OT: Could student athletes issue crypto coins for you know what?
This is probably dumb, but it's also possibly a million-dollar idea that I'm just putting right here for the world to take and run with. slip me a hundy when you're a tycoon ok?
and if you think it's dumb, just move on to the next thread and don't waste your time, k?
Crypto currencies. Coins. tokens. ICOs. In general I'm with Warren Buffett that the whole thing is "probably rat poison squared." But I got to thinking, could crypto give amateur student athletes an avenue of hope within the confines of NCAA amateurism requirements?
My thought: student athlete could issue a new "coin" - probably even for free (but the kid keeps a chunk for themselves). The market would trade the coins based on that athlete's perceived professional value. When the kid goes pro, the coins pay off somehow.
I'm not going to go into all the details of why it might or might not work. And if it did work, I'm sure the NCAA would make it NOT work in a future ruling. But basically the argument boils down to:
- the athlete isn't getting paid, they (or someone else) are selling a digital token with 0 monetary value.
- You'd probably not be able to use existing tokens like bitcoin etc because they have an established monetary value.
- There's no agent involved.
- There's no agreement (verbal or written) to give anybody money as part of a potential future contract
- There's no payment to a kid based on their athletic performance or potential pro value
- the kid can hold or trade tokens throughout college as needed.
It's still tricky to put the pieces together in a way that doesn't add up to "payment for athletic skill" but it might be able to be done.
One possibility is to use the rule that allows the kid to use an agent to do an "inquiry" about potential professional market value. "Sure kid, my agency does inquiries with the market all the time. The way we do it is to issue a new coin and see what people are willing to pay for the coin." Or maybe the kid could use the provision that allows them to borrow money to purchase an insurance policy for their future earnings.
Look, I know this is ludicrous because the NCAA would kill it out of the gate. But it seems like there's a seed of an idea here. "Look, Mr. Emmert, it's just a college kid playing around on their computer in their dorm room and sending digital files to people with no value. Not the kid's fault if those people decide to start selling those files to other people."
OK, discuss.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
Arian Foster and a few baseball players have tried something similar (allowing regular people to buy "stock" based on future earnings), and I think it failed miserably.
You'd have to be incredibly dumb to invest in any college player, since money, injuries, PEDs, suspensions, or any number of things can wipe out your earnings. Especially when they should just be paid anyway.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:18 AM ^
I work in the funds industry and there used to be PE funds that would invest in junior soccer players.
Managers would pay the kids and their family upfront for training costs, stipend, living expenses, etc... and would then get 10% (or whatever) of their eventual pro earnings. It was popular about 10 years ago until it got banned. I think it was FIFA that banned it but I don't remember the details anymore. Now, you see the European clubs themselves doing something similar but without the 10% cut.
I thought it was a cool idea and helped a lot of families - it would have also worked well in the U.S. in sports where you get a lot of low income kids if not for college eligibility restrictions.
Baseball teams do something similar in Latin America with their development programs. Not sure exactly how that works though.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:57 PM ^
You can "invest" in golfer who are trying to make it as professionals. You get a cut of their earnings. Different because they're not amateurs but still a cool idea.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
I believe there were a ton of issues with South American players where there wasnt really regulation so multiple "investors" claimed ownership and demanded money from clubs and families and it was a shit show.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
56 hours to go. God help us.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
Why would anyone buy the coins? How would their value be at all related to the player's performance? This seems like a potential loophole to pay players but I don't understand how it would work the way you are describing. Are you saying the player would buy back the coins based on their NFL contract?
August 30th, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
i'd buy rashan gary coins
August 30th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^
There's something like 2500+ crypto currencies at the moment and the market is totally unregulated (pump and dump is completely legal with crypto, etc).
It's like a license to print money for people without morals. People would absolutely buy coins affiliated with their favorite college teams / players. They'd lose all their money eventually though.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:40 AM ^
I know that. I'm saying why would Nico Collins' coin's value be dependent on his performance at all? Nico offers a crypto coin and random fans buy it, then Nico goes pro and...? If this is just a sneaky way for fans to pay a player, I get it. But OP said they "payoff somehow" and I don't understand how that would happen.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:55 AM ^
That's because OP is a moron.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^
Anyone who uses the phrase "they (or someone else) are selling a digital token with 0 monetary value" doesn't understand a thing about economics. If something has no value, no one will buy it. If someone will buy it, then, by definition, you can;'t say it "has zero value." Value = what someone is willing to pay for it.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:01 PM ^
the 0 monetary value is the "technicality" of it. That's what you tell the NCAA. The potential value would be if the player somehow decides to distribute some of his future earnings back to coin holders (without making that agreement up front of course)
August 30th, 2018 at 1:48 PM ^
And the NCAA looks at you and asks what you received for selling it, even though you allege it had zero monetary value. Its value was whatever the player received for it.
Most of the people above are talking about delayed payment.
I do like the idea of considering some sort of payment for college sports, but lets not make it cryptocurrency or any other currency with a large potential to screw the athletes over.
August 30th, 2018 at 8:01 PM ^
Yep. I can tell the NCAA that all I got from the bagman was paper with "zero monetary value," but they aren't likely to agree as I can exchange those benjamins for goods or services. Value is assigned by the buyer.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:41 PM ^
Okay, this genuinely clears it up. Thank you.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
his coin would be valuable based on the fact that NICOin is a pretty good punny name for a crypto coin
August 30th, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^
Packer fans buy stock in the team which has zero value so
August 30th, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^
Expected from a bunch of cheese-heads.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:10 PM ^
I don't blame them. If the NCAA were disbanded and universities devolved their college football teams into independent institutions and, say, kept the franchise as the "college" team by holding a controlling majority of the shares, you'd better believe I'd get in on that IPO just to say I own a part of the team.
Actually, that isn't a bad way to spin off college football from the universities.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^
this is what i haven't quite worked out completely. The coin is inherently worthless because it's just a dumb crypto token. But there would have to be some way that the coin is backed by the player's future earnings. In other words maybe a chunk of the player's first contract or agency fee gets paid out to crypto holders or coin holders have a right to some benefit later.
This is probably where the NCAA would cry foul but I'm suggesting maybe it would be possible somehow. You have to connect it to future earnings somehow without making it a "payment based on future earnings"
August 30th, 2018 at 1:44 PM ^
If this is your goal, then there is little reason for it to be crypto.
August 30th, 2018 at 8:15 PM ^
But in your scenario the player is RECEIVING cash. One cannot argue that money has "zero monetary value." Your scenario is straight-up bag-man-ism.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
Probably says a lot about me but as I read the headline I was thinking: "Are the co-eds now charging for sex?"
August 30th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
56 hours..
August 30th, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
Ball bearings.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:24 PM ^
It's all ball bearings nowadays...
August 30th, 2018 at 2:35 PM ^
"Plastics."
August 30th, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
"The market would trade the coins based on that athlete's perceived professional value. When the kid goes pro, the coins pay off somehow"
So this is basically a security. The coins would be traded like stock and ultimately pay a dividend.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
A *stupid* security
*Not really* coins
*no* dividend
Having each player, or each team, issue a cryptocurrency is a stupid stupid idea.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
basically a security, but that's the argument in the crypto world right now. Of course the ncaa wouldn't let players issue actual stock certificates because they are real securities. And real securities are backed by real corporations that investors can claim rights to. But coins are usually not backed by an ownership stake. The idea is that the company that is being built will make the coins valuable eventually because it will be used somehow by the company.
For example, hey we are building a mobile war game. you'll need gold coins in the game to buy stuff. you can buy our crypto now to invest in the game, and you don't own the company, but you'll be able to use your crypto coins in the game when it's super popular. Just a dumb example.
player example: you can buy Nico coins for almost nothing now, but Nico coins will get you XYZ thing in the future (according to Nico), and XYZ thing might be cool and valuable if Nico is awesome. But it could also be worthless.
Look I freely admit it's crazy.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
Maybe I don’t understand, but one thing I don’t like is the kid is getting paid for future pro value, not for the actual value produced in college. Obviously they’re correlated, but there are plenty of example otherwise and those are really the guys that need to be getting paid in college.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:30 PM ^
The value of a an amateur player (in college or elsewhere) is defined by what someone is willing to pay for their services. Colleges seem to overpay by quite a bit, but that's because colleges don't have to worry about turning a profit.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^
So the player issues, say 1000 coins, but keeps 200 out of the 1000. The crypto market decides the value of the coins based on future perceived earnings, and the player can sell coins throughout college at the market value.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^
These “student athletes” make more in four years at UM than the average American makes in 20.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
The cost of attendance for in-state students (tuition, room and board, books, misc.) at UM in 2018 is roughly $29k a year. That is substantially lower than the median income of Michigan residents.
So in reality, the student athletes make less in 4 years than the average Michigander does in 4 years.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
You have to control for
(1) age of the populations in question, and
(2) the average "value added' to their lifetime incomes based on what they do in the four years in question.
Total compensation is what counts, not salary.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:46 PM ^
Not really. (1) he made an assertion that involved the average salary of all Americans, not just 20-year-olds. (2) If the value of college is going to be treated as deferred income, then all students receive that and the cost of college would be deducted. Therefore, the difference of what a student-athlete makes and what a student makes is still just the cost of attending.
August 30th, 2018 at 3:27 PM ^
This is a different argument.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
sure maybe but that's not the point. It's not what they are earning now, but it's the value of their future potential earnings if they are good enough to go pro. if a student has a potential pro career ahead of them, they are also basically sitting on a pot of gold they can't access. Meanwhile UM continues to sell tickets, tv rights, and merch because said student is tearing up the field in their uniform.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:18 AM ^
Less than 3 days to kickoff and you think this is a good topic?
August 30th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
you clearly missed the part where i said if you don't like the topic just move on
August 30th, 2018 at 11:18 AM ^
20 years ago, if you told me people would be paying to buy water in plastic bottles I would have told you to lay off the lsd......
August 30th, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^
The Seinfeld episode where Elaine mocks the proposed post-merger name of two bottled water companies, "Moland Springs," was 24 years ago.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
What is crypto-coin?
Signed - Seriously get off my lawn right now guy
August 30th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^
TL;DR. I'll assume you meant could they use crypto coins for hookers and blow.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:23 AM ^
Of course you can. That's pretty much what they're for.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
OT Season ended last week.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:41 AM ^
And you're telling me this for? I didn't start the thread.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:43 AM ^
Not sure what you’re talking about. Clearly talking to the person who started the OP.