(11-05-2026 11:19 AM)Claw Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - Booker knew the coaching salary cap amendment wouldn’t pass, but it was to make a point and it’s a very good one: there is no reason why the students should be subject to compensation limits while the coaches aren’t subject to any themselves.

Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

The NIL payer is not the person recieving the player's services. In a normal market you don't have other people paying your labor for you. There is nothing normal about this.

What stops the NIL payer from telling his athlete to throw a game? How do you know as a coach or institution that isn't happening? You go to Alabama, but you don't win anytime they play Tennessee. Got it? What real protection does the institution have?

It’s because the entire NIL system is trying to indirectly fill a free market demand for top talent that the colleges have refused to directly pay, so we have a bastardized system. In any other industry, the colleges themselves would be paying these players directly as opposed to going through the facade of a third party NIL entity paying the player. Either way, there is clearly a market for top talent in football and basketball, in particular.

What stops the NIL payer in the latter attempted straw man scenario is a whole suite of laws regarding corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, etc. A “contract” that requires illegal behavior is unenforceable.

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - Booker knew the coaching salary cap amendment wouldn’t pass, but it was to make a point and it’s a very good one: there is no reason why the students should be subject to compensation limits while the coaches aren’t subject to any themselves.

Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

Yeah, I agree that the PCSA is now dead. My attention will now turn to what may replace it, if anything.

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

NIL growth is being turbocharged by tax policy that provides financial incentives to donors. In addition, IIRC even Ohio State athletics announced some (modest) subsidies last year.

The point being, this is not a model free market. Universities have always subsidized collegiate athletics, and universities are also highly dependent on favorable government policy (whether direct funding by state taxpayers or tax policy by federal/state/local governments). OSU, ND and Texas are examples of athletic programs that were able to scale donations into a massive industry. Rutgers and JMU are examples of how much financial flexibility is still available to warp natural market forces when wealthy donors aren’t as prevalent. Subsidies at most D1 university have historically ranged between $10M and $30M; and there are only a few P4 universities with subsidies above 20% of total expenditures. IMHO, neither funding approach is a natural free market. Some financial subsidization can be justified by the “social good” of collegiate athletics, but the current trajectory will cause more harm than good.

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

This isn't a case of protecting the entities from themselves. Its protecting the mostly voiceless taxpayers and students from the administration.

(11-05-2026 09:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

This isn't a case of protecting the entities from themselves. Its protecting the mostly voiceless taxpayers and students from the administration.

Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from administrative actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

(11-05-2026 12:17 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:19 AM)Claw Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - Booker knew the coaching salary cap amendment wouldn’t pass, but it was to make a point and it’s a very good one: there is no reason why the students should be subject to compensation limits while the coaches aren’t subject to any themselves.

Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

The NIL payer is not the person recieving the player's services. In a normal market you don't have other people paying your labor for you. There is nothing normal about this.

What stops the NIL payer from telling his athlete to throw a game? How do you know as a coach or institution that isn't happening? You go to Alabama, but you don't win anytime they play Tennessee. Got it? What real protection does the institution have?

It’s because the entire NIL system is trying to indirectly fill a free market demand for top talent that the colleges have refused to directly pay, so we have a bastardized system. In any other industry, the colleges themselves would be paying these players directly as opposed to going through the facade of a third party NIL entity paying the player. Either way, there is clearly a market for top talent in football and basketball, in particular.

What stops the NIL payer in the latter attempted straw man scenario is a whole suite of laws regarding corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, etc. A “contract” that requires illegal behavior is unenforceable.

I'm not sure the colleges are as nefarious as you make them out to be.

Boosters have been around for over 100 years, and some (many?) are not even alumni. They're a double edged sword, and the current paradigm enables their shenanigans. Yes, the college can benefit, but they cannot control them.

Pro sports has rabid fandom, but they don't have boosters. They have folks that literally buy a stake in the franchise.

A college may feel they are paying Jim Bob Foosball a fair market value revenue share based on the amount of revenue they are bringing in, the value of the football team vs non-revenue sports, and the overall distribution across the athletic department. But nothing is going to stop Johnny Booster from partaking in an unenforceable arms race.

This market is unlike any other market in any sport. There is no way to cap third party NIL so I personally don't see the harm in capping revenue sharing at $50m (!) / year. How many schools are really hitting that?

The vast majority of Division I schools bring in too little revenue to ever hit a $50 million cap. Even the B1G and SEC want a $49m cap, because they just can't afford to go higher.

"Along those lines, the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference — which initially withheld support for the bill — have talked openly about moving toward “conference-led governance” if Congress doesn't act. The thought is they would set their own rules in an attempt, mostly, to rein in spending in what has become a costly bidding war for talented athletes."

If no exemption is granted and players become employees, somebody will need to explain to them that cap is going to drop significantly regardless of who is governing. Get your W4's out and welcome to the real world!

Anyhoo, this all may be moot. An athlete friendly, and I mean athlete not football player, Congress is going to want to paw through this thing and shut down some of these elitist rules.

"Another players' group, the National College Players Association, say the measure doesn't protect Olympic and women's sports the way it claims to.

The group's analysis of the bill found that around 70% of Division I athletic departments don't reach the $50 million revenue threshold that would require those schools to support as many athletes in “non-revenue” sports — i.e., Olympic and women's — as they did in 2024-25.

The group cites language that sunsets those provisions after four or nine years, depending on the spending level, and also says the measure could allow the NCAA to rewrite rules to bypass the entire regulation."

Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House

(11-06-2026 02:27 AM)ouflak Wrote:  Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from their own actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

Right, it costs a heck of a lot more to pay employees. So in the end, there would be less sports and less athletes, they'd make less money than with this proposed cap, and they would stop being students.

Considering only FBS football and some men's bball are revenue sports, say bye-bye to educational opportunities for poor folks in non-revenue sports—which by the way across all divisions covered is something like 85% of the half a million student athletes in the nation.

The only people who benefit from employee status are the marginal players who would benefit from a minor league football career. Not good enough for the NFL or washed up pros. That's not an equitable solution by any means when you consider what college athletics are intended to be.

(11-06-2026 02:27 AM)ouflak Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

This isn't a case of protecting the entities from themselves. Its protecting the mostly voiceless taxpayers and students from the administration.

Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from administrative actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

They know that if this continues, taxpayers and students will pay the bill of any increase. They are already paying millions. Even Ohio St. had to get $15 million from the academic side last year!

This bill protects the taxpayers, students and non-rev athletes. A relative handful (compared to the total number of athletes) of players who will likely make millions professionally benefit from the wild west we have now.

Is there any rational system where a quarterback like Quinn Ewers or Carson Beck takes a pay cut to go to the NFL?

(11-06-2026 06:49 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  

(11-06-2026 02:27 AM)ouflak Wrote:  Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from their own actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

Right, it costs a heck of a lot more to pay employees. So in the end, there would be less sports and less athletes, they'd make less money than with this proposed cap, and they would stop being students.

Considering only FBS football and some men's bball are revenue sports, say bye-bye to educational opportunities for poor folks in non-revenue sports—which by the way across all divisions covered is something like 85% of the half a million student athletes in the nation.

The only people who benefit from employee status are the marginal players who would benefit from a minor league football career. Not good enough for the NFL or washed up pros. That's not an equitable solution by any means when you consider what college athletics are intended to be.

I don't think anyone really benefits from employee status except for administrators who will handle the payroll and payroll taxes.

(11-05-2026 03:29 PM)Ned Low Wrote:  Yeah, I agree that the PCSA is now dead. My attention will now turn to what may replace it, if anything.

I don't know that it's dead, its best bet was always going to be in a continuing resolution, packaged together with things that need to get done in the lame duck. Is it possible that the new democratic majority will think that they can get a "better" version of the PCSA pushed through over a Presidential veto in the next 2 years? Perhaps. More likely, it either is done exactly the way the Senate passed it or we don't see any movement until 2028 at the earliest. At least then we'll get to find out how serious the SEC is about going to Plan B.

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:33 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:15 AM)Dr Dawgma III Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - Booker knew the coaching salary cap amendment wouldn’t pass, but it was to make a point and it’s a very good one: there is no reason why the students should be subject to compensation limits while the coaches aren’t subject to any themselves.

Of course there are reasons, including the obvious one: students are not employees and coaches are. Until that officially changes, students are absolutely subjected to different rules. Revenue sharing ≠ salary.

Also, coaches (buyouts and salary packages) can be funded by donors/boosters through university foundations or athletic funds; it's analogous to student athletes being paid via 3rd party NIL.

A cap on coaches is essentially as worthless as a cap on student athletes when there are uncapped avenues to skirt around. They're weak guardrails to encourage fiscal responsibility associated with an athletic arm's race.

The employee distinction doesn’t matter. It would be the same if they were considered to be contractors, “students with benefits”, or some other category that people want to make up. Two or more competitors cannot come to an agreement with each other to collectively limit (AKA fix) their pricing for anything in the marketplace, whether it is paying for employees, independent contractors, products, equipment, or anything else.

College sports have gotten away with it for such a long time basically because of tradition. Once the Alston ruling came down and treated college sports like any other normal business where normal antitrust laws apply, the wheels all came off quickly because almost everything that the NCAA does (and frankly also the conferences) would violate antitrust laws in every other industry.

Here is what other normal businesses do if they can’t afford to pay someone a certain salary: don’t hire that person. The free market will then eventually settle to what the market rate for that position through the individual decisions across many different entities (as opposed to a collective decision).

For whatever reason, college sports fans don’t think logic applies to them. They think players are getting paid “too much”. I’m sorry, but if the market is paying a player $X, then the market value of that player is $X. If those compensation levels are truly unsustainable, then the normal business reaction is that enough people will stop paying that level of compensation and prices will start coming down. If competitors keep paying higher and higher prices for top talent, though, then that’s the market. Either choose to compete in that market or don’t… but don't tell other schools that they *can’t* pay that market value.

That’s ridiculous and you know it. Colleges aren’t constrained by market forces. They get fees from students voted on by students who graduated years ago. They use state funds. They use outside donor money no business has. There is no limit because normal market rules don’t apply. All of them would be bankrupt if they did.

You may not philosophically like outside imposed limits but your ideas are no more realistic than those who think we can go back to pre-Alston rules and just treat the players as volunteers.

Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Really? Is that what did it for Indiana football, or was it one Billionaire Shark Tank NBA team owner (formerly)? One guy single-handedly brought in Cignetti, paid enough NIL to field a competitive team, and then paid Cignetti enough to convince him to spurn Michigan and PSU. All the school admins had to do was stay out of the way, which they wisely did. I think we can all agree that the admins at FSU, A&M, PSU, etc etc etc are all more motivated to achieve football success than Indiana's admins, but none of us has a Billionaire Genius calling the shots.

What helps Elite collegiate athletics become and remain elite is lots of $$ and wise spending of said money. That money at the biggest football factories comes directly from fans and boosters, admins just have to stay out of the way. When you have admins pushing the agenda like at Rutgers and ASU, well, it's hit or miss. Seems to be working out with ASU, though Crow, death of the Pac 12 aside, is certifiably a genius. What he's done with In-Q-Tel, at least what we know of, is freaking amazing. They might be making Oppenheimer-like movies about him in 50 years. Not working out so well at Rutgers, however.

(11-06-2026 10:10 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 03:29 PM)Ned Low Wrote:  Yeah, I agree that the PCSA is now dead. My attention will now turn to what may replace it, if anything.

I don't know that it's dead, its best bet was always going to be in a continuing resolution, packaged together with things that need to get done in the lame duck. Is it possible that the new democratic majority will think that they can get a "better" version of the PCSA pushed through over a Presidential veto in the next 2 years? Perhaps. More likely, it either is done exactly the way the Senate passed it or we don't see any movement until 2028 at the earliest. At least then we'll get to find out how serious the SEC is about going to Plan B.

I don't think the Democrats in the House are particularly interested in this issue. So if it dies, it won't be because they think they can get something better.

(11-06-2026 09:48 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-06-2026 02:27 AM)ouflak Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 11:52 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Rutgers and JMU are easy examples of institutions that support your point (i.e., traditional market forces don't apply). Rutgers will likely subsidize collegiate athletics to the tune of $100M per year soon enough. JMU is willing to subsidize 80%+ of collegiate athletics costs. Incredibly, there is no end in sight for the willingness of universities to spend on athletics...even in a dystopian world where star athletes and coaches are earning millions, while average students and struggling taxpayers indirectly fund the costs.

Given financial excesses in collegiate athletics, it's possible that there will be a populist backlash. Politicians are currently not debating whether elite collegiate athletics truly deserves its privileges. Tax exemptions (for all institutions) and state funding (for public institutions) are warping normal market forces. What helps elite collegiate athletics is the broader goodwill, reputation and stewardship of the parent institutions.

Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

This isn't a case of protecting the entities from themselves. Its protecting the mostly voiceless taxpayers and students from the administration.

Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from administrative actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

They know that if this continues, taxpayers and students will pay the bill of any increase. They are already paying millions. Even Ohio St. had to get $15 million from the academic side last year!

This bill protects the taxpayers, students and non-rev athletes. A relative handful (compared to the total number of athletes) of players who will likely make millions professionally benefit from the wild west we have now.

Is there any rational system where a quarterback like Quinn Ewers or Carson Beck takes a pay cut to go to the NFL?

Absolutely. The system we have now. The NFL is no way so special that it has to be free of free market competition. If they can't run their business, especially with all of the built-in advantages they have, so that they can pay their people more than some other league pays them to work somewhere else, then they should perhaps become self reflective of that fact and figure out how to tweak their business model. How does forcing an athlete to make less money than they would in another league 'protect' them? That violates just about everything it means to have a free economy. If there is some superstar engineer or law student, who was also a NFL very low draftee and could make a lot more money working for a consulting/law firm, should he have his pay capped to the NFL practice team minimum just because... well... NFL?

How is that rational?

NFL quarterbacks are worth more than college quarterbacks. Its a signal that the college system is just a mess and has little to do with economics. Its an irrational exercise in egos on the backs of students and taxpayers.

Its like my Freshman economics teacher said, "Don't ask me about the stock market. If you want to understand the stock market, take a Psychology class."
Right now its kind of like the tulip craze in Holland in the 1630s.

(11-06-2026 10:29 AM)ouflak Wrote:  

(11-06-2026 09:48 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-06-2026 02:27 AM)ouflak Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 09:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-05-2026 12:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Eh - of course universities are subject to market forces. The Ohio State medical center generates several multiples more revenue per year than the athletic department and is far more profitable. They do not have unlimited funds to pay for doctors, researchers, nurses, etc. Similarly, Ohio State and other top research universities lose top academic faculty to industry all of the time (e.g. any PhD in Computer Science with any AI background is getting 7 or 8 figure pay packages from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they can’t compete on salary.

Pretty much no one works for a university is doing it because it’s the place where they can make the most money for their profession. Universities are subject to free market forces like everyone else.

It’s simply that the colleges are *choosing* to spend this type of money on athletics. That is my whole problem with this notion that it’s somehow unstoppable. They don’t choose to spend this type of money on plenty of other things, including areas that actually make the university straight up profits like their medical centers and scientific research functions. I don’t have patience for entities that need rules to protect them from themselves. Either have the fiscal discipline to not pay those amounts on their own or admit that they are paying what they believe is “worth it” for their athletic programs. These athlete compensation budgets aren’t being driven up by student fee subsidies at places like Rutgers, but by third party NIL at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, etc.

This isn't a case of protecting the entities from themselves. Its protecting the mostly voiceless taxpayers and students from the administration.

Seems like an odd way to 'protect' anybody from these administrations, by giving those same administrations exemptions from following the laws of the land. Somehow, I don't think that protecting the students and taxpayers from administrative actions is what the administrations have in mind with those exemptions.

They know that if this continues, taxpayers and students will pay the bill of any increase. They are already paying millions. Even Ohio St. had to get $15 million from the academic side last year!

This bill protects the taxpayers, students and non-rev athletes. A relative handful (compared to the total number of athletes) of players who will likely make millions professionally benefit from the wild west we have now.

Is there any rational system where a quarterback like Quinn Ewers or Carson Beck takes a pay cut to go to the NFL?

Absolutely. The system we have now. The NFL is no way so special that it has to be free of free market competition. If they can't run their business, especially with all of the built-in advantages they have, so that they can pay their people more than some other league pays them to work somewhere else, then they should perhaps become self reflective of that fact and figure out how to tweak their business model. How does forcing an athlete to make less money than they would in another league 'protect' them? That violates just about everything it means to have a free economy. If there is some superstar engineer or law student, who was also a NFL very low draftee and could make a lot more money working for a consulting/law firm, should he have his pay capped to the NFL practice team minimum just because... well... NFL?

How is that rational?

But the difference is that the NFL collectively bargained with their players, which is why they can have salary caps and limitations to compensation. That is a clear exemption from antitrust law. That is the problem with a comparison with a pro league - a lot of people seem to want the *outcome* of what a collective bargaining agreement produces as applied to college athletics, but not actually have collective bargaining itself.

Lots of colleges collectively bargain with employees, including even with dual employee-student groups (such as graduate students that also get paid to teach classes).

Even in places where a public institution may not be allowed to collectively bargain with students under state law, the athletic department may be transferred to a separate entity to try to avoid that issue (as we are already (as LSU is looking to create and we will likely see almost everyone in the P4 eventually do).

That is essentially the only legal answer to being able to impose broad-based compensation and transfer limitations on athletes if the PCSA doesn’t pass. Also note that colleges do have the ability *today* to impose restrictions or buyouts by individual NIL contracts with players on their *own* just as they do with coaches. Any school has the choice to follow whatever financial and contractual parameters that they want in negotiating with a player on an individual basis. It just can’t be a top-down rule applying to multiple schools for it to be legal.

(11-06-2026 10:20 AM)bullet Wrote:  I don't think the Democrats in the House are particularly interested in this issue. So if it dies, it won't be because they think they can get something better.

I don't know why people think Democrats won't care about the issue. They were active in crafting both SCORE and PCSA. They care about education. Major public universities are something the general public cares about. And most important of all, billions of dollars are at stake.

If anything, its weirder that Trump cares. He went to Penn and, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a favorite team or anything.

(11-06-2026 11:22 AM)bullet Wrote:  NFL quarterbacks are worth more than college quarterbacks. Its a signal that the college system is just a mess and has little to do with economics. Its an irrational exercise in egos on the backs of students and taxpayers.

Its like my Freshman economics teacher said, "Don't ask me about the stock market. If you want to understand the stock market, take a Psychology class."
Right now its kind of like the tulip craze in Holland in the 1630s.

It could depend. There isn’t necessarily a linear relationship between market value and actual skill level. This is quite prevalent in sports: college basketball is more valuable in the marketplace than the G-League, college football is more valuable in the marketplace than the CFL or all of the attempted spring pro football leagues, the Little League World Series is a more valuable TV product than anything baseball event outside of MLB itself, etc.

So, it could very well be the case that an individual’s market value is higher in college than it would be in the pros. A QB that can start for a CFP qualifier is more valuable in the marketplace for a season than that same QB being on the bench or practice squad of an NFL team. We have seen a ton of players that were great in college for football or basketball that didn’t go far in or make it at all to the pros. The fact that their value in the NFL or NBA might be low doesn’t negate that their value to a college team could be quite high and would get paid accordingly.

(11-06-2026 12:01 PM)The Beaver Wrote:  I don't know why people think Democrats won't care about the issue. They were active in crafting both SCORE and PCSA. They care about education. Major public universities are something the general public cares about. And most important of all, billions of dollars are at stake.

If anything, its weirder that Trump cares. He went to Penn and, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a favorite team or anything.

His DIL has a favorite team.