I see a lot of posters and the ACC commissioner talk about the wild west of NIL.

With the court rulings, I don't see a way to regulate NIL. Anything they did would seem to run afoul of the law.

Division III technically doesn't offer athletic scholarships, so they aren't offering any compensation to have the students give up their rights. And Division I is the one who got sued over what they tried to control.

The test case is BYU. They have all their walk-ons in football funded with a full scholarship through NIL. That effectively removes the 85 scholarship limit. I'm not sure how you can regulate that.

Thoughts?

(01-30-2022 01:46 PM)bullet Wrote:  I see a lot of posters and the ACC commissioner talk about the wild west of NIL.

With the court rulings, I don't see a way to regulate NIL. Anything they did would seem to run afoul of the law.

Division III technically doesn't offer athletic scholarships, so they aren't offering any compensation to have the students give up their rights. And Division I is the one who got sued over what they tried to control.

The test case is BYU. They have all their walk-ons in football funded with a full scholarship through NIL. That effectively removes the 85 scholarship limit. I'm not sure how you can regulate that.

Thoughts?

Here is what NAIA has recently done.

https://www.naia.org/membership/name-image-likeness

Probably can’t regulate using NIL to subsidize walk-ons.

IMO there are very few teams for which boosters would want to pay the school expenses of every walk-on football player, so this may be something that isn’t enough of a problem to need a major solution.

If a rule was needed, the best answer is roster limits. If a football team is limited to a roster of 100 and a basketball team is limited to 20, both of which are generous limits, that should do it. A roster limit would be okay because it is a rule of the sport, like how many players can be on the field at once, rather than an anticompetitive rule.

Of course NIL’s can be regulated. In fact, I would argue they must be regulated. What kind of question is that?

Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean limitation. However, we could at least define it so that we know who is getting what and under what conditions?

Again, are people really oblivious to the fact that we are setting up these kids to get ripped off by unscrupulous businessmen? Are we oblivious to the fact that there’s going to be all kinds of tax mistakes made here that could lead to serious legal jeopardy for some of these kids?

We could at least define it before we just throw them to the wolves.

Again, if some batshit crazy Alabama booster wants to give their back up quarterback $2 million a year to play for the Tide, I don’t think we can stop that. Honestly, I’m not sure we should stop that? However, we absolutely must define it and make it as transparent as possible.

We also need to define what constitutes tampering, what constitutes boosterism, etc.

They're 18 years old. They are legally adults. The schools are doing some education. And unless a 5 star signs away lifetime NIL rights, they aren't going to get ripped off. Again, they are responsible for their own tax mistakes and schools are doing some education.

And how do you define tampering? We really can't control what is going on now with transfers. Friends at X college encourage friends at Z college to transfer. You can't keep kids from talking to each other. NIL will be equally hard to define as tampering. Do you think Nick Saban wasn't trying to entice people with his announcement that his incoming QB had a million dollar NIL deal? its already in the rulebook that the coaches can't directly contact players.

Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

I guess if you're asking if the NCAA can regulate the NIL, that's an emphatic NO, from me. The NCAA has become a collection of bumbling idiots who are already behind the 8 ball.

Now when we inevitably move to pay for play, I think we will see the creation of a board of directors and the appointment of a commissioner. This will be much like the NFL and they will most certainly look for a way to keep the NIL regulated.

(01-30-2022 01:46 PM)bullet Wrote:  I see a lot of posters and the ACC commissioner talk about the wild west of NIL.

With the court rulings, I don't see a way to regulate NIL. Anything they did would seem to run afoul of the law.

Division III technically doesn't offer athletic scholarships, so they aren't offering any compensation to have the students give up their rights. And Division I is the one who got sued over what they tried to control.

The test case is BYU. They have all their walk-ons in football funded with a full scholarship through NIL. That effectively removes the 85 scholarship limit. I'm not sure how you can regulate that.

Thoughts?

It currently is regulated, by the individual states.

NCAA had an opportunity to do it and decided to hope it would be done federally. That plane has left the gate for that and SCOTUS is ready to rule against them if they status quo of State's Rights continues.

(01-30-2022 01:54 PM)EKUSteve Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 01:46 PM)bullet Wrote:  I see a lot of posters and the ACC commissioner talk about the wild west of NIL.

With the court rulings, I don't see a way to regulate NIL. Anything they did would seem to run afoul of the law.

Division III technically doesn't offer athletic scholarships, so they aren't offering any compensation to have the students give up their rights. And Division I is the one who got sued over what they tried to control.

The test case is BYU. They have all their walk-ons in football funded with a full scholarship through NIL. That effectively removes the 85 scholarship limit. I'm not sure how you can regulate that.

Thoughts?

Here is what NAIA has recently done.

https://www.naia.org/membership/name-image-likeness

The video next to it shows an interview with a girl who managed to become a TikTok star by showing home-improvement videos, and who was getting product endorsements. For example, she made a putting green for her father, and showed some golf products and received $3K. She would lose her eligibility as a volleyball player for that.

But what happens when the NIL is tied to athletic performance?

Can coach go to kid's home along with the general manager of Bubba's Buick and "separately" promise him a scholarship and a car for kid appearing in ads for BB in his football uniform.

How many NIL deals are there going to be for highly recruited QB at Central High prior to him committing to a university.

The advertiser might not want someone who is associated with "U" rather than "State"?

(01-30-2022 07:09 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  I guess if you're asking if the NCAA can regulate the NIL, that's an emphatic NO, from me. The NCAA has become a collection of bumbling idiots who are already behind the 8 ball.

Now when we inevitably move to pay for play, I think we will see the creation of a board of directors and the appointment of a commissioner. This will be much like the NFL and they will most certainly look for a way to keep the NIL regulated.

The NFL can't regulate NIL any more than the NCAA can. Regulations designed to promote competitiveness (that is, to prevent NIL from being a tool for schools to recruit athletes) are unnecessary in the NFL which has both a draft and collectively bargained salary caps) to accomplish that purpose.

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Very doubtful. None of them are touching it with a 1000-foot pole after the Alston case. Justice Kavanugh’s concurring opinion in that case had to send a shiver down the spine of every college administrator. He’s hardly a pro-labor justice at all, yet just eviscerated everything about the college sports compensation model.

I’ve said this many times before that these types of restrictions are a uniting force between liberals (on labor protection grounds) and conservatives (on free market grounds). Essentially, the NCAA and conferences aren’t going to dare to let any case to get up to the Supreme Court again since both sides of the debate have all but said that they’re all walking antitrust violations.

The worries about NIL “abuse” are simply way, way, way, WAY overstated on forums like this one. The reality is that the vast majority of the rest of the world either (a) thinks the athletes should get every penny that they can, (b) thinks the NCAA and conferences are anti-competitive cartels that should be broken up and/or © simply DGAF and just wants to watch football and basketball regardless of whether players get paid.

(01-31-2022 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Very doubtful. None of them are touching it with a 1000-foot pole after the Alston case. Justice Kavanugh’s concurring opinion in that case had to send a shiver down the spine of every college administrator. He’s hardly a pro-labor justice at all, yet just eviscerated everything about the college sports compensation model.

I’ve said this many times before that these types of restrictions are a uniting force between liberals (on labor protection grounds) and conservatives (on free market grounds). Essentially, the NCAA and conferences aren’t going to dare to let any case to get up to the Supreme Court again since both sides of the debate have all but said that they’re all walking antitrust violations.

The worries about NIL “abuse” are simply way, way, way, WAY overstated on forums like this one. The reality is that the vast majority of the rest of the world either (a) thinks the athletes should get every penny that they can, (b) thinks the NCAA and conferences are anti-competitive cartels that should be broken up and/or © simply DGAF and just wants to watch football and basketball regardless of whether players get paid.

I agree about the courts. The NCAA and conferences want to stay out of them, LOL.

And also, there have been those who thought the traditional NCAA model in its various aspects would be bailed out by Congressional modifications to anti-trust law or somesuch, but IMO there is zero appetite in Congress for giving the NCAA any relief either, on NIL or anything else. As you say, this is one issue that liberals and conservatives seem to be on the same page about, and that page is not the NCAA's page, it's pro-player.

Also, the first year of NIL has not caused a "sky is falling" kind of disruption to college athletics. There's no impact that has caused the public to cry out in alarm.

It has been very impactful within athletics. IMO, it is clear that NIL is being used in recruiting of high school athletes, and in the transfer portal. I think that is one reason why TAMU has been able to bolster its recruiting so much. It has huge donors who have reportedly put up $25 million so far towards NIL. But so what? That's how it is supposed to work, IMO.

The Transfer Portal has IMO been much more disruptive than NIL, and that ironically is the NCAA's own creation, LOL.

(01-31-2022 09:45 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Very doubtful. None of them are touching it with a 1000-foot pole after the Alston case. Justice Kavanugh’s concurring opinion in that case had to send a shiver down the spine of every college administrator. He’s hardly a pro-labor justice at all, yet just eviscerated everything about the college sports compensation model.

I’ve said this many times before that these types of restrictions are a uniting force between liberals (on labor protection grounds) and conservatives (on free market grounds). Essentially, the NCAA and conferences aren’t going to dare to let any case to get up to the Supreme Court again since both sides of the debate have all but said that they’re all walking antitrust violations.

The worries about NIL “abuse” are simply way, way, way, WAY overstated on forums like this one. The reality is that the vast majority of the rest of the world either (a) thinks the athletes should get every penny that they can, (b) thinks the NCAA and conferences are anti-competitive cartels that should be broken up and/or © simply DGAF and just wants to watch football and basketball regardless of whether players get paid.

I agree about the courts. The NCAA and conferences want to stay out of them, LOL.

And also, there have been those who thought the traditional NCAA model in its various aspects would be bailed out by Congressional modifications to anti-trust law or somesuch, but IMO there is zero appetite in Congress for giving the NCAA any relief either, on NIL or anything else. As you say, this is one issue that liberals and conservatives seem to be on the same page about, and that page is not the NCAA's page, it's pro-player.

Also, the first year of NIL has not caused a "sky is falling" kind of disruption to college athletics. There's no impact that has caused the public to cry out in alarm.

It has been very impactful within athletics. IMO, it is clear that NIL is being used in recruiting of high school athletes, and in the transfer portal. I think that is one reason why TAMU has been able to bolster its recruiting so much. It has huge donors who have reportedly put up $25 million so far towards NIL. But so what? That's how it is supposed to work, IMO.

The Transfer Portal has IMO been much more disruptive than NIL, and that ironically is the NCAA's own creation, LOL.

Good point about the transfer portal. Essentially, you can never stop recruiting, including the players that are currently on your own team.

(01-31-2022 09:56 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 09:45 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Very doubtful. None of them are touching it with a 1000-foot pole after the Alston case. Justice Kavanugh’s concurring opinion in that case had to send a shiver down the spine of every college administrator. He’s hardly a pro-labor justice at all, yet just eviscerated everything about the college sports compensation model.

I’ve said this many times before that these types of restrictions are a uniting force between liberals (on labor protection grounds) and conservatives (on free market grounds). Essentially, the NCAA and conferences aren’t going to dare to let any case to get up to the Supreme Court again since both sides of the debate have all but said that they’re all walking antitrust violations.

The worries about NIL “abuse” are simply way, way, way, WAY overstated on forums like this one. The reality is that the vast majority of the rest of the world either (a) thinks the athletes should get every penny that they can, (b) thinks the NCAA and conferences are anti-competitive cartels that should be broken up and/or © simply DGAF and just wants to watch football and basketball regardless of whether players get paid.

I agree about the courts. The NCAA and conferences want to stay out of them, LOL.

And also, there have been those who thought the traditional NCAA model in its various aspects would be bailed out by Congressional modifications to anti-trust law or somesuch, but IMO there is zero appetite in Congress for giving the NCAA any relief either, on NIL or anything else. As you say, this is one issue that liberals and conservatives seem to be on the same page about, and that page is not the NCAA's page, it's pro-player.

Also, the first year of NIL has not caused a "sky is falling" kind of disruption to college athletics. There's no impact that has caused the public to cry out in alarm.

It has been very impactful within athletics. IMO, it is clear that NIL is being used in recruiting of high school athletes, and in the transfer portal. I think that is one reason why TAMU has been able to bolster its recruiting so much. It has huge donors who have reportedly put up $25 million so far towards NIL. But so what? That's how it is supposed to work, IMO.

The Transfer Portal has IMO been much more disruptive than NIL, and that ironically is the NCAA's own creation, LOL.

Good point about the transfer portal. Essentially, you can never stop recruiting, including the players that are currently on your own team.

Potentially, pay for play could remedy that. If players are employees under contract they could be bound to their employer school with a non-compete clause for some reasonable term.

(01-31-2022 11:18 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 09:56 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 09:45 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-31-2022 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Very doubtful. None of them are touching it with a 1000-foot pole after the Alston case. Justice Kavanugh’s concurring opinion in that case had to send a shiver down the spine of every college administrator. He’s hardly a pro-labor justice at all, yet just eviscerated everything about the college sports compensation model.

I’ve said this many times before that these types of restrictions are a uniting force between liberals (on labor protection grounds) and conservatives (on free market grounds). Essentially, the NCAA and conferences aren’t going to dare to let any case to get up to the Supreme Court again since both sides of the debate have all but said that they’re all walking antitrust violations.

The worries about NIL “abuse” are simply way, way, way, WAY overstated on forums like this one. The reality is that the vast majority of the rest of the world either (a) thinks the athletes should get every penny that they can, (b) thinks the NCAA and conferences are anti-competitive cartels that should be broken up and/or © simply DGAF and just wants to watch football and basketball regardless of whether players get paid.

I agree about the courts. The NCAA and conferences want to stay out of them, LOL.

And also, there have been those who thought the traditional NCAA model in its various aspects would be bailed out by Congressional modifications to anti-trust law or somesuch, but IMO there is zero appetite in Congress for giving the NCAA any relief either, on NIL or anything else. As you say, this is one issue that liberals and conservatives seem to be on the same page about, and that page is not the NCAA's page, it's pro-player.

Also, the first year of NIL has not caused a "sky is falling" kind of disruption to college athletics. There's no impact that has caused the public to cry out in alarm.

It has been very impactful within athletics. IMO, it is clear that NIL is being used in recruiting of high school athletes, and in the transfer portal. I think that is one reason why TAMU has been able to bolster its recruiting so much. It has huge donors who have reportedly put up $25 million so far towards NIL. But so what? That's how it is supposed to work, IMO.

The Transfer Portal has IMO been much more disruptive than NIL, and that ironically is the NCAA's own creation, LOL.

Good point about the transfer portal. Essentially, you can never stop recruiting, including the players that are currently on your own team.

Potentially, pay for play could remedy that. If players are employees under contract they could be bound to their employer school with a non-compete clause for some reasonable term.

The problem is that you can't have an NCAA-wide standard on the length of the contract.

Imagine if Ford, GM, Chevy, and Toyota got together and said that every worker at a certain pay grade had to sign a 4-year contract. That would clearly be illegal collusion.

Each individual employer (university) can decide to only sign 4-year contracts, but they can't collaborate with other employers (universities) to set that as a standard.

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

In the BYU case, and since the NCAA is a voluntary organization, can't the NCAA penalize BYU for violating the rules they agreed upon?

If not, then all scholarship limits are out the door.

And if in fact these are defacto scholarships, wouldn't Title IX come into play?

(01-30-2022 01:54 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Probably can’t regulate using NIL to subsidize walk-ons.

IMO there are very few teams for which boosters would want to pay the school expenses of every walk-on football player, so this may be something that isn’t enough of a problem to need a major solution.

If a rule was needed, the best answer is roster limits. If a football team is limited to a roster of 100 and a basketball team is limited to 20, both of which are generous limits, that should do it. A roster limit would be okay because it is a rule of the sport, like how many players can be on the field at once, rather than an anticompetitive rule.

Isn't the number currently 80 or something? Maybe it should be lowered a tad to like 70 or 65. It would spread the talent out more and would make getting to the top schools like Alabama, Ohio State, etc. even more competitive since they would have less spots for scholarship players and walk-ons.

(01-30-2022 06:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 04:46 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Federally? Sure. That's just a question of legislative will (it's not really there). It's difficult to imagine any federal college sports bill getting passed until the next presidential administration.

On a state basis? Sort of! Virtually every state has passed an NIL law, but virtually nobody has explained how the state intends to enforce any of the regulations in the text. Very few of them have anything resembling teeth to them.

By the NCAA? It's hard to imagine regulations far beyond what they currently have would stand up to a court challenge.

I guess that was what I was asking. Can the NCAA or conferences do anything?

Not without getting sued, not really. I've had lawyers and administrators tell me leagues couldn't even prohibit their athletes from doing deals with like, porn companies.

(01-31-2022 08:11 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 07:09 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  I guess if you're asking if the NCAA can regulate the NIL, that's an emphatic NO, from me. The NCAA has become a collection of bumbling idiots who are already behind the 8 ball.

Now when we inevitably move to pay for play, I think we will see the creation of a board of directors and the appointment of a commissioner. This will be much like the NFL and they will most certainly look for a way to keep the NIL regulated.

The NFL can't regulate NIL any more than the NCAA can. Regulations designed to promote competitiveness (that is, to prevent NIL from being a tool for schools to recruit athletes) are unnecessary in the NFL which has both a draft and collectively bargained salary caps) to accomplish that purpose.

That is actually my point and has been for awhile. It's less about the NIL and more about the salary caps and collective bargaining. IMO when we go to a pay for play model there will be a formation of a players union, some sort of management, there will be contracts, and very likely a salary cap. Many on here believe that it will be the wild west, I disagree, I think we're in the wild west now.

What exactly this looks like for NIL's is yet to be seen but like in all other professionalized sports NIL has little to no effect on where athletes choose to sign contracts. They look for who will pay the most first, then to things like state taxes next. Does this mean that some car dealer in rural Alabama can still give the 2 million dollar contract to a backup QB as referenced above, absolutely, but when there's a collective bargaining and a salary cap there will only be so many 5 star kids that will choose to go to Alabama when they can sign big money contracts to start elsewhere.

I honestly do not think people really understand how different the professional model is than what we've been witness to in our life times. Pay to play will add restrictions and limitations not lessen them. I reference the NFL because that's where these athletes are trying to get to so a pay model in college isn't going to be less restrictive and more lucrative than their dream. I won't argue that it will take time and be a bumpy process but this is what happens when people are paid for their talents. I'm happy for the athletes but I'm not sure all fan bases will be happy with the outcome.