JessN: A-Day wrap-up: What it wasn't, was A-Day

[irvingtontide]

When I read the 18 month membership, I rolled my eyes and thought, "What good is that going to do in the NIL arms race???"

But then I just started playing around with the numbers. Just thinking about the state of Alabama, there are roughly 5 million people. Pure speculation would suggest half of the state's population would favor Alabama. If you can only get 20% of them to join "Yea Alabama" (500,000), that would be a monthly intake of $9 million and an annual of $108 million.

I'm not defending or advocating, but that's alot of NIL money.

Now, you probably won't get 500,000 Alabamians to join the initiative, but how many Alabama fans exist all across the nation/globe?

Perhaps the idea itself is not as bad as I first thought?

The problem is more people would be open to paying 240 annually if you told them it would increase the odds of a championship greatly. Tell them it’s going to make 18 year olds millionaires and the line gets blurry. People that worked their whole life have a hard time giving their money over to an 18-22 year old to play a sport. Especially one that hasn’t played a down and gets more benefits from school then they ever would.

 

[irvingtontide]

To add on to my last post now this 18 year old you turned a millionaire didn’t get to play his freshman year and demands more money and playing time or he transfers.

 

[BamaMoon]

The problem is more people would be open to paying 240 annually if you told them it would increase the odds of a championship greatly. Tell them it’s going to make 18 year olds millionaires and the line gets blurry. People that worked their whole life have a hard time giving their money over to an 18-22 year old to play a sport. Especially one that hasn’t played a down and gets more benefits from school then they ever would.

To add on to my last post now this 18 year old you turned a millionaire didn’t get to play his freshman year and demands more money and playing time or he transfers.

Again, I'm not advocating for the idea of paying NIL $ for 18 year olds, but the University has to compete with every other school and, whether we like it or not (I know most of us hate it), this is the reality.

Again, all I'm saying is if the university can enroll enough people at a mere $18 a month the program can raise alot of money.

As for championships, we above all fanbases should know they start with recruiting the right players. And today, that involves NIL money. I hate it too. But it is what it is!

 

[irvingtontide]

Again, I'm not advocating for the idea of paying NIL $ for 18 year olds, but the University has to compete with every other school and, whether we like it or not (I know most of us hate it), this is the reality.

Again, all I'm saying is if the university can enroll enough people at a mere $18 a month the program can raise alot of money.

As for championships, we above all fanbases should know they start with recruiting the right players. And today, that involves NIL money. I hate it too. But it is what it is!

I completely agree with you. I should have probably mentioned that in the first post. Just from a fan buy in point that is going to be the hurdle every university faces.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

I completely agree with you. I should have probably mentioned that in the first post. Just from a fan buy in point that is going to be the hurdle every university faces.

Maybe I'm off base, but I think there's a growing disdain from fans toward college football and how it currently is. Just the online response to how UcheaT handled Nico and his situation tells me there's at least some.

 

[irvingtontide]

Maybe I'm off base, but I think there's a growing disdain from fans toward college football and how it currently is. Just the online response to how UcheaT handled Nico and his situation tells me there's at least some.

I agree most fans don’t like the direction nil/the portal are going.

 

[CaliforniaTide]

Maybe I'm off base, but I think there's a growing disdain from fans toward college football and how it currently is. Just the online response to how UcheaT handled Nico and his situation tells me there's at least some.

Cam Newton had a good point, that I agreed with. The point of NIL was to make life for college athletes comfortable (which the standard is obviously subjective); it was not to make forever money. Nico I and others see the goal as getting forever money - maybe they know they're not good enough to be in the pros.

It's hard to get excited for certain players on the team when they're most likely not going to be around next season (see Isaiah Bond from Alabama to Texas). It's a totally different way of doing things internally than how most fans, right now, grew up watching.

 

[alabama mike1]

This long time college football fan is beyond frustrated with the way NIL and the transfer portal is mishandled!

 

[gtgilbert]

Cam Newton had a good point, that I agreed with. The point of NIL was to make life for college athletes comfortable (which the standard is obviously subjective); it was not to make forever money. Nico I and others see the goal as getting forever money - maybe they know they're not good enough to be in the pros.

It's hard to get excited for certain players on the team when they're most likely not going to be around next season (see Isaiah Bond from Alabama to Texas). It's a totally different way of doing things internally than how most fans, right now, grew up watching.

It's hard to admit that sCam Newton can have a coherent thought, much less agree with him, but he's on to something with this.

Now, pardon me while I go wash my mouth with soap to get rid of the taste of that...

 

[BamaMoon]

Cam Newton had a good point, that I agreed with. The point of NIL was to make life for college athletes comfortable (which the standard is obviously subjective); it was not to make forever money. Nico I and others see the goal as getting forever money - maybe they know they're not good enough to be in the pros.

It's hard to get excited for certain players on the team when they're most likely not going to be around next season (see Isaiah Bond from Alabama to Texas). It's a totally different way of doing things internally than how most fans, right now, grew up watching.

Yeah, that 180K MSU offered that he turned down for whatever AU paid him seems like peanuts now.

 

[Tideflyer]

This long time college football fan is beyond frustrated with the way NIL and the transfer portal is mishandled!

JMO, but as things stand today, the ONLY thing that might change things for the better is empty seats in the stadiums, and lots of them. And even with that I may be oversimplifying things.

 

[JessN]

Maybe I'm off base, but I think there's a growing disdain from fans toward college football and how it currently is. Just the online response to how UcheaT handled Nico and his situation tells me there's at least some.

You're not wrong. The problem (and Cam Newton's comments show that he doesn't understand the issue fully, either) is that it's virtually impossible under the laws of the USA to limit anyone's earning potential. About the only way to do it is via an employee-union collective bargaining agreement. And once we have that in place, college football completely ceases to exist and it's just regional semi-pro football with school names painted on.

The NCAA lost a case back in the late 90s or early 00s regarding what they called the "restricted earnings basketball assistant coach." There was a cap on that particular position and the NCAA lost in court. This came at the time where the NCAA could do (and was doing) just about anything it wanted in regard to bylaw enforcement. Limiting what a person can make artificially is a commerce clause no-no.

We will never go back to the way things were unless Congress passes an act that carves out special rules for colleges and college athletes. At this point, there isn't sufficient pressure from the public to do so (and it will be needed to get a bipartisan resolution to this). We are far more likely to continue to go down the current road we're on, or just throw up our hands and call it quits. What is being decided here is the concept of amateurism -- and there's a 9-0 SCOTUS ruling that, as I read it, basically says amateurism cannot be enforced.

There is, of course, one legal way out already, and it's the same way we got in this mess in the first place: the free market. If fan interest wanes, pools of money dry up. The athletes cannot force schools to pay them above market rate, no more than the schools can force them to play for below-market rates. But we're way away from that.

I will say this, just for myself: I've noticed high school kids start to make demands, and I've heard it's coming to travel ball teams too. At some point it's going to cause a mass blowback. I'm already there. I see less and less value in sports franchises with each passing year. My family had already started to adjust our time spent on such things back during the covid shutdown and I don't see that trend reversing. I know I'm not close to being alone. And when that kind of pushback reaches critical mass, a lot of athletes are going to learn Economics 101 without having to get it from a classroom.