SEC, Pac-12 commissioners seek NIL help in D.C.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff met with U.S. senators on Thursday to ask for legislative help surrounding name, image and likeness policies.
Good NIL article
- Thread starter kougkurt
- Start date
Always a good idea to get the politicians involved.
What could possibly go wrong?
What could possibly go wrong?
The genie is out of the bottle. The kids are going to get their cut of the $. It isn’t even the school’s $. They aren’t writing NIL checks.
There should be tampering penalties. There should be a portal time frame. There should be a roster limit.
The idea that the school you play for is going to somehow regulate the $ you get from an outside source while not paying you a dime for performance??? While the school brings in millions in TV revenue? This is a loser in court for the NCAA.
All these BCS coaches, ADs, presidents have created generational wealth for themselves on the backs of the $ the football team has brought in. Now they wanna regulate someone else’s paycheck? gtfo.
There should be tampering penalties. There should be a portal time frame. There should be a roster limit.
The idea that the school you play for is going to somehow regulate the $ you get from an outside source while not paying you a dime for performance??? While the school brings in millions in TV revenue? This is a loser in court for the NCAA.
All these BCS coaches, ADs, presidents have created generational wealth for themselves on the backs of the $ the football team has brought in. Now they wanna regulate someone else’s paycheck? gtfo.
Here is a copy of an article talking about Alabama's athletic budget, it's two years old, but gives you some insight into the budget of a big time program and how the money is spent.
Bama athletic budget
The biggest issue I see with the NIL deals is what it will do to all the other programs. As we all know football is the revenue generator that makes the money so all the other sports can exist. If you are not one of the top 30 or so blue blood programs, and if your football program loses revenue, then there are other sports that have to be cut, women's sports, and other men's programs. So all these people that had the enjoyment of playing college soccer or rowing or track and field or baseball, softball and many others, will no longer have scholarships available. And these sports will not be available to the kids that can only afford college if they receive a scholarship. Many will cease to exist. There are 10's of thousands of student athletes that participate in other sports, and if NIL destroys your football team, it takes down many other sports with it. I don't think we can deny athletes the opportunity to make money, pay them what they are worth, but there has to be some type of salary cap for a program. Also think about the limit to the number to scholarships in football, or a limit to the number of transfer portal players you can pick up or you lose a scholarship for each transfer, or you pay compensation to the school you took the player from. The whole portal thing has led to unrestricted free agency, with no compensation to the losing school, it doesn't work that way in professional sports, and that can't last or will destroy college football and many other programs with it. I don't have all the answers, but as much as hate to say it have to look at how professional sports deal with free agency, since that is what this NIL model and Transfer portal are turning college football and basketball in to.
Bama athletic budget
The biggest issue I see with the NIL deals is what it will do to all the other programs. As we all know football is the revenue generator that makes the money so all the other sports can exist. If you are not one of the top 30 or so blue blood programs, and if your football program loses revenue, then there are other sports that have to be cut, women's sports, and other men's programs. So all these people that had the enjoyment of playing college soccer or rowing or track and field or baseball, softball and many others, will no longer have scholarships available. And these sports will not be available to the kids that can only afford college if they receive a scholarship. Many will cease to exist. There are 10's of thousands of student athletes that participate in other sports, and if NIL destroys your football team, it takes down many other sports with it. I don't think we can deny athletes the opportunity to make money, pay them what they are worth, but there has to be some type of salary cap for a program. Also think about the limit to the number to scholarships in football, or a limit to the number of transfer portal players you can pick up or you lose a scholarship for each transfer, or you pay compensation to the school you took the player from. The whole portal thing has led to unrestricted free agency, with no compensation to the losing school, it doesn't work that way in professional sports, and that can't last or will destroy college football and many other programs with it. I don't have all the answers, but as much as hate to say it have to look at how professional sports deal with free agency, since that is what this NIL model and Transfer portal are turning college football and basketball in to.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Sounds like the pay for play deals are about to get turned over.
from the article...
"Either the NCAA is going to get its act together in enforcing this," he said, "or I'm going to be pushing for a smaller group to figure out how to create and enforce the NIL rules that we all agree on related to inducement and pay-for-play. The amount of an NIL payment should be commensurate with the work done as a backstop to make sure we're not using it related to inducement and pay-for-play."
from the article...
"Either the NCAA is going to get its act together in enforcing this," he said, "or I'm going to be pushing for a smaller group to figure out how to create and enforce the NIL rules that we all agree on related to inducement and pay-for-play. The amount of an NIL payment should be commensurate with the work done as a backstop to make sure we're not using it related to inducement and pay-for-play."
How does the NCAA put a cap on income from name, image and likeness deals that are being funded by a source outside the university? It isn’t the school’s money nor the NCAA’s money funding the name, image and likeness deals. The NIL deals are not taking $1 away from the school or their revenue.
The argument that NIL will remove revenue therefore remove other sports is laughable. If the TV $ goes away, then there is an issue. But that issue doesn’t revolve around NIL deals. It would center around blue blood programs walking away to form their own super league and taking all the TV $ with them.
Hence, me preaching roster limit of 70. Spread the talent. Don’t let the blue blood programs collect all the talent and then walk into a TV deal meeting pitching super league. Force them to make cuts.
I think what you see are NIL deals centered around popularity. The entity offering the deal wants something in return. They are attaching their wagon to that players name, image and likeness. If the player has nothing of value to offer, no deal. The idea that the $ can’t be performance based is ludicrous. Why else would there be a deal if it wasn’t based on performance? No one is going to pay NIL $ to a kid that never plays and has zero popularity. Even for recruits, they have a following. They have interest around them. Therefore they have value.
The coaches/admin screaming about $ that they can’t keep up with are missing the point. Ultimately this is about talent acquisition and retention. They believe that they will either get muscled out acquiring or blown out retaining talent. The issue is the volume of talent teams are able to HOLD. The salary cap needs to be a roster cap. Do not allow teams to bring in classes of 25 AND walk ons. Do not allow teams to sign 10 kids from the PORTAL. Let the blue bloods pay all the $ they want. Don’t let them have more than 70 kids.
Wanna see WSU sign 4 star kids? Limit the amount of seats at the table. Don’t let SC and Oregon take them all.
Video killed the radio star.
AD/Coach/Prez greed and the NIL will kill college sports.
If it hasn't already.
AD/Coach/Prez greed and the NIL will kill college sports.
If it hasn't already.
There needs to be a limit on something, the kids can make what they can, so the only thing you have left to work with is scholarships, and transfer comp. As an example, USC is trying to steal the Pitt player for 2 million and a house, if he goes directly to USC from Pitt, the USC people have to pay Pitt's NIL pool, ( not Pitt) say 25%. This way teams that develop players will get some type of NIL money to keep what they have. WSU is not going to be a big player in the NIL pool, If you lose a player who gets offered $500,000, and get $150,000 back you can at least use that to help keep someone. If 25% of the money goes to the school that developed and lost the player it may slow things down a little, but it's chump change to some of these boosters. I do think NIL is going to kill college sports for many universities, and with that much money flowing around it a lot of greed and corruption follow it as well. I would think the NFL would get involved behind the scenes, as NIL is going to kill their free minor league football system.
Everything about this is what is wrong with kids and society today.
NIL's origins came from players wanting to get a couple of grand for using their likeness in a video game. Now its this.
And as Biggs mentioned but didn't really hit on - you're encouraging these kids to create a brand on social media. You know, the single biggest driver of narcissism in the world right now. This entire culture of "look at me" and "what's in it for me" is simply not great for young people; most of them are going to have to live in the real world sooner than later.
That’s an interesting idea. Is 25% enough? For Bama that is the cost of doing business. For SC they are buying their way back into the top 5. Oregon may not care at all what the price is. The $ helps but ultimately it may not change the fact you’re nothing more than a glorified JC to the blue bloods. Oregon will always out bid a smaller program. Always, all ways.
The only way the schools and the NCAA have any control of NIL money is they can say it's allowed or it's not. If it's allowed, the value is set by the free market, and it can't - and shouldn't - be controlled by the school, conference, or NCAA.
They can control roster size, make limitations on transfers, create a profit-sharing arrangement among players for all of the money outside NIL, or maybe some other things that aren't directly controlled by the market, but that's it.
Make it 50% year 1, 25% year two, and 15%, and so on. If your on NIL money starts going to other schools you might think twice before pulling the trigger. So most of the NIL money will go to your original players, still an issue, but maybe it will cut down on losing players. There has to be some type of compensation to the team that lost the player to cut back on "stealing" of players. This Pitt WR is a prime example, he wasn't even in the portal and there was talk about money.
I caught the end of a radio interview last week that said the NCAA will get beaten like a drum in court if they keep kids from the NIL money. So if they can’t control labor thru pay they need to control labor thru opportunity.
You make a great point that should be effective with many politicians...NIL in men's FB & hoops is going to further constrict the rest of the men's & women's sports. A direct blow to Title IX. Just one more reason to do something about the NIL madness.
You are essentially making the cost so high that poaching rarely happens and kids have limited options. You are placing a kid under contract without placing him under contract. His school is demanding compensation for essentially a free agent.
Would a scenario like this hold up in court? And who is ends up with the short end of the stick? WSU can cry foul at UA and Nevada can cry foul at WSU…
Disagree. NIL is not coming out of WSU’s budget. How do you blame boosters for the school cutting programs? Especially with TV deals.
You aren’t going to build a $60,000,000 football operations building and blame NIL in front of a judge because you had to cut other sports.
I think athletes can work.
I also think you can put a fair market value on the work. That is likely what the NCAA can do to put some restrictions around this. "Student athlete compensation per hour shall not exceed xxxx.?
Programs like Texas A&M who have been blatantly abusing this, need to have these kids disqualified, or lose eligibility, or some kind of other punishment.
I also think you can put a fair market value on the work. That is likely what the NCAA can do to put some restrictions around this. "Student athlete compensation per hour shall not exceed xxxx.?
Programs like Texas A&M who have been blatantly abusing this, need to have these kids disqualified, or lose eligibility, or some kind of other punishment.
Why would you punish the kids for taking what they were offered?
Will the NCAA have an hourly wage for coaches too?
None of this will hold up in court. This is why the NCAA punted on this. They knew they’d lose.
The interesting part is that the SEC commissioner is involved. The SEC ought to be able to outspend everyone. Why would it possibly want any regulation?SEC, Pac-12 commissioners seek NIL help in D.C.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff met with U.S. senators on Thursday to ask for legislative help surrounding name, image and likeness policies.www.espn.com
Perhaps some SEC schools are located in states that are very restrictive?
If athletes can be paid for a job, not a commitment to a school, that is the argument our conference is making. If they knowingly took money for a commitment, they lose eligibility because they broke the rules. NIL is not quid pro quo. It's pay for work.
It's my opinion, the only way prevent these crazy numbers from happening is to put some criteria on what this means. The court rulings essentially said athletes can be paid. If the NCAA puts criteria around this to be a student athlete, I think they have the power to do so because you are receiving a scholarship, here are the rules of the road.
It's my opinion, the only way prevent these crazy numbers from happening is to put some criteria on what this means. The court rulings essentially said athletes can be paid. If the NCAA puts criteria around this to be a student athlete, I think they have the power to do so because you are receiving a scholarship, here are the rules of the road.
I believe Texas A&M is using their huge fansite to pay kids for interviews. When I say “huge fansite,” I mean enormous building, full tv set, enormous following that pays monthly subscription fees to access the site. Im assuming the NIL deals they are offering are centered around doing media with this fansite.
How do you get this NIL deal without a commitment? Do you think their coaching staff isn’t showing kids numbers on what their starters are making?
This is name, image, likeness. This is not a job. These are sponsorship and appearance deals.
If the NCAA tries to leverage their scholarship, so what. Kids are now walk ons and schools are free to add even more players.
No NIL money is not coming from the schools, but if your team can't compete, and other teams form a super conference, you end up in a lesser conference, your revenues take a nose dive, less or little TV money, ticket sales and booster drop because you are no long an FBS school, you now you have to make cuts regardless of what your facilities cost. That's why something has to be done, and WSU in the majority of the schools in this position, there are about 120 D1 football programs, realistically only about 20 ( and that's high) ever have a shot at a playoff. Those 20-30 blue blood programs need the other 90-100, or they have no one to play to pad their record. That's why you see concern from the SEC, if the rest of the nation doesn't care about football any longer, they fail too, you have to keep everyone in the game to make the system work. Having a "premier league" of 20-30 teams won't work, you need a broader base, that's why having 65- 70 power 5 schools keeps more national interest and keeps the TV money coming in. This won't be an easy problem to solve, and I am sure they will continue to make modifications once they come out with a new set of guidelines ( rules).
IMO, it's because they already were the most successful in recruiting by far, and had a more developed system of under the table payouts than most conferences, in large part due to bubbas and other bag men. Also, while a smaller factor, in theory NIL -- when used for actual promotions, not pay-for-play and the other nonsense it foreseeably has been used for -- would cut incrementally in favor of schools in more heavily populated areas.
NIL is at best neutral for the SEC compared to the "good old days," and probably worse in terms of both the kinds of players its members can get and, even more so, the impacts on program revenues. So all it is doing is, despite Biggs' comment about NIL not taking money out of AD pockets, which is completely illogical, is taking money that otherwise would be donated to schools and ADs and is getting paid out to players. If up to $8m is going to a QB today, rather than what In the "old" days of five years ago might have been a couple hundred grand funneled through a relative or something, of course this is taking money that otherwise would have gone to schools.
Yes. And this is why I say let the kids keep all the $ but cut the rosters. Spread the talent. Have 1 conference with divisions (NFL) and have a 16 team playoff.
The teams that would be left behind need to leverage the basketball tourny. Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, Arizona, etc all need to remind the blue blood football programs who they wont be playing.
Fine.
The 20 or so schools that can afford that can play each other and the rest can play in a separate organization that uses the scholarship model.
I think the restrictions will be more portal based than they will NIL. Put some teeth behind the scholarships. Once you sign, you're guaranteed 5 years of tuition, room and board with that program provided you retain your eligibility. The caveat, however, is that you cannot transfer without sitting out 1 full sports season, and you may only transfer once.
If I understand the rule correctly, you can only transfer without penalty once.
Nobody’s going to give 5-year guarantees on scholarships. That hamstrings you too much if a kid doesn’t pan out.
Since NIL is market-driven, I can’t imagine there a guarantees there either. Sponsors and deep-pocketed boosters aren’t going to give a kid money if he can’t crack the depth chart and get on the field. They might give a signing bonus to lure a HS recruit or a transfer, but if they don’t get results on the field, they’d be fools not to have an escape clause in their deals.
Which brings me to my new idea to limit transfers for NIL. The schools and NCAA probably can’t directly control that money, but they can control participation. So…you can transfer without penalty if you don’t sign an NIL deal for a year. If you transfer for money, you sit a year.
That still allows kids to leave without penalty if the original school just doesn’t fit. And, it probably just about eliminates the pure transfer baiting - not many sponsors are going to pay a kid who’s not playing.
And, if it’s discovered that you cut a back door deal and received NIL money within 1 year of transfer, you lose 2 years of eligibility and the sponsor/booster who wrote the check is barred from NIL participation and from contributions to the school’s athletic department for 10 years. That gives the school some incentive to monitor.
You are going to remove NIL deals for players that transfer. Ain’t happening. If the NCAA punted on NIL $ because they’d get smoked in court, how do they now remove it from kids?
You’re not removing it. They can sign an NIL deal if they want to. They just can’t play for a year if they do.
Deals aren’t available for kids who aren’t playing? Not my fault…that’s the market.
Who says deals aren’t available for kids that aren’t playing? Use the redshirt year. Let him practice but not play. Still transferred, still got paid. Or don’t use the redshirt year. The $$$ may be worth it. Would you take $500,000 to sit one year and then play for $1,000,000?
That's my proposal. If you transfer just for the money, you sit a year. For most other reasons, you get to transfer without penalty - once.
They could get paid with cash flow coffee cups and we will never know. I think tapping into the NIL money as compensation for losing a player has merit, however I am sure they will get creative with the contracts to make it difficult to track the money . It's a mess and there is no easy way to fix this thing, I go back to Biggs suggestion of capping or reducing scholarship, limit roster size, limit the number portal players you can take. Those things are easier to track and enforce, now that NIL money is legal, the SEC has an advantage with all those years of laundering money to players. So what they say the're receiving and what they actually receive, we will never know.
I think ultimately it will have to stand up in court. The NCAA has made rules that were unenforceable legally for a long time. That’s why this is happening now. I just don’t see a scenario where a player, not under contract, can be forced to pay 25% of his eligibility. Especially if he is a “student athlete.”
If the NIL $$$ isnt going to be competitive at least make the roster size so that the talent spreads. But both $$$ and roster size uncapped? That makes the gap between the haves and have nots even further.
Make coaches coach. Don’t let coaches win games because they just clobbered you with talent. Make them coach, create new schemes, bring new ideas.
FWIW…. I believe FCS football has 60 scholarships to offer. Im not sure if they can divvy them up or not. But cutting the scholarships to 70 isn’t wildly outrageous.
Hard to say in todays legal environment, but this isn’t something they should weigh in on. Playing NCAA football is a voluntary activity, and the NCAA should be allowed to set the rules for eligibility, provided that those rules are not discriminatory across legally protected classes.
It isn’t something they should weigh in on until an athlete sues them and now they have to.
Kids are going to get paid. Removing their eligibility in order to control the labor flow could be a losing argument that the NCAA doesn’t want to fight.
Yeah but…sues them for what? Establishing the criteria for playing NCAA football? Totally within their rights.
For saying you can’t sign an endorsement deal and play in certain situations? Also within their rights.
Restricting their right to transfer? They didn’t…they just said you have to meet certain conditions in order to transfer freely. Again, within their rights.
The athlete is free to pursue playing in the NFL, the CFL, the USFL, or various other pro leagues, all of which may come with endorsement opportunities. There’s nothing saying they have to play NCAA ball, they’re choosing to. And as long as participation is a choice, the sponsoring entity has the right to define how to govern participation.
Not that I think the NCAA is likely to fight the battle. But they should. NIL could destroy traditional college sports, and create an environment where the top drawing/earning/winning schools break away and form their own league outside of NCAA influence.
