(02-15-2020 05:19 PM)chester Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 04:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  What Im suggesting is---it is legal or its not. If i"scholarship only" sports is legal, then the schools are not "avoiding" anything and are in full compliance with the law. Look---whatever happens is going to require mass reorganization within the NCAA--so the fact that it might be messy is irrelevant---its going to be messy either way. The last time there was a sea change in organization anything like this was in the late 1970's when entire conferences moved to different divisions. You can agree or disagree all you like---but if school administrators have the option of continuing with "scholarship only" sports playing against the exact same schools they play now---thats going to be the option they select. I can guarantee you there is not one single college president that has any interest in competing in a bidding war for college players in order to "compete" as long as a "scholarship only" model is available.

Hey, I see that you have argued that NCAA compensations caps are either legal or illegal, and I personally believe that caps on any and all NCAA sports across all divisions ought to be declared illegal. But I don't think that would happen unless a class that includes literally all NCAA sports at all levels file suit.

I agree that if Alston appellees end up with what they want, there would be reorganization. And basketball could play a big part, too. Some might seperate from the NCAA altogether.

I would agree that they all probably are in violation of the anti-trust laws...and even the judges that have allowed the NCAA scholarship model to continue have basically said they are in violation---and then kinda spun a solution that doesnt really fit with their ruling (for instance---the judge rules "scholarship only" is a illegal cap on athlete compensation---and then rules that you can only give the players educationally connected compensation like FCOA--but no more---which is just another cap!). My argument all along has been there really isnt my profit in college sports, so anti-trust law isnt an effective fit for this issue. You need to amend the law or provide and exemption in order to craft a reasonable solution--otherwise, the vast majority of college sports is done (which is probably not in the public interest--or maybe it is---I'll let others debate that).

In the end, I do think a more elegant solution involving revenue sharing will be found that is reasonable and makes sense. But unless they amend the law---such a solution wont really fit within the law of the land.

(02-15-2020 05:31 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 05:19 PM)chester Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 04:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  What Im suggesting is---it is legal or its not. If i"scholarship only" sports is legal, then the schools are not "avoiding" anything and are in full compliance with the law. Look---whatever happens is going to require mass reorganization within the NCAA--so the fact that it might be messy is irrelevant---its going to be messy either way. The last time there was a sea change in organization anything like this was in the late 1970's when entire conferences moved to different divisions. You can agree or disagree all you like---but if school administrators have the option of continuing with "scholarship only" sports playing against the exact same schools they play now---thats going to be the option they select. I can guarantee you there is not one single college president that has any interest in competing in a bidding war for college players in order to "compete" as long as a "scholarship only" model is available.

Hey, I see that you have argued that NCAA compensations caps are either legal or illegal, and I personally believe that caps on any and all NCAA sports across all divisions ought to be declared illegal. But I don't think that would happen unless a class that includes literally all NCAA sports at all levels file suit.

I agree that if Alston appellees end up with what they want, there would be reorganization. And basketball could play a big part, too. Some might seperate from the NCAA altogether.

I would agree that they all probably are in violation of the anti-trust laws...and even the judges that have allowed the NCAA scholarship model to continue have basically said they are in violation---and then kinda spun a solution that doesnt really fit with their ruling (for instance---you can only give the players educationally connected compensation like FCOA--but no more---thats just another cap!). My argument all along has been there really isnt my profit in college sports, so anti-trust law isnt an effective tool for this issue. You need to amend the law or provide and exemption in order to craft a reasonable solution--otherwise, the vast majority of college sports is done (which is probably not in the public interest--or maybe it is---I'll let others debate that).

In the end, I do think a more elegant solution involving revenue sharing will be found that is reasonable and makes sense.

Regarding the bold, so, so true. And that is symptomatic of America's longstanding unwillingness to recognize that there is nothing innately "right" about "amateurism" as well as its reluctance to recognize that the NCAA's ever-changing definition of the term is blatant evidence to the fact that they have exploited the term to exploit valuable athletes. (By "valuable athletes," I mean those that would receive more direct compensation than they do if they had access to a free market in the college scene.)

Regarding profit in college sports... I'm no economist, far from it, but I know this: As non-profits, it stands to reason that revenue and expenses of ADpts will more or less track each other.

While admitting that I don't care if they are, I don't believe that "the vast majority of college sports is done" without an antitrust exemption.

To add: I'm not if favor of revenue sharing under a governmental regulated system because I'm not a socialist. I'm a capitalist.

(02-15-2020 06:06 PM)chester Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 05:31 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 05:19 PM)chester Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 04:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  What Im suggesting is---it is legal or its not. If i"scholarship only" sports is legal, then the schools are not "avoiding" anything and are in full compliance with the law. Look---whatever happens is going to require mass reorganization within the NCAA--so the fact that it might be messy is irrelevant---its going to be messy either way. The last time there was a sea change in organization anything like this was in the late 1970's when entire conferences moved to different divisions. You can agree or disagree all you like---but if school administrators have the option of continuing with "scholarship only" sports playing against the exact same schools they play now---thats going to be the option they select. I can guarantee you there is not one single college president that has any interest in competing in a bidding war for college players in order to "compete" as long as a "scholarship only" model is available.

Hey, I see that you have argued that NCAA compensations caps are either legal or illegal, and I personally believe that caps on any and all NCAA sports across all divisions ought to be declared illegal. But I don't think that would happen unless a class that includes literally all NCAA sports at all levels file suit.

I agree that if Alston appellees end up with what they want, there would be reorganization. And basketball could play a big part, too. Some might seperate from the NCAA altogether.

I would agree that they all probably are in violation of the anti-trust laws...and even the judges that have allowed the NCAA scholarship model to continue have basically said they are in violation---and then kinda spun a solution that doesnt really fit with their ruling (for instance---you can only give the players educationally connected compensation like FCOA--but no more---thats just another cap!). My argument all along has been there really isnt my profit in college sports, so anti-trust law isnt an effective tool for this issue. You need to amend the law or provide and exemption in order to craft a reasonable solution--otherwise, the vast majority of college sports is done (which is probably not in the public interest--or maybe it is---I'll let others debate that).

In the end, I do think a more elegant solution involving revenue sharing will be found that is reasonable and makes sense.

Regarding the bold, so, so true. And that is symptomatic of America's longstanding unwillingness to recognize that there is nothing innately "right" about "amateurism" as well as its reluctance to recognize that the NCAA's ever-changing definition of the term is blatant evidence to the fact that they have exploited the term to exploit valuable athletes. (By "valuable athletes," I mean those that would receive more direct compensation than they do if they had access to a free market in the college scene.)

Regarding profit in college sports... I'm no economist, far from it, but I know this: As non-profits, it stands to reason that revenue and expenses of ADpts will more or less track each other.

While admitting that I don't care if they are, I don't believe that "the vast majority of college sports is done" without an antitrust exemption.

FWIW---I agree with the vast majority of what you have said. I just believe that the result of absolute application of anti-trust legislation to college sports will end the vast majority of programs because they are money losing endeavors that are more charity than business. My personal feeling is that most people will eventually realize this and come together to work out a reasonable solution that allows the college sports to survive.

(02-15-2020 01:17 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 11:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 10:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 09:18 PM)Go College Sports Wrote:  They don't make a profit because there is no point to them making a profit. That's not a thing they intend to do. Their costs are not fixed. If schools suddenly find themselves in a deficit, they'll pay a baseball coach $400k instead of half a million, and reduce other line items similarly. Any Power 5 Athletic Director who would make the case that they can't run a twenty sport athletic department on $100M, with or without amateurism, is either telling a bald faced lie or is really bad at a job they are paid well to do.

Your missing the point. Why are coaches making 7 million right now? Cuz some schools have way more money than other schools and they arent allowed by rule to use that money paying players. So, they use that money to get a competitive advantage by spending it on coaches and facilities.

When the schools can use the money on players, the 5 to 10 schools that have a 80,000 to 100,000 fans in the stands every Saturday will simply buy the top 1000 athletes. There are many more athletes than coaches--so thats going to get very expensive very fast. Even if your non-big money team hangs around skimps and saves and finds a few diamonds in the rough---they will transfer to where the bigger paycheck is after year one. Its going to shake out the same way any way you look at it. In the end---nobody wants to watch a 0-12 team get blown out 75-3 game after game year after year. If you arent in that top 5- to 10 teams in revenue---you wont have sports in a few years because you will lose so often that your revenue will dry up as your fan base withers. You'll need to be a top 20 in revenue to even hang around. Thats how the free market works. Amazon takes out Sears. One by one the other competitors go broke trying to compete and exit the market. If your want a full on no holds barred free market---thats what a free market looks like in a sports leagues with no caps or controls (cuz caps and controls violate antitrust laws). The big boys run the little boys out of the marketplace. The league gets smaller and smaller---slowly constricting the size of the interested audience. Its not really a business plan that makes college football a growing healthy expanding league.

Simply put---there is a reason no pro league does it that way. Pro leagues want their franchises to survive. They want their games to be competitive. Thats why there are contracts in pro leagues. Thats why there are salary caps in pro leagues. Thats why there are drafts in pro leagues with the worst teams picking first. Thats why applying wild west free agency pro concepts to college ball is like trying to use basketball rules in a hockey game.

This doesn't make much sense to me. First, your middle paragraph describing how things will sort out is highly speculative. We've already had two lawsuits filed against schools demanding that they pay players and both have so far lost in federal court. Second, it's not clear that a pay for play scheme would involve unlimited pay. We know it wouldn't because even without salary caps there is no unlimited pay merely because no employer has unlimited revenue. Third, and most importantly, NCAA football is ALREADY based on a model that doesn't allow everyone to compete at the same level. There is FBS, where you have to offer 85 scholarships and X number of sports, FCS which is 60 scholarships, and then D2, and D3, which offer no scholarships.

So there is already an entire array of options for schools that do not have the resources to compete at a given level. If your scenario does come to fruition, So What? Why should federal law be changed to preserve any school's ability to compete at a particular level of football? Whether the "top level" of football has 130 schools or 200 schools or 40 schools is of zero national concern. Why on earth should the Feds intervene merely because if market forces are unleashed that might mean that school X has to drop down from FBS to FCS? Or D2? Oh the Horror!

So now instead of protecting taxpayers as you said before, it seems like the real reason you want federal intervention is to preserve the ability of all the 130 current FBS members to continue to compete at that level. From a societal POV, that's a total Nothingburger issue. Whether San Diego State or Eastern Michigan fields an FBS, FCS, or D3 football team is of zero societal concern, just as it is of no societal concern that 200 or so schools currently field D3 teams.

Also, comparisons to NFL or NBA are poor because college football is not those kinds of leagues. FBS was never created as such, and in fact no pro league would ever allow new members to self-select themselves into the league merely by meeting the low-bar standards that the NCAA has for joining FBS. Imagine the NFL saying 'anyone can form a club football team, and if you can attract 20,000 fans for two years and then agree to pay 55 players a salary you automatically are in the NFL'. Crazy.

What? First off, to be clear, I’m not just making a tax payer argument—I’m making several arguments. I’m saying tax payers, fans, AND the vast majority of current scholarship athletes get hurt under complete free agency while only a handful of high value athletes and a few school programs survive. I’m also saying the long term prospects for the emerging fully free agent league are not good because it’s not constructed in a way that will provide an interesting compelling product and that it will lose most of its audience as the fans of all the other schools eliminated have little reason to watch anymore.

On the other hand, your position is that the antitrust laws are perfectly fine for this situation and should not change (as if we don’t amend and change laws every year when we find something needs a slight tweak). Furthermore, you and most everyone here believes that the players should have full unrestrained free agency and that the current NCAA scholarship model violates anti-trust law (I think the NCAA model probably does violate anti-trust law). Then suddenly in the post above, you switch positions entirely and say that the law doesn’t matter and that the schools that can’t spend enough to make a profit (which is almost everyone) can drop down to capped "scholarship only" divisions (compensation capped at scholarship) and "non-scholarship" divisions (compensation capped at zero). Both of these divisions would be capped models just like FBS and would violate antitrust laws. So how can they drop down to a division that won’t exist because the NCAA has been told by a court it’s illegal? I mean---if those "scholarship only" levels will exists---then whats this whole thing about? Ohio St, Texas, Penn St, Michigan have made it clear they dont want to pay players. Why cant they play in that "scholarship only" league you have suddenly made "legal" with a swipe of your magic hand?

Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Can’t have it both ways. I think your post is reflective of not having thought this through. It seems to me you are starting to come around to where I’m at that college football really doesn’t fit the traditional business model because there really isn’t any profit to be had. In fact—you have made several posts that show just how the vast majority of schools are losing money and that there really is no true profit motive. As a group, the 130 FBS schools lose a great deal of money on sports. Only a handful make any money at all—and other than a few exceptions, most schools that are making a “profit” are just slightly over break even (say within a million or two). All the lower level schools are losing money (some quite a bit). Thats the real reason there is no "competitor" to the NCAA. Yeah, the conferences have some nice TV deals, but the expenses required to produce the product far exceeds the revenue.

So, the public interest lies in this question—Is it better to destroy a system that has provided a free college education to tens of thousands of students over the years just so a few hundred kids can get paid in a league that likely fails in few years, or is there a better option that can be crafted to preserve all those scholarship opportunities—-but allow the kids to participate in some sort of revenue sharing while not gouging tax payers any more than we already are? The latter makes more sense to me—but will violate anti-trust law. That’s the way I see it at this point. So, you either destroy most of the opportunities and likely the sport in the long term by strictly following existing law—or you carve an exception (something you will frequently find in most any legislation passed these day) to make an existing model more fair to the student athletes (along with an oversight committee of congressmen to oversee and regulate college sports because the NCAA can’t be trusted on its own).

I didn't change positions. I noted that so far, the player-pay argument hasn't won in court. It may win in court, but so far, it hasn't. That's noteworthy, as it would mean that there is need for federal action even on your terms as the whole point of an anti-trust exemption would be to allow the current model to continue in the face of rulings that it violates anti-trust law.

Second, point taken about the NCAA classifications. If colluding to not pay players is a violation of anti-trust laws, then you can't have divisions organized on the basis of how much compensation athletes receive.

That said, I don't think that if the courts rule that the NCAA cannot stop players from being paid by schools that this means they will rule that schools must pay players. Schools could define athletic participation as volunteer work and advertise it as such to athletes, or the courts could recognize that athletic scholarships have value and are a form of pay and allow for that. And even if they do force all schools to pay their players, they can pay the minimum wage of $8 an hour, which would work out to probably around $8,000 a year for most athletes (assuming a 8 month work year), that is less than the cost of many scholarships so assuming scholarships have been converted in to actual hourly pay, well that's a wash. IOW's, courts can't force schools to pay more than the minimum wage, and that wage is worth no more, and probably less, than a typical scholarship.

Now, what the NCAA cannot do is force other schools to not pay more than that if they want, but that's fine as well. If UCF wants and can afford to pay its players $20 an hour, or offer 5-star recruits $30 an hour, while Temple can't afford that ... well too bad for Temple just like too bad for Burger King if McDonalds can afford to pay higher wages and attract better employees. No federal interest in that at all.

And there's still no "gouging" of taxpayers, since nobody is forcing taxpayers to do anything. Taxpayers do not have to fund athletics at a level needed to pay players anything at all, don't have to fund athletic programs, etc. They have complete control via their elected representatives.

(02-16-2020 03:01 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 01:17 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 11:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 10:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 09:18 PM)Go College Sports Wrote:  They don't make a profit because there is no point to them making a profit. That's not a thing they intend to do. Their costs are not fixed. If schools suddenly find themselves in a deficit, they'll pay a baseball coach $400k instead of half a million, and reduce other line items similarly. Any Power 5 Athletic Director who would make the case that they can't run a twenty sport athletic department on $100M, with or without amateurism, is either telling a bald faced lie or is really bad at a job they are paid well to do.

Your missing the point. Why are coaches making 7 million right now? Cuz some schools have way more money than other schools and they arent allowed by rule to use that money paying players. So, they use that money to get a competitive advantage by spending it on coaches and facilities.

When the schools can use the money on players, the 5 to 10 schools that have a 80,000 to 100,000 fans in the stands every Saturday will simply buy the top 1000 athletes. There are many more athletes than coaches--so thats going to get very expensive very fast. Even if your non-big money team hangs around skimps and saves and finds a few diamonds in the rough---they will transfer to where the bigger paycheck is after year one. Its going to shake out the same way any way you look at it. In the end---nobody wants to watch a 0-12 team get blown out 75-3 game after game year after year. If you arent in that top 5- to 10 teams in revenue---you wont have sports in a few years because you will lose so often that your revenue will dry up as your fan base withers. You'll need to be a top 20 in revenue to even hang around. Thats how the free market works. Amazon takes out Sears. One by one the other competitors go broke trying to compete and exit the market. If your want a full on no holds barred free market---thats what a free market looks like in a sports leagues with no caps or controls (cuz caps and controls violate antitrust laws). The big boys run the little boys out of the marketplace. The league gets smaller and smaller---slowly constricting the size of the interested audience. Its not really a business plan that makes college football a growing healthy expanding league.

Simply put---there is a reason no pro league does it that way. Pro leagues want their franchises to survive. They want their games to be competitive. Thats why there are contracts in pro leagues. Thats why there are salary caps in pro leagues. Thats why there are drafts in pro leagues with the worst teams picking first. Thats why applying wild west free agency pro concepts to college ball is like trying to use basketball rules in a hockey game.

This doesn't make much sense to me. First, your middle paragraph describing how things will sort out is highly speculative. We've already had two lawsuits filed against schools demanding that they pay players and both have so far lost in federal court. Second, it's not clear that a pay for play scheme would involve unlimited pay. We know it wouldn't because even without salary caps there is no unlimited pay merely because no employer has unlimited revenue. Third, and most importantly, NCAA football is ALREADY based on a model that doesn't allow everyone to compete at the same level. There is FBS, where you have to offer 85 scholarships and X number of sports, FCS which is 60 scholarships, and then D2, and D3, which offer no scholarships.

So there is already an entire array of options for schools that do not have the resources to compete at a given level. If your scenario does come to fruition, So What? Why should federal law be changed to preserve any school's ability to compete at a particular level of football? Whether the "top level" of football has 130 schools or 200 schools or 40 schools is of zero national concern. Why on earth should the Feds intervene merely because if market forces are unleashed that might mean that school X has to drop down from FBS to FCS? Or D2? Oh the Horror!

So now instead of protecting taxpayers as you said before, it seems like the real reason you want federal intervention is to preserve the ability of all the 130 current FBS members to continue to compete at that level. From a societal POV, that's a total Nothingburger issue. Whether San Diego State or Eastern Michigan fields an FBS, FCS, or D3 football team is of zero societal concern, just as it is of no societal concern that 200 or so schools currently field D3 teams.

Also, comparisons to NFL or NBA are poor because college football is not those kinds of leagues. FBS was never created as such, and in fact no pro league would ever allow new members to self-select themselves into the league merely by meeting the low-bar standards that the NCAA has for joining FBS. Imagine the NFL saying 'anyone can form a club football team, and if you can attract 20,000 fans for two years and then agree to pay 55 players a salary you automatically are in the NFL'. Crazy.

What? First off, to be clear, I’m not just making a tax payer argument—I’m making several arguments. I’m saying tax payers, fans, AND the vast majority of current scholarship athletes get hurt under complete free agency while only a handful of high value athletes and a few school programs survive. I’m also saying the long term prospects for the emerging fully free agent league are not good because it’s not constructed in a way that will provide an interesting compelling product and that it will lose most of its audience as the fans of all the other schools eliminated have little reason to watch anymore.

On the other hand, your position is that the antitrust laws are perfectly fine for this situation and should not change (as if we don’t amend and change laws every year when we find something needs a slight tweak). Furthermore, you and most everyone here believes that the players should have full unrestrained free agency and that the current NCAA scholarship model violates anti-trust law (I think the NCAA model probably does violate anti-trust law). Then suddenly in the post above, you switch positions entirely and say that the law doesn’t matter and that the schools that can’t spend enough to make a profit (which is almost everyone) can drop down to capped "scholarship only" divisions (compensation capped at scholarship) and "non-scholarship" divisions (compensation capped at zero). Both of these divisions would be capped models just like FBS and would violate antitrust laws. So how can they drop down to a division that won’t exist because the NCAA has been told by a court it’s illegal? I mean---if those "scholarship only" levels will exists---then whats this whole thing about? Ohio St, Texas, Penn St, Michigan have made it clear they dont want to pay players. Why cant they play in that "scholarship only" league you have suddenly made "legal" with a swipe of your magic hand?

Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Can’t have it both ways. I think your post is reflective of not having thought this through. It seems to me you are starting to come around to where I’m at that college football really doesn’t fit the traditional business model because there really isn’t any profit to be had. In fact—you have made several posts that show just how the vast majority of schools are losing money and that there really is no true profit motive. As a group, the 130 FBS schools lose a great deal of money on sports. Only a handful make any money at all—and other than a few exceptions, most schools that are making a “profit” are just slightly over break even (say within a million or two). All the lower level schools are losing money (some quite a bit). Thats the real reason there is no "competitor" to the NCAA. Yeah, the conferences have some nice TV deals, but the expenses required to produce the product far exceeds the revenue.

So, the public interest lies in this question—Is it better to destroy a system that has provided a free college education to tens of thousands of students over the years just so a few hundred kids can get paid in a league that likely fails in few years, or is there a better option that can be crafted to preserve all those scholarship opportunities—-but allow the kids to participate in some sort of revenue sharing while not gouging tax payers any more than we already are? The latter makes more sense to me—but will violate anti-trust law. That’s the way I see it at this point. So, you either destroy most of the opportunities and likely the sport in the long term by strictly following existing law—or you carve an exception (something you will frequently find in most any legislation passed these day) to make an existing model more fair to the student athletes (along with an oversight committee of congressmen to oversee and regulate college sports because the NCAA can’t be trusted on its own).

I didn't change positions. I noted that so far, the player-pay argument hasn't won in court. It may win in court, but so far, it hasn't. That's noteworthy, as it would mean that there is need for federal action even on your terms as the whole point of an anti-trust exemption would be to allow the current model to continue in the face of rulings that it violates anti-trust law.

Second, point taken about the NCAA classifications. If colluding to not pay players is a violation of anti-trust laws, then you can't have divisions organized on the basis of how much compensation athletes receive.

That said, I don't think that if the courts rule that the NCAA cannot stop players from being paid by schools that this means they will rule that schools must pay players. Schools could define athletic participation as volunteer work and advertise it as such to athletes, or the courts could recognize that athletic scholarships have value and are a form of pay and allow for that. And even if they do force all schools to pay their players, they can pay the minimum wage of $8 an hour, which would work out to probably around $8,000 a year for most athletes (assuming a 8 month work year), that is less than the cost of many scholarships so assuming scholarships have been converted in to actual hourly pay, well that's a wash. IOW's, courts can't force schools to pay more than the minimum wage, and that wage is worth no more, and probably less, than a typical scholarship.

Now, what the NCAA cannot do is force other schools to not pay more than that if they want, but that's fine as well. If UCF wants and can afford to pay its players $20 an hour, or offer 5-star recruits $30 an hour, while Temple can't afford that ... well too bad for Temple just like too bad for Burger King if McDonalds can afford to pay higher wages and attract better employees. No federal interest in that at all.

And there's still no "gouging" of taxpayers, since nobody is forcing taxpayers to do anything. Taxpayers do not have to fund athletics at a level needed to pay players anything at all, don't have to fund athletic programs, etc. They have complete control via their elected representatives.

With respect to prior rulings---they all pretty much say the model violates anti-trust law because it caps compensation. The rulings then go on to order solutions that---surprise surprise---place a cap on player earnings (just slightly higher caps). Basically, the judges are saying what I am. The law doesnt fit college sports so I (as in the judge) am going to fashion some sort of reasonable compromise. I think thats fairly solid evidence of an admission that the law as written doesnt work well in this specific case.

As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive. College football has been around over 100 years and isn't anywhere close to making a profit. All the other sports are even bigger financial train wrecks. The financial reality of college sports is they are closer to being a charity than it to being a pro sports league. My guess is thats why the judges keep ending up where they do. Your own post considers the same view when it mentions athletics as volunteer work.

I keep coming back to where I started. The best option is to recognize that college sports is not profitable---but does generate revenue. The model needs to start allowing a sharing of a portion of that revenue with the players. You could designate a percentage of all college sports revenue and split it evenly among all players. Or you you could apply the percentage to the revenue attributed to each specific sport and then distribute the revenue equally among the players of each individual sport (football and basketball players probably would do way better than all other athletes in that type of system---but then---they are also responsible for most of the revenue).

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive.

Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

(02-17-2020 03:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive.

Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into an opportunity to earn a free education in exchange for playing a sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a series of money losing stand alone professional sports franchises---which was never the intended purpose. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived from their efforts. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities along with something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports. In other words---How do you share revenue without destroying college sports....and can that even be done without some sort of exemption or change in the law?

(02-17-2020 03:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive.

Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into a free education in exchange for playing sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a stand alone professional sports franchise---which it was never intended to be. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities and something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports.

Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

(02-17-2020 04:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive.

Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into a free education in exchange for playing sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a stand alone professional sports franchise---which it was never intended to be. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities and something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports.

Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive.

Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into a free education in exchange for playing sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a stand alone professional sports franchise---which it was never intended to be. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities and something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports.

Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Universities hire faculty even though there's no profit motive. Even though the universities are non profit, they compete for the best faculty based on salary, resources, location, and prestige. College football teams, and teams in other college sports, do the same for coaches. There's no association of universities forcing all professors or football coaches to work for free just because it's easier for some schools than others to afford higher salaries.

There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into a free education in exchange for playing sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a stand alone professional sports franchise---which it was never intended to be. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities and something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports.

Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-16-2020 03:01 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 01:17 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 11:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 10:52 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Your missing the point. Why are coaches making 7 million right now? Cuz some schools have way more money than other schools and they arent allowed by rule to use that money paying players. So, they use that money to get a competitive advantage by spending it on coaches and facilities.

When the schools can use the money on players, the 5 to 10 schools that have a 80,000 to 100,000 fans in the stands every Saturday will simply buy the top 1000 athletes. There are many more athletes than coaches--so thats going to get very expensive very fast. Even if your non-big money team hangs around skimps and saves and finds a few diamonds in the rough---they will transfer to where the bigger paycheck is after year one. Its going to shake out the same way any way you look at it. In the end---nobody wants to watch a 0-12 team get blown out 75-3 game after game year after year. If you arent in that top 5- to 10 teams in revenue---you wont have sports in a few years because you will lose so often that your revenue will dry up as your fan base withers. You'll need to be a top 20 in revenue to even hang around. Thats how the free market works. Amazon takes out Sears. One by one the other competitors go broke trying to compete and exit the market. If your want a full on no holds barred free market---thats what a free market looks like in a sports leagues with no caps or controls (cuz caps and controls violate antitrust laws). The big boys run the little boys out of the marketplace. The league gets smaller and smaller---slowly constricting the size of the interested audience. Its not really a business plan that makes college football a growing healthy expanding league.

Simply put---there is a reason no pro league does it that way. Pro leagues want their franchises to survive. They want their games to be competitive. Thats why there are contracts in pro leagues. Thats why there are salary caps in pro leagues. Thats why there are drafts in pro leagues with the worst teams picking first. Thats why applying wild west free agency pro concepts to college ball is like trying to use basketball rules in a hockey game.

This doesn't make much sense to me. First, your middle paragraph describing how things will sort out is highly speculative. We've already had two lawsuits filed against schools demanding that they pay players and both have so far lost in federal court. Second, it's not clear that a pay for play scheme would involve unlimited pay. We know it wouldn't because even without salary caps there is no unlimited pay merely because no employer has unlimited revenue. Third, and most importantly, NCAA football is ALREADY based on a model that doesn't allow everyone to compete at the same level. There is FBS, where you have to offer 85 scholarships and X number of sports, FCS which is 60 scholarships, and then D2, and D3, which offer no scholarships.

So there is already an entire array of options for schools that do not have the resources to compete at a given level. If your scenario does come to fruition, So What? Why should federal law be changed to preserve any school's ability to compete at a particular level of football? Whether the "top level" of football has 130 schools or 200 schools or 40 schools is of zero national concern. Why on earth should the Feds intervene merely because if market forces are unleashed that might mean that school X has to drop down from FBS to FCS? Or D2? Oh the Horror!

So now instead of protecting taxpayers as you said before, it seems like the real reason you want federal intervention is to preserve the ability of all the 130 current FBS members to continue to compete at that level. From a societal POV, that's a total Nothingburger issue. Whether San Diego State or Eastern Michigan fields an FBS, FCS, or D3 football team is of zero societal concern, just as it is of no societal concern that 200 or so schools currently field D3 teams.

Also, comparisons to NFL or NBA are poor because college football is not those kinds of leagues. FBS was never created as such, and in fact no pro league would ever allow new members to self-select themselves into the league merely by meeting the low-bar standards that the NCAA has for joining FBS. Imagine the NFL saying 'anyone can form a club football team, and if you can attract 20,000 fans for two years and then agree to pay 55 players a salary you automatically are in the NFL'. Crazy.

What? First off, to be clear, I’m not just making a tax payer argument—I’m making several arguments. I’m saying tax payers, fans, AND the vast majority of current scholarship athletes get hurt under complete free agency while only a handful of high value athletes and a few school programs survive. I’m also saying the long term prospects for the emerging fully free agent league are not good because it’s not constructed in a way that will provide an interesting compelling product and that it will lose most of its audience as the fans of all the other schools eliminated have little reason to watch anymore.

On the other hand, your position is that the antitrust laws are perfectly fine for this situation and should not change (as if we don’t amend and change laws every year when we find something needs a slight tweak). Furthermore, you and most everyone here believes that the players should have full unrestrained free agency and that the current NCAA scholarship model violates anti-trust law (I think the NCAA model probably does violate anti-trust law). Then suddenly in the post above, you switch positions entirely and say that the law doesn’t matter and that the schools that can’t spend enough to make a profit (which is almost everyone) can drop down to capped "scholarship only" divisions (compensation capped at scholarship) and "non-scholarship" divisions (compensation capped at zero). Both of these divisions would be capped models just like FBS and would violate antitrust laws. So how can they drop down to a division that won’t exist because the NCAA has been told by a court it’s illegal? I mean---if those "scholarship only" levels will exists---then whats this whole thing about? Ohio St, Texas, Penn St, Michigan have made it clear they dont want to pay players. Why cant they play in that "scholarship only" league you have suddenly made "legal" with a swipe of your magic hand?

Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Can’t have it both ways. I think your post is reflective of not having thought this through. It seems to me you are starting to come around to where I’m at that college football really doesn’t fit the traditional business model because there really isn’t any profit to be had. In fact—you have made several posts that show just how the vast majority of schools are losing money and that there really is no true profit motive. As a group, the 130 FBS schools lose a great deal of money on sports. Only a handful make any money at all—and other than a few exceptions, most schools that are making a “profit” are just slightly over break even (say within a million or two). All the lower level schools are losing money (some quite a bit). Thats the real reason there is no "competitor" to the NCAA. Yeah, the conferences have some nice TV deals, but the expenses required to produce the product far exceeds the revenue.

So, the public interest lies in this question—Is it better to destroy a system that has provided a free college education to tens of thousands of students over the years just so a few hundred kids can get paid in a league that likely fails in few years, or is there a better option that can be crafted to preserve all those scholarship opportunities—-but allow the kids to participate in some sort of revenue sharing while not gouging tax payers any more than we already are? The latter makes more sense to me—but will violate anti-trust law. That’s the way I see it at this point. So, you either destroy most of the opportunities and likely the sport in the long term by strictly following existing law—or you carve an exception (something you will frequently find in most any legislation passed these day) to make an existing model more fair to the student athletes (along with an oversight committee of congressmen to oversee and regulate college sports because the NCAA can’t be trusted on its own).

I didn't change positions. I noted that so far, the player-pay argument hasn't won in court. It may win in court, but so far, it hasn't. That's noteworthy, as it would mean that there is need for federal action even on your terms as the whole point of an anti-trust exemption would be to allow the current model to continue in the face of rulings that it violates anti-trust law.

Second, point taken about the NCAA classifications. If colluding to not pay players is a violation of anti-trust laws, then you can't have divisions organized on the basis of how much compensation athletes receive.

That said, I don't think that if the courts rule that the NCAA cannot stop players from being paid by schools that this means they will rule that schools must pay players. Schools could define athletic participation as volunteer work and advertise it as such to athletes, or the courts could recognize that athletic scholarships have value and are a form of pay and allow for that. And even if they do force all schools to pay their players, they can pay the minimum wage of $8 an hour, which would work out to probably around $8,000 a year for most athletes (assuming a 8 month work year), that is less than the cost of many scholarships so assuming scholarships have been converted in to actual hourly pay, well that's a wash. IOW's, courts can't force schools to pay more than the minimum wage, and that wage is worth no more, and probably less, than a typical scholarship.

Now, what the NCAA cannot do is force other schools to not pay more than that if they want, but that's fine as well. If UCF wants and can afford to pay its players $20 an hour, or offer 5-star recruits $30 an hour, while Temple can't afford that ... well too bad for Temple just like too bad for Burger King if McDonalds can afford to pay higher wages and attract better employees. No federal interest in that at all.

And there's still no "gouging" of taxpayers, since nobody is forcing taxpayers to do anything. Taxpayers do not have to fund athletics at a level needed to pay players anything at all, don't have to fund athletic programs, etc. They have complete control via their elected representatives.

With respect to prior rulings---they all pretty much say the model violates anti-trust law because it caps compensation. The rulings then go on to order solutions that---surprise surprise---place a cap on player earnings (just slightly higher caps). Basically, the judges are saying what I am. The law doesnt fit college sports so I (as in the judge) am going to fashion some sort of reasonable compromise. I think thats fairly solid evidence of an admission that the law as written doesnt work well in this specific case.

As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive. College football has been around over 100 years and isn't anywhere close to making a profit. All the other sports are even bigger financial train wrecks. The financial reality of college sports is they are closer to being a charity than it to being a pro sports league. My guess is thats why the judges keep ending up where they do. Your own post considers the same view when it mentions athletics as volunteer work.

I keep coming back to where I started. The best option is to recognize that college sports is not profitable---but does generate revenue. The model needs to start allowing a sharing of a portion of that revenue with the players. You could designate a percentage of all college sports revenue and split it evenly among all players. Or you you could apply the percentage to the revenue attributed to each specific sport and then distribute the revenue equally among the players of each individual sport (football and basketball players probably would do way better than all other athletes in that type of system---but then---they are also responsible for most of the revenue).

Athletics is profitable at some schools but not others. The fact that its costs exceed revenue at many schools is no reason for federal intervention. If the feds decide schools have to pay players then you either pay or don't play, not a problem, just as if i want to open a burger joint, or run the Red Cross, there are labor laws i have to comply with.

Still, it is noteworthy that courts have declined to order pay for play. If that doesn't change there is no issue even on your terms.

(02-17-2020 05:33 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-16-2020 03:01 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 01:17 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-15-2020 11:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  This doesn't make much sense to me. First, your middle paragraph describing how things will sort out is highly speculative. We've already had two lawsuits filed against schools demanding that they pay players and both have so far lost in federal court. Second, it's not clear that a pay for play scheme would involve unlimited pay. We know it wouldn't because even without salary caps there is no unlimited pay merely because no employer has unlimited revenue. Third, and most importantly, NCAA football is ALREADY based on a model that doesn't allow everyone to compete at the same level. There is FBS, where you have to offer 85 scholarships and X number of sports, FCS which is 60 scholarships, and then D2, and D3, which offer no scholarships.

So there is already an entire array of options for schools that do not have the resources to compete at a given level. If your scenario does come to fruition, So What? Why should federal law be changed to preserve any school's ability to compete at a particular level of football? Whether the "top level" of football has 130 schools or 200 schools or 40 schools is of zero national concern. Why on earth should the Feds intervene merely because if market forces are unleashed that might mean that school X has to drop down from FBS to FCS? Or D2? Oh the Horror!

So now instead of protecting taxpayers as you said before, it seems like the real reason you want federal intervention is to preserve the ability of all the 130 current FBS members to continue to compete at that level. From a societal POV, that's a total Nothingburger issue. Whether San Diego State or Eastern Michigan fields an FBS, FCS, or D3 football team is of zero societal concern, just as it is of no societal concern that 200 or so schools currently field D3 teams.

Also, comparisons to NFL or NBA are poor because college football is not those kinds of leagues. FBS was never created as such, and in fact no pro league would ever allow new members to self-select themselves into the league merely by meeting the low-bar standards that the NCAA has for joining FBS. Imagine the NFL saying 'anyone can form a club football team, and if you can attract 20,000 fans for two years and then agree to pay 55 players a salary you automatically are in the NFL'. Crazy.

What? First off, to be clear, I’m not just making a tax payer argument—I’m making several arguments. I’m saying tax payers, fans, AND the vast majority of current scholarship athletes get hurt under complete free agency while only a handful of high value athletes and a few school programs survive. I’m also saying the long term prospects for the emerging fully free agent league are not good because it’s not constructed in a way that will provide an interesting compelling product and that it will lose most of its audience as the fans of all the other schools eliminated have little reason to watch anymore.

On the other hand, your position is that the antitrust laws are perfectly fine for this situation and should not change (as if we don’t amend and change laws every year when we find something needs a slight tweak). Furthermore, you and most everyone here believes that the players should have full unrestrained free agency and that the current NCAA scholarship model violates anti-trust law (I think the NCAA model probably does violate anti-trust law). Then suddenly in the post above, you switch positions entirely and say that the law doesn’t matter and that the schools that can’t spend enough to make a profit (which is almost everyone) can drop down to capped "scholarship only" divisions (compensation capped at scholarship) and "non-scholarship" divisions (compensation capped at zero). Both of these divisions would be capped models just like FBS and would violate antitrust laws. So how can they drop down to a division that won’t exist because the NCAA has been told by a court it’s illegal? I mean---if those "scholarship only" levels will exists---then whats this whole thing about? Ohio St, Texas, Penn St, Michigan have made it clear they dont want to pay players. Why cant they play in that "scholarship only" league you have suddenly made "legal" with a swipe of your magic hand?

Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Can’t have it both ways. I think your post is reflective of not having thought this through. It seems to me you are starting to come around to where I’m at that college football really doesn’t fit the traditional business model because there really isn’t any profit to be had. In fact—you have made several posts that show just how the vast majority of schools are losing money and that there really is no true profit motive. As a group, the 130 FBS schools lose a great deal of money on sports. Only a handful make any money at all—and other than a few exceptions, most schools that are making a “profit” are just slightly over break even (say within a million or two). All the lower level schools are losing money (some quite a bit). Thats the real reason there is no "competitor" to the NCAA. Yeah, the conferences have some nice TV deals, but the expenses required to produce the product far exceeds the revenue.

So, the public interest lies in this question—Is it better to destroy a system that has provided a free college education to tens of thousands of students over the years just so a few hundred kids can get paid in a league that likely fails in few years, or is there a better option that can be crafted to preserve all those scholarship opportunities—-but allow the kids to participate in some sort of revenue sharing while not gouging tax payers any more than we already are? The latter makes more sense to me—but will violate anti-trust law. That’s the way I see it at this point. So, you either destroy most of the opportunities and likely the sport in the long term by strictly following existing law—or you carve an exception (something you will frequently find in most any legislation passed these day) to make an existing model more fair to the student athletes (along with an oversight committee of congressmen to oversee and regulate college sports because the NCAA can’t be trusted on its own).

I didn't change positions. I noted that so far, the player-pay argument hasn't won in court. It may win in court, but so far, it hasn't. That's noteworthy, as it would mean that there is need for federal action even on your terms as the whole point of an anti-trust exemption would be to allow the current model to continue in the face of rulings that it violates anti-trust law.

Second, point taken about the NCAA classifications. If colluding to not pay players is a violation of anti-trust laws, then you can't have divisions organized on the basis of how much compensation athletes receive.

That said, I don't think that if the courts rule that the NCAA cannot stop players from being paid by schools that this means they will rule that schools must pay players. Schools could define athletic participation as volunteer work and advertise it as such to athletes, or the courts could recognize that athletic scholarships have value and are a form of pay and allow for that. And even if they do force all schools to pay their players, they can pay the minimum wage of $8 an hour, which would work out to probably around $8,000 a year for most athletes (assuming a 8 month work year), that is less than the cost of many scholarships so assuming scholarships have been converted in to actual hourly pay, well that's a wash. IOW's, courts can't force schools to pay more than the minimum wage, and that wage is worth no more, and probably less, than a typical scholarship.

Now, what the NCAA cannot do is force other schools to not pay more than that if they want, but that's fine as well. If UCF wants and can afford to pay its players $20 an hour, or offer 5-star recruits $30 an hour, while Temple can't afford that ... well too bad for Temple just like too bad for Burger King if McDonalds can afford to pay higher wages and attract better employees. No federal interest in that at all.

And there's still no "gouging" of taxpayers, since nobody is forcing taxpayers to do anything. Taxpayers do not have to fund athletics at a level needed to pay players anything at all, don't have to fund athletic programs, etc. They have complete control via their elected representatives.

With respect to prior rulings---they all pretty much say the model violates anti-trust law because it caps compensation. The rulings then go on to order solutions that---surprise surprise---place a cap on player earnings (just slightly higher caps). Basically, the judges are saying what I am. The law doesnt fit college sports so I (as in the judge) am going to fashion some sort of reasonable compromise. I think thats fairly solid evidence of an admission that the law as written doesnt work well in this specific case.

As for the rest of your post---its basically saying the free market should be allowed to operate in the college sports. I understand the free market. It works on profit. What you havent explained is how that model works when there is no profit motive. College football has been around over 100 years and isn't anywhere close to making a profit. All the other sports are even bigger financial train wrecks. The financial reality of college sports is they are closer to being a charity than it to being a pro sports league. My guess is thats why the judges keep ending up where they do. Your own post considers the same view when it mentions athletics as volunteer work.

I keep coming back to where I started. The best option is to recognize that college sports is not profitable---but does generate revenue. The model needs to start allowing a sharing of a portion of that revenue with the players. You could designate a percentage of all college sports revenue and split it evenly among all players. Or you you could apply the percentage to the revenue attributed to each specific sport and then distribute the revenue equally among the players of each individual sport (football and basketball players probably would do way better than all other athletes in that type of system---but then---they are also responsible for most of the revenue).

Athletics is profitable at some schools but not others. The fact that its costs exceed revenue at many schools is no reason for federal intervention. If the feds decide schools have to pay players then you either pay or don't play, not a problem, just as if i want to open a burger joint, or run the Red Cross, there are labor laws i have to comply with.

Still, it is noteworthy that courts have declined to order pay for play. If that doesn't change there is no issue even on your terms.

Thats the point. They all say the current model is a violation of anti-trust law---but they all rule in a way that continues to violate the law because they do not want to destroy college sports (they clearly see a public "good" in the current model). So, why not just fix the law to get the right result? Thats what any reasonable person would do and its in fact, what we as a nation routinely do in most any situation when we find the current law needs a tweak to cover a specific problem.

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 03:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  There is a profit motive. Most Universities make money or at least break even. Their primary business and purpose is educating. Sports was supposed to be an extra curricular activity kids did when they attended school to get educated. It morphed into a free education in exchange for playing sport. Now, the push is to make the schools convert it to a stand alone professional sports franchise---which it was never intended to be. Like I said---I think there is a reasonable middle ground. I would agree the players deserve a portion of the revenue derived. The question is how to do that and preserve the scholarship opportunities and something close to the current character of the revenue producing sports.

Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

Don't think that's a concern, either. Even if a court says the NCAA can't use its cartel power to forbid its members to allow athletes to be paid, the result would be one group of universities that allow athletes to receive compensation and another group that either allows NIL only or continues with a nothing-but-scholarship system similar to the current one.

(02-17-2020 05:51 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:18 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Public universities receive money from the state and without that money they couldn't afford to operate. Even the "revenue" the universities do receive is largely propped up by government support, e.g., students taking out loans to pay tuition and other school expenses, loans the students could never get if it wasn't for the federal government guaranteeing the loans. Public universities are not making a profit or breaking even; they need a constant re-supply of government funds just to keep the doors open.

Don't confuse allowing athletes NIL money with "converting it to a stand alone professional sports franchise". First, the money won't be paid by the universities. Second, only the most exceptional athletes will make anything more than pocket change from NIL. No advertiser and no booster will pay $100,000/year for a third-string linebacker or the 9th best player on a college basketball team. Even athletes who are "locally famous" won't make that much. How much does a sports talk radio host get for appearing in an ad for a local car dealer? That's how much a locally famous college football player would get for appearing in the same ad. An obscure player would get far less.

Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

Don't think that's a concern, either. Even if a court says the NCAA can't use its cartel power to forbid its members to allow athletes to be paid, the result would be one group of universities that allow athletes to receive compensation and another group that either allows NIL only or continues with a nothing-but-scholarship system similar to the current one.

Thats been my point. There isnt one university that WANTS to dump the scholarship only model. So, if a ruling comes down that says "you cant limit compensation"---then there wont be a "scholarship only" division or a D3 "no scholarship" division. If you cant cap compensation, you cant cap compensation--anywhere in the NCAA. Otherwise, the Big10 will just move to the "scholarship only" division.---a move that will quickly followed by every FBS conference. So---if there is a no cap ruling---there wont be any divisions in the NCAA anymore---as they are all currently defined by compensation caps.

(02-17-2020 06:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:51 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

Don't think that's a concern, either. Even if a court says the NCAA can't use its cartel power to forbid its members to allow athletes to be paid, the result would be one group of universities that allow athletes to receive compensation and another group that either allows NIL only or continues with a nothing-but-scholarship system similar to the current one.

Thats been my point. There isnt one university that WANTS to dump the scholarship only model. So, if a ruling comes down that says "you cant limit compensation"---then there wont be a "scholarship only" division or a D3 "no scholarship" division. If you cant cap compensation, you cant cap compensation--anywhere in the NCAA. Otherwise, the Big10 will just move to the "scholarship only" division.---a move that will quickly followed by every FBS conference. So---if there is a no cap ruling---there wont be any divisions in the NCAA anymore---as they are all currently defined by compensation caps.

I doubt that would be how it goes. There are already NCAA divisions that permit athletic scholarships and one that doesn't. There are even two different groups within Division I that have different scholarship rules for football, and conferences within Division I that have different scholarship rules than the rest of the division. Different divisions, different rules, this would just be one more set of rules. The NCAA might have to allow member schools to permit athlete compensation, but the NCAA wouldn't have to require all schools to pay athletes and wouldn't do so. The NCAA would just have to let each school choose which set of rules it wants to play under -- something they already do.

(02-17-2020 06:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:51 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Im not talking about NIL. IMHO---NIL isnt really the answer because just as you point out---it wont do a thing for the vast majority of student athletes. In fact, thats the reason NIL will do nothing to stem the anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA (not to mention the NCAA and apparently congress as well---wants to create guardrails/controls on the NIL--which will also be challenged on anti-trust grorunds).

If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

Don't think that's a concern, either. Even if a court says the NCAA can't use its cartel power to forbid its members to allow athletes to be paid, the result would be one group of universities that allow athletes to receive compensation and another group that either allows NIL only or continues with a nothing-but-scholarship system similar to the current one.

Thats been my point. There isnt one university that WANTS to dump the scholarship only model. So, if a ruling comes down that says "you cant limit compensation"---then there wont be a "scholarship only" division or a D3 "no scholarship" division. If you cant cap compensation, you cant cap compensation--anywhere in the NCAA. Otherwise, the Big10 will just move to the "scholarship only" division.---a move that will quickly followed by every FBS conference. So---if there is a no cap ruling---there wont be any divisions in the NCAA anymore---as they are all currently defined by compensation caps.

Coog, take a look at the injunction the District Court of NorCal ordered in Alston regarding education-related benefits.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y7Zxr6i...GH4jo/view

Notice that it applies only to FBS and D1 men's & women's Bball. Why? Because that was the class of college athlete that brought suit. The same would have been true in regard extra-educational benifits had the court enjoined those caps as well and the same will yet be true if the Ninth Circuit sends the case back to the district court with instruction to do so.

No one is challenging all NCAA caps -- all sports, all divisions. And if a court enjoins caps on extra-education benefits in some sports at some level(s), no one involved would have to pay any player anything. They just wouldn't be able to agree with others that they won't.

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

College football or athletics generally is not a league like the NBA or NFL are, so comparisons are highly suspect.

(02-17-2020 05:49 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Thats the point. They all say the current model is a violation of anti-trust law---but they all rule in a way that continues to violate the law because they do not want to destroy college sports (they clearly see a public "good" in the current model). So, why not just fix the law to get the right result? Thats what any reasonable person would do and its in fact, what we as a nation routinely do in most any situation when we find the current law needs a tweak to cover a specific problem.

I don't even think it's clear that a consensus exists for a tweak, at least not on the issue that concerns you, pay. E.g., the latest polls i've seen say the public favors NIL for college athletes, but also that a scholarship is sufficient compensation. The public often has contradictory ideas about things, but this isn't even necessarily contradictory, as you can think that a scholarship is sufficient compensation from the school while still thinking the players should be able to earn outside endorsement money.

Plus, legislators don't always, or even usually, waste time tweaking old laws. They understand that the way the system works is they pass the law, then what the law means in practice is determined by court rulings in specific cases. Only when the courts seem to be ruling in ways significantly different from the intent of the legislature does the latter step in with a new law to clarify. So if congress is happy with court rulings that say that the NCAA ban on direct pay is technically a violation of anti-trust but not enough to merit striking down the cap, then congress need not take any action.

(02-17-2020 06:45 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 06:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:51 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 05:28 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-17-2020 04:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  If you're worried about a scenario in which some court says that universities can pay salaries to athletes and that Ohio State will then pay huge salaries to every player on their football team, then IMO you're worried about something that no one need worry about.

Im more concerned that a court will say you cant limit compensation. No league (even pro leagues) combines free transfer with no compensation limits. There is a reason for that. My feeling is they will work out some sort of compromise...but if it may require a law change.

Don't think that's a concern, either. Even if a court says the NCAA can't use its cartel power to forbid its members to allow athletes to be paid, the result would be one group of universities that allow athletes to receive compensation and another group that either allows NIL only or continues with a nothing-but-scholarship system similar to the current one.

Thats been my point. There isnt one university that WANTS to dump the scholarship only model. So, if a ruling comes down that says "you cant limit compensation"---then there wont be a "scholarship only" division or a D3 "no scholarship" division. If you cant cap compensation, you cant cap compensation--anywhere in the NCAA. Otherwise, the Big10 will just move to the "scholarship only" division.---a move that will quickly followed by every FBS conference. So---if there is a no cap ruling---there wont be any divisions in the NCAA anymore---as they are all currently defined by compensation caps.

I doubt that would be how it goes. There are already NCAA divisions that permit athletic scholarships and one that doesn't. There are even two different groups within Division I that have different scholarship rules for football, and conferences within Division I that have different scholarship rules than the rest of the division. Different divisions, different rules, this would just be one more set of rules. The NCAA might have to allow member schools to permit athlete compensation, but the NCAA wouldn't have to require all schools to pay athletes and wouldn't do so. The NCAA would just have to let each school choose which set of rules it wants to play under -- something they already do.

Yes. And Division III would continue as it is now, a division for schools doing less for athlete compensation. Division II might continue as it is now.