[Men’s] basketball, too.
I doubt it would destroy minor league baseball. Remember, highly-drafted players get a huge signing bonus long before they ever make it to the majors. For instance, the #1 pick in 2017 got $6,725,000 right out of high school: 2017 Draft: Signing and Bonus Tracker
Love that multi-quote!
A number of “club sports” are interscholastic. For example, a lot of California schools play “club” ice hockey against each other. Also, there are currently quite a few interscholastic sports where the NCAA has no say in the matter; rugby and men’s rowing come to mind. (In fact, the NCAA offered to host a men’s rowing championship, but the three main rowing conferences - the Pac-12, the Ivy League, and the Big 10 - pretty much said, “Thanks, but after seeing what you do with your women’s rowing championship, we’ll handle this ourselves.”
Except that if there is any payment by the schools to the players, it will be considered paying the athletes to play, which the NCAA has made quite clear it will not allow. “Marketing fees” smacks of money laundering.
And as long as it is not the schools, the NCAA doesn’t really have a problem with that. I can see, for example, Nike signing a number of runners on the condition that they all attend Oregon (that way, they can market them as “Team Nike”) - but as long as there’s no direct connection between the school and the company, there’s no problem.
The way I see it:
“Can the school pay the player for the use of their likeness on merchandise and TV and not call it a player salary?” - No.
“Can a booster sign the next Tua to a $5M sponsorship deal to his car dealership that just happens to operate exclusively in northern Alabama?” - Yes.
“Can the University then choose that dealership when purchasing any staff or service vehicles?” - Only if the university can show that the deal had nothing to do with the dealership signing the player; otherwise, the dealership owner is considered a “representative of the school’s athletics interests” and any payment is treated as if it came directly from the school.
College sports in general are not going anywhere any time soon - especially at the “smaller schools.” There will always be a need for an NCAA, if for no other reason than to keep the Division II and III schools in line. Of course, that brings up another matter - UC-Santa Cruz is in Division III, so it can’t give out scholarships, but its players can be paid to license their names/likenesses…
I think this is a terrible idea. What’s going to happen is the schools with the deepest booster pockets will buy the best teams. Each recruiting season coaches will go to their booster club meetings with their list of recruits and how much they think it will take to land them and then the boosters will sign these high school seniors to long term exclusive sponsorship deals of 5 years or so. So all that is accomplished by this plan is to make major college sports more corrupt and increase the difference between men’s a womens sports.
Probably not? The title of “booster” is specifically defined by the NCAA with dos and don’ts. I’m guessing the new NCAA rules will cover booster activity.
Are you suggesting that a booster couldn’t have his company hire a student athlete as their spokesperson? Man, Nike is going to be pissed. Same with Mesa Petroleum. Southwestern Energy is another one. There is no way they could write a rule that prevents booster owned companies from using the local team’s athletes in their marketing and paying whatever they want too.
You both are living in some fantasy world where taking away one avenue to an education, which you happen to disagree with for what seem to be very emotional reasons, will somehow magically create new opportunities in totally unrelated areas.
There’s nothing at all stopping kids from applying for scholarship-based scholarships today. Taking away sports isn’t going to somehow grow that segment simply by it’s absence. Nor did I ever suggest that this is the only way to do it or the best way to do it, just that it does do it for many people today. Those other avenues deserve investment, allowing schools and companies to pay athletes will do nothing to move the needle on that.
Honestly, I don’t think either of you are thinking critically or objectively on this.
I don’t think this comment has any relation to what was quoted from my post, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Do you seriously believe this isn’t what’s already happening? Even if they strictly follow the rules on not paying players, there’s a mountain of money from boosters (and other sources) that go to non-players with the specific intention of enabling the team to better recruit players.
At least in this new scenario, that money goes to the people performing the work instead of hangers-on.
I assume your last sentence should read, “Increase the difference between football and men’s basketball, and all of the other sports,” and even then, only at FBS football and Division I men’s basketball schools. Note that there already is a significant difference; FBS football and Division I men’s basketball are the only sports where the schools earn money from postseason. (The NCAA pockets any profits from all of its tournaments, except for Division I Men’s Basketball, where the TV money is divided among the schools and conferences based on a number of factors.)
I read an article that said that this can help “smaller sports” athletes, especially women, as well, and gave this example: UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi became a bit of a social media sensation, and under this rule, she could lend her name to a gymnastics training academy and make money off of it - something she can’t do under the current rule, as it would be considered “profiting from her athletic ability.”
I know I’m repeating myself, but the way I read the new policy (and how the NCAA will almost certainly want to enforce it) is, the boosters can pay whatever they want - if they receive no benefit from the school in return. Otherwise, they are considered “interests of the athletic program,” and anything they give to the athletes is considered to come from the university, making the athletes immediately ineligible.
Of course, “receiving a benefit from the school” and “just happening to overhear a press conference touting one or more high school athletes on the school’s ‘wish list’ of players” are two different things. There are plenty of schools whose boosters would gladly “license” players without expecting anything (other than watching their school win national championships, of course) in return, but I didn’t mention any names coughNotre Dame USCwheeze sorry about that; I was a little too close to Sunday’s Carquinez Bridge fire.
It is possible for, say, Nike to offer track and field athletes shoe contracts if they attend Oregon, and if the school is left out of the loop, it would be allowed. “Why would Nike want to do it if they didn’t get anything from Oregon?”, you ask? Because this gives it the chance to market the athletes as some sort of “Team Nike.”
I’m not seeing the problem. The rules prohibiting athletes’ earnings are the corruption. Eliminate those and now we have a simple marketplace, the kind enjoyed by the rest of the commercial nation.
Acsenray, you said as I quoted (emphasis mine):
I said:
Then you said:
If you’re lost on this, I don’t think I can help.
No, I don’t think what’s happening today is close to what is coming. I think there’s some money…just enough to be able to be hidden and spread around to family members without attracting too much notice. They’re punishing enough programs so that there’s some pressure to resist the temptation and to not be egregious.
In the future, I think we’re essentially going to have Jr. Professional Football and Jr. Professional Basketball leagues with the top 20-30 programs, usually in places that don’t have major pro teams to compete with, paying players multi-million dollar deals under the sponsorship of the marketing arms of these largely public schools.
The majority of schools, those middle-class programs like Arkansas, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Washington, Iowa State, Colorado and the like, will probably close up shop since they won’t have the revenue to compete.
Not that money, the other money. The millions donated by boosters, the millions trading hands between networks, apparel companies and schools, much of it used to create a recruiting environment so that the big schools can get the best players.
This is what you already have, just without the players getting paid.
I would think one of the sticking points would be that player endorsement type deals must not be dependent on attending a particular school. As in, they may profit from using their likeness, but not profit from being a member of THE Ohio State University Football Team. As these payments are public and above board, this is much easier to police than under the table payments.
I’ve never understood this logic. Can’t those schools with lesser revenues just compete among themselves? Isn’t that what D3 does? Why “close up shop?” Some of the schools you mention have football/basketball revenues in eight or nine figures; I can’t figure why the business would just shut down because it can’t beat Alabama and its player compensation levels.
It’s a way? You’re not making a very strong argument. It’s a way that depends on taking advantage of student athletes in an oppressive manner. So, it’s a way that shouldn’t exist. Use the other ways, the ways that don’t put the burden on student athletes.
You keep saying this. Perhaps you misunderstand what oppression is.
For football, there are 129 FBS schools and 125 FCS schools in DI. There are then 167 DII and 250 DIII schools. Of that group, only the 129 FBS schools make any money at all. The rest have negligible media deals and almost no market presence.
If schools start paying players costs will skyrocket causing those 129 FBS schools to fracture and it will probably end up with ~25 “Blue Chip” schools that sell out games and have mega TV deals paying players. The remaining 100 or so FBS schools will no longer be on TV regularly and will no longer be in the conversation for the top-tier of players and coaches. The costs of running those programs will make them unsustainable in their current form, they will essentially become another non-revenue classification more like what FCS schools are today.
If Ohio State and Michigan are paying players millions of dollars but Illinois and Indiana are not, the Big Ten won’t survive with a even more extreme lack of parity than it has now. Same story with the SEC and the rest of the conferences. A massive re-organization will occur.
Maybe those former FBS schools will carry on just like the FCS, DII and DIII schools do, but I think it’s more likely that there’s a significant contraction.
It’s weird that the progressive argument here is the one that will lead to massive consolidation and a far less egalitarian sports landscape.
I’m sorry but that sounds like fear-mongering to excuse the exploitation that the NCAA has gotten away with for so long and I don’t buy it for a second. Neither do most people.
This accusation from the guy virtue signalling by casually throwing around the terms oppression, exploitation, servitude, plantation? :rolleyes: