Smart & Saban call for more regulation of NIL
In their last press conference before the CFP Championship, THIS is what they've decided to talk about. Now, of course they want the system to stay the way it is. They're in the championship game and recruiting better than anyone in the country.
I, for one, am shocked they didn't give an impassioned speech about the need to make sure players get a piece of the pie, however small.
January 9th, 2022 at 11:39 PM ^
Shit. Got too high and skipped over the existing thread. Delete pls.
January 9th, 2022 at 11:59 PM ^
I personally didn't see the other thread, but this gif perfectly encapsulates my feelings when reading the title. I.e. that's real rich coming from the kings of under the table payments...
January 10th, 2022 at 8:57 AM ^
It makes perfect sense. They want to continue delivering as much bag as possible while the other goody-goody schools follow the rules. Any regulation they can get is good, because they don't intend to follow it any more than they used to.
January 10th, 2022 at 1:25 AM ^
How high is too high?
January 9th, 2022 at 11:55 PM ^
Yep. There has to a cap set, and other parameters. NIL exploded out of hand in the first year.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:12 AM ^
Who’s going to set the cap and what jurisdiction do they have to do so? It would be like my local public school district trying to set a cap on how much my kids could earn from a lemonade stand set up in my front yard.
This is a legal issue, not an enforcement issue. Speaking of, NIL has proven how much money was being funneled under the table. If you cap the NIL, it does nothing to solve the under the table payment structure which would then continue to exist with absolutely no enforcement even though their is an entity supposedly responsible for doing so.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:17 AM ^
Does the expression "Pandora's Box" ring a bell?
January 10th, 2022 at 12:37 AM ^
I prefer the expression "we should have been paying fair market value for the actual participants a fucking long time ago"
January 10th, 2022 at 9:01 AM ^
Meh. Everyone wants to pay "fair market value" until we start talking about fair market value for female athletes, who would be scrounging student loans like every other schlub if that happened. Either we pay fair market value for everyone, or nobody, but only doing it when convenient for an argument is off base. And I'd rather see nobody get paid "fair market value" than everyone. If that means a handful of future millionaires have to wait a year or two to be millionaires, this is not exactly a travesty of justice.
January 10th, 2022 at 10:47 AM ^
Title IX is going to create quite the snarl. People are calling for the university to do various things, even though theoretically the university is not a party to these contracts. Once the university starts "doing" things, the statutory obligations are triggered.
The first quicker article that follows summarizes many of the points made in the more comprehensive article in Forbes that follows. Forbes requires disabling the ad-blocker.
https://www.athleticbusiness.com/operations/programming/article/1515867…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristidosh/2020/01/21/name-image-and-liken…
January 10th, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^
No that's not how title ix works. This keeps coming up so I'm going to keep repeating it. Title IX does not require that all athletic expenditures are equal for men and women in an athletic department. Just think about it, the football team takes chartered planes to Miami. The women's volleyball team takes a bus. The football facilities are much larger and more lavish than the women's soccer team. Title IX does not mean everyone makes the same compensation.
January 10th, 2022 at 11:54 AM ^
It requires that M/F athletic participation is equal to the M/F proportion of enrolled students, and it also requires that athletic scholarships be offered in equal proportion. It doesn't require that a female soccer player receive the same money as a football player, but it does require that the money the school hands out to men in the form of scholarships be proportional (relative to the student body) that it hands out to women.
Were schools to begin directly paying cash to football players, there's very little doubt they'd be required to start paying cash to female athletes, too. And most schools have higher female enrollment, so for every $100 they paid a football player, they'd have to put ~$110 in the female pool.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:51 PM ^
For starters to address your earlier comment, NIL is set to benefit women athletes the most because they have the largest social media followings.
And no that actually isnt how Title IX works. Another example: The football team receives far more in free gear than any of the women's teams. Receiving direct cash payments is effectively the same as receiving goods. Again athletic expenditures and perks are not currently equal between men and women. Title IX has a 3 prong test, and schools can violate the first prong (equal opportunities for both men and women) as long as they fulfill the 2nd prong: demonstrating an effort to expand and increase opportunities for women.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:15 AM ^
Is there a cap on what coaches make?
January 10th, 2022 at 12:19 AM ^
The market will set the cap. Nothing needs to be done. Michigan just needs to either play in the sand box or go play in a different one because straddling the fence isn’t going to cut it.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:00 AM ^
Disagree. Michigan should just make arrangements to start outspending Bama and Georgia above the table. A healthy long term side benefit of NIL should be that coaching salaries, administrative salaries, and pointless facilities upgrades get slowly mitigated as the money finds its way to its market driven destination.
January 10th, 2022 at 6:26 AM ^
There are more people willing to spend money on football in the State of Texas than in the State of Michigan. I know Michigan is opening the wallet now in response to what Texas A&M is doing. But even with that, Texas will have more money for NIL. Alabama and Georgia won't be able to keep up with Texas either. Nick Saban and Kirby Smart know that. Somehow the term "leveling the playing field" has turned up in regards to NIL. But there's no way leveling is happening. It's quite on the contrary to that. The playing field has been abruptly tipped toward whoever has the most money.
Some kind of cap is going to be have to be set to make things manageable for schools that don't, and won't, have big NIL money. Either that, or the difference between the haves and have nots is going to be mammoth.
I don't think what NIL was intented to be is what it is now.
January 10th, 2022 at 7:03 AM ^
We seem to have this perception that a few Texas oil barons are going to bankroll A&M and UT football into dominance. What if our hundreds of thousands of largely affluent football loving alumni and supporters are able to support the NIL effort and not just rely on Ross and a few others? Might be a pipe dream, but there might be something there. I am naive, but I never wanted Michigan to go the bag man route. If the NIL route is now legit, and I believe it is, find a way to use our collective resources for those who are interested and get us in the game.
January 10th, 2022 at 7:16 AM ^
I don't know what other people are thinking. But I don't have oil barons in mind at all when I talk about football money in Texas.
but there might be something there
Football is not as important in Michigan as it is in Texas. I don't see Michigan becoming that.
January 10th, 2022 at 7:58 AM ^
Not saying football is important in Michigan as it is in Texas. I lived in both states for a number of years. I am hypothesizing that utilizing the large collective wealth of Michigan's alumni base across the world could provide something of an advantage over a relatively small number of very rich benefactors. Probably not practical, but something to explore.
January 10th, 2022 at 8:42 AM ^
According to NCAA rules (LMAO!!), Michigan itself cannot organize such involvement as that would scream 'pay for play'. So the big question is who can organization such a donation system that can contact recruits, setup some sort of payment scheme (LLC, personal services, etc), and handle the payment details? That is the infrastructure that Michigan is missing because they don't have the history of under-the-table payments on the level of UGA, Bama, ATM, etc... Jimbo knew how it all worked from FSU (per his own admission a couple months back). And Texas oilmen don't give a shit about rules - they want to win and think nothing of doing slimy things to get their way. Isn't that kind of what oilmen do for a living, anyway?
Michigan just doesn't have the infrastructure in place to 'compete' on the NIL front in the way it's working out. Maybe that's what Harbaugh is fighting to get? I kinda hope so, because it's in the open now and it's not going to get reeled back in unless Congress puts an end to it with federal legislation. Fat chance that ever happens...
I would nominate MGoBlog as the donation solicitor and collection service. I wouldn't even care if Brian siphoned off a percentage of the donations as a fee and to cover operational costs - his time and effort require compensation. But Michigan the school won't be part of it.
January 10th, 2022 at 9:02 AM ^
We seem to have this perception that a few Texas oil barons are going to bankroll A&M and UT football into dominance.
Since an Oregon shoe baron bankrolled his school into dominance, it's not that farfetched.
January 10th, 2022 at 9:13 AM ^
I get your point, but I do think that UM has a particularly wealthy fan base of alums when you multiply the number of them by their later income. This “middle ground” between millions of low dollar donors and barons is where I think UM would excel and perhaps does not have a peer in college sports.
One other thing of note is that I think UM fans will be more general in their NIL activities, ie supporting athletes across the board, than other football/hoops focused schools. Sears trophy (or whatever they call it) here they come!
January 10th, 2022 at 9:40 AM ^
I think in general, most schools, UM included, are near the limit of their donor reach already. If there was a large donor pool out there waiting to be tapped, they would've already tapped it, or else they just haven't been doing a good job of pulling in donors already.
January 17th, 2022 at 4:40 AM ^
We'll see
January 10th, 2022 at 12:24 AM ^
When there is a salary cap for coaches, then I will be open to hearing about how they want to cap NIL. Until then, FOH with that nonsense. It is dishonest at best.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:48 AM ^
Exactly
Meyer was a great example of college coaches who had so much success not the least of which was due to holding uncheckable power over those beneath him (enter the NFL and that "success" 'unexpectedly' disappears, no?).
I don't know much about Saban, nor Smart, but the coaches who had previously been able to leverage their success abusing the power imbalance between "unpayable" (officially) student-athletes will certainly lose that under the NIL.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:31 AM ^
They don’t want the richer schools to lure top talent, because they cheat by paying players under the table.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:39 AM ^
There is no legal ability to set an NIL cap or even regulate it. The SCOTUS decision that led the NCAA to throw up their hands on this basically said as much. Even in professional leagues there’s no ability to cap or regulate how much players make from their NIL.
January 10th, 2022 at 12:49 AM ^
The caps that do exist in pro sports are mutually agreed upon by the owners and players union (which the players have to ratify). They do this because both parties recognize it is in the best interest of the sport.
I’d love to be in a position to ask Saban and Smart publicly would they be okay with an NIL cap if there was suddenly aggressive enforcement of more strict recruiting regulations from a new governing body.
January 10th, 2022 at 2:10 AM ^
The caps in pro sports only affect what the pro teams pay the players. That is not what NIL is. There is no cap on what State Farm pays Aaron Rodgers.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:20 AM ^
Yes, exactly. No one is telling Tom Brady he can only make $1 million from Subway ads. I can’t even comprehend how it would be legal to do so and it seems like SCOTUS can’t either.
January 10th, 2022 at 11:06 AM ^
It could be legal, if it were collectively bargained. There's no reason for the owners to ask for it, since the players get money the owners don't have to pay, but if for some reason the union and owners agreed to it, then it would happen.
This is not to say it should happen either in the pros or college; it's just, that's the road to legality (that nobody is interested in traveling.)
January 10th, 2022 at 1:37 AM ^
Smart & Saban call for more regulation of *Texas A&M*
January 10th, 2022 at 2:32 AM ^
If Michigan ever shifts from “best wait this out and see” to “a fully functional money cannon” then the NCAA will bring legislation within minutes. In the meantime i wouldnt worry about it.
January 10th, 2022 at 2:39 AM ^
Meanwhile at Michigan….
“What is this NIL of which you speak?
January 10th, 2022 at 3:32 AM ^
We finally have a system that benefits us for once, or at least does not penalize us in favor of those schools that cheat.
Lets roll with it for a while.
It may or may not be a good thing and the NCAA will eventually come up with some kind of regulations, but until they do let's see how it plays out for us.
Ready, aim, fire!
January 10th, 2022 at 3:43 AM ^
How about using NIL for what it was intended?
NIL.
January 10th, 2022 at 6:16 AM ^
Well, you can only fit so much money into a paper bag...
January 10th, 2022 at 6:25 AM ^
They're only speaking up because they see that Jimbo Fisher is building a powerhouse
January 17th, 2022 at 4:41 AM ^
buying
January 10th, 2022 at 6:59 AM ^
College football is a shitshow right now. There is no governing body because the NCAA is dead. Bag Men can openly throw their money around now and this is creating the greatest monetary divide in college football history. The transfer portal has over 1500 players in it. That is more players than all power five schools combined. Pandora's box has been opened.
January 10th, 2022 at 8:08 AM ^
Glove - hate to fact check, but I’m pretty sure there’s more than 1500 players in P5 conferences! The BIG alone has 14 teams with ~85 scholarship players. That’s 1190 total.
Agree overall with your post. The portal will work itself out. It will be interesting to see how many players (a) stay put - it IS an option if both sides agree, (b) find a new home and become a starter at some point, (c) find new home but don’t ever get a starting role and (d) get left out in the cold.
It may Work itself out. Still pretty new.
January 10th, 2022 at 8:06 AM ^
Maine is a beautiful rural State. Often a visit to the town planning board meeting can be very enlightening. The board is made up of native Mainer's and folks who moved here from other more crowded states. Its interesting which ones are most concerned about restricting land use and increasing building codes. Its usually the ones who've already built the nicest homes in the subdivision.
Saban - Smart "Two programs is company, three is a crowd"
January 17th, 2022 at 4:45 AM ^
Sattelite Camps
January 10th, 2022 at 8:42 AM ^
kinda like Phillip Morris running anti-smoking advertising.
January 10th, 2022 at 9:31 AM ^
Kind of like the bootleggers supporting and promoting the Temperance Movement.
January 10th, 2022 at 11:01 AM ^
So now these kids are being payed to play college sports. Why not institute a contract that prevents the portal transfers? Seems fair now that they're technically professionals.