(05-21-2024 03:44 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Title IX isn’t changing. Everyone needs to get that totally and completely out of their systems. That is way more set in stone than anything else that we’re discussing here. We’re a college sports-focused board, but Title IX is *way* broader than the sports world. The terms of Title IX are not changing. Everyone needs to get over that or we won’t have a productive discussion. Repeat: whether you personally agree with Title IX or not, those terms aren’t changing.

How the terms of Title IX are interpreted to apply to the employment model of college sports is the debate.

My personal opinion is that courts and frankly a lot of legislators have generally taken a pretty expansive view of the applicability of Title IX over the years. This isn’t a law that has been narrowly applied and that has been the case across the ideological spectrum (so it’s not just a clear liberal/conservative dichotomy). As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, courts in recent years have ruled that Title IX applies to student employees of university-affiliated hospitals, so that likely precludes a commonly-proposed “solution” of attempting to place the athletic department into a separate entity. Based on the university hospital cases (which also feature separate entities), that probably isn’t going to work.

So, Title IX will apply to college sports no matter how you try to legally structure it. Whether that means there needs to be equal pay among all athletes and/or equal NIL if schools take that in-house is the gazillion dollar question. My educated guess is that it’s going to be sway more toward the equal pay side than it will to the “football/basketball players getting way more money than everyone else” side, but that’s only my guess. Maybe colleges can get away with paying football and men’s basketball players more, but we can be assured that it will be tested in court if that happens.

Thanks, Frank.

I have long predicted that Congress will get involved eventually. My hunch is that "eventually" is coming up pretty soon, probably after the elections. What they will do is anyone's guess but one thing is for sure: they control a lot of the purse strings for these universities and they will absolutely have a say in how they operate their affairs, including athletics. Title IX is going nowhere.

(05-21-2024 03:44 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Title IX isn’t changing. Everyone needs to get that totally and completely out of their systems. That is way more set in stone than anything else that we’re discussing here. We’re a college sports-focused board, but Title IX is *way* broader than the sports world. The terms of Title IX are not changing. Everyone needs to get over that or we won’t have a productive discussion. Repeat: whether you personally agree with Title IX or not, those terms aren’t changing.

How the terms of Title IX are interpreted to apply to the employment model of college sports is the debate.

My personal opinion is that courts and frankly a lot of legislators have generally taken a pretty expansive view of the applicability of Title IX over the years. This isn’t a law that has been narrowly applied and that has been the case across the ideological spectrum (so it’s not just a clear liberal/conservative dichotomy). As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, courts in recent years have ruled that Title IX applies to student employees of university-affiliated hospitals, so that likely precludes a commonly-proposed “solution” of attempting to place the athletic department into a separate entity. Based on the university hospital cases (which also feature separate entities), that probably isn’t going to work.

So, Title IX will apply to college sports no matter how you try to legally structure it. Whether that means there needs to be equal pay among all athletes and/or equal NIL if schools take that in-house is the gazillion dollar question. My educated guess is that it’s going to be sway more toward the equal pay side than it will to the “football/basketball players getting way more money than everyone else” side, but that’s only my guess. Maybe colleges can get away with paying football and men’s basketball players more, but we can be assured that it will be tested in court if that happens.

This is precisely why I am of the opinion there will be a dramatic reduction in the number of sports and the size of football rosters. Nobody wants to pay the star QB at Alabama the same as a reserve women's bowler. The gender tax is very steep with even pay.

But there is possibly a way around this. Go to a sales team incentive and revenue sharing program. Every athlete would get a base salary, just like every sales rep gets, but the bulk of the revenues come from "sales" incentives. These incentives would be everything from NCAA distributions for their particular sport to gate receipts for the team's matches to team and individual merchandise sales to sponsorship. Some incentives would be equally shared, such as NCAA distributions and any revenue not specific to team. There might even be a sort of tax on all revenue (say 10% of each sports gate and media share for the players) which is evenly distributed.

This sort of uneven pay structure is very legal and normal in business, especially entertainment (which sports is) and sales. I see no reason that model could not be adopted by schools. Yes, it means media deals like ESPN with the SEC and ACC would require a breakdown of what percentage is for each sport and what percentage is just general. Bar and QR codes would need to be attached to each piece of merchandise the school sells to determine if it is generic athletics, specific to a team or specific to a player. But this is nothing that isn't done already in every retail business in the world -- if for no other reason that to know what is selling and why.

Doing a "sales incentive" based salary component would allow you to pay your super star QB or Caitlin Clark a closer to equitable portion of the revenue they generate, than the courts' Marxist like from each according to their ability to each according to their need radical pay equality lean.

(05-21-2024 08:56 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  ... But there is possibly a way around this. Go to a sales team incentive and revenue sharing program. Every athlete would get a base salary, just like every sales rep gets, but the bulk of the revenues come from "sales" incentives. ...

We already have the raw material to build the institutional tools to organize a structured system, with a base scholarship + stipend for all athletes, a media revenue share NIL for use of name, image and likeness in playing to support conference media contracts, and a promotional NIL for players that provide additional brand equity. So, eg, the track athlete at tOSU would get a full ride, COA + "educational trust fund", and an NIL media share of the BTN revenue, which ends up being a fairly small slice given the large denominator, while the star QB gets the full ride, COA + "educational trust fund", and NIL media share of the main Big Ten FB contract and a promotion NIL (perhaps with charity event performance yadda yadda for non profit tax treatment) to make up a quite bigger bag, with for-profit taxable NIL from advertisers who actually use the QB's image to sell cars or condos or body wash added on top.

Obviously that would require the NCAA to rubber stamp the changes in Universities being able to pay for NIL to make that system work. And it would help if Congress could give a tax concession on the media revenue share NIL payment for scholarship athletes, so that all of the NIL funds flowing directly through the University can have tax-free treatment.

We have D1 college teams with more than 100 on some rosters, including PFWs, general walk-ons, etc. The D1-FBS scholarship limit is 85.

An NFL team is allowed to maintain 53 players on its active roster each week, plus a practice squad of 14. I don't know how UDAs are counted.

Regardless, why do college teams need so many players? A simple question wherein I avoid complications, but I hope someone can explain.

Also, if athletes get paid as part of some form of employee status, and get coverage for academic attendance, what about the 95% of other students who have to pay or get loans? Nobody wants to discuss this one either, apparently.

And finally, every other major sport has -- and finances -- some kind of minor league. But not the NFL; it relies on "free" training, experience, etc., from colleges. Why?

Bigger issues than I can answer.

Any geniuses around can feel free to toss any insults my way they want.

(05-21-2024 03:44 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Title IX isn’t changing. Everyone needs to get that totally and completely out of their systems. That is way more set in stone than anything else that we’re discussing here. We’re a college sports-focused board, but Title IX is *way* broader than the sports world. The terms of Title IX are not changing. Everyone needs to get over that or we won’t have a productive discussion. Repeat: whether you personally agree with Title IX or not, those terms aren’t changing.

How the terms of Title IX are interpreted to apply to the employment model of college sports is the debate.

My personal opinion is that courts and frankly a lot of legislators have generally taken a pretty expansive view of the applicability of Title IX over the years. This isn’t a law that has been narrowly applied and that has been the case across the ideological spectrum (so it’s not just a clear liberal/conservative dichotomy). As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, courts in recent years have ruled that Title IX applies to student employees of university-affiliated hospitals, so that likely precludes a commonly-proposed “solution” of attempting to place the athletic department into a separate entity. Based on the university hospital cases (which also feature separate entities), that probably isn’t going to work.

So, Title IX will apply to college sports no matter how you try to legally structure it. Whether that means there needs to be equal pay among all athletes and/or equal NIL if schools take that in-house is the gazillion dollar question. My educated guess is that it’s going to be sway more toward the equal pay side than it will to the “football/basketball players getting way more money than everyone else” side, but that’s only my guess. Maybe colleges can get away with paying football and men’s basketball players more, but we can be assured that it will be tested in court if that happens.

One of the daytime network talk shows had a group today already talking about suing because the numbers of athletes weren't proportional to student population (only 1 of 3 methods of meeting Title IX).

(05-21-2024 07:10 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 06:34 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 05:06 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 04:52 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 04:07 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  Title IX will remain the law of the land. The courts will tell universities what's what. Judges are the experts who make that call.

A number of athlete-plaintiffs in the antitrust lawsuits we're seeing play 'non-revenue' sports. This often goes overlooked here. The Dartmouth basketball players were ruled 'employees' under labour law even in the absence of monetary consideration (Ivy League sports are non-scholarship). If those guys can be employees, any athlete given a uniform and a travel schedule can be.

If athletic programs are indeed in for widespread cutting, don't be surprised if proportionality guidelines make it the reverse of what you describe. Men's skating may be on thinner ice than women's skating if a school already offers American football.

Keep in mind, though, that Title IX wasn't enacted to reduce student opportunities. The person who needs to sweat before either of the skating captains may well turn out to be their athletic director who's knocking down the 7-figure salary. That AD's payday can be put on the block first as.a matter of statute.

This is a compelling reason for Congress to get involved now. Nobody wants to be seen as the Congressman who sat around while tons of D1 athletes lost their scholarships and opportunities to advance their careers/lives, but it's also not reasonable to expect colleges to run a $22m deficit indefinitely. 20 or 30 of us can absorb that $22m, but the rest of the P5 and all of the g5 will be scrambling, slashing, cutting, paring down, etc etc and generally getting all sorts of stingy when it comes to money. As that number increases over time, it will get more and more difficult to keep up for many programs, and the pressure on Congress will increase significantly to "do something to fix this". We can only pray that the solution isn't worse than the problem.

California's legislature, last time I looked, was working on this in connection with a lawsuit there. Universities having trouble meeting athletic budget obligations would be required by statute to reduce staff expenses first before any scholarships and offerings for students. IIRC, schools could not cut any opportunities for students until no staffer made more than $500,000 annually.

This is last summer's news. I don't know the current status of that legislation.

And I think that is going to be the reaction of legislators in general: don’t come to us threatening to cut women’s scholarships and complaining about Title IX compliance when you’re spending 8 figures on football coaches every year.

I think a lot of people here are in a total denial bubble here about Title IX even more than all of the wins that athletes have been getting regarding compensation. The NCAA getting an antitrust exemption from Congress - which I think has an infinitesimal chance of happening - is still exponentially more likely than any weakening of Title IX whatsoever. Seriously - anyone hoping for that needs to jettison it from their brains.

This take is way too strong - just a few years ago no one believed Trump could win the Presidency or that Roe v Wade would be overturned. We are in a new world - Supreme Court could rule that the 3 pronged test for Title 9 is unconstitutional in the near future. Certainly the 5th circuit in Texas would love to send a case up to DC.

At base level, it makes no sense to pay all college athletes the same amount - it is frankly unAmerican to do so. Find anyone, outside of the athletes and immediate family, that think the Alabama QB and the Alabama softball backup outfielder should earn the same salary. I have no idea what will happen but I am smart enough not to talk in absolutes.

Plus do you really think the vast majority of the population of Red states care about women's sports vs football? You think a majority of Alabama citizens want to reduce the football coach salaries to pay female atheletes? Absolutely not. The current intrepretation of Title 9 is not in any way safe.

I agree with Frank that Title IX is not going away or getting weaker. On the other hand, I think there's a good chance football and men's basketball draw from a different pool than women's basketball or all the other sports. Its not logical that a revenue sharing model would treat all sports equally.

If for no other reason than the men's football and basketball players and their agents would not stand for it.

(05-21-2024 09:57 PM)pvk75 Wrote:  We have D1 college teams with more than 100 on some rosters, including PFWs, general walk-ons, etc. The D1-FBS scholarship limit is 85.

An NFL team is allowed to maintain 53 players on its active roster each week, plus a practice squad of 14. I don't know how UDAs are counted.

Regardless, why do college teams need so many players? A simple question wherein I avoid complications, but I hope someone can explain.

Also, if athletes get paid as part of some form of employee status, and get coverage for academic attendance, what about the 95% of other students who have to pay or get loans? Nobody wants to discuss this one either, apparently.

And finally, every other major sport has -- and finances -- some kind of minor league. But not the NFL; it relies on "free" training, experience, etc., from colleges. Why?

Bigger issues than I can answer.

Any geniuses around can feel free to toss any insults my way they want.

Coaches want the big rosters.
1) they don't have to worry about flunking out.
2) they ARE dealing with 18 year olds, not 22-40 year olds.
3) they have depth if they guess wrong on someone.
4) they can red-shirt players.

It wasn't that long ago there was a 40 man NFL roster with a 7 man taxi squad. Definitely that was the size in the 60s and 70s. I don't remember for sure, but think it expanded in the 90s.

Why would T9 require equal individual pay to 'student athlete employees' tomorrow when it does not require that for 'SAs' today? Full scholarships, partial scholarships, no scholarships.. Even on the same team, that's allowed. And scholarships are education benefits, which T9 definitely covers.

The OCR once said this of coaches' pay. Just replace "coach" with "athlete" since some of these nondiscriminatory factors would apply to them as well.

https://www2.ed.gov...docs/t9interp.html
Nondiscriminatory factors can affect the compensation of coaches. In determining whether differences are caused by permissible factors, the range and nature of duties, the experience of individual coaches, the number of participants for particular sports, the number of assistant coaches supervised, and the level of competition will be considered.

Where these or similar factors represent valid differences in skill, effort, responsibility or working conditions they may, in specific circumstances, justify differences in compensation. Similarly, there may be unique situations in which a particular person may possess such an outstanding record of achievement as to justify an abnormally high salary.

Why wouldn't the OCR or Courts of today permit sensible wage differences between individual athletes?

(05-21-2024 09:57 PM)pvk75 Wrote:  We have D1 college teams with more than 100 on some rosters, including PFWs, general walk-ons, etc. The D1-FBS scholarship limit is 85.

An NFL team is allowed to maintain 53 players on its active roster each week, plus a practice squad of 14. I don't know how UDAs are counted.

Regardless, why do college teams need so many players? A simple question wherein I avoid complications, but I hope someone can explain.

Also, if athletes get paid as part of some form of employee status, and get coverage for academic attendance, what about the 95% of other students who have to pay or get loans? Nobody wants to discuss this one either, apparently.

And finally, every other major sport has -- and finances -- some kind of minor league. But not the NFL; it relies on "free" training, experience, etc., from colleges. Why?
....

The historical answer to most of these questions would be popularity.

American football began as a college sport. The pro game was a further continuation of a game college kids had already invented.

The sport became a breakout hit. Popular appeal made it a money-maker for universities, media companies, and—belatedly—athletes. Everything follows from that popularity.

(05-21-2024 11:41 PM)chester Wrote:  Why would T9 require equal individual pay to 'student athlete employees' tomorrow when it does not require that for 'SAs' today? Full scholarships, partial scholarships, no scholarships.. Even on the same team, that's allowed. And scholarships are education benefits, which T9 definitely covers. ...

It has been ruled to require equivalent opportunity where it is not possible to provide equal opportunity ... so if the total number of "full time equivalent" scholarships are in proportion to enrollment of men and women at the University, it's been ruled to be OK if those Full Time Equivalent scholarships are sliced and diced differently.

AFAIU, the P2 proposal to allow full scholarships for all scholarship athletes is not a Title IX driven proposal, it's a proposal to create a non-discriminatory basis for differentiating between the level of P2 schools and those "good enough" to hang with them, and then a next lower level of schools that can't afford to give full scholarships to all scholarship athletes.

But if there is a market-test for the difference in pay, that is not necessarily unfair discrimination (though obviously if you leave a paper trail that the specific market test used was deliberately chosen to disadvantage one protected group, that would be problematic).

That's why I figure a base media revenue-share NIL contract to compensate for the name, image and likeness of athletes who are on the teams that feature in the competitions that media companies are paying would be a candidate for a part of the compensation structure that would pass muster.

(05-21-2024 09:57 PM)pvk75 Wrote:  We have D1 college teams with more than 100 on some rosters, including PFWs, general walk-ons, etc. The D1-FBS scholarship limit is 85.

An NFL team is allowed to maintain 53 players on its active roster each week, plus a practice squad of 14. I don't know how UDAs are counted.

Regardless, why do college teams need so many players? A simple question wherein I avoid complications, but I hope someone can explain.

The base reason is the answer buried in the later part of the question -- college football is a development sport, so in addition to this year's starters and back-ups and rotation players, you also need next year's back-ups some of whom you hope to be starters the year after that (and you don't know which ones, because it's a development sport).

You may find the occasional 18 year old who can be a starting wideout at a high level, but an O-line with too many 18 year olds is going to be beat up by a D-line of similar underlying talent made up of a bunch of 21/22 year olds who have been engage in strength and conditioning under a full time college strength and conditioning coach for the past four or five years.

So some portion of the 85/52 = 160% size roster constitutes the "works in progress".

In baseball, a lot of this development work is done on players under contract but not on the major league roster, but rather playing in the minor leagues, and only a portion of it is done in college. In world football, in addition to youth/academy squads, the big clubs often have players under contract and under development who are loaned out to other lower tier clubs so that they can engage in competitive game play to build up their experience and value and possibly win a place at the club ... viewers of "Welcome to Wrexham" will be familiar with the goalkeeper of the club in season 3 who is on loan from Arsenal.

Then on top of the scholarship players are the scout team walk-ons that may or may not ever see the field ... the "Rudy" type players ... equivalent to the NFL practice squad players, but larger, because you have scout team works in progress in addition to the main members of the current scout team.

Then on top of that, the bigger programs have always had an incentive to sign more players than they can play, because they would rather have them on the bench than playing on the field for the opposition. That is part of why the 85 player scholarship cap is smaller than the scholarship rosters some big name schools used to have in the 50s. However, with the transfer portal, it's become harder to just hoard talent in that way, because players that are too low on the depth chart too late in their college career are much more likely to be able to transfer today to a school where they can get on the field.

(05-21-2024 09:16 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 08:56 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  ... But there is possibly a way around this. Go to a sales team incentive and revenue sharing program. Every athlete would get a base salary, just like every sales rep gets, but the bulk of the revenues come from "sales" incentives. ...

We already have the raw material to build the institutional tools to organize a structured system, with a base scholarship + stipend for all athletes, a media revenue share NIL for use of name, image and likeness in playing to support conference media contracts, and a promotional NIL for players that provide additional brand equity. So, eg, the track athlete at tOSU would get a full ride, COA + "educational trust fund", and an NIL media share of the BTN revenue, which ends up being a fairly small slice given the large denominator, while the star QB gets the full ride, COA + "educational trust fund", and NIL media share of the main Big Ten FB contract and a promotion NIL (perhaps with charity event performance yadda yadda for non profit tax treatment) to make up a quite bigger bag, with for-profit taxable NIL from advertisers who actually use the QB's image to sell cars or condos or body wash added on top.

Obviously that would require the NCAA to rubber stamp the changes in Universities being able to pay for NIL to make that system work. And it would help if Congress could give a tax concession on the media revenue share NIL payment for scholarship athletes, so that all of the NIL funds flowing directly through the University can have tax-free treatment.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tax-free treatment" here. Other than tuition, books, fees and other purely educational expenses, all other payments to athletes, including room & board and stipends, have always been taxable income to the athlete. Clearly, all NIL, regardless of the source, is taxable as well, just not as wages. If you mean "not subject to FICA or worker's comp" that doesn't need any concession that I know of under current law.

(05-22-2024 07:17 AM)ken d Wrote:  ... I'm not sure what you mean by "tax-free treatment" here. ...

The donations and other revenue funding the NIL being tax free. I'm not a tax accountant or attorney, so I don't know whether the revenue sharing would upset the section 501{c}(3) tax free status of the media revenue earned by Universities, but if it would, that would be an impediment to putting this system in place.

(05-22-2024 09:42 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-22-2024 07:17 AM)ken d Wrote:  ... I'm not sure what you mean by "tax-free treatment" here. ...

The donations and other revenue funding the NIL being tax free. I'm not a tax accountant or attorney, so I don't know whether the revenue sharing would upset the section 501©(3) tax free status of the media revenue earned by Universities, but if it would, that would be an impediment to putting this system in place.

As things stand today, I don't believe donations to NIL collectives are deductible to the donors. I see no reason why those same donations should become deductible if funneled through a 501©(3) for a purpose other than that for which the donee has been given tax-exempt status. Intercollegiate athletics is not a tax-exempt purpose.

(05-22-2024 11:33 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-22-2024 09:42 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-22-2024 07:17 AM)ken d Wrote:  ... I'm not sure what you mean by "tax-free treatment" here. ...

The donations and other revenue funding the NIL being tax free. I'm not a tax accountant or attorney, so I don't know whether the revenue sharing would upset the section 501©(3) tax free status of the media revenue earned by Universities, but if it would, that would be an impediment to putting this system in place.

As things stand today, I don't believe donations to NIL collectives are deductible to the donors. I see no reason why those same donations should become deductible if funneled through a 501©(3) for a purpose other than that for which the donee has been given tax-exempt status. Intercollegiate athletics is not a tax-exempt purpose.

The collectives are set up as eligible not for profits.

Intercollegiate athletics has always been tax-exempt. Its still tiny compared to the university as a whole and for now still has "student-athletes" so it fits with the school's purpose.

(05-21-2024 04:49 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Title IX is selectively enforced. Men are 17 percent of the population at the coed Texas Women' University, a few miles east of the University of North Texas in Denton, TX playing in Division II. TWU has been coed for 30 years.

There are nine women's teams. How many men's teams? Zero.

What is the percentage in the typical college years (18-22). How many are at the Houston and Dallas campuses?

There are three tests for Title IX compliance.

Is there interest in playing intercollegiate sports? Is there a skill level? Women college basketball, soccer, and volleyball players have spent years in AAU and travel teams, attending clinics in the summer, etc.

Men players have too, they may even got a head start on the playground. But are those types attending TWU. If you want to be a school teacher, are you going to attend UNT or TWU? If you are interested in becoming a nurse, you might choose TWU, but it might be at a different age. Maybe you were a medic in the military, etc.

(05-22-2024 04:45 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-21-2024 11:41 PM)chester Wrote:  Why would T9 require equal individual pay to 'student athlete employees' tomorrow when it does not require that for 'SAs' today? Full scholarships, partial scholarships, no scholarships.. Even on the same team, that's allowed. And scholarships are education benefits, which T9 definitely covers. ...

It has been ruled to require equivalent opportunity where it is not possible to provide equal opportunity ... so if the total number of "full time equivalent" scholarships are in proportion to enrollment of men and women at the University, it's been ruled to be OK if those Full Time Equivalent scholarships are sliced and diced differently.

AFAIU, the P2 proposal to allow full scholarships for all scholarship athletes is not a Title IX driven proposal, it's a proposal to create a non-discriminatory basis for differentiating between the level of P2 schools and those "good enough" to hang with them, and then a next lower level of schools that can't afford to give full scholarships to all scholarship athletes.

But if there is a market-test for the difference in pay, that is not necessarily unfair discrimination (though obviously if you leave a paper trail that the specific market test used was deliberately chosen to disadvantage one protected group, that would be problematic).

That's why I figure a base media revenue-share NIL contract to compensate for the name, image and likeness of athletes who are on the teams that feature in the competitions that media companies are paying would be a candidate for a part of the compensation structure that would pass muster.

Probably a dumb question but I've read that the NCAA says the coming expense of direct NIL payments should be included with fundraising, marketing and promotion, not athletic aid. Might that be in expectation of the acceptance of a market-based approach to direct NIL by the T9 powers who be, or is that simply a matter of where it should go in the ledger? :D

(05-23-2024 11:53 AM)chester Wrote:  Probably a dumb question but I've read that the NCAA says the coming expense of direct NIL payments should be included with fundraising, marketing and promotion, not athletic aid. Might that be in expectation of the acceptance of a market-based approach to direct NIL by the T9 powers who be, or is that simply a matter of where it should go in the ledger? :D

There's a lot still to be worked out. Many things about NIL remain to be nailed down, along with everything about Title IX's role in the picture. We'll see what happens.

We can count on more coach retirements soon, though, I bet.

(05-22-2024 11:33 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-22-2024 09:42 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-22-2024 07:17 AM)ken d Wrote:  ... I'm not sure what you mean by "tax-free treatment" here. ...

The donations and other revenue funding the NIL being tax free. I'm not a tax accountant or attorney, so I don't know whether the revenue sharing would upset the section 501©(3) tax free status of the media revenue earned by Universities, but if it would, that would be an impediment to putting this system in place.

As things stand today, I don't believe donations to NIL collectives are deductible to the donors. ...

I thought I hard heard that the ones established with eligible charitable purposes are. That is, the "the athletes visit sick kids in the hospital" NIL agreements, not "the athletes are on a billboard advertising a sports car" NIL agreements.

There is no particular need for the "NIL as actual payments for company advertising" agreements to ever have to come in house, and at the company doing the advertising, it's tax free because it's deducted as a business expense. What would be brought in-house would be the "pretense" NIL agreements which are just boosters getting bags together to help recruit players, following the practices that have rapidly become established in order to maintain the facade of it being an independent payment for some use of the individual athlete's name, image and likeness.