I generally don’t agree with an expansion only for the sake of expansion. Likewise, I don’t think the breakaway would happen for the sake of the breakaway.
But one possible breakaway scenario that I can see potentially happen and described in another thread is following:
A certain number of schools decide to completely ditch the NCAA collegiate model and professionalize their football programs by setting up non academic affiliated entities. These entities recruit college aged football players by directly paying salaries and benefits. This is not a normal collegiate pay for play model because these players are NOT students but young professional football players. The ESPN broadcasts their games, which pretty much dominates Saturday lineups. Let’s call this league the NFL lite.
For this scenario, the breakaway makes sense because there will be no interaction between the NFL lite and the regular D1 college programs and the governing bodies will be different. Please note that (1) not all schools would want to professionalize/commercialize their football programs and (2) not all schools which are willing to professionalize their programs won’t be invited.
Now, the first question would be which schools will not want to professionalize their programs because so far we have assumed that every school would want to play in the highest level and be willing to adopt the pay for play model. But the complete professionalization is a different ball game. This has nothing to do with the university mission and some schools will reject this extreme commercialization idea. According to Forde, the examples of the schools that will not professionalize include:
ND, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, USC, UCLA, Cal, Virginia, North Carolina, and maybe Michigan.
The second question would be then which schools would be professionalizing their programs. Forde only gave two examples (Clemson and Oregon) but I would say most of the SEC teams (except for Vandy) and most of the BIG teams (except for NW) would be in. Who else will make the cut? If the ESPN/media decides they would need more than 32 teams for the NFL lite, even schools with smaller revenue potential than the average of the SEC/BIG drawing may have chance to get invited. This means FSU and Clemson to the SEC or Oregon and Colorado to the BIG would become a possibility.
The third question will be what would happen to the regular college league? If some of the current blue blood schools stay voluntarily, would this league be still viable in the future? Or would it become like an ivy school football league?
Yeah, I'm not interested in UCF licensing the name to a semi-pro team. I'll find a D-3 team to follow if this is the way FBS goes.
However they need to finance it.
As long as it’s the same teams competing in the same locations against the same annoying fan bases, I don’t care who has liabilities or revenue
To your third question, the regular college league will produce more than enough eyeballs to stay on tv, heck I don’t think it’s a given that the nfl lite will be successful
(05-10-2022 12:33 PM)random asian guy Wrote: [ -> ]According to Forde, the examples of the schools that will not professionalize include:
ND, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, USC, UCLA, Cal, Virginia, North Carolina, and maybe Michigan.
I wouldn't put Michigan in that group.
Purdue, Northwestern, and Wisconsin have long been considered to be on the same page as Notre Dame on this issue.
From what I understand, there's an unofficial voting block of Purdue, Wisconsin, Northwester, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota that guarantees that those 6 will be on the same side of this issue. Nebraska & Ohio State will oppose them, probably joined by Iowa & Penn State.
So in the Big Ten, Michigan & Michigan State (or maybe Rutgers & Maryland?) will cast the deciding votes.
I suspect you'll see most of the voting on this align along the same axis as shutting down the FBS season in summer 2020. Except with Notre Dame on the side of the Big Ten & Pac this time.
(05-10-2022 03:01 PM)JHS55 Wrote: [ -> ]To your third question, the regular college league will produce more than enough eyeballs to stay on tv, heck I don’t think it’s a given that the nfl lite will be successful
I think you’re right. At least the ESPN3 / ACCN tier TV would broadcast the non NFL lite schools.
From the TexanMark’s thread, it appears that the academic first schools like BC, UNC, Duke, Stanford, ND, Northwestern, and Syracuse are already working on the contingency plan.
I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
(05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
You have a strong conviction. We will see.
By the same token, the Ivy league schools lose the obscene amount of money every year by not monitizing their sports games. Many elite schools such as U Chicago don’t have D1 sports and some of them could have made lots of profit by switching to D1.
(05-11-2022 12:08 PM)random asian guy Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
You have a strong conviction. We will see.
By the same token, the Ivy league schools lose the obscene amount of money every year by not monitizing their sports games. Many elite schools such as U Chicago don’t have D1 sports and some of them could have made lots of profit by switching to D1.
Those decisions by the Ivy League and places like UChicago were made many decades ago when it wasn't even common for an American household to own a television set.
In contrast, essentially everyone that is believing the sanctimonious hypocritical BS complaining from people like Jack Swarbrick also believes that schools like ND, Northwestern, Duke and Stanford are just going to unilaterally give up tens of millions of dollars per year after having invested hundreds of millions of dollars in athletic facilities and spending decades (or even over a century) building up their athletic brands while simultaneously paying their respective coaches millions of dollars per year (and firing them and paying buyouts when they don't happen to win enough football/basketball games) are suddenly going to get religion when it comes to paying the actual talent on-the-field/court that made all of those hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and capital investments possible.
I don't believe that sanctimonious hypocritical BS for one moment and it deserves to be treated with complete scorn. If schools were actually worried about becoming "NFL Lite," then they wouldn't have been paying their coaches NFL-level salaries and building NFL-level luxury suites and training facilities for MANY YEARS. That didn't suddenly come up with NIL compensation or the transfer portal. It's a bunch of BS that I have no patience for and I'll call it out every time.
(05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
Frank, just to be sure I understand your position on this, you are convinced that EVERYONE will accept professionalizing their football programs with players who are NON-STUDENT EMPLOYEES if that is how today’s college football bluebloods choose to evolve the sport. In other words, they will all buy in to sponsoring minor-league pro football franchises with players who wear the university’s brand but have no obligations on campus other than practicing, playing, showing up for publicity events and drawing their paychecks. Is that correct?
(05-10-2022 03:13 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: [ -> ]From what I understand, there's an unofficial voting block ...
Is this similar to a gentlemen's agreement?
(05-11-2022 12:28 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
Frank, just to be sure I understand your position on this, you are convinced that EVERYONE will accept professionalizing their football programs with players who are NON-STUDENT EMPLOYEES if that is how today’s college football bluebloods choose to evolve the sport. In other words, they will all buy in to sponsoring minor-league pro football franchises with players who wear the university’s brand but have no obligations on campus other than practicing, playing, showing up for publicity events and drawing their paychecks. Is that correct?
NO. That is a complete misinterpretation. I have said nothing of the sort that these would be non-student employees. In fact, I have pushed back completely on the notion of a school licensing its name to a third party sports team as totally illusory on many levels. I understand that the OP has referred to this notion of non-students playing and completely do NOT believe that will occur.
I'm talking about
student-athletes getting paid. Period. NOT a team of non-students that try to slap on an Ohio State or Alabama logo.
(05-11-2022 12:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:28 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
Frank, just to be sure I understand your position on this, you are convinced that EVERYONE will accept professionalizing their football programs with players who are NON-STUDENT EMPLOYEES if that is how today’s college football bluebloods choose to evolve the sport. In other words, they will all buy in to sponsoring minor-league pro football franchises with players who wear the university’s brand but have no obligations on campus other than practicing, playing, showing up for publicity events and drawing their paychecks. Is that correct?
NO. That is a complete misinterpretation. I have said nothing of the sort that these would be non-student employees. In fact, I have pushed back completely on the notion of a school licensing its name to a third party sports team as totally illusory on many levels. I understand that the OP has referred to this notion of non-students playing and completely do NOT believe that will occur.
I'm talking about student-athletes getting paid. Period. NOT a team of non-students that try to slap on an Ohio State or Alabama logo.
Then we are talking about two different things. This thread is about complete pro model where players are NOT students. And no, I don’t think it is a third party licensing. It’s going to be a school affiliated entity doing the business. Not a hard concept.
(05-11-2022 12:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'm talking about student-athletes getting paid. Period.
All of them?
(05-11-2022 12:47 PM)random asian guy Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:28 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
Frank, just to be sure I understand your position on this, you are convinced that EVERYONE will accept professionalizing their football programs with players who are NON-STUDENT EMPLOYEES if that is how today’s college football bluebloods choose to evolve the sport. In other words, they will all buy in to sponsoring minor-league pro football franchises with players who wear the university’s brand but have no obligations on campus other than practicing, playing, showing up for publicity events and drawing their paychecks. Is that correct?
NO. That is a complete misinterpretation. I have said nothing of the sort that these would be non-student employees. In fact, I have pushed back completely on the notion of a school licensing its name to a third party sports team as totally illusory on many levels. I understand that the OP has referred to this notion of non-students playing and completely do NOT believe that will occur.
I'm talking about student-athletes getting paid. Period. NOT a team of non-students that try to slap on an Ohio State or Alabama logo.
Then we are talking about two different things. This thread is about complete pro model where players are NOT students. And no, I don’t think it is a third party licensing. It’s going to be a school affiliated entity doing the business. Not a hard concept.
Doesn't matter. They all have the same practical effect of trying to use a school brand for a team that really doesn't have anything to do with school.
While I typically agree with P.T. Barnum's line that no one has gone broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public, trying to put non-students in Ohio State and Alabama uniforms and believing that the viewing public will be duped into thinking that has any value is simply at odds with how college sports became valuable.
I've never once thought that the vast majority of fans care whatsoever that college players would get paid. However, I *do* believe that fans care that they're actually students of that college (even if they're not Rhodes Scholars). More importantly, as money-grubbing as these colleges might be (and oh, believe me that they are money-grubbing), they still do very much care about their brands and the lack of control that they would have over non-student employees is totally untenable on a whole lot of levels (e.g. legal, financial, etc.).
Also note the financial reality is an $80,000 scholarship that covers tuition and room and board is MUCH cheaper for a college to provide than that sticker price (typically covered by an endowment and is really an internal money transfer from the athletic department to the university), while an $80,000 salary is a straight-up out-of-pocket expense that the university has to pay outright. It makes very little sense for any university to shift to a complete salary model (and, in turn, it doesn't make sense for the students either since a scholarship is tax-free while straight income is taxable).
In essence, I'm actually sort of on the small "c" conservative side of viewing the future structural setup of college sports at least on the power level. In a weird way, the fact that there's so much change occurring to everyone at the exact same time will have the counterintuitive effect of keeping everyone in place. Schools will continue to want their athletes to be students along with making the most money possible from athletics. That would be the case for Stanford or Duke or Ohio State or Alabama. There's a pretty straight line here: the schools will simply start paying their student-athletes to the extent that the law and free market requires. Setting up a separate entity is complete "form over substance" from a legal perspective.
(05-11-2022 12:57 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'm talking about student-athletes getting paid. Period.
All of them?
To the extent that they're deemed to be employees under applicable law, yes, absolutely. That's the cost of doing business. Believe me - I have no sympathy for any P5 school on that particular issue with how much they're taking in on football and basketball (along with their creative accounting to attempt to show that they're somehow not making money on those sports). They can pay all of their athletes (whether revenue or non-revenue) a flat rate for hours spent on their respective sports while third parties can step in and pay outsized NIL amounts to the star players in football and basketball (or special cases like Suni Lee at Auburn).
It's really not that hard. You don't need shell company subsidiaries or any other convoluted legal structure (and I say that as someone that gets paid to analyze convoluted legal structures). Every other freaking industry (including the entire rest of the respective universities) deals with it every day. The only complicated thing about any of this is our emotions as fans and how we perceive competitive balance. The actual employment aspect of this isn't complicated. (There are legal issues like Title VII and Title IX, but those are all resolved by the equal direct payments/unequal NIL payment combo addressed above.)
UVa spent 50 years blocking Virginia Tech’s admission into the ACC. UVa wanted to have the exclusive prestige of being the best athletics brand in the commonwealth. Athletics is a differentiator amongst universities. Now you are asking UVa to completely give-up high-level athletics?
Besides, UVa has been somewhat influential within the NCAA. Dick Schultz was UVa’s athletics director in the 1980s, who would subsequently become president of the NCAA and USOC throughout the 1990s. Most likely, UVa will be trying to transform collegiate athletics…trying to fashion a business model were student-athletes equitably benefit.
(05-11-2022 01:09 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:47 PM)random asian guy Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:36 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 12:28 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote: [ -> ] (05-11-2022 11:37 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]I'll stand by what I've stated elsewhere repeatedly: absolutely no one in the P5 is going to unilaterally disarm.
I don't care if it's Stanford, Duke, ND, Michigan, Alabama or Clemson.
No one is unilaterally disarming. Absolutely no one.
Oh sure - they will whine and moan about the changes for the time being and talk about how their respective academic missions are being threatened. They'd all love to find some way to reign in potential student-athlete costs and keep on making their drug cartel-level profits in sports. However, when push comes to shove, absolutely no one (ESPECIALLY the wealthiest and most prestigious universities) are going to unilaterally both downgrade their athletic revenue or prestige (e.g. P5 membership or whatever the future equivalent might be). Academia is a prestige and branding-driven business and schools with actual choices don't choose to unilaterally downgrade on any front (including but not limited to athletics).
So, the answer is that EVERYONE will be in. I completely and 100% believe this and no one can convince me otherwise.
Frank, just to be sure I understand your position on this, you are convinced that EVERYONE will accept professionalizing their football programs with players who are NON-STUDENT EMPLOYEES if that is how today’s college football bluebloods choose to evolve the sport. In other words, they will all buy in to sponsoring minor-league pro football franchises with players who wear the university’s brand but have no obligations on campus other than practicing, playing, showing up for publicity events and drawing their paychecks. Is that correct?
NO. That is a complete misinterpretation. I have said nothing of the sort that these would be non-student employees. In fact, I have pushed back completely on the notion of a school licensing its name to a third party sports team as totally illusory on many levels. I understand that the OP has referred to this notion of non-students playing and completely do NOT believe that will occur.
I'm talking about student-athletes getting paid. Period. NOT a team of non-students that try to slap on an Ohio State or Alabama logo.
Then we are talking about two different things. This thread is about complete pro model where players are NOT students. And no, I don’t think it is a third party licensing. It’s going to be a school affiliated entity doing the business. Not a hard concept.
Doesn't matter. They all have the same practical effect of trying to use a school brand for a team that really doesn't have anything to do with school.
While I typically agree with P.T. Barnum's line that no one has gone broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public, trying to put non-students in Ohio State and Alabama uniforms and believing that the viewing public will be duped into thinking that has any value is simply at odds with how college sports became valuable.
I've never once thought that the vast majority of fans care whatsoever that college players would get paid. However, I *do* believe that fans care that they're actually students of that college (even if they're not Rhodes Scholars). More importantly, as money-grubbing as these colleges might be (and oh, believe me that they are money-grubbing), they still do very much care about their brands and the lack of control that they would have over non-student employees is totally untenable on a whole lot of levels (e.g. legal, financial, etc.).
Also note the financial reality is an $80,000 scholarship that covers tuition and room and board is MUCH cheaper for a college to provide than that sticker price (typically covered by an endowment and is really an internal money transfer from the athletic department to the university), while an $80,000 salary is a straight-up out-of-pocket expense that the university has to pay outright. It makes very little sense for any university to shift to a complete salary model (and, in turn, it doesn't make sense for the students either since a scholarship is tax-free while straight income is taxable).
In essence, I'm actually sort of on the small "c" conservative side of viewing the future structural setup of college sports at least on the power level. In a weird way, the fact that there's so much change occurring to everyone at the exact same time will have the counterintuitive effect of keeping everyone in place. Schools will continue to want their athletes to be students along with making the most money possible from athletics. That would be the case for Stanford or Duke or Ohio State or Alabama. There's a pretty straight line here: the schools will simply start paying their student-athletes to the extent that the law and free market requires. Setting up a separate entity is complete "form over substance" from a legal perspective.
I always thought the opposite.
What do these universities have to do with running sports business? If they want to pay their players either directly or indirectly, use a proper business entity and do it in a professional league. Running sports business as a college entity seems like complete “form over substance” to me.
(05-11-2022 01:55 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: [ -> ]UVa spent 50 years blocking Virginia Tech’s admission into the ACC. UVa wanted to have the exclusive prestige of being the best athletics brand in the commonwealth. Athletics is a differentiator amongst universities. Now you are asking UVa to completely give-up high-level athletics?
Besides, UVa has been somewhat influential within the NCAA. Dick Schultz was UVa’s athletics director in the 1980s, who would subsequently become president of the NCAA and USOC throughout the 1990s. Most likely, UVa will be trying to transform collegiate athletics…trying to fashion a business model were student-athletes equitably benefit.
“Dropping down” to a lower level or “giving up” highest level athletics is a misleading term in my opinion.
Many schools including UVa will continue the current model while trying to improve it by adopting the NIL and pay for play as necessary.
But what if the SEC schools decide to professionalize their football programs by 1) exiting the NCAA, 2) paying the players directly without a cap, and 3) requiring the players of no school activities? I guess the SEC programs will have huge advantages over collegiate schools in terms of recruiting. Almost all blue chip recruits would take the SEC programs. Why won’t they? Much more money and no school work. And if some players desire the college education, the SEC teams will be able to offer the free education as a fringe benefit.
I don’t know about VT but I don’t see UVa or Duke would follow that professionalization. So it’s not like UVa is dropping down or giving up. It’s more like UVa is being left out as certain schools are “breaking away”.
This is the only scenario where I see a real “breakaway” can actually happen.
(05-11-2022 01:14 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]To the extent that they're deemed to be employees under applicable law, yes, absolutely. That's the cost of doing business. Believe me - I have no sympathy for any P5 school on that particular issue with how much they're taking in on football and basketball (along with their creative accounting to attempt to show that they're somehow not making money on those sports). They can pay all of their athletes (whether revenue or non-revenue) a flat rate for hours spent on their respective sports while third parties can step in and pay outsized NIL amounts to the star players in football and basketball (or special cases like Suni Lee at Auburn).
What about swimming, lacrosse, track, etc.? Are they more or less worthy simply because their sports don't make money? Do we expect Davidson College (where one in four students play intercollegiate sports) to all be paid to do so?
Universities should eliminate any mandatory time commitments for sports with the understanding that they are under no obligation to participate; and with that, no additional compensation should be expected.