(03-28-2014 07:31 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 08:51 PM)UpStreamRedTeam Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 08:11 PM)Rube Dali Wrote:  Read this article at SB Nation and only one item out of 11 deals with the so-called pay-for-play.

This all seems pretty reasonable to me.

It always sounds reasonable at the beginning.

You got that right. In my seven decades on this planet I have seen a lot of changes that were initiated for the noblest of reasons. And none of them adequately took into account the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Some consequences that are unintended are also unforeseen - maybe even unforeseeable. In this case, I think the NCAA member schools have foreseen - and dreaded - the likely consequences of a ruling like the one issued by this NLRB judge. While the legal battle in this specific case will plod through the courts for at least a couple of years, the genie is now out of the bottle, and we'll never get it back in.

Do scholarship athletes meet all the criteria for being considered paid employees? Of course, they do. This judge didn't have to use any twisted legal arguments to reach the conclusion he did. Any first year law student could have connected the legal dots on this issue. The defendants in this case didn't really make any legal argument to rebut the plaintiffs. Their defense was basically "we don't look at student-athletes that way".

So, there will be unintended consequences. How bad can it get? The biggest problem I see is that the legal arguments make no distinction between P5 football players and field hockey players. If receiving a scholarship in exchange for performing athletic services creates an employer-employee relationship, it does so for all scholarship athletes. The fact that those services financially benefit the employer more in some sports than in others is irrelevant.

For the "Higher Resource Group", however many schools that encompasses, "grossing up" the payment of tuition and room and board, etc. by paying a football player enough cash to cover the tax liability he now has as an employee is very affordable. More so for men's basketball. But the less well-heeled members of the NCAA, who are already operating their athletic departments in the red, it's out of the question.

But even for the HRG, extending that to all scholarship athletes is out of the question for all but a few schools. As a result, I could foresee a future in which the HRG remove football and men's basketball from under the schools' umbrella, and just acknowledge them as being "unrelated business activities" subject to taxation according to existing laws and regulations. Having done that, they will simply do away with all athletic scholarships, just like the Ivy League did years ago.

It's hard for me to estimate how much that will save the schools. But I'm guessing something in the $8-10 billion per year range. And by "save" I mean shift to the families of athletes in Olympic sports. I would also guess that the schools would realize even more savings by eliminating many of those sports altogether. Why would we imagine schools would keep funding sports that they did not sponsor until Title IX forced them to?

Will football survive outside the HRG? I'm guessing it would. It survives in the Ivy League and at all levels of the NCAA. Football is a major part of America's self-image. Baseball and basketball, too. But field hockey? Water polo? Even soccer? Not so much.

I used to think I wouldn't see these changes in my lifetime. Now, I'm not so sure.