It sounds like allowing college athletes to profit off their image is going to be a reality. The biggest recruiting tool is now that Alumnus can pay athletes via a sponsorship or endorsement through their business. Which schools are best set up to do so?

Oregon could count on a big push from Nike.

Oklahoma State has T. Boone Pickens.

Maryland has Under Armour but which schools would provide the highest total salary from endorsements?

Big Ten has some of the richest and biggest alumni-base across the board and across the United States.

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The NCAA and conferences could regulate sponsorships to ensure they are legitimately sponsorships and not just bribes. The sponsored athlete has to be actually featured in endorsements, personal appearances, or whatever, that have some relation to the amount of money they are given. Whether those regulations are enforced, or fairly enforced, is a different question.

Whether the NCAA ever develops the common sense to handle things like this the right way instead of continuing to deny, and creating even bigger problems for themselves, is an even larger question. The NCAA's track record strongly suggests that they will bungle this by continuing to think of their athletes as indentured servants who should be grateful for whatever tiny scraps the schools grudgingly give them.

(08-10-2014 01:47 AM)DexterDevil Wrote:  Big Ten has some of the richest and biggest alumni-base across the board and across the United States.

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Agreed, the Big Ten is awash with cash.

The SEC schools will also have all the money they need.

Brian Kelly said ND is prepared to pay what is required.

I think a number of schools are well positioned to take advantage of this.

To me, an interesting sidelight to all this is that some of these alumni may have already been making these payments under the table. If they can now make them legitimately, they can also declare them as a business expense and take a tax deduction for them. Ain't capitalism a wonderful thing?

(08-10-2014 02:19 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The NCAA and conferences could regulate sponsorships to ensure they are legitimately sponsorships and not just bribes. The sponsored athlete has to be actually featured in endorsements, personal appearances, or whatever, that have some relation to the amount of money they are given. Whether those regulations are enforced, or fairly enforced, is a different question.

Whether the NCAA ever develops the common sense to handle things like this the right way instead of continuing to deny, and creating even bigger problems for themselves, is an even larger question. The NCAA's track record strongly suggests that they will bungle this by continuing to think of their athletes as indentured servants who should be grateful for whatever tiny scraps the schools grudgingly give them.

I wouldn't call a free college education "scraps". I support the full cost scholarships but it seems that far to many are downplaying the free education.

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(08-10-2014 02:19 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The NCAA and conferences could regulate sponsorships to ensure they are legitimately sponsorships and not just bribes. The sponsored athlete has to be actually featured in endorsements, personal appearances, or whatever, that have some relation to the amount of money they are given. Whether those regulations are enforced, or fairly enforced, is a different question.

Whether the NCAA ever develops the common sense to handle things like this the right way instead of continuing to deny, and creating even bigger problems for themselves, is an even larger question. The NCAA's track record strongly suggests that they will bungle this by continuing to think of their athletes as indentured servants who should be grateful for whatever tiny scraps the schools grudgingly give them.

How could they determine they weren't bribes?

I don't see how it could be regulated. They only thing they could do would be to require disclosure of the amounts and who was paying and ownership of any corporate payors.

(08-10-2014 08:10 AM)ken d Wrote:  To me, an interesting sidelight to all this is that some of these alumni may have already been making these payments under the table. If they can now make them legitimately, they can also declare them as a business expense and take a tax deduction for them. Ain't capitalism a wonderful thing?

Anybody doing that didn't declare that income in the first place or are already taking deductions for it. Just burying it as something else.

The list is easy. Just look at the schools with athletic budgets of $100 million (or so).

The NCAA has tried to regulate this and has failed. There is no way to keep a booster, sponsor or what ever name you want to give them, from offering an athlete $10k to sign a napkin.

Does the O'Bannon ruling have any effect on this, or can the NCAA still prohibit it? Seems to me the trial issue centered around schools licensing their players' images. This seems different.