Sorry about the multiple consecutive posts - what’s the time limit on editing posts here?
Spoke too soon; a Miami booster is “licensing” every scholarship player on Miami’s team (sorry, walk-ons) $500/month “to advertise his gyms on social media.” (I put that in quotes as I don’t think actually advertising the gyms is a requirement - nor should it have to be.)
This one may cross the line: The M Den - the “official retail store” of the University of Michigan - will now allow people to order customized jerseys with the names and numbers of current players, and that player will be paid a certain amount for each of “his” jerseys sold.
On the one hand, The M Den’s website says, “Every purchase made through the M Den results in direct support to University of Michigan Athletic programs,” so there is a direct link between the store and the school.
On the other hand - and this is probably more important - does the store receive any “benefits” other than being the “official store” of the athletics department? It doesn’t appear that the store receives any tangible benifit from the school that can be passed along to the players, so it’s not “pay for play” by any means. Now, if the school were to suddenly say, “We’ll pay you X for each jersey you sell in which you have to pay one of our current athletes,” then it’s a different matter.
The “financial incentives” consist of, over a ten-year period, taking half of the money that goes to the conferences based on how well their teams do in the men’s tournament and giving it to conferences based on how well their teams do in the women’s tournament. (Right now, in the men’s tournament, it’s one “share” for each team in each of the previous six tournaments, plus one for each game won in those six tournaments outside of the Final Fours.)
One thing made me laugh: the author is under the impression that fans in the city that can’t get tickets to the men’s games will “settle” on getting tickets for the women’s games. Very few people are going to be in the host city expecting to be able to buy a ticket to any men’s game, and those that do aren’t the kind of people that would settle to shell out for a ticket to a women’s Final Four game.
So remember, don’t call them the Final Four, the Frozen Four, or the College World Series; start calling them the Men’s Final Four, the Men’s Frozen Four, and the Men’s College World Series…and never mind that it is possible, albeit highly unlikely, for women to compete in each of them as well (while the Women’s Final Four et al. must be all-female).
I noticed one thing that wasn’t mentioned; there are more women invited to the Division I Swimming & Diving Championships than men. If they are really interested in “championships equity,” shouldn’t they be the same?
Speaking of Swimming & Diving, I have a feeling the main reason they don’t hold the men’s and women’s championships together now is, either they would have to have one on, say, Saturday-Tuesday and the other Wednesday-Saturday, which kind of defeats the purpose of holding them together (in addition to having to worry about shuffling events around if a Sunday event has someone from BYU qualified for it), or try to squeeze the whole thing into six days.
Me again…anyway, the NCAA has released the draft version of its new Constitution, which will be put up for a vote at this January’s Convention, then each division will be allowed to make division-specific changes prior to its implementation on August 1.
A couple of things that I noticed:
First, while it does put the right of athletes to license their names/images/likenesses in print, it is equally quite clear that The Schools Cannot Pay The Athletes Any “Salary” Other Than Educational Based Benefits (tuition, room, board, books, etc.), End Of The Discussion.
Second, one of the “principles” says that athletes are “matriculated, degree-seeking students.” Did anyone mention this to the One-And-Dones?
Hmmm, while I’m not sure that paying their athletes a salary would be good policy for a school, I don’t think the NCAA is the definitive word on that issue any more.
There it is: an education isn’t actually compensation, according to NCAA. Or… wait now… huh?
There’s no way around it: the schools pay the athletes for their participation and the payment comes in the form of “educational and other benefits”.
IMO this is just another desperate attempt to try and justify and keep the shitty business model that the NCAA has had, or as close as they can continue to hoodwink the world and the courts with.
A bill has been introduced in the Iowa legislature to make student athletes at state schools employees, with salaries set by the state and subject to all benefits available.
This is what the schools have always feared: that power and leverage would shift to talent and labor.
I just saw this this morning. I’m not sure the Iowa legislature has a grasp on the ramifications of this bill. Considering this legislature has a history of starving the funding for public education and state universities (including cutting $8 million from the universities’ budgets in 2020), making college athletes state employees with IPERS retirement benefits and all that goes along with that seems … odd.
You read that quote wrong. The bit about receiving “educational and other benefits” primarily refers to the rights of athletes to license their names / images / likenesses and pocket the money. And what, exactly, is the NCAA’s “business model” that is so problematic?
The NCAA’s real concern is that first part I quoted - “each of the association’s three divisions will be empowered to govern itself.” I fully expect the FBS schools to break away from the rest of Division I, and the Power 5 Conference schools to further break from that. It will end up being a group of 65 “haves” and about 250 “have nots” when the smoke clears - especially if the Power 5 can form its own football tournament (and the money that goes with it), resulting in more and more “Group of 5” (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt) players transferring to Power 5 schools, especially now that each of them gets one transfer without having to sit out a year. Any talk of, “What about a split national football championship?” will be answered with four words: Alabama 27, Cincinnati 6.
The real question might be, will Division I be allowed to change its version of the NCAA Constitution to allow players to be paid directly by the schools?
The schools aren’t going to be forced to pay players but they’re not going to be allowed to make an agreement that they won’t, either. Things will either be a free market or the players will have to be formally involved in the process.
The days of unilateral decision making by the schools are over. And I’m there for it.
