M Ascending

December 8th, 2023 at 8:42 AM ^

I faced Jeff Kessler back in the day  when I was representing the NBA and he the players association. A bit of a prima donna, but a brilliant lawyer.  He had the thickest New Yawk accent you'll ever hear.  Very entertaining.   "Did you say two utes? What's a ute?"

Joined: 09/14/2016

MGoPoints: 21355

UMForLife

December 7th, 2023 at 3:01 PM ^

Rutgers ans Maryland were in financial abyss. Now, it seems they are doing fine thanks to the top two teams in the league and those players who make it happen on the field. Pay those players and get some of those money back to UM and OSU.

Joined: 11/04/2013

MGoPoints: 63393

MgoWood

December 7th, 2023 at 3:06 PM ^

Pageantry definition in College Football:

Pageantry: Leaving out FSU in playoff for Meaux Money.

Imagine in the NFL if this happened. Stupid stuff. Pay the People!

Joined: 12/18/2014

MGoPoints: 3156

Solecismic

December 7th, 2023 at 3:09 PM ^

Another new suit (led by the Ohio AG) seeks to end the one-year rule for multiple uses of the portal. Apparently inspired by a couple of basketball players signed by Cincinnati.

Now that "your pay is your scholarship" and "you must be an amateur to play" are untenable concepts for the NCAA, all this should happen, no doubt. I agree with that concept - it's time to discard the NCAA rulebook on eligibility. Pay elite athletes a percentage of the billions that go to major college football programs.

The big question is what remains afterward. It's not just the handful of power-4 football programs that make a lot of money. It's every non-power-4 football program, most non-division I men's basketball programs and every other sport at every university that's funded by student fees or donations or legislatures.

What's happening should be happening. But on behalf of every athlete who has had an opportunity to go to college because of a 1/2 scholarship on a team that plays in front of family and friends only, I hope they can manage the aftermath.

Joined: 11/27/2016

MGoPoints: 7140

Blue Durham

December 7th, 2023 at 5:30 PM ^

Since NIL happened, there are all kinds of consequences.  Another that I have mentioned before, since it is inevitable that the athletes are going to be seen/treated as employees, the 4/5/6 year limit on their employment at various universities is completely untenable.  Those that can't move on to the NFL can become journeymen in college.  No other occupation has such limits on its employees.  Additionally, requirements that they have so many credit hours per term/make progress towards a degree are also untenable.  No other employees at the university have such requirements.

In only a couple of years the landscape of college football will be vastly different than what it was just a few years ago.   

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 6082

Shippanimal

December 8th, 2023 at 9:45 AM ^

To be eligible for the NFL draft, players must have graduated high school at least three years earlier.  The alleged basis for this requirement is player safety, i.e., it isn't safe for an 18-year old to play against much older athletes.  Maurice Clarett sued the NFL for an antitrust violation, challenging the elgibility rule.  He lost.  Presumably, a maximum eligibility rule could be enforced under the auspices of player safety for 18-year old freshman.

Additionally, there are university positions that are only available to students, including graduate student instructors, work study positions, etc.  Graduate student instructors are probably a better comparison because they, generally, both have their tuition paid and receive a stipend (and an undergraduate who is not progessing toward their degree is not going to pay tuition just to have a work study job).  Graduate students who are not making progress towards their degrees are asked to leave their graduate programs and would, therefore, be inelgibile for employment in those positions moving forward.  

Joined: 10/20/2012

MGoPoints: 227

grumbler

December 7th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^

What's going to happen is the some schools will have their charters altered to allow them to run professional sports teams, and some won't.  The schools that can't run pro sports teams will spin off their sports teams into independent entities with no ties to the schools.  The those entities will die because no one gives a shit about crap pro football when the NFL already does it.

College football will die choking on the money, and then the follow-on entities will die from lack of money.

It will be interesting to see if enough universities care enough to gain and keep the power to run a pro sports team in order to keep some competition going between them.  I suspect that, once it is just pros and not students playing, even those schools will lose interest.

Joined: 08/17/2011

MGoPoints: 14112

BoFan

December 7th, 2023 at 3:41 PM ^

Hopefully we can enjoy this year though to the championship game.  

Because with NIL, lawsuits, paid players, the portal, and too much power in the hands of too few (Tony Pettiti, the CFP, ESPN, ect) people making unfair unilateral decisions, this is the last of college sports as we’ve known it.  Money, without any structure and restrictions for fairness and parity, will be the bitter end. 

For example, players should be compensated. But without restrictions that can be monitored, like salary caps and no competitive bidding, college athletics will look similar to European Football where each league has one or two teams that win the championship every year.  

Joined: 03/09/2012

MGoPoints: 19943

BornInA2

December 7th, 2023 at 3:43 PM ^

People being compensated millions for playing, organizing, and coaching a playground game fight over who gets the biggest piece of pie.

Middle class fans watch the squabble and end up paying for it all.

Joined: 02/15/2014

MGoPoints: 12802

FlaWolverine22

December 7th, 2023 at 3:51 PM ^

This makes me even more upset about FSU being left out. Those kids played their hearts out, risked injury, one suffered a gruesome injury, and didn’t make the CFP. They could’ve at least been able to share in the revenue.

Joined: 01/04/2023

MGoPoints: 6628

MDexcelsiorUSN

December 7th, 2023 at 4:05 PM ^

I need to get some "amateurs" to do all my landscape work, prices for the pros are ridiculous these days. I mean, come on, they get to learn all about how to do the work AND they get to do it under my coaching!

Joined: 08/19/2019

MGoPoints: 1079

MichiganiaMan

December 7th, 2023 at 4:05 PM ^

The big question for me is whether counting athletes as employees and paying them as such would shield the universities from having to match payments made to football and basketball players with similar payouts to other athletes in non revenue generating sports. The ugly truth is that in order to truly have fair compensation for the revenue athletes, schools will require a Title IX workaround.

Joined: 12/10/2014

MGoPoints: 3919

BornInA2

December 7th, 2023 at 6:20 PM ^

Definitely going to have to consider revenue vs. non-revenue sports. Currently only football, mens basketball, and mens hockey are the only ones making and sort positive revenue.

At *some* schools. You might want to look into the financial mess that the University of Washington Athletic Department is in due to the costs of its football program.

That those sports support other sports at all or even most schools is a myth.

Joined: 02/15/2014

MGoPoints: 12802

TruBluMich

December 7th, 2023 at 6:59 PM ^

I'm pretty sure an accountant can figure out how to lower the $37.62 million in coaches salary, $37.93 million in Support and Administrator Compensation/Severance pay, the $19.41 million in travel costs (imagine teams being forced to go back to regional conferences, so they can pay their athletes).  Then there's the $47.75 million spent on facilities and equipment!

Going off the information found here.  On average each of the 886 athletes at Michigan receive around 31k in student aid per year.  There is still plenty of fat that can be trimmed to pay all of the athletes.  Paying students doesn't seem to be an issue for any other part of universities except their athletic departments.

Now, comparing Michigan to the rest of the schools is where the problem is, there's are only a handful or two that can do this and because schools like Michigan are spending much more than they need to other universities are going in debt trying to keep up.  It's a problem with no easy solution.

Joined: 08/03/2011

MGoPoints: 21978