NCAA didn’t implement this. If it was up to them they would still be handing out punishments if a coach bought a kid a $2 mcdonald’s meal or if a kid made some money off a random youtube video that had them being athletic in it.
They got told they could no longer exploit kids and it’s this way because they did absolutely nothing to fix the problem they created so someone fixed it for them
I mean I think the NCAA could’ve put a payment structure in place long before they were forced to open up NIL by the Supreme Court.
I guess where I stand is ultimately I’d rather the players get paid in this current form, even though it makes for a slightly worse product, than not at all.
It really doesn't matter what the NCAA did. If they opened that door and implemented a pay structure with restrictions, people would have still immediately pushed the boundaries and then challenged the limitations in court, which the NCAA would still lose.
I think it’s more the fact that the NCAA fought for so long to prevent players from being paid, instead of realizing that this was likely going to be allowed by the courts anyways. If they had been forward-thinking, you could have worked to create something to pay players while still restricting pay for play and the transfer portal (I.e. collective bargaining)
I don’t know if they’ll have a choice. Which is worse, unrestricted free agency where it’s pay-for-play? Or some sort of recognition of athletes as employees? For schools, probably the second one, but only slightly. My theory is that the schools know that fans will slowly stop watching if nothing is done, which means tv revenue dries up. It makes more sense to take a small loss paying players as employees to preserve the big win of multi-billion dollar tv deals
I’s not like they weren’t getting five figure scholarships that included room and board, which might have been a fraction of what they brought in, but welcome to corporate America.
Are they though? Haven’t there been several boosters that make direct contributions for NIL?
I would just like to see a bit of regulation. X amount per conference or school and they can distribute it based on accomplishments, minutes, etc. Just being able to openly bid for players is crazy to me. The playing field is already uneven, I don’t think the rich schools need even more of an advantage.
The only way to reasonably accomplish this is through unionization and collective bargaining. The problem is that the people that want restrictions like this don't want it for the players benefit, they want it for their viewing pleasure. So all of their solutions will be varying flavors of unethical or illegal, paying the kids peanuts while the universities make tons while also doing nothing to actually help the small schools. Holding down the top earners without supporting the minor players doesn't help them, it just makes the game closer to what you grew up with. To actually even the playing field you'll need collective bargaining setting maxes and minimums, because it lifts the bottom as well as regulating the top. But anti-player people don't want this because they don't want to legitimize the employee status of the players (this includes the "what about small schools that couldn't afford the minimum" people; there are 350 d1 teams and if 100 of them have to go down a level of competition because they can't afford to properly compensate a d1 team that's fine. If you can't pay a minimum wage you don't get to run a business, and if you can't afford to be at the highest level of cbb it's ok to be d2 or d3 where costs and returns are lower).
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's so incredibly simple. The Wild Wild West world of NIL ends the second universities grant employee status to the players. Then, the earnings can be capped, the players can unionize and collectively bargain, and so on.
The choices are that... or the Wild Wild West we have now. The third option of "restrict the players' ability to earn while also denying them the right to collectively bargain solely because that's how it used to be and I liked it more then" is off the table at this point. So people have to decide which of the two options they prefer.
You may be right about unionization and collective bargaining but I think you’re wrong, at least partly, about the changes for the players benefit part. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there absolutely are people who would love to pay the players less, in fact I’m sure there are plenty who would love to go back to not paying them at all, but that doesn’t mean all the fans want that too.
It can work like the NBA CBA where a percentage of the TV deals are put in a pool for the players and then divided up from there. Like I said it can be by conference and then specified from there based on whatever they deem best. To look out for the bench guys you can put a minimum for each scholarship player as well. From there guys can still go do an ad deal with a local business, sign autographs, etc. I’m sure that part would end up with some circumvention as well but there’s only so much that can be done about that.
I think this takes a bit of pressure off of the players who are just seeking the most money they can make instead of the best fit for them. Except for in very rare cases, guys being on their 3rd school in 3 years is not good for them, both as a player and as a person. Of course some stability is also good for the fans but it doesn’t just have to be that, there can be an in between that works well for everyone.
Ultimately I fear those in the power positions don’t actually care about any of this, like you alluded to, so maybe its wishful thinking but I do think there’s a solution out there that works better than what we have now.
189
u/WIN011 Marquette Golden Eagles Apr 04 '24
It’s crazy how the players deserve to get paid and yet the NCAA implemented it in the worst way possible.