My questions on NIL

[NCRNU71]

According to Nielson, each Big 10 team will be getting between 80 to 100 million dollars annually in television rights for a seven year deal with the various networks. There is also additional income from ticket sales and other sources. The thing that seems strange to me is that in the new era of NIL, we fans are being asked to contribute with "charitable donations" to pay the players. Some of the NIL money is being paid for legitimate endorsements (like Dr. Pepper commercials for Caleb Williams) but a lot of these "endorsements" or "charitable work" are only a front to pay the players for being on the team. I am questioning why we fans are being asked to subsidize these NIL payments when there is big money being paid to the individual schools. The players are certainly necessary to generate these TV deals and deserve to be compensated fairly for their contributions, but why is this being thrust on the fans and not coming from the Universities?

I understand that there are rules in place regarding NIL that currently have to be adhered to and am not questioning if the rules are being followed but am instead questioning the rules themselves.

 

[FeralFelidae]

According to Nielson, each Big 10 team will be getting between 80 to 100 million dollars annually in television rights for a seven year deal with the various networks. There is also additional income from ticket sales and other sources. The thing that seems strange to me is that in the new era of NIL, we fans are being asked to contribute with "charitable donations" to pay the players. Some of the NIL money is being paid for legitimate endorsements (like Dr. Pepper commercials for Caleb Williams) but a lot of these "endorsements" or "charitable work" are only a front to pay the players for being on the team. I am questioning why we fans are being asked to subsidize these NIL payments when there is big money being paid to the individual schools. The players are certainly necessary to generate these TV deals and deserve to be compensated fairly for their contributions, but why is this being thrust on the fans and not coming from the Universities?

I understand that there are rules in place regarding NIL that currently have to be adhered to and am not questioning if the rules are being followed but am instead questioning the rules themselves.

The thinking goes that the bag men in SEC territory have been paying players under the table for years so making it legal for everyone levels the playing field. I'm not opposed to players getting compensation for their NIL being used in EA Sports NCAA football video game. I think it's corrupt has hell to have students playing for a university being paid by third parties to play at that university.

 

[phatcat]

According to Nielson, each Big 10 team will be getting between 80 to 100 million dollars annually in television rights for a seven year deal with the various networks. There is also additional income from ticket sales and other sources. The thing that seems strange to me is that in the new era of NIL, we fans are being asked to contribute with "charitable donations" to pay the players. Some of the NIL money is being paid for legitimate endorsements (like Dr. Pepper commercials for Caleb Williams) but a lot of these "endorsements" or "charitable work" are only a front to pay the players for being on the team. I am questioning why we fans are being asked to subsidize these NIL payments when there is big money being paid to the individual schools. The players are certainly necessary to generate these TV deals and deserve to be compensated fairly for their contributions, but why is this being thrust on the fans and not coming from the Universities?

I understand that there are rules in place regarding NIL that currently have to be adhered to and am not questioning if the rules are being followed but am instead questioning the rules themselves.

I think you will find that, like always, The NCAA and schools will hold onto the money until it is pried from their cold, dead hands.

I'm not saying it is simple. They prefer that players don't become employees. They don't know what to do about non revenue athletes. But, you know what? It's my impression that they aren't trying very hard. NIL was forced onto them by the courts, without NCAA oversight, they will probably wait until forced again by the courts into revenue sharing.

Then you have guys like Saban pontificating that the players care more about getting paid than winning. F Nick Saban. I didn't see him working for free.

It will be hard to get the NIL genie back in the bottle, even with revenue sharing

 

[ricko654321]

According to Nielson, each Big 10 team will be getting between 80 to 100 million dollars annually in television rights for a seven year deal with the various networks. There is also additional income from ticket sales and other sources. The thing that seems strange to me is that in the new era of NIL, we fans are being asked to contribute with "charitable donations" to pay the players. Some of the NIL money is being paid for legitimate endorsements (like Dr. Pepper commercials for Caleb Williams) but a lot of these "endorsements" or "charitable work" are only a front to pay the players for being on the team. I am questioning why we fans are being asked to subsidize these NIL payments when there is big money being paid to the individual schools. The players are certainly necessary to generate these TV deals and deserve to be compensated fairly for their contributions, but why is this being thrust on the fans and not coming from the Universities?

I understand that there are rules in place regarding NIL that currently have to be adhered to and am not questioning if the rules are being followed but am instead questioning the rules themselves.

Your last sentence is the answer. To this point, the one restriction that the NCAA have managed to state without being refuted is that the universities can't directly pay the players.

But at this point, I think they should just transition to that. Acknowledge that the student athletes are employees in some regard (at least in Power 4 conferences) and allow for contracts between player and university to be compensated directly. This actually might mitigate a bit of the utter chaos in the transfer portal we have right now with coaches constantly re-recruiting players each offseason. I don't blame players who make a decision based on money at all, but then they have some obligations in relation to that (or they could decide to take a 1yr, 2yr, 4yr deal at different places for different amounts of money). Colleges would need to basically hire the equivalent of a GM in the NFL and then maybe part of that gets eased off of the HC's burden, which right now is basically the GM and HC in college football.

If left unregulated in terms of payments, this likely widens the lack of parity in CFB even further so one would think a sensible NCAA should try to put some restrictions on it or a salary cap (and anything beyond that needs to come from external 3rd parties) but the odds of the NCAA drafting such a framework up, having key constituencies agree on it, and have the ability to legally justify it are probably slim to none.

I don't love CFB evolving in that direction, but I think at this point just admitting that is the reality and putting some structure around it to let the universities pay the players directly is better than the amorphous chaos of NIL + transfer portal + never-ending recruiting that we have currently.

 

[250vertical]

If/when the schools are able to directly pay the players, you will see the schools not in the SEC or BIG 10 fade away. Many will drop FB or BB. The money that will be available to the P2 schools will dwarf the Big 12 and the ACC (while it still exists). You will see a Rutgers put a far better quality team on the court than a Kansas or Duke, because they will have 50 to 60 million more to spend. And these kids do not give a shit about education, tradition, or school loyalty. They want the money. Period.
The folks at Fox and ESPN know that they will lose millions of CFB fans whose schools are no longer a part of the conversation. They will more than make it up by condensing the big brands into the two conferences and producing more big match ups. They will make more money. And that's the story.
Title IX could be destroyed.

 

[NUCat320]

OP, it’s an absurd system. We all know this.

Are the schools allowed to make donations to “collectives”?

Are collectives and schools supposed to keep their distance, like campaigns and PACs. (Ha!)

The NCAA is just so feckless. They stacked bigger and bigger tv deals to the point of absurdity. The system as is will change soon. But this system as is wouldn’t have been necessary if the NCAA did *something* in the past 15 years. (They did expand the field to 68 — more interest! more tv inventory!)