OT: Caleb Williams to transfer portal
- Thread starter NUCat320
- Start date
Open up your checkbooks and the world can be yours. There is nothing that can’t be accomplished in America by persistence, hard work, and a massive amount of money.
I just heard about this. I was wondering when NIL money would be used to pull players through the transfer portal. I don't fault the kids for grabbing the money but this is the end of the college football that I have enjoyed for 30 years. They are officially professional athletes now. It makes me sad. I'm seriously going to consider giving up my season tickets.
Athletes do deserve to be compensated for their work, especially given the revenue they generate for their respective schools. However, the inequality of compensation may destroy team play as we have known it at many schools. What happens when some players are compensated more than some of their coaches? This may put boosters in charge of many teams, which is the way many of them have wanted it forever. Fitz no longer reports to Gragg, but to Pat Ryan? "The Northwest Auto Sales Wildcats?"
Anyone who was in favor of paying the players should not be complaining now. As i said before and will probably say again - be careful what you wish for, and I would add, be aware of the law of unintended consequences.
I see it differently. If the NCAA allowed a stipend which was limited and regulated so as to not provide advantages to schools with deep booster $$$, then they could still prohibit students profiting from NIL while still compensating them.
This does not seem unfair. If an NU undergrad working in a lab ends up patenting something, they don’t own and profit from the IP, NU does. Look at it this way. The schools are ”profiting” (not all are really profiting though) from what the players do. The players are not independent contractors or free agents who could make money doing this on their own. The schools invest $100MMs of $ on facilities, scholarships, room and board, to provide the stage that these athletes would not have otherwise. I guess that gets into the issue of whether the NCAA has a “monopoly” on football athletes under age 21 since they can’t declare for the draft until 3 years out of HS (right?)
I thought it was a two-year required minimum for football. (Three for baseball, one for basketball.)
Three years after high school graduation. Two if you redshirt, but three if you play as a freshman.
I can still complain. The current state of affairs is better than the state of affairs two years ago, but we could have had a much better result if the people with their head in the sand about player compensation had deigned to create a direct compensation system through schools instead of the NIL system we got instead.
If you’ve always been staunchly anti player compensation, the current state of affairs is a product of your faction more than anybody else. If you like it less than before or less than the alternative, you only have yourself to thank.
Would direct compensation from the schools make the players "employees"-healthcare, retirement benefits, WC, and other benefits ?
I would imagine that’s possibly some of the rub. It perhaps depends on the size of the stipend, but I’m not 100% sure. That said, nobody with the power to do so ever seriously invested in the legal work it work take to draw up what it might look like.
Some interesting comments above on this. I guess my beef with this new paradigm in college football is that I see a terribly uneven playing field. To me, this is a green space for what use to be cheaters - the (factory) haves, have the potential to wreck the sport. In my opinion, NU is not one of the haves in this environment. If you can't fill your stadium with your own fans (season ticket holders), it will be very difficult to remain a competitive force in the pay for play era.
If this were regulated and administrated as some have suggested, it would have been a very good thing. But unregulated, as it seems to be, will make the football rich (who have large packed stadiums, many wealthy boosters, large in-state following fans, etc.) richer, and lesser programs poorer. And what about the locker room effect if you're Joe offensive lineman getting a grand or two a year, and your QB is getting 100 times that? When I played ball for money at Chicago & Kedzie, wins and losses were divided evenly because the team had to bet a minimum amount on itself every game, and that amount was shared evenly. Maybe we were communists.
I have no objection to players making money from their considerable efforts - that's a good thing. But the way it seems to be shaking out, e.g. Miami car dealer, untested QB getting $1 million deal, Texas linemen, etc. doesn't seem to favor schools like NU. I don't care about Alabama, OSU, Michigan, ND, Georgia, USC, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M (except my bro in law coached there). I care about NU, and of course, want the program to be successful. It's always been a tough challenge for NU, and to it's credit, it has managed to be very competitive in the last 25 years. We all want that to continue, and to have NU compete at a high level on an even basis with it's conference mates.
If this were regulated and administrated as some have suggested, it would have been a very good thing. But unregulated, as it seems to be, will make the football rich (who have large packed stadiums, many wealthy boosters, large in-state following fans, etc.) richer, and lesser programs poorer. And what about the locker room effect if you're Joe offensive lineman getting a grand or two a year, and your QB is getting 100 times that? When I played ball for money at Chicago & Kedzie, wins and losses were divided evenly because the team had to bet a minimum amount on itself every game, and that amount was shared evenly. Maybe we were communists.
I have no objection to players making money from their considerable efforts - that's a good thing. But the way it seems to be shaking out, e.g. Miami car dealer, untested QB getting $1 million deal, Texas linemen, etc. doesn't seem to favor schools like NU. I don't care about Alabama, OSU, Michigan, ND, Georgia, USC, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M (except my bro in law coached there). I care about NU, and of course, want the program to be successful. It's always been a tough challenge for NU, and to it's credit, it has managed to be very competitive in the last 25 years. We all want that to continue, and to have NU compete at a high level on an even basis with it's conference mates.
I don't see why only the two extreme positions for NIL - increased standard stipends for players or the Wild West - are the only potential outcomes. Seems to me that something in the middle is quite feasible where players are free to maximize their income within a guideline that minimizes abuses. The likelihood of the entire NCAA agreeing on something in our lifetimes is remote but I do think the PAC 12- Big 10 - ACC Alliance will land on an agreement. I think they are just biding their time to see where this is all headed.
Controlling NIL requires either an act of Congress or a full blown collective bargaining agreement. The latter ain’t happening, and good luck waiting in the former.
Doesn't really matter if it sucks. The kids deserve the money. Better than giving it to JON
Wave: I appreciate your point. And, as an NU fan, I agree that this will hurt our on-field competitiveness.
But, here is the challenge: You may not like the new paradigm, but it is at least centered on the reality that college sports is big business and has been big business for a long time. It has been our (the consumer’s) willingness to go along with the sham and hypocrisy of “amateurism” and the “student-athlete” that allowed a huge economy to exist without compensating or artificially limiting the compensation of labor.
NU will suffer. That stinks. But, I would rather have that then have people like Mark Emmert dictate how much or how little I can give to Ed Sutter, Walker Lambiotte, Steve Schnur, Hudhaifa Ishmaeli, Matt Rice, Darnell Autry, Zak Kustok, Damien Anderson, et.al. for the joy they have given me over the years.
Finally, I note that there is no way to build a regulatory scheme that doesn’t end up where we have been. Cheaters cheating. Money awkwardly trying to find its way to actual value and a bunch of adults charged with enforcing stupid rules.
Bring on the Wild West. Just don’t blame NIL and the portal. Events were set in motion far before these changes. IMHO.