably. Tom Allen's buyout is the full amount:

Yes. Per the terms of the contract he signed last year, until Dec. 1, 2021, buyout (for someone trying to hire him away, to be clear) is full remaining outside, marketing and promotional income, which totals a little more than $17.5m.

— Zach Osterman (@ZachOsterman) November 30, 2020

Auburn fans are on Flight Aware, as one must be, and noted that an Auburn plane is in Bloomington, prompting reminders that Tom Allen is super expensive and Auburn just axed Gus Malzahn for 21 million dollars. Rumors down there are focused on Kevin Steele, which would be incredible since he is currently Auburn's DC. Eating twenty million dollars of buyout so you can promote a 62-year-old coordinator: worse than hiring Brady Hoke?

Blanket. Go. The NCAA has issued a blanket waiver for all transfers this year. Go get, uh…

Highest-graded DBs in College Football
1. Patrick Surtain II, Alabama - 88.4
2. Keith Gallmon, S Alabama - 86.9
3. Jaquan Brisker, Penn St - 85.9
4. Elijah Molden, Washington - 85.1
5. Shakur Brown, Michigan St - 84.7

— PFF College (@PFF_College) December 12, 2020

South Alabama's Keith Gallmon? Ah hell he's a safety. Go get someone! To corner at people!

Gemon Green did okay. Michigan's secondary checks in 75th to PFF. Woof. Green came out all right though:

Gemon Green is starting at one of the outside spots for the first time in his career and has allowed an impressively low catch rate (39%) with good ball production (eight pass breakups). But when he has allowed a catch, it’s more often than not a huge play. Green has given up 19 catches that on average have resulted in a 15.4-yard gain.

Sort of okay.

Etc.: Bonus Auburn conspiracy wackadoodle business. The aftermath of Grant Newsome's injury. Chris Hunter, directing basketball ops. Iowa's offense has terrifying shot volume.