NIL Solutions?
As I see the college football landscape changing I'm torn because I think players should be paid and they should be able to transfer but I liked the product prior to all of this. This just shows how big of POS the NCAA is they should have been ahead of this in some way. To not have a structure in place is laughable. I'm curious if it possible to have a salary cap on how much boosters can invest NIL money for each school. As for transfers its really tricky. I have ideas but they are way to long to explain lol.
CFB and to a lesser extend CBB has outgrown the NCAA. Their relationship to academics and collegiate ideologies has been fading rapidly. Then NIL came along and put it in the ground. There is no reason to continue to pretend that these players and coaches are just normal students or university employees. They are minor league athletes and employees of a multi-million/billion dollar athletic business. Baseball has had the right model for a while. Players that want to start making money can do so immediately and those that care about getting a college degree can opt for the student athlete route.
Preserve University affiliation to name and brand only (athletes and coaches alike essentially become employees of the Universities' athletics business), structure NIL programs, cap the amount of money that schools can use towards their roster building, provide a pre-professional track and an academic track for athletes, lift academic restrictions on non-student athletes, and hell, maybe even have a draft out of HS. There needs to be an adjustment made on how we model CFB and CBB. You can already see how other minor league systems are affecting CBB. Time to evolve or fade away in obscurity.
I love college football more than any other sport. It's the tradition, rivalries, crowd, and enthusiasm of the athletes. You don't get that with pros I'm afraid we are headed that way.
I propose that Universities still operate teams, keep the traditions, rivalries, crowds, stadiums, merchandise etc. Just operate them as a business entity rather than an academic entity.
Provide two tracks for prospects. Pre-Professional (minor league) and Student Athlete.
Pre-Professional track offers a structured employee salary or at will contract. The contract/salary amount can be weighted based on recruiting ranking, position, etc and would be universal amongst all power five schools. Pre-Professional track admission is structured by draft. This provides options to athletes who do not care about attending school and would rather monetize their talent as soon as possible.
Student Athlete track offers either salary (which can be used towards tuition and would equate to the cost of tuition) or covered tuition (with no added financial incentives). Student athletes will be held to the same standards as other students, similar to how some students work during school. Athletes going this route will need to apply to the University in the same way other collegiate student athletes do. This option provides the opportunity for a free education for those who either may not have a realistic professional outlook or those who care about receiving a formal education.
Athletes in both instances may still receive NIL benefits from outside parties but can in no way be associated with a school. That means boosters with ties to a school would be restricted from providing benefits. This is meant for athletes to gain more national endorsement deals but restrict local endorsements.
Agreed.
Yup. That world has ended.
Sell stadium and basketball arena to Ross , let him put minor league teams in Ann Arbor called wolverines
There has got to be some sort of structure to all this. I agree that there should be a cap on NIL and roster-building so it's fair to all schools. I'm worried that it's going to end up even more that we see the same teams in the playoffs just due to NIL deals being guaranteed to players. It's going to always be the same group of schools, and it'll be the ones who put more money into NIL. The Xavier Worthy story is ridiculous if true and if he would've transferred that would have been a whole other story about how screwed up the NCAA is with their poor planning on NIL. I wouldn't be surprised if Quinn Ewers time at OSU was just to get the NIL deal he had and was always going to transfer to Texas.
I'm all for the NIL, but this is getting out of hand really fast. I don't think a draft out of high school is worth it. There are maybe a few that could potentially get drafted, but high school conditioning is so much different than the NFL. Maybe the XFL can be that bridge for kids that have no interest in getting a degree.
> it's fair to all schools
Like since when has any sport at any level been fair to all schools? Not ever in college where a small handful of schools dominate each decade, not in high school where the best athletes transfer to other high schools all the time. Once schools are out of the equation in the NFL that's where you get revenue sharing and salary caps.
So what are we worried about losing exactly? A world where Alabama wins the national title every other year? A world where we recruit against schools that promise kids they'll pass their classes no matter what?
At least we have the resources to provide as lucrative NIL deals as any other school, what are we worried Northwestern won't be able to fairly compete with the rest of the conference? Like I actually don't know what people are talking about being fair to all schools.
Preserve University affiliation to name and brand only (athletes and coaches alike essentially become employees of the Universities' athletics business)
The more people want college sports to be run like a business, the less they are going to like the results.
The athletic budgets at Michigan run in the hundreds of millions. The overall school budgets run in the billions. In a business the priority, resources, and focus goes where the money is.
Measuring ROI on the brand value of sports is interesting. For every positive (brand exposure, merchandise, etc) there can be negatives (player gets arrested, player makes a social media post which doesn't align with Michigan's brand image). Ultimately, it gets easy for a school to decide the positive payoffs are not worth the negative payoffs and they wish to dissolve the brand relationship. Then what?
The past is no longer an acceptable future. Universities were able to profit and make huge sums of money while avoiding compensating the people that bring in all the money.
NIL and the portal has changed the game. Boosters are gaining more power by the day and admissions are having to do transcript back flips with how many transfers are occurring. This current system is not sustainable.
Universities need to adapt and make some concessions or watch basketball and football turn into baseball and hockey in terms of marketability. Another pre-professional entity will step in. The G League is already starting to poach some of the biggest HS recruits.
I agree the system is not sustainable. But like you said, the past is not an option for the future. Fans will need to come to the realization their team may "go out of business".
I could easily see a school like Northwestern pack it in and go compete at a different level or not provide competitive sports at all.
I'm sure if I were to take a quick look at the P&L of all of the athletic departments, I would built a fairly substantial list of schools that will no longer compete in college football & basketball at the Power 5 level within 5 - 10 years.
Yeah, I think that is a reality regardless of what happens with the NCAA. The wealth gap in terms of talent and revenue is only increasing. Add the fact that the only schools that have a realistic shot at winning the championship will be those that have boosters that will spend the most money and you'll quickly see schools that can't compete pack it up. It seems inevitable unless NIL and recruiting changes dramatically.
You can't cap the amount of money that players can make because boosters can't be limited by NCAA rules.
The NBA doesn't limit the size of the contract Lebron has with Nike. They can only limit salaries they provide directly. Sponsors don't care that much about what teams their athletes play for, boosters do.
I think there should be stipulations that restrict boosters with University ties from offering NIL deals. Endorsements should be offered based on the players own marketability, not associated with the University. And in the same way Nike won't drop Lebron if he changes teams, these NIL deals should be national and not local.
Lebron was offered more dough from Nike if he went to a top 3 city.
Draft out of high school? How would that work?
"With the first pick of the draft, the 130th place Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles select 5-star, consensus No. 1 overall recruit..."
Yeah, that's not going to fly...
I think he’s saying NFL draft
I think that your solution might work for private universities, but public universities have charters, and all of them that I know of prohibit the schools from operating businesses, as you propose here. The schools have gotten away with big-dollar athletics on the basis of it being done for the benefit of the students. If the athletes are no longer students than the schools would have to spin off their athletic businesses. And you can't require employees to be students because that's restraint of trade.
You are n the right track, though. There needs to be a minor league in big-dollar sports so that university athletics can go back to being about the students, not the money. If the pro leagues cannot set up such a thing, then these spun-off former university teams will have to do it.
Thanks, I didn't know that but makes total sense. Maybe an entity like the CFB will eventually decide to break away from the NCAA (as Gene Smith suggests) and will start their own league where they can license the branding of each University but operate the league separately from the University. And maybe provide discounted ticket packages for students and alumni. I think it is important to preserve some type of college affiliation even if it's just in name alone. Would probably be a tough pill for Universities to swallow but it's better to get a small piece of the pie then to let the whole sport fade away to obscurity.
Whatever the solution, I know the current state of the NIL is untenable. Players are being induced to enter the transfer portal with six figure offers. I absolutely do not want my beloved university to enter into this dirty business. Coincidentally, this latest situation revolves around a former Wolverine commit, Xavier Worthy.
https://sports.yahoo.com/report-power-five-school-attempts-014059681.html
Lol dirty business of paying players? Who cares, just categorize these players as employees rather than students
The "dirty business" of compensating players for their market value? I 100% want my UofM to enter into that business.
Think of NIL as the emancipation proclamation, players as former slaves, schools as plantation owners, and fans as consumers. Imagine complaining about how much more the products cost now (meaning you get less enjoyment out of them) and trying to come up with ways to limit how much indentured servants can make and limiting their freedom to move to work on another farm that is paying more and treating their workers better.
Now tell me again that the current NIL situation is untenable.
You're either overstating the importance of NIL, or you're understating and disrespecting the importance and impact of the American Institution of Slavery. College athletes were not oppressed. They had freedom of movement between colleges. Yes, unless there were extraordinary circumstances they had to wait a year to play sports, but they still were allowed freedom of movement. Further, participation in college athletics is a strictly voluntary action with which the participants are paid with access to an education, and high level training in a chosen field. Please dispense with the false equivalency.
Further, for those who claim that the players are rightfully getting their "fair market value", I proffer that the consumers (fans) consume the product NOT because of the players, but because of the school. These are not pro sports leagues where the personalities of the players drive the product. In college athletics, it is the school, it is the coach that drives the popularity of the product. The overwhelming majority of college sports fans root and support teams that they have some sort of vested interest in (sometimes regional interest). However, fans root for pro teams because they like the players (LeBron, Peyton Manning, Brady, Michael Jordan, Aaron Judge). These players have appeal, and elicit fandom for their teams, from South Beach to Seattle.
I have several close friends who I attended college with who wear their alumni status with immense pride, who watch every big football and basketball game, who rock Michigan gear daily, yet cannot name 5 players on the Michigan football team. I receive several calls every year in early September with one question - "what are we looking like this year, man"? It's the name on the front of the jersey that brings the fans, the viewers, not the names on the back of the jersey.
You make several good points. One, college players did have freedom, not unfettered freedom, but with the one year rule. This impediment may be showing its value with a high (40+% I have heard) rate of failure of athletes in the Portal.
I tend to agree that consumers consume the product because of the school. Those on this board certainly consume recruiting content. Where I disagree is that if Michigan fails to recruit and retain athletes, the product will suffer and consumption will decline. SO the players and the "brand" are linked.
Absolutely nothing dirty about it. College kids can transfer colleges like any other college kid can. And college kids can get paid by companies, just like any other college kid can. If Michigan doesn't want to facilitate and accommodate the new opportunities, then that sucks for us as Michigan fans. For years we thought we were fighting an uphill battle bc other teams were dirty and we were (allegedly) clean. Now there are legal avenues that could easily make Michigan a recruiting powerhouse, with it's booster and alumni networks. It's up to the University from here.
It’s not dirty if no one is policing it and no one seems to give af about what’s going on.
No need to overcomplicate.
Pay the players all the NIL money they can earn. It's up to them to manage it and they need to realize a team has a right to cut them and revoke their scholarship if they choose to earn NIL from something their school does not want to be associated with.
Schools need to facilitate as much NIL engagement/connection making as possible. After that, they still need to do all of the other stuff required to encourage a kid to want to be part of the program.
Michigan seems to still want all of the donation money to go to Michigan. Other schools seem to be okay having some or a lot of that money going to the players. I'm guessing a school like Texas A&M is going to find out they can't afford all of the facilities costs they have built up because donations to the school have decreased. The best (i.e. successful) schools will find the balance between how much donor money gets funneled through NIL and how much goes to the AD.
Step 1: win powerball lottery
Step 2: create an LLC
Step 3: pay players with powerball winnings
Step 4: write off payments as "ad expenses"
Step 5: with the all-star teams I have created, michigan wins multiple national championships in numerous sports, dominating the director's cup for years to come
Step 6: profit?
I will not be taking suggestions or hearing any arguments regarding tax regulations, legality, etc.
Step 1: win powerball lottery
This is my retirement plan. I laugh at all of my colleagues contributing $1000+/month to their retirement funds. Idiots. All they need is $2/week to eventually become rich.
its just that i am too timid to climb that mountain.
I've ran the calculations over and over again. The maths check out.
Don't know if it will make a dent, but there's this:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It made a dent in my mood.
Decouple the sports from the academics.
With NIL, it's becoming a business, whether we like it or not.
Sign players to a salary with employment contracts, set up and streamline NIL funnels for additional revenue opportunties. Give them incentives and bonuses for performance.
If players want to get a degree, they can do so during or after their time on the team, at either a discounted or complete scholarship level based on the tenure.
Its not 1904. These aren't the best athletes who happen to also go to your college. They're the best athletes money can buy. I think getting a degree is still important for most of them, and I still think the university should make that a possibility for them. That said, let's stop pretending.
absolutely decouple major sports and academics. far too many academic resources are being utilized for minimal return in that many do not wish to be students, do not finish their studies, or do not seek degrees with high productivity opporunities down the road. make free tuition a job perc for the paid athletea like it is at many universities for full time employees (i know UM doesnt currently offer full tuition to employees, but many others do). also make the extra academic resources avaiable to them as job percs if they do attend school while working for the athletic department. solves a lot of.problems
Amateurism, to the extent it has existed of late (various sites show the annual training costs of a college football player to be between 100K and 200K) IMO started its slow demise when free agency in professional sports was instituted,
Now, the SC has put the final nail in.the coffin. Wishing upon a star is going to do none of us much good. Any serious attempt to regulate and control amateur athletics will likely be favorably challenged in a courtroom . I could see some degree of regulatory control if players became employees and had collective bargaining rights but short of that, there will be no more of the we will serve you bagels but the cream cheese is a recruiting violation mentality. I
I also see schools paying players and see no reason why this should not occur.
The NCAA, in spite of being a major tire fire, had little it could do to regulate amateur athletics once cases went to court. I believe it's time to say goodbye to the. NCAA and let the P5 regulate at least football and set up a consortium of all conferences for basketball. Let the NCAA go into the dustbin of history.
No good answers...follow NAIA football if you are looking for amateurism? Any pretense has been removed, this is essentially a professional minor league with free agency.
I'll start by saying that I'm firmly on the side of the athletes on this issue. I don't see why everyone (coaches, bloated administrative staff, etc) except the players should benefit from the work that the players put in and the potential long-term injuries that they might face in the future. I'm also a supporter of the portal. Why should coaches be able to up and leave whenever they want, while the players have to either (1) stay at their school, or (2) sit out a season? Some athletes are also completely undervalued coming out of HS, so a transfer to a more visible school could have a real impact on their draft stock and future earnings.
That said, I also think there are at least two issues with the new situation that need to be addressed.
1. Pay to play: It's my understanding that this is still forbidden, but it is openly violated in the new NIL environment. One way to deal with this might be to outlaw any discussion of NIL until the student signs an LOI and sets foot on campus. Of course, the athlete would still be able to see from current players how lucrative NIL can be at the school, but IMO it would help to prevent openly paying a player to attend that school.
2. Tampering: Coaches luring athletes away from their current school with the promise of NIL is going to be a real problem. I'm a supporter of the portal, but it has made tampering even more of a problem. The NCAA needs to get off its ass and dish out real punishment when it happens. If not, then coaches need to start naming and shaming the worst offenders and raise a shit-storm until the NCAA actually does something about it.
Of course, both of these are going to require the NCAA to actually, you know, enforce some rules so this is all probably just wishful thinking.
Sometimes you have to live with the consequences. If you have free transfers and no limit NIL, then players are going to be recruited off of their current team. There's nothing the NCAA or anyone else can do to stop it. Hunter Dickinson said the other day on a podcast that he actively recruits guys either in the portal or sometimes before they are in the portal. Are you going to pass a rule saying players aren't allowed to communicate with other players?
If you want the top players you will have to deliver both NIL dollars and an environment they want to stay. Fans may not like it, but that is where we are at and I don't see how it goes back. There's only moving forward at this point.
I think you solve both problems by disallowing any agreements that are contigent upon athletes attending a specific school. Players could sign deals for appearances, signatures, social media posts, etc but can't commit to play for a specific school.
Schools/booster will try to circumvent this by structuring payments over time, but you can significantly curtail pay for play if there is no way to contractually enforce the player's attendance.
Add to this that NIL contracts are not contingent on playing time or athletic success, and you have the workings of a reasonable outcome. Players and payers sign contracts for X dollars over X time, for X advertising activity on the players' parts, and that's that. If the player transfers, that contract is still enforced. If the player doesn't start, the contract is still enforced.
This will make the signing of a player a risk, which it should be. Payers will have to reduce risk by paying less to the top and and more to the middle, which will reduce stress on teams that would otherwise have two millionaires and eighty guys getting bupkis.
Stunning to me that there are complications with tying a professional sports league to the players' academic enrollment in universities. We MUST find a reasonable way to shoehorn these two things together! /sarcasm
Anyhow, I'm gonna love when we get a bunch of stories about kids getting paid big money only to fuck around be totally ineffectual on the field. Those stories are gonna be funny as hell.
I'll say it now and say it 100 more times... and no one will listen. Until they do.
crypto.
/end
Anything that makes any kind of sense will be immediately eliminated from consideration.
I think we’re heading towards an NIL/paid player super league and then everyone else.
I don’t think the SEC is done expanding yet. I suspect that adding OU and UT were just the beginning, and their end game is a super league with its own rules. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came calling for Michigan and Ohio State soon too. Although I don’t know how the new B1G TV deal would impact that move.
I've heard that Michigan is using a model that attempts to connect businesses to their student athletes for NIL opportunities.
If this is true, could we (the fans) buy from/give our money to these businesses with the expectation that our money would go directly to the players in some way?
If so, where can I find a list of businesses that I can support? Also, could mgoblog theoretically help sponsor players?
There needs to be structure. Applications for businesses to be in the NIL system. Without it, backdoor payments will give talent specific teams constantly. Limitations to. Right now the NIL setup has turned into a pay for a player system. Sleazy and worse than watching the Yankees pluck all stars from my A's in the past.
That take is en fuego!
anything else on your mind? we're all here for you.
I've thought about this for college football long before NIL was even part of the discussion - allow NFL teams to draft into high school, similar to baseball. The NFL team hold the players rights for five years, so HS Sr, plus four years of college. If the NFL team doesn't dig the development by the collegiate senior year, the player has their fifth year as a 'free agent' of sorts to either go to the draft, or seek UDFA status.
As part of this, when the player is drafted, the NFL team would pay the player a modest stipend/salary, pay for the students scholarship, and pay for an injury insurance policy. The university would then take the scholarship money they didn't issue, and redistribute this to non-scholarship/drafted athletes. The NFL would have to cap how many non-rostered positions could be allowed for this to happen, but it would also open up ALL collegiate players, not just those that declared for the draft. This could be great for college as it may keep more kids in schools to continue development.
As for NIL money, the player should be able to keep wat they earn without harm. There could be some creative ways to place caps on schools/teams, etc, but that would require a governing body that is better than feckless, and leagues that would all agree to those boundaries. No easy way through this uncharted terrain, and greed usually win...er, ruins everything.