(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:  

(02-04-2020 08:52 AM)chester Wrote:  

(02-04-2020 08:36 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  To me, there is no good reason for different rules for athletes in different sports. The rule is just a way for the schools to keep "their" athletes in those sports, make it hard for them to leave.

Those athletes are treated like assets, plain and simple. Ugly look when you're in the midst of an antitrust suit that challenges compensation caps that weren't agreed to by the workers.

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).