The problem with making them employees is that the universities cannot run professional sports teams - such teams do not fit within the educational and research missions of the schools, and those missions are the only reasons why schools are tax-exempt. The schools cannot force employees to be students unless being a student is a direct necessity to the job function (like it is for grad research and teaching assistants).
The arguments about athletes being worth millions "in a free market" and being paid thousands also doesn't make any sense. If they were worth that much, then there would be lots of entities besides the universities bidding for their services. That's how value is measured - by what someone is willing to pay. The fact is that it is the uniforms that draw the eyeballs, not who is wearing them (though schools with better teams do make more on the margin than those with less-successful teams, the 4-8 Spartans still made 80% of the revenue of the 15-0 Wolverines).
The solution seems simple to me: transition the wannabe professional athletes into a professional league, and leave college sports to the student-athletes. Use existing employment law to force the NFL to abandon its restraint-of-trade rules on draft eligibility. Have schools reuse to cooperate on privacy grounds in the NFL's attempts to determine eligibility of players. This would force the NFL teams to afford players the opportunity to play as professionals when coming out of high school (or even before high school graduation).
Sure, that would drain away most of the best current college prospects, but that would be all to the good. Those that go to school would do so because they want to go to school, not because that's the only way to get to the NFL. They could be compensated for the time that they have to put into preparing to play in college, but this would not be at the level of the pro players. Some TV money would be drained from the college game to pay for the new entry-level NFL league, but that would be just an added bonus. College sports is choking to death on TV money.
All-22 films games for teams all the time, so clearly having staff members buy game video is not against the rules.
The rule holding head coaches responsible doesn't apply if the HC has implemented procedures to educate his staff on what the rules governing them actually are.
The networks didn't kill the Pac 12, the selection of an incompetent and ineffectual conference commissioner did. The Pac 12 had the most inefficient, money-burning conference offices in the country, and at the same time one that couldn't get a TV deal that allowed their schools to be competitive. The Pac 12 committed suicide. It wasn't murdered.
Plus, he has raised his players to be modest and supportive of one another. That press conference where Edey came to the rescue of [can't remember the name] when the latter missed a last shot and cost them a game, saying that they lost because he, Edey, didn't have a good enough game to win was a totally class move.
Purdue BB has been my favorite since the tourney started and I'm delighted that they have a chance to win it all. Their football coach and the Big Ten can suck a bag of dicks.
I see no difference between Stalions organizing non-staff to help "steal" signals and Oates doing the same with unpaid staff (note that he says that the GAs are doing advance work for future teams). If one is a violation of the "spirit of sportsmanship" then both are. But the truth is that neither were and that's why the NCAA isn't investigating either case.
Also the Lions have the best player Michigan has produced since TB12.
The best player Michigan has produced since TB12 won the Heisman Trophy as a defensive player (the only one ever to do so) but does not play for the Lions. Hutch is great, but not Woodson-great.
Antietam is one of the better ones, even though you will be reading signs that point out that the woods over there stand where the Cornfield was, and that field is where the East Woods were, but there's a fair amount of cool relics and places like Burnside's Bridge are still extant, so the differences between the modern and historical battlefields are not huge.
I live within an hour of Chancellorsville/The Wilderness, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Court House, Bull Run, and Brandy Station, and can attest that most of them are of the "on this site once stood X" variety. The Bull Run/Manassas battlefield is worth a visit if passing by, but probably not worth going far out of your way. If you are coming to any of these battlefields bar Bull Run, make sure you and your family are fully informed on tick bite prevention, because ticks are very common in the tall grass around here in summer.
If you ever go north, make a point of visiting Fort Ticonderoga. Great museum and stunning views.
You might want to look at some history books before you blame all the evils of colonialism on the British royal family. I mean, if you want to cheer on someone who fucked over the British royal family more than anyone, you are cheering for Oliver Cromwell!
The bullshit over cheeseburgers and Big Ten corruption was, indeed, infuriating. But the way the players rose above all of that made the end result even more satisfying. I'd never want to see a bunch of players go through the adversity Michigan's players did this year, but the fact that they overcame the efforts of so many to steal their season makes me all the prouder to be a Michigan fan.
In retrospect, I think that the players may come to realize that the increased challenge made victory all the sweeter, even if it didn't seem like it at the time.
Because the schools cannot engage in activities that don't support their educational and research activities and remain tax-exempt educational entities. Professional football players, e.g., don't support those missions, and you can't require a professional football player to be a student because of restraint of trade laws.
Universities often spin off activities that go beyond the research and educational missions and could do the same for pro sports teams.
There's no evidence that the guy ion the CMU sideline was Stalions. That guy had hair, and CS shaves his head, so I think it unlikely. Paying for game film is explicitly allowed, and there's no requirement that the film you pay for be made by All-22.
The burger incident was about Harbaugh allegedly providing illegal benefits to recruits (i.e. the burgers). As it turned out, he didn't buy them burgers, and said so. The burgers were comp'd by the Brown Jug. Harbaugh did, however, charge the tip the players would have paid had they actually bought the burgers to his university credit card (so the servers didn't get stiffed on the tip). Harbaugh didn't recall paying the tip and then it was discovered in his card statement. That was the sum total of the "misleading statements."
The scouting "violation" (which isn't even yet alleged by the NCAA) was that CS paid for film of other teams by having his own people make the film. Buying game film is perfectly legit but staff actually doing the filming is illegal. Unless CS actually attended those games there's nothing there.
If the players are employees, then the university cannot require them to be students - that's restraint of trade. Employers cannot impose job requirements unrelated to the job itself.
The case of grad and research assistants is different because attending school is directly related to their jobs.
Contracts won't work, because the school couldn't possibly enforce them. If they are student-athletes, then the university can't constrain their academic decision-making (like whether to transfer) and if they are employees, they'll be able to successfully argue that the contract was invalid because the university has no remit to contract with professional football players (running a pro team does not support the educational or research missions of the school and so is not allowed).
"College" football and college no longer can co-exist under the same roof. Maybe once the pro teams are spun off from the universities, college football can restart as a recreational activity for students.
The NCAA had nothing to do with Signgate other than to note that there was grounds for investigation, so there's no way Manuel could have "stood up" to them. Manuel was standing up to the B1G when he had his legs cut out from under him by the Partridge affair.
I don't think that Michigan should retain Manuel when his contract expires in two years, because I think that Michigan can do better and deserves better. However, there are no reasonable grounds for termination, and I don't want to see Michigan become one of those institutions that dumps employees because emo.
No. The $4 million was the buyout if Michigan wanted to let him go under the new contract. Under the original 7-year contract buyout amounts tapered down to nothing after 5 years. Either side could have walked away for free after the 2020 season.
This is pretty much 100% wrong, except where it is naked unsupported opinion. He wasn't fired, didn't refuse to cooperate with anyone, knew that what he was doing was entirely proper, but didn't think that his work on his own time was worth bragging to his superiors about. He gave up his dream job just to avoid being a distraction to the team.
I 100% do not understand this mindset in any way. By all accounts he was using funs from the Bank of Dad to go that extra 1% because he could. He wasn't "sloppy" about it, he just didn't try to hide anything because there was no reason to hide anything. He was no more doing this "behind the back of his superiors" than an equipment manager goes behind the back of his superior by not informing Harbaugh about the source of the last shipment of socks.
As far as I can tell, the Blake LLC thing was just another false flag operation. Other than the fact that someone submitted a vague business application and signed themselves "Conner Stalions" there's no evidence that CS was actually involved.
I'm not saying that Stalions should be lionized. But I will point out that he gave up his dream job without attempting to fight the bullshit because he knew that defending himself could have saved his job but would have been a distraction to the team.
People seem to love to hate because they just love to hate.
A million times this. I cannot believe that there are posters here who still subscribe to the OSU fiction about Conner Stalions.
Read the fucking rulebook. It says nothing about paying for game film, and their rational for eliminating the advance scouting restrictions included the fact that teams could and did pay for game film. There's no difference between the "vast scheme" and All-22.
The fact that Tiny PeTeeny bought into all that bullshit doesn't mean that people here should.
Mindless shitposting on MGoBlog doesn't make Manuel's public utterances "posturing." People seem so desperate to blame Manuel for anything that they apparently won't even stop to consider that what we have in the Harbaugh contract negotiations is a man with a very strong hand pushing the university to its limit in order to get everything he can in terms of job security. Why wouldn't Harbaugh (or any coach) try to make it harder to fire him?
Don't think of it as anticlimactic so much as post-climactic. Just enjoy the denouement of our heroes coming back from the Heroes Journey and embarking on their own individual quests.
This season was such an absolute delight that more games could not add more enjoyment.
People don't seem to understand that NIL laws are on a state-by-state basis right now, and Michigan has one of the most restrictive laws, complying with the NCAA recommendations. That means, e.g., no NIL offers to recruits and no NIL offers conditional on attending a specific university until the offeree is a student.
A national NIL law is needed, but we won't get one soon because the states that worship football and don't give a damn about fair play (looking at you, Texas) want to retain the advantage of being completely unprincipled.
I don't see why it is true that Minter is definitely gone if some NFL team offers him. He can command big dollars at Michigan as well. Depends on how he feels about coaching pros verses students.
The you can Venn diagram that split with the split between those who think Warde Manuel has unlimited power and thus must accept unlimited blame, and those who understand how universities work.
You are making lots of assumptions here without any basis. The holdup may well be the two sides agreeing on adequate safeguards against unforeseen events, but could well be nothing like that, such as guarantees for assistant coach and staff salaries, or facilities, or what access Harbaugh will have to NFL offers, or something we cannot guess at.
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Might want to look up the word "profiting" before you misuse it again. Running an athletic department is not "profiting" in the sense you use it here.
The problem with making them employees is that the universities cannot run professional sports teams - such teams do not fit within the educational and research missions of the schools, and those missions are the only reasons why schools are tax-exempt. The schools cannot force employees to be students unless being a student is a direct necessity to the job function (like it is for grad research and teaching assistants).
The arguments about athletes being worth millions "in a free market" and being paid thousands also doesn't make any sense. If they were worth that much, then there would be lots of entities besides the universities bidding for their services. That's how value is measured - by what someone is willing to pay. The fact is that it is the uniforms that draw the eyeballs, not who is wearing them (though schools with better teams do make more on the margin than those with less-successful teams, the 4-8 Spartans still made 80% of the revenue of the 15-0 Wolverines).
The solution seems simple to me: transition the wannabe professional athletes into a professional league, and leave college sports to the student-athletes. Use existing employment law to force the NFL to abandon its restraint-of-trade rules on draft eligibility. Have schools reuse to cooperate on privacy grounds in the NFL's attempts to determine eligibility of players. This would force the NFL teams to afford players the opportunity to play as professionals when coming out of high school (or even before high school graduation).
Sure, that would drain away most of the best current college prospects, but that would be all to the good. Those that go to school would do so because they want to go to school, not because that's the only way to get to the NFL. They could be compensated for the time that they have to put into preparing to play in college, but this would not be at the level of the pro players. Some TV money would be drained from the college game to pay for the new entry-level NFL league, but that would be just an added bonus. College sports is choking to death on TV money.
And, indeed, did CS know about it, or was it a false flag?
CS was so dedicated to the CMU cause that he grew a full head of hair overnight.
Or else the guy that looked just like a CMU analyst was a CMU analyst.
It was witness tampering, and it deserved immediate dismissal. You just can't do that.
He also needed a real offensive line not a really offensive line.
All-22 films games for teams all the time, so clearly having staff members buy game video is not against the rules.
The rule holding head coaches responsible doesn't apply if the HC has implemented procedures to educate his staff on what the rules governing them actually are.
My understanding is that CMU cannot comment because the NCAA has indicated that they might want to investigate and that constitutes a gag order.
The networks didn't kill the Pac 12, the selection of an incompetent and ineffectual conference commissioner did. The Pac 12 had the most inefficient, money-burning conference offices in the country, and at the same time one that couldn't get a TV deal that allowed their schools to be competitive. The Pac 12 committed suicide. It wasn't murdered.
Plus, he has raised his players to be modest and supportive of one another. That press conference where Edey came to the rescue of [can't remember the name] when the latter missed a last shot and cost them a game, saying that they lost because he, Edey, didn't have a good enough game to win was a totally class move.
Purdue BB has been my favorite since the tourney started and I'm delighted that they have a chance to win it all. Their football coach and the Big Ten can suck a bag of dicks.
There's a very good reason why that one is very hard to believe.
J'Accuse!
I see no difference between Stalions organizing non-staff to help "steal" signals and Oates doing the same with unpaid staff (note that he says that the GAs are doing advance work for future teams). If one is a violation of the "spirit of sportsmanship" then both are. But the truth is that neither were and that's why the NCAA isn't investigating either case.
The best player Michigan has produced since TB12 won the Heisman Trophy as a defensive player (the only one ever to do so) but does not play for the Lions. Hutch is great, but not Woodson-great.
Antietam is one of the better ones, even though you will be reading signs that point out that the woods over there stand where the Cornfield was, and that field is where the East Woods were, but there's a fair amount of cool relics and places like Burnside's Bridge are still extant, so the differences between the modern and historical battlefields are not huge.
I live within an hour of Chancellorsville/The Wilderness, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Court House, Bull Run, and Brandy Station, and can attest that most of them are of the "on this site once stood X" variety. The Bull Run/Manassas battlefield is worth a visit if passing by, but probably not worth going far out of your way. If you are coming to any of these battlefields bar Bull Run, make sure you and your family are fully informed on tick bite prevention, because ticks are very common in the tall grass around here in summer.
If you ever go north, make a point of visiting Fort Ticonderoga. Great museum and stunning views.
You might want to look at some history books before you blame all the evils of colonialism on the British royal family. I mean, if you want to cheer on someone who fucked over the British royal family more than anyone, you are cheering for Oliver Cromwell!
The Game will be known henceforth as A Game.
The bullshit over cheeseburgers and Big Ten corruption was, indeed, infuriating. But the way the players rose above all of that made the end result even more satisfying. I'd never want to see a bunch of players go through the adversity Michigan's players did this year, but the fact that they overcame the efforts of so many to steal their season makes me all the prouder to be a Michigan fan.
In retrospect, I think that the players may come to realize that the increased challenge made victory all the sweeter, even if it didn't seem like it at the time.
And the agnostic dyslexic insomniac lies awake at night pondering the existence of dog.
I suspect that the Hart departure had more to do with health issues than coaching issues.
Just as an FYI, Brown graduated from Syracuse in 1956, and Davis matriculated in 1958. They didn't play together.
Because the schools cannot engage in activities that don't support their educational and research activities and remain tax-exempt educational entities. Professional football players, e.g., don't support those missions, and you can't require a professional football player to be a student because of restraint of trade laws.
Universities often spin off activities that go beyond the research and educational missions and could do the same for pro sports teams.
There's no evidence that the guy ion the CMU sideline was Stalions. That guy had hair, and CS shaves his head, so I think it unlikely. Paying for game film is explicitly allowed, and there's no requirement that the film you pay for be made by All-22.
The burger incident was about Harbaugh allegedly providing illegal benefits to recruits (i.e. the burgers). As it turned out, he didn't buy them burgers, and said so. The burgers were comp'd by the Brown Jug. Harbaugh did, however, charge the tip the players would have paid had they actually bought the burgers to his university credit card (so the servers didn't get stiffed on the tip). Harbaugh didn't recall paying the tip and then it was discovered in his card statement. That was the sum total of the "misleading statements."
The scouting "violation" (which isn't even yet alleged by the NCAA) was that CS paid for film of other teams by having his own people make the film. Buying game film is perfectly legit but staff actually doing the filming is illegal. Unless CS actually attended those games there's nothing there.
Great example of incoherent objections.
If the players are employees, then the university cannot require them to be students - that's restraint of trade. Employers cannot impose job requirements unrelated to the job itself.
The case of grad and research assistants is different because attending school is directly related to their jobs.
Contracts won't work, because the school couldn't possibly enforce them. If they are student-athletes, then the university can't constrain their academic decision-making (like whether to transfer) and if they are employees, they'll be able to successfully argue that the contract was invalid because the university has no remit to contract with professional football players (running a pro team does not support the educational or research missions of the school and so is not allowed).
"College" football and college no longer can co-exist under the same roof. Maybe once the pro teams are spun off from the universities, college football can restart as a recreational activity for students.
No shit? Is this a commonly-held assertion?
The NCAA had nothing to do with Signgate other than to note that there was grounds for investigation, so there's no way Manuel could have "stood up" to them. Manuel was standing up to the B1G when he had his legs cut out from under him by the Partridge affair.
I don't think that Michigan should retain Manuel when his contract expires in two years, because I think that Michigan can do better and deserves better. However, there are no reasonable grounds for termination, and I don't want to see Michigan become one of those institutions that dumps employees because emo.
No. The $4 million was the buyout if Michigan wanted to let him go under the new contract. Under the original 7-year contract buyout amounts tapered down to nothing after 5 years. Either side could have walked away for free after the 2020 season.
This is pretty much 100% wrong, except where it is naked unsupported opinion. He wasn't fired, didn't refuse to cooperate with anyone, knew that what he was doing was entirely proper, but didn't think that his work on his own time was worth bragging to his superiors about. He gave up his dream job just to avoid being a distraction to the team.
That wasn't CS. The guy on the CMU sideline had hair on his head. CS shaves his head.
Is there any evidence that CS was actually involved in that bizarre LLC?
I 100% do not understand this mindset in any way. By all accounts he was using funs from the Bank of Dad to go that extra 1% because he could. He wasn't "sloppy" about it, he just didn't try to hide anything because there was no reason to hide anything. He was no more doing this "behind the back of his superiors" than an equipment manager goes behind the back of his superior by not informing Harbaugh about the source of the last shipment of socks.
As far as I can tell, the Blake LLC thing was just another false flag operation. Other than the fact that someone submitted a vague business application and signed themselves "Conner Stalions" there's no evidence that CS was actually involved.
I'm not saying that Stalions should be lionized. But I will point out that he gave up his dream job without attempting to fight the bullshit because he knew that defending himself could have saved his job but would have been a distraction to the team.
People seem to love to hate because they just love to hate.
A million times this. I cannot believe that there are posters here who still subscribe to the OSU fiction about Conner Stalions.
Read the fucking rulebook. It says nothing about paying for game film, and their rational for eliminating the advance scouting restrictions included the fact that teams could and did pay for game film. There's no difference between the "vast scheme" and All-22.
The fact that Tiny PeTeeny bought into all that bullshit doesn't mean that people here should.
Mindless shitposting on MGoBlog doesn't make Manuel's public utterances "posturing." People seem so desperate to blame Manuel for anything that they apparently won't even stop to consider that what we have in the Harbaugh contract negotiations is a man with a very strong hand pushing the university to its limit in order to get everything he can in terms of job security. Why wouldn't Harbaugh (or any coach) try to make it harder to fire him?
Of course, they were the LA Chargers before they were the San Diego Chargers...
Don't think of it as anticlimactic so much as post-climactic. Just enjoy the denouement of our heroes coming back from the Heroes Journey and embarking on their own individual quests.
This season was such an absolute delight that more games could not add more enjoyment.
People don't seem to understand that NIL laws are on a state-by-state basis right now, and Michigan has one of the most restrictive laws, complying with the NCAA recommendations. That means, e.g., no NIL offers to recruits and no NIL offers conditional on attending a specific university until the offeree is a student.
A national NIL law is needed, but we won't get one soon because the states that worship football and don't give a damn about fair play (looking at you, Texas) want to retain the advantage of being completely unprincipled.
I don't see why it is true that Minter is definitely gone if some NFL team offers him. He can command big dollars at Michigan as well. Depends on how he feels about coaching pros verses students.
Harbaugh has made more in each of the last three years than any of the previous seven. Some salary cut!
Your use of "obvious" in this context makes it obvious that you do not understand what the word "obvious" means.
I mean, wrong on both of those counts. Luckily, Jim Harbaugh lives in the real world, not your world.
The you can Venn diagram that split with the split between those who think Warde Manuel has unlimited power and thus must accept unlimited blame, and those who understand how universities work.
As is typically the case, the regents must approve the contract and cannot delegate that authority to the AD.
Zero???? Please tell me it's zero!
Could be worse; in Iceland, they are getting volcanic vinegar.
Winners win because that's what winners do.
and sanitation.
You are making lots of assumptions here without any basis. The holdup may well be the two sides agreeing on adequate safeguards against unforeseen events, but could well be nothing like that, such as guarantees for assistant coach and staff salaries, or facilities, or what access Harbaugh will have to NFL offers, or something we cannot guess at.