(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-20-2022 05:44 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Stanford has been vocal, they will not participate in paying athletes as employees. If a ruling comes down forcing them to, I would not be surprised to see some schools drop all sports, at a minimum, FB would be gone.

The Big Ten was vocal about not paying players, too. That went totally out the window when the Alston ruling came down.

I don't get why there's this strain of thinking that some of the wealthiest and most powerful academic institutions in the country are going to drop FBS football because of player compensation while it's thought to be a given that much less wealthy and powerful P5 schools like, say, Iowa State or NC State will do everything they can to stay at the top level. Stanford wants an athletic department that has the elite of the elite in producing Olympians - they are NOT the Ivy League (much less D-III) model at all. For that to continue, having FBS football is a de facto requirement to support that type of athletic department.

When push comes to shove, I believe that every single current FBS school - whether P5 or G5 - will pay up. No one is *willingly* dropping levels. This culling of the herd won't happen (or at the most, it's going to be a picking off of a couple of schools as opposed to a mass relegation scenario). We may all think that it's financially irrational, but schools from top to bottom are "pot committed" (to use a poker term) to the top level of athletics.

And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

It seems Frank's point is simple: Any school playing at the highest level of football since the full modernization of the sport — that is, essentially, the 1970s-1980s when comprehensive racial integration and expansive television coverage "collided" to yield college football as we know it today — is not going to willingly "drop down."

The Ivy League members never "lowered" football in the 1970s-1980s. They simply didn't "elevate" it.

So, and for this example, Stanford would be highly unlikely to de-emphasize (or cease fielding altogether) its D-IA football program because the school has evolved, in part, because of that program.

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-20-2022 05:44 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Stanford has been vocal, they will not participate in paying athletes as employees. If a ruling comes down forcing them to, I would not be surprised to see some schools drop all sports, at a minimum, FB would be gone.

The Big Ten was vocal about not paying players, too. That went totally out the window when the Alston ruling came down.

I don't get why there's this strain of thinking that some of the wealthiest and most powerful academic institutions in the country are going to drop FBS football because of player compensation while it's thought to be a given that much less wealthy and powerful P5 schools like, say, Iowa State or NC State will do everything they can to stay at the top level. Stanford wants an athletic department that has the elite of the elite in producing Olympians - they are NOT the Ivy League (much less D-III) model at all. For that to continue, having FBS football is a de facto requirement to support that type of athletic department.

When push comes to shove, I believe that every single current FBS school - whether P5 or G5 - will pay up. No one is *willingly* dropping levels. This culling of the herd won't happen (or at the most, it's going to be a picking off of a couple of schools as opposed to a mass relegation scenario). We may all think that it's financially irrational, but schools from top to bottom are "pot committed" (to use a poker term) to the top level of athletics.

And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

(12-22-2022 01:54 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  To Frank's point about schools that offer big-time sports and those that do not ...

One of my nephews applied for admission to various high-profile universities with D-I sports and to, as an outlier of sorts, the University of Chicago. He did not get accepted to UC but was accepted to the University of Southern California (at which he currently is a student). My nephew is not particularly a sports fan (though he has been to a few Trojan football games) but he said he was OK with not gaining admission to the University of Chicago. His thinking was that, though UC offers the highest level of academic prestige, Southern Cal is more "big time overall" — due, in part, to sports. USC seemed "sexier" to my relative, so much so that he likely would have gone to Southern Cal even had the University of Chicago offered acceptance.

I see this a good bit at Vanderbilt (at which my brother teaches and another relative is a student). The VU students (and I've talked to many over the years) like Vanderbilt, in part, because of the "SEC factor." It might be psychological for many of them. But that dynamic does, indeed, exist. Many of them likely preferred Vanderbilt to, say, Emory because of Division I sports.

I've had some level of personal association with eight four-year colleges: six universities that sponsor Division I sports (including Vanderbilt and two Big East schools), one that does not offer high-level sports (Roosevelt University in Chicago) and one that no longer exists and did not when it was operational (Robert Morris College of Chicago, which was absorbed by Roosevelt). There is simply a different "feel" (call it an "intangible") that schools with DI sports offer compared to those that do not. And when those sports are at "the highest level," that intangible is magnified.

Certainly there is a "big time factor." My son was more interested in SEC schools than Georgia Southern, which was as difficult to get into as some of them. But that is where average state schools distinguish themselves from regional schools. The P5 privates are all well above "average." With the exception of Liberty, which is unique, the G5 privates are well above "average."

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-20-2022 05:44 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Stanford has been vocal, they will not participate in paying athletes as employees. If a ruling comes down forcing them to, I would not be surprised to see some schools drop all sports, at a minimum, FB would be gone.

The Big Ten was vocal about not paying players, too. That went totally out the window when the Alston ruling came down.

I don't get why there's this strain of thinking that some of the wealthiest and most powerful academic institutions in the country are going to drop FBS football because of player compensation while it's thought to be a given that much less wealthy and powerful P5 schools like, say, Iowa State or NC State will do everything they can to stay at the top level. Stanford wants an athletic department that has the elite of the elite in producing Olympians - they are NOT the Ivy League (much less D-III) model at all. For that to continue, having FBS football is a de facto requirement to support that type of athletic department.

When push comes to shove, I believe that every single current FBS school - whether P5 or G5 - will pay up. No one is *willingly* dropping levels. This culling of the herd won't happen (or at the most, it's going to be a picking off of a couple of schools as opposed to a mass relegation scenario). We may all think that it's financially irrational, but schools from top to bottom are "pot committed" (to use a poker term) to the top level of athletics.

And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

(12-22-2022 05:08 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The Big Ten was vocal about not paying players, too. That went totally out the window when the Alston ruling came down.

I don't get why there's this strain of thinking that some of the wealthiest and most powerful academic institutions in the country are going to drop FBS football because of player compensation while it's thought to be a given that much less wealthy and powerful P5 schools like, say, Iowa State or NC State will do everything they can to stay at the top level. Stanford wants an athletic department that has the elite of the elite in producing Olympians - they are NOT the Ivy League (much less D-III) model at all. For that to continue, having FBS football is a de facto requirement to support that type of athletic department.

When push comes to shove, I believe that every single current FBS school - whether P5 or G5 - will pay up. No one is *willingly* dropping levels. This culling of the herd won't happen (or at the most, it's going to be a picking off of a couple of schools as opposed to a mass relegation scenario). We may all think that it's financially irrational, but schools from top to bottom are "pot committed" (to use a poker term) to the top level of athletics.

And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

It's not the same. That's *not* income. And no one involved (whether it's the school or the student) would want to have scholarships deemed to be income - those have terrible legal and tax consequences to all parties involved. The scholarship is for academic cost of attendance at the university. The fact that a university wants to provide that scholarship because someone is great at a sport (or music or engineering or anything else) doesn't mean that it's compensation for actually playing that sport (or putting on music performances or taking an engineering internship or anything else).

Universities are already seeing this direct tension with compensating grad students that receive scholarship funding but also have teaching assistant duties. Scholarships aren't considered to be funding to be a teaching assistant. Instead, a grad student needs to be receiving either a stipend or salary in exchange for their teaching duties. The academic studies scholarship needs to be kept separate from the teaching work that's being performed. Remember that the UC Board of Regents meeting regarding the UCLA move to the Big Ten was delayed because those types of grad students are part of the group that's on strike on UC campuses.

Now, is the scholarship for an athlete *practically* compensation in real life? Yes. I'm certainly not turning my nose up at a full-ride scholarship if one of my kids ends up being talented enough to be a Division I athlete.

However, under the law, a scholarship is not compensation for being an employee. Just think about it from the government's perspective. The government doesn't want employers to get around paying FICA, Medicare, federal and state tax withholdings, paying into workers compensation programs, and a whole slew of other requirements that come from an employer-employee relationship by claiming that the compensation comes in the form of a tax-free scholarship that the government gets no revenue from.

(12-22-2022 04:34 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:54 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  To Frank's point about schools that offer big-time sports and those that do not ...

One of my nephews applied for admission to various high-profile universities with D-I sports and to, as an outlier of sorts, the University of Chicago. He did not get accepted to UC but was accepted to the University of Southern California (at which he currently is a student). My nephew is not particularly a sports fan (though he has been to a few Trojan football games) but he said he was OK with not gaining admission to the University of Chicago. His thinking was that, though UC offers the highest level of academic prestige, Southern Cal is more "big time overall" — due, in part, to sports. USC seemed "sexier" to my relative, so much so that he likely would have gone to Southern Cal even had the University of Chicago offered acceptance.

I see this a good bit at Vanderbilt (at which my brother teaches and another relative is a student). The VU students (and I've talked to many over the years) like Vanderbilt, in part, because of the "SEC factor." It might be psychological for many of them. But that dynamic does, indeed, exist. Many of them likely preferred Vanderbilt to, say, Emory because of Division I sports.

I've had some level of personal association with eight four-year colleges: six universities that sponsor Division I sports (including Vanderbilt and two Big East schools), one that does not offer high-level sports (Roosevelt University in Chicago) and one that no longer exists and did not when it was operational (Robert Morris College of Chicago, which was absorbed by Roosevelt). There is simply a different "feel" (call it an "intangible") that schools with DI sports offer compared to those that do not. And when those sports are at "the highest level," that intangible is magnified.

Certainly there is a "big time factor." My son was more interested in SEC schools than Georgia Southern, which was as difficult to get into as some of them. But that is where average state schools distinguish themselves from regional schools. The P5 privates are all well above "average." With the exception of Liberty, which is unique, the G5 privates are well above "average."

Agree fully, bullet.

Worth noting (and an example that "contradicts" the overall theme we are discussing): In 1981 and after finishing high school, I had no desire to attend the University of Tennessee and opted, instead, for Middle Tennessee State. Perhaps my decision was based, in part, on my family having a long-standing history with Belmont, Memphis and Vanderbilt. UT was seen, to an extent and subconsciously, as the "enemy." At 60, I look back and realize my mindset was rather absurd.

(12-22-2022 05:28 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 05:08 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

It's not the same. That's *not* income. And no one involved (whether it's the school or the student) would want to have scholarships deemed to be income - those have terrible legal and tax consequences to all parties involved. The scholarship is for academic cost of attendance at the university. The fact that a university wants to provide that scholarship because someone is great at a sport (or music or engineering or anything else) doesn't mean that it's compensation for actually playing that sport (or putting on music performances or taking an engineering internship or anything else).

Universities are already seeing this direct tension with compensating grad students that receive scholarship funding but also have teaching assistant duties. Scholarships aren't considered to be funding to be a teaching assistant. Instead, a grad student needs to be receiving either a stipend or salary in exchange for their teaching duties. The academic studies scholarship needs to be kept separate from the teaching work that's being performed. Remember that the UC Board of Regents meeting regarding the UCLA move to the Big Ten was delayed because those types of grad students are part of the group that's on strike on UC campuses.

Now, is the scholarship for an athlete *practically* compensation in real life? Yes. I'm certainly not turning my nose up at a full-ride scholarship if one of my kids ends up being talented enough to be a Division I athlete.

However, under the law, a scholarship is not compensation for being an employee. Just think about it from the government's perspective. The government doesn't want employers to get around paying FICA, Medicare, federal and state tax withholdings, paying into workers compensation programs, and a whole slew of other requirements that come from an employer-employee relationship by claiming that the compensation comes in the form of a tax-free scholarship that the government gets no revenue from.

Yes, all athletes no matter what sports you are in are employees. Tennis, golf, track and other non-revenue sports are also getting NIL and all that. We will be seeing down the road that those athletes that are not football and men's basketball will be unionize as well.

(12-22-2022 05:28 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 05:08 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

It's not the same. That's *not* income. And no one involved (whether it's the school or the student) would want to have scholarships deemed to be income - those have terrible legal and tax consequences to all parties involved. The scholarship is for academic cost of attendance at the university. The fact that a university wants to provide that scholarship because someone is great at a sport (or music or engineering or anything else) doesn't mean that it's compensation for actually playing that sport (or putting on music performances or taking an engineering internship or anything else).

Universities are already seeing this direct tension with compensating grad students that receive scholarship funding but also have teaching assistant duties. Scholarships aren't considered to be funding to be a teaching assistant. Instead, a grad student needs to be receiving either a stipend or salary in exchange for their teaching duties. The academic studies scholarship needs to be kept separate from the teaching work that's being performed. Remember that the UC Board of Regents meeting regarding the UCLA move to the Big Ten was delayed because those types of grad students are part of the group that's on strike on UC campuses.

Now, is the scholarship for an athlete *practically* compensation in real life? Yes. I'm certainly not turning my nose up at a full-ride scholarship if one of my kids ends up being talented enough to be a Division I athlete.

However, under the law, a scholarship is not compensation for being an employee. Just think about it from the government's perspective. The government doesn't want employers to get around paying FICA, Medicare, federal and state tax withholdings, paying into workers compensation programs, and a whole slew of other requirements that come from an employer-employee relationship by claiming that the compensation comes in the form of a tax-free scholarship that the government gets no revenue from.

Thank you for answering my question good sir. Everything you stated makes sense. Unfortunately it leads me to believe that in order to compete at the highest level and in the best conferences schools might end up dropping sports.

I could be wrong but it seems like a University like Stanford that has something like 36 varsity sports and over 1000 student athletes is going to have a tough time justifying paying for all of it. Stanford has a $37+ billion endowment that could help them when the paltry PAC TV money can't pay for it all but I don't think there's a snowball chance in hell of the Cardinal doing that. Putting A rich university like Stanford aside, how are schools like Cal state Fullerton going to be able to support 17 varsity sports? It seems like this could get very ugly.

(12-22-2022 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I don't get why there's this strain of thinking that some of the wealthiest and most powerful academic institutions in the country are going to drop FBS football because of player compensation while it's thought to be a given that much less wealthy and powerful P5 schools like, say, Iowa State or NC State will do everything they can to stay at the top level. Stanford wants an athletic department that has the elite of the elite in producing Olympians - they are NOT the Ivy League (much less D-III) model at all. For that to continue, having FBS football is a de facto requirement to support that type of athletic department.

I don’t know…D3 and those D1’s that run like them have their benefits. And, yeah, Stanford can be proud of itself as an Olympic athlete incubator…the Ivy League schools are no slouch at pumping them out, too (or just housing them when they aren’t competing). It’s just not the same sports as others, per se. Stanford can handle such a shift, I’m sure. Are they just concerned that they won’t be sending folks into the NFL or NBA anymore?

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  ....
If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage.
....

It's going to be interesting to see how this develops. Other public performances form aspects of campus life and are often linked to scholarships: track and swimming, cheerleaders and dance teams, pep bands and marching bands, stage plays and art exhibits and dance recitals.

We may soon find that, as a practical matter, the line between educational activities and professional performances is more muddied than clarified by recent rulings.

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

Rest assured every university 'has enough academics of that mindset' to pull it off. If the only people in the community deciding the matter were the people on the faculty and in the labs, all college athletic programs would be run like the Ivy League.

The calculus you're referring to is community-wide. Alumni, especially alumni with money, have a big say, too. As do students and media companies and high school seniors and local vendors.

And even away from athletics, competitive pressures exist. It's not hard to imagine people at the University of Virginia, say, being tempted to take an Ivy approach—but no one thinks they'd do it before knowing for a fact that Virginia Tech and every other public university in the commonwealth was about to do the same. Certain plunges you only take in sync with others.

(12-22-2022 05:28 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 05:08 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 01:58 PM)Sicembear11 Wrote:  And yet, the most well endowed schools in the country (Ivy League) collectively chose to forego the paper chase of college athletics. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

Not every university will consider dropping down, but I could see a number of them doing it, especially if there are viable "fallback" options.

Stanford could very easily decide that they don't want to be involved in the paper chase anymore. They've got enough academics of that mindset to pull that off.

The southern private schools could form the Magnolia League and play each other ala the Ivy League.

That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

It's not the same. That's *not* income. And no one involved (whether it's the school or the student) would want to have scholarships deemed to be income - those have terrible legal and tax consequences to all parties involved. The scholarship is for academic cost of attendance at the university. The fact that a university wants to provide that scholarship because someone is great at a sport (or music or engineering or anything else) doesn't mean that it's compensation for actually playing that sport (or putting on music performances or taking an engineering internship or anything else).

Universities are already seeing this direct tension with compensating grad students that receive scholarship funding but also have teaching assistant duties. Scholarships aren't considered to be funding to be a teaching assistant. Instead, a grad student needs to be receiving either a stipend or salary in exchange for their teaching duties. The academic studies scholarship needs to be kept separate from the teaching work that's being performed. Remember that the UC Board of Regents meeting regarding the UCLA move to the Big Ten was delayed because those types of grad students are part of the group that's on strike on UC campuses.

Now, is the scholarship for an athlete *practically* compensation in real life? Yes. I'm certainly not turning my nose up at a full-ride scholarship if one of my kids ends up being talented enough to be a Division I athlete.

However, under the law, a scholarship is not compensation for being an employee. Just think about it from the government's perspective. The government doesn't want employers to get around paying FICA, Medicare, federal and state tax withholdings, paying into workers compensation programs, and a whole slew of other requirements that come from an employer-employee relationship by claiming that the compensation comes in the form of a tax-free scholarship that the government gets no revenue from.

Yes. And that's one of my points with athletes. Other than a handful of men's basketball players and a minority of P5 football players and a handful of others, they are currently compensated more than their value in a fair market. The proof is that so few outside basketball and football take the professional route. And basketball players have an option as freshmen, but choose college over Europe or the G league.

But if its a job for football players, there is simply no rational argument that says it is not also a job for swimming athletes. Simply because football generates more money does not change the definition of an employee.

(12-22-2022 06:03 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 05:28 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 05:08 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:02 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  That is the problem. All schools no matter what if they are in the Ivy League all the way down to the lower levels all could go on strike. They are now considered employees. These schools can not hide anymore behind Ivy League or D3.

Out of all people, DavidSt actually gets the larger point! That is, why should we assume that "opting out" is even a choice for anyone?

It's very clear that there's no "opt out" for NIL compensation. That's third party money and absolutely no one - not Alabama, not Stanford, not Harvard, not MIT, not the University of Chicago - has any legal ability to prevent it. This doesn't matter whether you're playing SEC, Ivy League, Division III, or club football.

If/when players are deemed to be employees of the university... then they're employees that need to be paid whether you want to call them employees or not. If Stanford has a football team with requirements (such as needing to arrive at practice at a certain place and time and coming to games at a certain place and time) that would deem someone to be an employee... then they ARE an employee.

In a non-sports example, Burger King can't come out and say, "We don't like how McDonald's has corporatized the fast food restaurant industry for the love of profit. We want people here that have a pure love of cooking meals. Therefore, we're opting out of paying wages to the people that staff our kitchens. These people aren't employees, but rather people that want to share their talents for the good of the community." Hopefully, everyone realizes that this is illegal.

Well, it's the same thing with college sports. It doesn't matter what a *school* calls an "employee", but rather what the *law* calls an "employee". If that person is an employee under the law, then they need to be paid at least minimum wage. Even schools at the Division III level may not be able to avoid that issue depending on how they run their respective sports teams.

So, "opting out" for Stanford could mean just straight up dropping all sports entirely. Schools may not have the ability to be just "halfway in/halfway out" on anything going forward.

As I've stated before, lots of people (from Jim Delany to Jack Swarbrick) have talked a good game about not wanting to go for a pay-for-play model... but then when entities are faced with the choice of giving up money and power, they all fall in line to retain their money and power.

Put aside Stanford football and basketball for a moment. Do we really think Stanford wants to give up enrolling super-elite scholar-athletes like Katie Ledecky and Tiger Woods? Do we really think Stanford wants to stop enrolling athletes that win Olympic medals at a rate that's larger than all but a handful of entire *countries*?

Ultimately, I believe that they'll do what they need to do to stay at the top level. It may not be a choice between "opting out" to drop down a level or staying at the top level, but rather staying at the top level or dropping sports *entirely*.

I might be completely out to lunch here but wouldn't it be possible to compensate non-revenue generating athletes with scholarships? I mean going to a university that costs $20K per year for free because you are on the water polo team seems like enough compensation to me... Or am I off my rocker?

It's not the same. That's *not* income. And no one involved (whether it's the school or the student) would want to have scholarships deemed to be income - those have terrible legal and tax consequences to all parties involved. The scholarship is for academic cost of attendance at the university. The fact that a university wants to provide that scholarship because someone is great at a sport (or music or engineering or anything else) doesn't mean that it's compensation for actually playing that sport (or putting on music performances or taking an engineering internship or anything else).

Universities are already seeing this direct tension with compensating grad students that receive scholarship funding but also have teaching assistant duties. Scholarships aren't considered to be funding to be a teaching assistant. Instead, a grad student needs to be receiving either a stipend or salary in exchange for their teaching duties. The academic studies scholarship needs to be kept separate from the teaching work that's being performed. Remember that the UC Board of Regents meeting regarding the UCLA move to the Big Ten was delayed because those types of grad students are part of the group that's on strike on UC campuses.

Now, is the scholarship for an athlete *practically* compensation in real life? Yes. I'm certainly not turning my nose up at a full-ride scholarship if one of my kids ends up being talented enough to be a Division I athlete.

However, under the law, a scholarship is not compensation for being an employee. Just think about it from the government's perspective. The government doesn't want employers to get around paying FICA, Medicare, federal and state tax withholdings, paying into workers compensation programs, and a whole slew of other requirements that come from an employer-employee relationship by claiming that the compensation comes in the form of a tax-free scholarship that the government gets no revenue from.

Thank you for answering my question good sir. Everything you stated makes sense. Unfortunately it leads me to believe that in order to compete at the highest level and in the best conferences schools might end up dropping sports.

I could be wrong but it seems like a University like Stanford that has something like 36 varsity sports and over 1000 student athletes is going to have a tough time justifying paying for all of it. Stanford has a $37+ billion endowment that could help them when the paltry PAC TV money can't pay for it all but I don't think there's a snowball chance in hell of the Cardinal doing that. Putting A rich university like Stanford aside, how are schools like Cal state Fullerton going to be able to support 17 varsity sports? It seems like this could get very ugly.

That's a big concern of mine. What happens to the non-revs when sports becomes employement? What happens to the non-P5 Division I programs? For that matter, what happens to Division II?