(02-04-2020 11:25 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: (02-04-2020 11:14 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (02-04-2020 10:43 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: (02-04-2020 10:23 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (02-04-2020 10:09 AM)bullet Wrote: Right.
Exactly.
Schools and fans can't bemoan that college sports are turning "semipro" but then put restrictions in place on player movement that in order to protect the fact that (surprise!) great players on athletic teams can make a lot of money and interest for those schools. People are so worried about the Ohio States and Alabamas of the world hoarding talent that they're ignoring the whole cognitive dissonance that restricting player movement actually makes the players look *more* like professional employees. In the real world, that's called a non-compete clause in your employment agreement.
My reactions here is a giant shrug, I’ve said for a long time the only long term solution for big time college sports as we know it is probably to seek an antitrust exemption from the government in exchange for giving the government a greater oversight role in college sports. College sports isn’t pro sports. Title 9 (at least as it’s currently enforced) is incompatible with the capitalistic pro sports model. Given the recent move of multiple states toward differing third party player payment models, federal involvement is now inevitable anyway. If college sports wants to preserve as much of its current model as possible, the only way I see it working is as an institution protected by an antitrust exemption. If the objection before was that they didn’t want to invite a loss of control due to federal involvement—that involvement is now inevitable anyway. May as well game the system and get something in exchange.
Like you’ve said before—the NCAA is a walking antitrust violation. Just own it and ask for an exemption. Governent would likely do so since it’s the only way to preserve title 9 and the opportunities it affords women’s athletes.
Oh, I think that the NCAA would love an antitrust exemption.
The practical political problem is that hating the NCAA is one of the few things that both Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on these days. The bipartisan disdain for that organization is quite strong. I've said before that the NCAA is almost a perfect political foil: conservatives can stick it to the leadership in academia that they despise, while liberals get to advance a player empowerment movement and possibly get them unionized. It's a win-win for both sides of the aisle to rip on the NCAA, so I can't see too much political will to grant them any type of antitrust exemption.
You're correct that Title IX compliance is at odds with a true free market system of colleges directly paying players, so something has to give. That's why the Olympic model of allowing for outside endorsement is where we seem to be settling at for now (as Title IX doesn't apply to, say, Pepsi paying the QB of Alabama for an endorsement when it's not paying any other athletes, whether male or female, at Alabama).
I find it more likely that the politicians will clarify Title IX enforcement under this new paradigm than it is for them to grant an outright antitrust exemption to the NCAA (which would be incredibly unpopular).
Good point. That said---one thing both parties seem to love is power. Im not convinced at all that having a power in the form of oversight and control over major college sports wouldnt be quite attractive to both parties. At the very least---for politicians, control over anything always means a steady flow of campaign dollars will emerge from that arena.
I don't think an anti-trust exemption is likely at all. First, inside the NCAA itself, the power conferences would oppose it, as the anti-trust law is the reason they were able to break free of NCAA control over TV rights back in the 80s. They aren't giving that up.
Second, the existing evidence at the state level doesn't suggest a desire to empower the NCAA. E.g., in California, the vote to allow athletes name and likeness pay was 72-0, liberal democrats and conservative republicans who can't agree on anything voted together on that.
Third, I'm not sure what you mean by Title IX being incompatible with a 'capitalistic' model of college athletics. The name-and-likeness stuff obviously has no ramifications, because that money wouldn't be coming from the schools. And even if schools were no longer prevented from directly paying players, there is no Title IX ramification there, because obviously from the Fed's point of view they will still have to meet the Title IX standard of scholarships for women. No judge is going to allow a USF to say "well, we no longer have the money to fund that women's soccer team because we need that to out-bid UCF and Georgia State for this hot 3-star QB recruit", that would get laughed out of court.
And heck, it's not like at USF or Temple or San Diego State that money saved by not paying football players is resulting in huge profits that are being used to fund the women's tennis team anyway. The football programs at those schools aren't profitable, they often cost more money than they generate, but are kept going in zombie-like fashion largely via student fees and transfers. The schools will just have to transfer enough of that money to the women's teams to comply with the law just as they do now.
Finally, and getting back to the point at hand, even if some of the bigger pay-for-play proposals would shake up the money structure of college athletics in significant ways, the issue being discussed, making the transfer rules for football and hoops players the same as it already is for soccer and tennis players, has no such major monetary ramifications associated with it.
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Big 10 Proposal Would Allow Anyone To Transfer Anywhere Without Sitting Out a Year
