New Revenue Sharing Lawsuit Against NCAA and P5 Conferences Quotes Jim Harbaugh
Alex Fortenot (former CU RB) filed a federal lawsuit against the NCAA (and P5 Conferences) on Monday seeking revenue sharing. Apparently, the law firm founders and judge are Michigan grads.
Have to love that the suit opens with a quote from Jim Harbaugh...
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:38 PM ^
This is the way.
Edit: if true
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:40 PM ^
Stick it to the B1G by leaving
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:42 PM ^
Strip them of their power by forming a players association and making them pay for the product they are selling.
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:53 PM ^
And people wonder why the whores at the NCAA and Big Ten are trying to kneecap Jim Harbaugh?
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:02 PM ^
It's been pretty plain that this is why.
So, I love that it's actually getting some legs. If the players can take tens of millions of dollars from these people each year, it will be MUCH more painful to them than anything that Michigan can achieve on the field.
Of course, salting the wound with a Big Ten championship and CFP championship is strongly desirable as well.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:08 PM ^
Yep. And Harbaugh saying pay the players with TV revenue during Championship trophy ceremony would be rivetting.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:10 PM ^
Always follow the money.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:40 PM ^
I kind of hate to admit it but none other than Maurice Clarett nailed it a couple weeks ago.
November 23rd, 2023 at 9:27 AM ^
Indeed he did.
November 24th, 2023 at 6:20 AM ^
Could be collusion between NCAA and Petiti to push Harbaugh out of NCAA and back to NFL so they can keep the money
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:53 PM ^
I was totally against this. Now I am totally for this. I wonder what changed?
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:55 PM ^
Love the twitter comments. The kind of crap commentary that dirties the water with sewage and makes it easier for brainless mouthpieces to claim all social media is garbage.
November 23rd, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
I mean, if you shit in the well, it's still over 99% water. But it's a well with shit in it.
You have only two valid approaches: declare ALL of the water unsafe to drink, or don't let assholes shit in the well.
The Internet is neither. It's full of shit, but it pretends not to be.
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:56 PM ^
And people think these "scandals" are about cheeseburgers during a covid dead period or advanced scouting. This is a thinly veiled attempt by the NCAA, big ten and competing programs to take down Jim Harbaugh because he is a disrupter who is a giant threat to the status quo.
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:58 PM ^
Is this Michigan’s way of finally trying to hit back? Getting involved in tying up NCAA in litigation. If so, would be doing so in a calculated and slow moving manner that will ultimately help to shape the future of college athletics one way or another.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:02 PM ^
One way to stop the NCAA from coming after you... is to get rid of the NCAA!
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:00 PM ^
The NCAA is about to get everything they deserve. Make it rain.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:05 PM ^
Excellent. Take down those suits. Harbaugh is a leader. And he won't stop voicing his opinion. No wonder the networks and NCAA are trying to get rid of him.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:09 PM ^
burn it all down, every bit of it.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:15 PM ^
Awesome. I hope other firms open anti-trust lawsuits, and the players sue the conference for endangering them by allowing signs to be stolen, using the governing bodies’ own words against them.
November 23rd, 2023 at 12:26 AM ^
A slightly different approach. Because the conferences’ prohibiting sideline to helmet communication, it forced the use of signs - which increased the chance of injury, or - reduced how effectively athletes could appear - which resulted in lower lifetime earnings for said athlete.
November 23rd, 2023 at 1:36 AM ^
3D chess vs the rest of the mouthbreathing, greedy vermin and parasites playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:20 PM ^
And we all wonder why the the Big Ten / NCAA is trying to move heaven and earth to make Harbaugh go away.
Even if they succeed in getting rid of him, this movement isn't going away. Harbaugh is just the first. I can only hope that Harbaugh wants to be around long enough to outlive this feckless organization crumble and die before him.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:45 PM ^
Strike him down, and he will only become stronger.
November 23rd, 2023 at 12:11 PM ^
He won't go away. I could see him giving a Super Bowl victory speech and calling out the NCAA and universities for ripping off the players.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:39 PM ^
IIRC in the Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for NIL, Justice Kavanagh effectively laid out a roadmap for declaring the NCAA illegal. An avenue worth exploring if you ask me.
November 23rd, 2023 at 7:43 AM ^
Kavanaugh's concurring opinion in the 9-0 ruling (when does that ever happen with the current Supreme Court?) was a blistering attack on the NCAA. Just a few excerpts....
But the harshest critique of the NCAA came from Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's concurring opinion, which began by calling the ruling "an important and overdue course correction" before unleashing a series of blistering attacks on the longstanding NCAA model.
"Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate," Kavanaugh wrote. "And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different.
"The NCAA is not above the law."
Kavanaugh's opinion tears into the NCAA's assertion that amateurism is, as he wrote, "the defining feature of college sports." Such "innocuous labels," as Kavanaugh called them, "cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America."
"All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on the theory that 'customers prefer' to eat food from low-paid cooks. Law firms cannot conspire to cabin lawyers’ salaries in the name of providing legal services out of a 'love of the law.' Hospitals cannot agree to cap nurses’ income in order to create a 'purer' form of helping the sick. News organizations cannot join forces to curtail pay to reporters to preserve a 'tradition' of public-minded journalism. Movie studios cannot collude to slash benefits to camera crews to kindle a 'spirit of amateurism” in Hollywood.
"Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing."
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:41 PM ^
Starting it off with a quote from Jim with the subtle jab at Notre Dame and OSU for the 10 guys on D where OSU felt tough is just a chef's kiss.
November 23rd, 2023 at 8:42 AM ^
Yeah, I don't think I will ever hear about that game without thinking that ND had 10 men on the field for the last two plays, OSU should not claim toughness based on that game, and ND was over ranked when the game was played.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:43 PM ^
Starting to look like Harbaugh may be a new Curt Flood.
November 23rd, 2023 at 5:36 AM ^
Now where have I heard that before?
November 23rd, 2023 at 1:19 AM ^
Positive news here. Like it.
November 23rd, 2023 at 1:36 AM ^
When you poke the matrix it comes after you
November 23rd, 2023 at 5:02 AM ^
What took so long.
Love the sport but it's morally corrupt business model is and has always been wrong.
November 23rd, 2023 at 6:09 AM ^
This should remove any doubt in people's minds as to why Jim Harbaugh and Michigan have been singled out and publicly trashed, ridiculed, and punished.
Sign stealing and in person scouting rules have not been an issue.......until now.
Now we can see exactly why. Let's see if espn reports on this.
November 23rd, 2023 at 6:17 AM ^
RICO laws, collusion and maybe why Warde has felt pressure that led to strife with Jim. Telling Jim to tone it down likely didn't go over well. Harbaugh's remember.
November 23rd, 2023 at 7:44 AM ^
Sue the NCAA for every penny they have..SHUT iT DOWN
November 23rd, 2023 at 7:59 AM ^
I love it. We Michigan fans have much to be thankful for, notably the football team’s exemplary HC: Mr. Jim Harbaugh. The intransigent knuckle-draggers will call him a cheat; shows what they know.
Personally I can’t think of a single person I would rather have leading this team and representing the face of the university.
November 23rd, 2023 at 9:30 AM ^
25 years ago I was strongly opposed to the idea of paying college players because I believed that getting a fully-paid college education was a more than adequate compensation for their athletic efforts.
Since that time, I’ve watched as coaches’ salaries have relentlessly ratcheted upwards to levels that not long ago would have been considered unthinkable—with so much money sloshing around that schools are paying millions of dollars to coaches they fired—and it’s all fueled by TV money. Gate receipts aren’t paying the salaries of Nick Saban or Ryan Day.
The basic practical question is where is the money going to come from to pay the players? The TV networks aren’t going to voluntarily cut into their profits or their executives’ salaries, nor are the coaches going to willingly give up substantial chunks of their incomes to pay their players (well Harbaugh would I bet…) Raising ticket prices won’t yield the cash, either.
IMHO, the solution has to involve the NFL—it’s been using college football as a de facto minor league since its inception, and I believe that every NFL franchise should be required to pay a yearly fee or tax of some sort to help college programs defray their costs, which would include paying players.
November 23rd, 2023 at 9:40 AM ^
So, is there an implication that most other coaches, ADs, and conferences want to hoard as much money as they can (from the media agreements) - while limiting player’s monies to NIL and brown bagging deals they can come up with.
After all - the B1G and SEC media deals are only valued at about $1B annually. Yeah, one billion per conference - there’s no need to share that with the student athletes.
This is exactly why the B1G and NCAA have a bullseye on Harbaugh / Michigan.
November 23rd, 2023 at 11:41 AM ^
Seems to me that if just a handful of schools openly endorsed the unionization of there players this would become unstoppable. Also just feels like the courts are going to ultimately side with players. The major obstacle as always will be title 9 and the unwarranted initialed non revenue sports ( nothing against them or any of there athletes or fans. But they don’t deserve to share revenue and are standing in the way of progress).
One thing that has always completely baffled me with all these ridiculous semi pro starts up leagues like the XFL and the USFL not allowing college age and frankly even high school athletes to compete for contracts and roster spots. Why don’t they try to put together a g-league ignite like team full of what would be college stars? Tell me that would not be must see TV every week to watch a team full of soon to be high draft picks compete in a league full of semi pro grown men Or just spread the talent around? I remember when those 2 were trying to make there come back a few years thinking these owners have invested all this money in a crap product. Why not go all in (remember this was just pre NIL too) and pool together a giant fund and go get Trevor Lawerence, Justin Fields and a bunch of college all American/ all conference players and try to compete with college football that doesn’t pay its players rather than the NFL? It just never made sense to me why they did not do this
Also MODS….every time I upvote someone it sends me to the top of the thread and doesn’t upvote? I did reset my history and cache recently. Not complaining just informing
November 23rd, 2023 at 1:06 PM ^
A future documentary looking back on that year ... "In 2023 Jim Harbaugh experienced a tumultuous year. It opened with the surprising firing of Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern University, then Burgergate followed by the strange escapade of Mel Tucker at MSU, a three game suspension, then the infamous Hitler game at East Lansing. Out in the BigTen West Iowa was showing on the field that they were the best team despite rarely scoring over 20 points per game. Then Stalliongate struck ... Lost in this turmoil was a filing of a law suit against the NCAA on behalf of college football players. In the filing, it begins with a quote by Jim Harbaugh..."