NIL

[go_jays]

"It's a jungle out there." It's Capitalism, pure and simple.

Just like everything else in life... there's usually/mostly good intent... But there will always be some that abuse it.

[alum84]

For those of you who saw all the consequences of NIL with crystal-clear clarity (right), perhaps you will go on the record with where we will be 5 years from now. Or even 2? For instance, now that the one-time transfer rule has been successfully challenged in court, what about the 4-year eligibility rule? I mean, many (maybe most?) college students take more than 4 years to graduate. Why should athletes be held to a higher standard? Heck, I had a friend who took 8 years to graduate. (He finally got that degree though!) Could we see 30 year-old starters in a few years? It seems like NIL salaries are competitive enough to keep good players in college for years, except perhaps the sure fire NBA first-rounders. And remember....we'll be coming back to grade your forecasts a few years from now.

[slaw]

Next step should be multi-year NIL contracts (lock players/teams in for X number of years with team/player/mutual options). Make it similar to coaching contracts.

[HandDownManDown]

Although your sarcasm is noted, I’ll give you five predictions.

First, most obvious: high school recruiting by high majors is going to wane as schools look to the portal to fill needs. And by needs I’m not talking about two or three kids, I’m talking about six or so. Replacing half a roster will become the norm, and sub-150 ranked kids will have no choice but to start out at a mid. Which is a dynamic that will gradually be accepted, BTW.

Second, connections and coaching trees will rise in prominence. Along with playing time, where a team’s players have landed and how much they got paid when they did will become selling points. And, a situation where, say, the SoDak St coach can sell being in super tight with Mac will be used to show kids (who as I’ve said now accept the dynamic) that they can get players to the ‘next level’ - except they aren’t talking about the NBA like they used to be.

Third, fan bases aren’t going to like this. In a similar way to guys like Yadi and Pujols being throwbacks that will rarely if ever occur in the future, the number of guys being in a program for more than two years will shrink to the point where when it does happen it’s celebrated rather than being treated as the norm. And as this happens, a certain percentage of the fan base will drift towards indifference. If that percentage liked this dynamic, they’d root for pros. I don’t know what percentage that is but it’ll be significant.

Fourth, I’ll address what prompted my prediction a couple years back that drew your sarcasm: the NCAA. Right up front they threw it to the states to make the rules. Why did they do that? Because they knew if they tried hard to regulate this the moneyed schools would show the NCAA the door. This turned NIL into an out and out arms race where if you were paying attention, you would (should?) have concluded this outcome. The prediction going forward is this: money will call all shots and write all rules regardless of what the NCAA says. Any thoughts about fairness can be dispensed with.

And finally, you can forget about degrees for the most part. Moving this much precludes that, and most schools won’t grant one unless you earned a large chunk of the credits at their institution, often as much as 60 credits. Notice how no one is talking about this? It’s because the powers that be all know it but know it’s a black eye so they’re sweeping it under the rug.

How’d I do?

[NYC-bluejay]

Fourth, I’ll address what prompted my prediction a couple years back that drew your sarcasm: the NCAA. Right up front they threw it to the states to make the rules. Why did they do that? Because they knew if they tried hard to regulate this the moneyed schools would show the NCAA the door. This turned NIL into an out and out arms race where if you were paying attention, you would (should?) have concluded this outcome. The prediction going forward is this: money will call all shots and write all rules regardless of what the NCAA says. Any thoughts about fairness can be dispensed with.

Generally agree with everything else you’re saying but you really can’t put this on the NCAA. They fought as hard as they could for as long as they could to prevent this. The Supreme Court basically forced them, and Kavanaugh wrote an opinion in that case that pretty much outright stated any attempt by the NCAA to put guardrails on any of this would be struck down. Federal regulation or an antitrust exemption is the only possible solution. And good luck getting that through when a good amount of the population believes the previous status quo was “poor kids being exploited”

[cujaysfan]

The NCAA punted again and again. They did everything they could to keep athletes from sharing in the huge revenue pie. And here we are.

[JacobPadilla]

Yeah, the NCAA fighting back every step of the way to maintain "amateurism" instead of understanding it was a an untenable position and trying to form some sort of workable system before the courts got involved is why we have what we do now.

[Chicagojayfan]

Hopefully they figure it out. I find the NBA boring and doubt that another NBA style league with Free Agency every year will get my attention

[LJay]

The universities aren’t paying shit to the students except to the extent that donors who would donate larger piles directly to the school are siphoning some of those dollars off and funding collectives. They are still only out the cost of scholarships.

The issue is collectives. This is a total bastardization of all the arguments being made. I am a capitalist but this isn’t that, it’s simple payola with a relative handful of fans funding this mess. How in the world is that what the original lawsuits et al were about? Collectives need regulation.

College athletics has entered a death spiral because eventually the big dollar donors at most schools will tire of funding this mess and it will be the same 16 schools in the Sweet 16 every year and once people stop watching and TV revenue dries up ……. Ballgame.

[NYC-bluejay]

The NCAA punted again and again. They did everything they could to keep athletes from sharing in the huge revenue pie. And here we are.

The NCAA is comprised of hundreds of schools. There are probably less than 50 where giving athletes a cut of the “huge revenue pie” doesn’t mean a shuttering of all non-revenue men’s sports, and all women’s sports that aren’t necessary for title IX compliance, if not their athletic departments altogether. They acted in the best interest of their members.