Texas wasted ZERO time taking advantage of the new Texas NIL law!!
Mo money Mo problems.
A lawyer familiar with NIL, and the new Texas NIL law, said that it is permissible under that Texas law for a recruiter to take a cadre of businessmen and boosters with him to go visit a great player on another team. They could literally go to the great players dorm room, and offer him a car, house, anything, and then ask him to enter the transfer portal and commit to their school. The new Texas law would protect that from NCAA oversight. That kind of activity is not spelled out in the Texas law. But it would fall within the ball park of possibility under it.
Brave new world.
If the kid is a good enough football player to draw that kind of attention? Honestly, good for him, take the interview, get paid. Who's the NCAA or the government to tell him no?
This is an example: Texas is in need of interior D Linemen. It's been a weak spot on the team.They might see Mason Graham and think he'd be great for Texas. They could show up in Ann Arbor at his dorm room, and offer him anything Texas could afford. He literally could be playing in Texas this Fall. It would be great for Texas and Mason Graham. But Michigan would be left high and dry. And what if they cast their eye on Will Johnson, or Blake Corum too? That's the new landscape I guess.
Right, I get it. It'd suck for fans of the team getting poached, but I still don't really see a valid justification for preventing this. If someone wants to double my salary, I can up and leave today. Why should football players be any different? Also, as long as Michigan is playing the game too, what's stopping them from countering Texas' offer?
Eventually teams will figure out what it takes to keep their great players.
Well as long as EVERY state in the union passes the identical law.
Or the ncaa just commits suicide.
They already did in 1987. It wasn't obvious until many years later, but giving SMU the death penalty was simultaneously the suicide of the NCAA and meaningful enforcement of recruiting rules.
The problem wasn't giving SMU the death penalty. The problem was that the NCAA stopped giving the death penalty.
The NCAA should force the Texas schools to choose between belonging to the NCAA or exploiting Texas law.
If Texas (or A&M, et al) behaves in the way suggested above (going outside the rules mutually agreed upon by the member institutions of the NCAA), then they are essentially saying they are out of the NCAA. So yes, ejection should be the consequence.
The question comes down to how many teams want out, and what collective set of fair play standards will they agree to.
Net: just because you can legally ignore the rules of the collective, doesn’t mean you should.
We’ll see how it plays out.
Also, the problem was the NCAA doing nothing about Cam Newton. The doors swung wide open …
The problem with ultimatums is they can fail spectacularly. The SEC, having long grown accustomed to operating by different rules, may just decide to bail on the NCAA if it does that. And if they do, that could collapse the whole house of cards.
I wholeheartedly agree. Alabama was next and they lost their spine. I am reminded if Bobby Knight’s comment that Cleveland State is going to be punished severely (but not a major program.). I think Michigan’s problem is admitting guilt while Kansas, LSU, UNC, et al drag it out.
Coach Tark from UNLV
Double post
Maybe we are learning our lesson? Didn’t Harbaugh basically tell them to piss off with the burger thing? Not sure whatever happened with that situation but seemed like nothing.
I think that there should be some kind of standard guideline across the entire country for NIL. I don't want Texas to be able to do whatever they want and Michigan in the stone ages.
This going partial NFL isn’t going to work. Since going back to the…ahem…good old days is not happening then I believe the answer is to create a College Football Players Association and collectively bargain a set of enforceable rules.
Football players are different, in the pros (NFL) they can’t just up and leave their teams as long as they are under contract, it would be tampering and Texas would get penalized.
Yep, so give the college players contracts and salaries worth a fair slice of the revenue they're generating for the athletic department and everyone else that's cashing in. Until then, I'll never blame a player for looking to find the best situation. An injury can take their entire potential NFL career away in an instant, get paid early and often if you can.
The problem is, if things "suck for the fans" that money will dry up very quickly because it's "the fans" that create the market. If the market dies, it will also "suck" for the players as their value becomes zero.
This, plus as we've seen there's a limit to even the most zealous of boosters and how much money they'll throw around. If you have to give a new car, an apartment, and a couple million to every DT you want on your roster that's going to start to add up, and once the kids get paid they probably aren't particularly loyal to you beyond the paycheck so they're just as likely to look elsewhere.
What gets me about all the hand-wringing is that college sports have had these levels of disruption before and typically the best-run, richest, and storied schools figure it out just fine. This new NIL market really doesn't feel much different and, as you noted, I'm not going to begrudge a guy for getting paid for his services while a bunch of people are making millions off them.
Football is very serious in Texas. And, there’s a LOT of oil money that won’t dry up anytime soon.
These boosters crave the limelight and will throw a ton of money at trying to get a winner.
The NFL has FAR more structure and limits than college athletics.
So Corum, Johnson, and Graham would have the opportunity and option to get their maximum value? Sounds like a good thing.
Also, wouldn't said player have to be in the transfer portal already for this to apply (since the portal is closed)? Or be graduating before fall? I could be wrong.
Creatures, I'm not a lawyer so asking because I'm curious. Does the new TX law make the situation you describe legal outside of the state of Texas? Or would it only apply to activities within the state of Texas?
I'm not a lawyer too. But apparently, Texas schools are protected from the NCAA everywhere and anywhere. So they could do it. It seems schools outside of Texas could stop it from happening on their campus. But it does appear, right now, Texas schools could go to any State. There may be laws that would be broken by Texas schools, from crossing borders of States, that are State and Federal laws, not connected in any way to the NCAA. All this stuff is so new that's there's still lots to take into consideration.
I don’t think this is something to worry about. UT and A&M will still go 7-5
Yes. And one reason is that in college football the contributions of non-star players are very important. I think Harbaugh is onto something by refusing to disrespect veteran contributors by showering money on high school stars who have yet to accomplish anything in college. It remains a team sport.
Sure, but (a) this presumes Michigan would stand idly by and do nothing to retain these players, and (b) still assumes the NCAA enforcement concern was some major barrier to situations like this in the first place. The Texas bill is still a single-state rule that largely tries to insulate Texas schools from NCAA enforcement, something sure seems to have been the de facto case for a long time before this. It's not like Texas A&M has been some spotless program before now. We'll see how enforceable it is as a matter of law; a Texas law has no jurisdictional impact on actions taken in Michigan, and the NCAA is already a private institution so its enforcement powers aren't the same as law anyway.
As for the "new" landscape framing, Xavier Worthy left UM for Texas while he was on campus already. Some schools are going to be more craven than others, but poaching guys isn't new. And UM isn't some wallflower; they've got money and with some fits and spurts have largely seemed like a place that isn't afraid to spend it if they have to.
It will be a circus until there are contracts between player and school and the money flows through the school.
So now they can't get in trouble for doing it? Very interesting.
Brave new world where paragons of Southern Baptist virtue enact such 'laws' on Monday and tell you what you can and can't do with your body on Tuesday, smoke a few Cuban cigars after dinner on Wednesday and get fitted for some new Dries Van Notens on Thursday. Less and less my thing, I have to say.
Southern American Protestantism has always been more social control rather than reflecting on its many contradictions
I don't think that is just a "Southern American Protestantism" thing.
Humans are inherently contradictory. People thinking it’s just this or that group are people choosing to see what they only want to see.
Agree wholeheartedly, Quattro. The problem isn't an institution, any institution will do for this argument, the common thread is that every institution is populated by humans.
Well, we’re just going to have to start signing contracts then. Is what it is. If this is going to be the game, we have to legally protect our assets and make them unable to be poached. I’m assuming this could be done. I wish it wasn’t like this but if it’s a bidding war it won’t work. That’s why pros have trade deadlines and what not.
What university has a charter that allows them to run professional sports teams?
Plus, Title IX means that you have to start paying an equal number of female players as well.
Players as employees will not work. Restraint of trade rules would mean that the school could not require them to be students.
What a mess this whole thing is. It wasn't just one horse that was let of the barn. It's a herd of wild horses.
Any school can be protected from NCAA oversight by not voluntarily joining the NCAA.
How long until we hear about some star player being charged with federal tax evasion for failure to acknowledge NIL payments as income?
The IRS looked the other way for decades when athletes were getting paid under the table. I have no idea why, but I can't imagine that will change much.
Yeah, but that was McDonald's bags full of cash. There's more of a paper trail with NIL.
But it was the IRS that brought most Cosa Nostra members down until R.I.C.O. was properly utilized.
I don’t think the IRS looked the other way since traditionally the funds and cars went to relatives and friends (hard to track). Jobs for doing nothing were taxed.
As soon as Wesley Snipes has a kid playing college ball.
If it’s on a w-2 or 1099 which I doubt a lot of it is but if it’s coming from businesses for tax purposes you can bet there’s some reporting. I hope schools have compliance officers that enforce withholdings and do whatever they can because yea, I could see a bunch of kids getting unexpected 6-figure IRS bills in April if they aren’t careful.
I bet it will be a lot more dependent on the reporting on the giving end vs the receiving end.
Maybe the NCAA should pass a reciprocal rule similarly exempting all other schools from restrictions on recruiting players resident in states that pass this kind of legislation... make the state of Texas open season for other schools to poach recruits from.
Is this really appealing to recruits? So tacky.
Agreed. If revving an engine is all it takes to turn a kid's head, I'm not sold on their ability to win anything of note.
Tacky and flashy is sadly what is appealing to a lot of Gen Z recruits these days