I think seeing star players, or star recruits getting paid a ton of money for likeness or endorsements would crush team unity. You could have OT or LB, who is going to get drafted ahead of a star QB, RB, WR, who gets no money and the guy you are blocking for is getting 500K. Seems like more of the wild west. Baseball has Single A, Double AA, Triple A. The NBA should just expand their minor leagues and expand like MLB. They can team up as many shoe companies as they want. Then they lease facilities from X university if they want to. Harder to do in football as there are many more players. FC Cincinnati rents Nippert Stadium, locker rooms and the workout facility from UC.

Let the NFL and NBA expand their minor leagues. Heck even MLB can do A, AA ball at universities same for MLS.

I'm all for student athletes to get paid for likeness in video games and their jerseys/clothing or memorabilia being sold by the school. After that it gets dicey.

(04-15-2019 08:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  "I'm still shocked that the majority of you don't get the concept."



It's not the concept that's the issue. It's the execution. First, I think the IRS could write regulations that would require that the shoe companies report the payments they make, with criminal liability for their employee who signs off on their tax return if they don't comply. But they aren't going to get the Big Bobs of the sports world, much less the anonymous bagmen, to comply.

And, yes, we could make purchasing the services of star players legal. That at least takes some of the hypocrisy out of the system. But permitting those payments doesn't take away all the hypocrisy. It replaces it with a different form of hypocrisy - pretending that the surrogates who give the schools plausible deniability isn't just a sham.

In fact, it's an obvious enough of a sham that the IRS and Congress would likely face public pressure to declare it nothing more than a ruse to put a fig leaf on the claim of amateurism. It is that claim that permits the IRS to allow schools to claim that their athletics revenues aren't indeed a business that's not related to the educational purpose that underlies their tax exempt status.

If we really want to get rid of the hypocrisy, we have to start by openly admitting that D-I athletics is a lucrative business, and the people who do the work of that business are employees. There's nothing wrong with that. We just have to own it.

Yes, we absolutely have to own it. Own it and the law takes care of the violators, not the NCAA enforcement committee. There's nothing more hypocritical than a bunch of liberal institutions for the sake of profits, denying poor kids a legal revenue stream. And then worse making the only revenue streams they have illicit.

(04-16-2019 01:52 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  The NBA should just expand their minor leagues and expand like MLB.

NBA doesn't need to operate four or five levels of minor leagues like MLB does. They don't need any more than what they already have. The NBA has a G-League whose teams are owned by and/or affiliated with NBA teams. There are many overseas leagues from which the NBA draws players. Almost every NBA playoff team this season has at least one player who played in an overseas league. And once the NBA gets around to drafting players out of high school, they'll probably assign most drafted HS players to a team in the G-League or an overseas league for a year or two.

(04-16-2019 03:56 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-16-2019 01:52 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  The NBA should just expand their minor leagues and expand like MLB.

NBA doesn't need to operate four or five levels of minor leagues like MLB does. They don't need any more than what they already have. The NBA has a G-League whose teams are owned by and/or affiliated with NBA teams. There are many overseas leagues from which the NBA draws players. Almost every NBA playoff team this season has at least one player who played in an overseas league. And once the NBA gets around to drafting players out of high school, they'll probably assign most drafted HS players to a team in the G-League or an overseas league for a year or two.

OK didn't know that. I still think it won't work if a 5 Star guy playing college ball gets 500K, while on the college team, in endorsements or whatever else, and a teammate gets 0.

(04-16-2019 04:13 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(04-16-2019 03:56 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-16-2019 01:52 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  The NBA should just expand their minor leagues and expand like MLB.

NBA doesn't need to operate four or five levels of minor leagues like MLB does. They don't need any more than what they already have. The NBA has a G-League whose teams are owned by and/or affiliated with NBA teams. There are many overseas leagues from which the NBA draws players. Almost every NBA playoff team this season has at least one player who played in an overseas league. And once the NBA gets around to drafting players out of high school, they'll probably assign most drafted HS players to a team in the G-League or an overseas league for a year or two.

OK didn't know that. I still think it won't work if a 5 Star guy playing college ball gets 500K, while on the college team, in endorsements or whatever else, and a teammate gets 0.

And there are several minor leagues in the states besides the G league.

I don't see how the corporate sponsorship idea alone would eliminate corruption.

If Nike is going to pay Zion $150K to get him on board with them, that's all well and good for Nike and Zion. But i still leaves things open for top schools to bid for him to represent Nike while playing for them. He just gets to double-dip, adding the school inducement money on top of his corporate sponsorship money.

The Olympic model has long been what I have expected and think it is the most fair. The athletes here are really not fully emoloyees and not fully students but a weird mix. They have to take classes and maintain GPA, but they are brought to the school for the purpose of winning games, increasing revenue, and to help fund a massive athletic department and their academic success is secondary to the school.

Based on that, the most fair model in my opinion is not to directly pay (since they are students), but to allow them to generate extra income in any above the board way they can (since the schools are doing the same thing).

I see no way to avoid cheating in some form in college athletics. Even without scholarships, winning will become too important and recruiting under the table will happen. The answer is for communities to have franchises in minor league sports. Works well for baseball and soccer so eventually it could work for football and basketball with some input from nba/nfl.