NCAA: student athletes can profit from their likeness

[B1GTide]

Like immigration laws?

I am not getting into politics.

 

[KrAzY3]

How does getting a deal done with Congress work in your mind? Because this is exactly how it works.

Dude, I have literally lobbied in the state legislator to get a bill sponsored. I've gone door to door with one of the most prominent politicians in this state. I have received assistant from my representative in an immigration matter. I'm also on a political Facebook page that's prominent enough that Facebook demanded personal information because they were worried about election interference. I'm not a political novice. You painted an overly rosy picture of what is really a bunch of buffoons bumbling around.

That aside, there's no point in us arguing about things that don't even exist yet. I just can't imagine a worse pairing than Congress and the NCAA, with a boost from the politicians in California. It's a giant mess.

Think USCw has already been in Bryce Young's ear about the endorsement opportunities in Los Angeles vs. Tuscaloosa?

Also, suppose it becomes 'known' that if a player enters the transfer portal, certain boosters will provide 'likeness incentives' to players who transfer to their colleges?

This gets into the reason why endorsements was such a bad way to go about this. It's one thing to say we want a better deal for players, but there's really not that much difference between the California law and anything the NCAA can come up with, because this is almost impossible to regulate, especially once you start to get disgruntled parties. That's why I said this was a train wreck and you can't make people happy with this. What ever you do, people are not going to be happy and there's just no way for this to end well.

Anyway, let's assume that Congress and the NCAA get together and fabricate some rules. What would they have to be in order to prevent this sort of thing from occurring? How do you keep it from being recruits being openly bought for 7 figure sums, and transfers being purchased in similar fashion?

Well, first off you have to find a way to get players to their destination school with true amateur status intact. If they can already sign endorsements while being recruited, the cat is already out of the bag. There's no rule the NCAA is going make in this new reality, short of declaring them ineligible that's going to prevent open bidding. Some might counter that there are already deals being made, and I won't argue with that. But, by allowing them to be openly professional you are removing the cap. The only limitation will be how much a booster is willing to spend.

So, let's assume you get past that hurdle and they are not eligible for endorsements until they sign with a school. Then what? If you let it become a direct agent to player scenario, you are basically undoing some of the things the NCAA specified they wanted to do, like maintain competitive balance. Top players are going to be choosing a school based on potential endorsement deals, unless that money is somehow deferred or limited.

The same goes for transfers, once a player has shown their ability, the only thing preventing more open bidding is if the money isn't going directly into their hands. The only way to deal with that I can come up with is some sort of a agency run by the school, conference or God help us, the NCAA. If someone wants to sign a deal with a player, they'd go through this agency, they'd probably have some sort of scales to go by and then there is a question of what happens to the money.

If it goes directly to the player's pocket, we're back at square one. All you have to do to induce someone to go to a particular school is promise a particular endorsement. So the only thing you can really do to prevent that is cap the money in some way. One solution might be to have the deal with a team as a whole, or conference even. Even then, more money is going to be flowing to players at particular schools.

A lot of potential solutions seem to me to be worse than the problem. For instance do you just end up redistributing money from sponsorship deals? This would be made even worse if a deal asked something of a player's time and then they have to give most of that money away.

Deals with the university instead of a player could bring back the NCAA Football game and the like. For instance you're able to use the player's likeness, but which player is up to you. You are not however able to ask anything of the player's time. So you could make jersey's, use existing media, but not have him come in and do a shoot with you. This still would still benefit more schools than others, but the money could be distributed to all the players and as such weaken the ability for a booster to entice particular players.

A lot of this sounds like a bad idea, but I think the premise is a bad idea. I was ok with limited use of likeness tied to specific perks (like jerseys with the player's name on it in return for loss of future earnings insurance) or putting a percentage of NCAA proceeds into a retirement fund for athletes. But, I can't come up with a good way to do what they're proposing to do. I can't come up with a fair way to go about this that doesn't turn this into a professional sport without a salary cap. You let an athlete be paid for autographs, he can be paid 10,000 per autograph (wink wink). You let him be paid for an endorsement, and there are boosters that are going to pay incoming guys 500K to endorse their oil company or something. The system just isn't set up to handle this scenario.

 

[B1GTide]

The system just isn't set up to handle this scenario.

Your problem - you assume that if you are not smart enough to figure it out then it is beyond anyone's ability.

 

[KrAzY3]

Your problem - you assume that if you are not smart enough to figure it out then it is beyond anyone's ability.

The assumption that I'm smarter than the NCAA isn't much of a reach.

 

[kenbama]

In this proposal can an athlete use his college uniform or equipment while performing an endorsement? I thought that Alabama "owned" uniforms and licensed its likeness. A few years ago all avitors had to remove Bama likenesses.

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

The big problem here is people have been fed a lot of disinformation to the point that they think there's money here that really isn't.

Athletic departments are not profitable, they are subsidized. Billions of dollars are being spent, it's going into hundreds of millions in facilities per school, around 100K per student athlete per year, etc... So the underlying finances are misunderstood generally. They schools aren't taking money from the athletes and blowing it on random things, they're taking it from the athletes and spending it on the athletes, and then they are taking money from the boosters and the government and spending it on the athletes as well. The NCAA game settlement produced peanuts, a completely insignificant amount, because the money really wasn't there. Just going back to the XFL thing, these guys are making under 30K base pay, and if they don't get hurt or get cut they're going to get about 55K. Just don't show that to the washed up college football player griping about how little his scholarship was worth...

Aside from inducements to play for teams, there's really not much money to be made. Just look at former Alabama stars, what do they get for the most part? AJ does some local ads for dealerships, he's not getting big money. What we're talking about here is either a way for boosters to buy players for teams, or if it isn't that, it will be almost meaningless for almost every single college athlete. Even in the Tuscaloosa area, who is going to have big money to offer endorsement deals to athletes? Nick Saban's Mercedes dealership?

To give an example, the local college football team here, South Alabama... I don't know a single player by name. Not one. I don't think most people in the city do. Even the coach barely does any commercials, so who is going to be signing their players to legitimate endorsement deals? No one is. The only deals they'd ever be offered was a deal from some overzealous booster or someone wishing to influence the player in some way. So, no matter what deal comes out of this, there's going to be a lot of disappointed South Alabama football players when they realized the rules have changed but nothing improved for them.

A professional player has years to build his brand, to become a household name. Most college football players are unknown to the average household. Heck, my wife found a stack of autographed Senior Bowl cards. I'm a college football fan, they are some of the best college football players in the nation... I still didn't know a lot of their names. Almost all of them are nearly worthless. Unless you're on a Heisman Watch list or something, you would be of very little value for a legitimate endorsement deal.

So, either what we end up with is just an easier way for boosters to buy players, a system to influence the players, or we have something that means nothing for 99% of the athletes. Either way, there's going to be a lot of people unhappy about that. The other option, I guess I might as well address that, would be revenue collected and distributed in such a manner that all it amounts to is a slightly larger stipend. If so many people aren't happy with the stipend now I doubt a little bit more is going to change their minds.

I've said it before, but this endorsements route is one of the worst ways to go about this in my opinion.

The money will come from Boosters to the Star Athletes.

It's an inevitable train wreck... :cool2:

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

Seems like it opens the door for boosters to offer HS seniors endorsement contracts if they chose their college.

Absolutely!

Enjoy it until this becomes effective, because CFB as we love it will be forever ruined. There will no way to put this Genie back in the bottle... :cool2:

 

[Elefantman]

With Yellow Fellow being able to pay the Awbarn recruits directly with endorsement deals; My heart goes out for all the soon to be unemployed bag men. Maybe we should start a "go fund me" page for them.

 

[B1GTide]

 

[Bama1985]

You are correct. Removing amateur status/definition of college athletes will change college football as we know it. Enjoy this year of Alabama football--it may be one of the last. The politicians are finding a way to destroy this great sport.

This is going to be such a train wreck. The NCAA is just caving to California, but the California legislation doesn't allow for any restrictions. There's no way to make all parties happy here.

Edit: "The board directed the three separate divisions of college sports to immediately begin figuring out how to update their rules in a way that maintains a distinction between college and professional sports. The board members said in a release Tuesday that all changes should make sure student-athletes have the same opportunities to make money as all other students, maintain a priority of the education and the collegiate experience, and that rules are "transparent, focused and enforceable" and do not create a competitive imbalance."

So in other words they're going to try to do the impossible. Good luck with that.

 

[cuda.1973]

Don't want to drive this over to NS, but since the subject of Congress has already come up....................

Some politician (in one of the branches of Congress) wants to tax the scholarships of players who "cash in" on their likeness.

So, yeah...............this is going to be a mess, and CFB as we know it is going to change. And quite possibly in untold ways that the fans are not going to like.

OK, back to whatever your guys were jawing about. I have some other stuff to do!

 

[FThomas]

Don't want to drive this over to NS, but since the subject of Congress has already come up....................

Some politician (in one of the branches of Congress) wants to tax the scholarships of players who "cash in" on their likeness.

So, yeah...............this is going to be a mess, and CFB as we know it is going to change. And quite possibly in untold ways that the fans are not going to like.

OK, back to whatever your guys were jawing about. I have some other stuff to do!

Scholarships (academic and athletic) are already taxed to an extent. The portion going to tuition, books, etc is not taxed, but portions that go to room and board are taxed. The funds made from likeness would be taxed under current law and it would not require new congressional action to do it.

CORRECTION: Ahh, I get what you are saying.. yes some are clamoring that the academic portion of scholarships then be considered taxable Income. My apologies. I see Richard Burr among others has called for that.

 

[BamaNation]

Given this decision, let’s just eliminate the whole “student” thing and just make players hired guns. They can get an education if they want but those that only want to ball can do so. I’m serious.

and as others have discussed, the taxman will, as he already does, get his or crush you if he doesn’t. This is the boogeyman that TPTB seem to ignore.

 

[FThomas]

Given this decision, let’s just eliminate the whole “student” thing and just make players hired guns. They can get an education if they want but those that only want to ball can do so. I’m serious.

Maybe a system like baseball is the best way to go. you can be drafted at 18, play minor leagues, or you can go college route but you can;t turn pro then until after your Junior? year. Make the NFL subsidize it.

 

[81usaf92]

Maybe a system like baseball is the best way to go. you can be drafted at 18, play minor leagues, or you can go college route but you can;t turn pro then until after your Junior? year. Make the NFL subsidize it.

With the CTE epidemic that the NFL is facing, the NFL is never going to get behind it.

 

[teamplayer]

I've said many times that if they take care of the game, the money will always be there. If they take care of the money, the game will go away. I'll just leave it at that again and enjoy the game while it lasts. Roll Tide!

 

[JDCrimson]

The only I could see this working is to 1) make the school the agent of student-athlete and 2) escrow a percentage of the funds until the player graduates. Hold the school and player accountable for any funds that aren't reported with serious penalties for noncompliance.


Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[Ole Man Dan]

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/27957981/ncaa-votes-allow-athletes-profit-likeness

I still don't like it.

 

[NationalTitles18]

I've said many times that if they take care of the game, the money will always be there. If they take care of the money, the game will go away. I'll just leave it at that again and enjoy the game while it lasts. Roll Tide!

They've been taking care of the money for decades already. The only difference now is that athletes are demanding the opportunity to make bank and the powers that be are finally forced to respond. I'll also note that how the NCAA handled a certain rival's situation a few years ago (and the subsequent fallout) has partially influenced my opinion. That situation emboldened other schools to act as you would think they would. Yeah, Ole Miss got caught for being so blatant and bold with it, but that's the tip of the iceberg. It is my opinion that it's better to bring all of this above board and regulate it as best you can, with severe penalties for (as mentioned above) unreported or otherwise illicit "earnings" as determined by the rules that will be drawn up.

I also am of the opinion that schools should hold a "veto" for matters of moral turpitude or conflicting endorsements.

This is coming whether we like it or not. Hopefully it can be done in such a way that preserves fairness and increases transparency.

 

[Elefantman]

A couple of thoughts on this matter:I can see the Oregon head coach sitting in a recruit’s living room with a Nike rep who is telling the 5 star player that Nike will let him design his own shoe with his name and number on the shoe. And that Nike will pay him 500K to design it and the team will wear that shoe on opening day. Sounds outrageous but what’s going to stop that from happening.

Next thought: I can see coach Saban sitting in a recruit’s living room telling him of all the advantages of playing for the Crimson Tide. The only response he gets is from the kid’s agent asking how much endorsement money can coach Saban guarantee? And how the coach from the other school said he could get his client 500K in endorsements. I would not be surprised if CNS pulls the pin and heads to the lake for retirement if this happens.