Attackcoog
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RE: Am I the only one who thinks pay for play will be a train wreck?
(10-02-2019 10:34 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (10-02-2019 10:17 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: I don't believe there is an easy cookie-cutter solution on how to "fix" the current tides of collegiate sports, mostly because the NCAA has ignored for years the changing landscape that it has become. I view this bill, and states' willingness (on both sides) to push it through, as a match to a powder keig - in hopes that it will somehow burn the existing hypocritical system down (without any real solution on how to reform on a macro-level).
At the bare minimum, this bill's DNA will be simply to change how the money is being funneled to the elite athletes in football and men's basketball. Instead of shoe companies doing backdoor deals, or wealthy boosters laundering money, it will now be legal for athletes to receive compensation - and let's be honest: an overwhelming majority of that pot will be going to football and men's basketball players. I don't know what the response would then be from Title IX supporters, when women's teams aren't getting the same cut of the pie from sponsors (look at what the USWNT faces annually).
To the extreme, this could be the end of the NCAA as we know it. With California, and other states, following the same legislation (but perhaps with different expectations and/or wording), we could see the rise of regional governance bodies for collegiate sports (which would definitely negatively affect the national competition of collegiate sport).
While the prior model absolutely did not work perfectly before, there at least was the idea that a governing body (NCAA) could hammer teams that blatantly broke the rules with illegal recruiting and compensating players. With this new legislation, there is absolutely nothing to stop boosters from two competing schools paying top dollar for a sponsorship fee from their respective businesses to go to "their" school (which is fine for a free market, but then college sports [well, really, football and men's basketball] has effectively turned into free agency).
In summary, I have no idea what will happen, but I am definitely worried that the ramifications of such a bill were not fully thought out, and that the NCAA will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube.
Here's how I see it: the California bill is doing the *schools* a favor. (To be sure, it might not be doing the NCAA as a governing entity a favor.) The Olympic model (which is essentially what the California bill provides for here) is a way for schools to avoid Title IX issues while relieving the growing pressure public pressure regarding athlete compensation for the football and basketball players that earn revenue for those schools.
The USWNT dispute is about direct compensation from US Soccer, which is more akin to if schools were to directly compensate players that is NOT allowed under the California bill. In contrast, Alex Morgan and other USWNT players have been free to obtain their own endorsement deals at market value, so there hasn't been any limitation on that front. Similarly, any direct compensation from schools to athletes (such as unionization efforts) would absolutely result in Title IX issues where all athletes (regardless of the sport) would need to be paid equally. The Olympic model eliminates that type of concern because Nike/Adidas/any other third party can choose to pay whoever they want at whatever rate that they want without having a Title IX issue.
Is the California bill a perfect solution? No. Could there be abuses of the new system? Yes. However, to use the old adage, don't let perfection be the enemy of good. The current system features abuses, the huge influence of donors, the entrenchment of the most powerful athletic programs, and every single other problem that the opponents of the California bill claims that will occur... and they're happening *today* and it's happening under the table. I'm a large believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant. All of these "bad" things are happening now and they're occurring under-the-table. The way to level the playing field is to actually get it all on the table so everyone knows what they're actually dealing with here.
And once again, the schools are NOT paying for this compensation of athletes directly at all. No sports need to be cut and no Title IX issues need to be addressed under the California bill. As others have alluded to above, this is a VERY big difference in the eyes of the law and in terms of school financial situations.
Separately, I don't believe that we're going to see any regionalization of rules and governing bodies under the new paradigm. This effort is going coast-to-coast with bipartisan support across all demographics and regions. When push comes to shove, the state of Alabama isn't going to let California and Florida schools have any type of legal advantage over them. This will ultimately be a national effort at the end of the day (which, in a backhanded way, is good news for the NCAA in the sense that it would still have a purpose as a national governing body).
Lets be honest, the "olympic model" in college athletics would be a complete farce. The NFL has 10 times the viewership of college football and its star athletes are far bigger celebrities. Yet, even in the NFL, only a handful of NFL athletes per team get endorsement deals. At the college level, that number would be only a fraction of the NFL figures if the endorsements had to make real world economic sense for the business entity.
Another factor that makes endoresement deals with college players economically unlikely----risk. There is always a risk factor that the athlete might do something that reflects negatively on the company he is endorsing. There is a moderate, but significant, degree of "risk" that a 28 year old NFL player might do something embarrassing. The "he might do something stupid" risk is exponentially higher for a 19 year old college player barely out of high school.
And then there is the unspoken truth---its virtually impossible that any high school recruit---thats never played a college football game or even played on television at all---has one dollar of legitimate endorsement value. So I think anyone with any common sense can agree that the vast majority of high school recruits getting an endorsement deals under such a system would be completely nonsensical from a legitimate economic point of view.
Thats why I see the olympic model as simply SMU style third party booster pay-for-play cheating thats been legalized. I think its just a bad idea all around. In my opinion, there is surely a less disruptive way to bring the players some sort of compensation without essentially putting boosters in charge of recruiting and roster personnel.
(This post was last modified: 10-03-2019 12:21 AM by Attackcoog.)
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