OT: Recruiting - paying players to take an OV to your school - with a minute video of Saban

NCAA rule book on recruiting and what constitutes a rule violation:

1: Do not be named Harbaugh.

2: See rule 1.

Does it matter if it should be allowed?  It's believable that it's happening.  It's likely it happened before NIL was a thing, it was just in the form of illicit cash passed in McDonald's bags.  It'll happen in the future since the NCAA turns a blind eye most of the time.

I personally think it's bad business as a prospect, though I suppose if you're a five star focused on maximizing your down payment it's one way to weed out schools that aren't serious about paying up front.

I have no problem with a prospect asking to be paid to visit, nor do I have a problem with schools paying prospects to visit, if that's how they choose to use their finite resources.  However, if I was running a program, this would be a huge red flag to me and would almost certainly be the end of my recruitment of that player.

I think Michigan under Harbaugh (and under Hoke as well), has done a great job of finding talented, high character guys that love football and want to be a part of all that Michigan has to offer for the right reasons.  As it turns out, this is good not just for the "we care about what's really important and are not win-at-all-costs" feels, but actually facilitates having a more successful, winning program as well.

The whole reason the ncaa even put in the limitations (many many decades ago) on outside work & benefits for student athletes who were voluntarily participating in college sport was to *prevent* it from become a pay-to-play organism within the US collegiate education system.  It was not, as others willfully and/or naively mischaracterize, some attempt to exploit the student-athletes and hoard revenue unto itself (these rules long predate the mass monetization of college football).

Alabama - noted historic football rule follower unhappy with level playing field... News at 11!!

Let the kids make money when they can.  Most wont go pro or could get injured in college. If the $ are there and the schools are willing to pay it - let rip, and good for those kids...

This is "Pay to Visit."  Is this a step prior to "Pay to Play?" 

What's next, "Pay to Call?"  Why not?  Why not monetize every step of the process.

BAD BUSINESS.

I'm very supportive of players and NIL - in, what I believe it's original intention was - Name, Image, and Likeness.   I'm not supportive of Pay for Play (which is really what it seems to be at many institutions today). 

I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, but bear in mind that a lot of the criticism towards Warde/recruiting/Michigan's NIL approach stems from his refusal to bend the NIL rules to institute pay for play. NIL was supposed to be about allowing players to profit off endorsements, autographs, etc. In theory, the schools should have a minimal role. Schools putting together NIL packages that induce recruits to commit or players to forego the NFL is essentially pay for play.

Nope. NIL is understandable because the school's are benefitting financially off the guys who are actually playing for them. Paying a kid for an official visit is a cash grab with no meaning whatsoever. 

A little OT but how are these players/families actually being paid? University-signed checks or direct deposit? Venmo? Or maybe baskets full of cash or gift cards to fine dining restaurants like Applebees or Bonefish Grill?

I ask because it seems one step above prostitution considering the circumstances. 

Q: Should schools be allowed to to pay a prospect to take an OV?

A: No.

Disclosure 1: some people are fixated about NIL, paying players, paying for visits, etc.. I am not now nor will I ever be fixated about these topics. We each choose our foci.

Disclosure 2: If college ball transitions to semi-pro or minor-league pro-ball and allegiance to the institution is replaced by pay/to/play, then I will first mourn the loss of my favorite team in my favorite sport and then find something else to engage me.

- end soft rant

Original point aside, how in the hell does an official visit cost Texas $280k? I find that far more troubling than a kid asking for money to visit (which I find to be red flag, too).

There have been ringers and pay for play forever, but the NCAA was right to try to limit it, at least when the NCAA was a real organization.   College football* is cool because the participants are students who are phenomenal athletes. They got a free college education and got to be the BMOC.  Some got to go pro.   Sure there were programs who cheated, and probably all of the programs cheated a little bit, but it still had the illusion of playing for your school. 

Now, everything is about money. 

• The transfer portal is sort of cool, but it reveals that no one is actually playing for their school.  (Except maybe Blake Corum.)  The minute someone isn't the #1 dude they are gone.  
• NIL--players go to the school that is going to pay them the most.  The school, the relationship with the coaches is all tertiary.  
• Conferences used to be about regional rivalries.  My dad can beat up your dad.  My team can whup your team. Now they are about TV rights packages.  Who gives a rat's ass about Rutgers or Maryland?  (Or USC, UCLA, Oregon or Washington if it isn't in the Rose Bowl.   The Rose Bowl (Pac10 v BIG10) is no longer really a thing.  Keith Jackson is rolling over in his grave.
• Horseshit coaches like Mel Tucker are getting paid ridiculous amounts of money.  If everyone around college football is getting paid tons of money why shouldn't the players get paid a ton too?  

This is tangentially political so apologies in advance.  Not everything should be about money.  Doctor's have the hippocratic oath; if someone is dying you should try to save them.  Firefighters and police officers put their lives on the line because it is the right thing to do, not necessarily because they are getting paid.  Teachers put in crazy hours because they want to make people's lives better.   Clergy make shit incomes because they are serving god.  A lot of people do things because they love it.  College football (and athletics) feels like one of those things.  

...but if people are getting paid to do it, you are a fool not to get paid too.   So we end up with Frankenconferences, free agency and pay for play.

*and other sports

This has been happening for decades. None of these tactics are new or innovative. Money has always been funneled through family, friends, coaches, handlers etc. You're just now getting to see how the sausage is made.

If I'm monetarily induced to take OVs, my list may look something like this: Hawaii, San Diego Sate, Florida, Colorado and Alabama.

Pay me!

This is NOTHING new.  The rich adult men who run these programs undoubtedly have been paying hot college-age girls to go on trips all the time. It’s just a new bunch of sugar babies, er, sugar dudes for an entirely different purpose. 

NIL works perfectly fine for every sport that's not football or men's basketball, so the problem isn't NIL, it's the imbalance between how much money is being generated in those two sports and how much is actually making it down to the players. 

Players can see that discrepancy and they're utilizing whatever advantages at their disposal (NIL/Transfer Portal) to get their piece of the pie. 

Revenue sharing will put a stop to 98% of the dumb overreach stuff of NIL or the Portal.

As Saban notes - is this what NIL is supposed to be about? 

Yes.  

Don't overthink this stuff.  NIL is nothing but a fig leaf that allows schools to pay players.  

Why do individuals who no longer hold a significant advantage in financially influencing recruits tend to voice their opinions the loudest? Looking at you Bama and OSU.

Let the invisible hand do it's thing.

Pony up, Michigan.

Yeah, im all for paying the players whatever they want. The main thing is they have to be taking classes to play. 

If they want to make a junior pro league where they dont have to go to school that's fine and then it's no longer college football.

I'd think that if a college pays a high school player to come visit then that player is no longer eligible to play in high school.

If a school wants to pay 5k for a kid to just show up on campus, so be it. It’s their money, they use it how they see fit. But they shouldn’t cry foul when that kid turns into a mercenary gun for hire and ditches them after his freshman year when some other school offers to pay him more.

I suspect this has been happening all along, but now because “no rules” (or at least no enforced rules) kids are more forward about the ask.

Listening to Saban whine about having to compete/pay market rates for talent is priceless.

If someone wants to pay a high school prospect $ 10K to visit their school, and $ 1M for ten autographs - what's to stop them?

NCAA rules do not permit someone to pay an athlete $10k to visit campus. That is not NIL. That is paying someone because they are an athlete and getting nothing in return for your money other than the hope that they play at your school.

Schools are definitely not allowed to do this, either. People ITT seem to be acting like it was stated by OSU and other schools that as part of NIL, they are now paying players directly to visit.

That's not what Gene Smith said. He said players are putting their hand out. He didn't say he's putting money in it.

If OSU and other schools are managing to pay the athletes to visit, then the only way to do it within the NCAA rules is to have whatever NIL collective exists to pay the athlete in exchange for a good or service (other than playing sports at the school). The NIL collective can't just pay them to visit.

So, no, that's not what NIL is about. Why Gene Smith would even bring it up is idiotic. But lucky for him, the NCAA is not interested in looking into OSU's practices.

What's to stop someone from paying an athlete $1 million for ten autographs? Nothing. That is what NIL is about.

Texas spending $280k on an OV has nothing to do with NIL. I am unaware if the NCAA has a limit on what you are allowed to spend on an OV, but if there is, it must be more than $280k. But that's some expensive barbecue.

And the asking price will only go up as time goes by.