(01-16-2021 09:13 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-16-2021 08:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-16-2021 03:23 PM)JRsec Wrote:  It's not the SEC. It's the league that wants to pay NIL and play in an upper tier. There is no conference name on this which is why I tagged the divisions like I did.

That makes it sound as if paying NIL or not would be a choice. It seems to me that if NIL is legislated, or decreed by the Supreme Court, it's going to apply to everybody. I don't see the PTB creating a safe haven where schools could opt out of paying NIL. I suppose individual schools could choose not to recruit athletes who might at some point in their career become good enough to attract the attention of advertisers. But if they guess wrong and a kid blossoms and attracts someone who wants to pay them for their NIL, they're probably stuck with him.

I don't see NIL driving any realignment.

You don't delve too deeply do you? Pure amateurism avoids all of it. However that means no scholarships either. Students walk on and play voluntarily. There are some who are talking about returning to such and therein lies the chasm of crossed purposes between schools looking to reinforce academics at the expense of athletics and those by-stepping academics for the sake of athletics. NIL is going to widen that chasm significantly. There may be some fine academic state schools who choose a more Ivy like approach to athletics. But if you are going to give scholarships then you would be correct in that there will be no way to avoid it.

And Ken there will be those who simply choose not to offer expensive athletics because of it, and football will be such a sport. It is the largest team roster of any college sport, requires a heavy investment in equipment and a significant investment in venue. Space is premium at some small city locked campuses. Money is tight for some privates, not so much for others. There will be attrition and with attrition there will be realignment.

There are a lot of programs right now trying to figure out how much overhead NIL will create for their programs and then trying to determine if they can afford it.

Look at the G5. Virtually every G5 subsidizes athletics to the tune of 25% or higher. How many state run G5's can afford to go to their citizens for more taxes to support athletic program overhead at schools where the athletics can't support themselves. Now really you are going to tell me NIL won't bring about more realignment?

It's going to be far more revolutionary than most here realize and it is coming precisely at the worst time, when so many programs are running millions in the red from COVID 19 impacts on their budgets.

So there will be essentially 3 things that happen out of this. There will be some schools who commit wholly to academics and return to pure amateurism and will do so at the expense of having their name out there in athletics and will rely upon their academic reputation to fill their enrollment.

There will be the vast majority of the P5 who keep football and make the necessary staff changes to get ready for helping athletes with their NIL rights and will adjust budgets accordingly because athletics is too much a part of their profile to abandon or significantly reshape or reduce.

There will be many programs at the G5 and smaller level who will abandon football and concentrate resources on basketball and baseball and their counterparts for Title IX. After all many of these schools are already facing state shortfalls for funding and tax payers will be quite irate if their taxes are raised to pay for directional U's football shortcomings.

It's a big deal Ken.

Actually, JR, I do delve pretty deeply into issues like this. And I've certainly considered all the alternatives you bring up.

What I can't find in my research is any proposed legislation that would require schools to pay athletes cash for the use of their NIL. The only legislative proposals I've seen just prohibit the schools or the NCAA from prohibiting others to make such payments. That would appear to mean that NIL itself would have no impact on schools' budgets.

That's not to say that NIL won't impact competitiveness. Apparel companies and other advertisers may very well pay an athlete more if he plays for a high profile school like Alabama than if he plays for Mississippi State. And some local advertisers (that is to say, boosters) might be more willing to shell out for athletes who play for their favorite team. These are issues still being debated.

What would likely have a major impact on schools' budgets would be legislation declaring athletes to be employees of their school with scholarships being a part of their compensation. Such legislation would likely address questions such as minimum wage laws and other benefits like health care costs. I'm not sure if any such legislation is in the pipeline yet.

That would be a big deal.