Saving College Sports!
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Yea, not an easy topic. I don't know how to fix it, but it's broken.
I see @mayjay 's points, but i also think it's ridiculous to let students transfer to a different school every year like mercenaries to the highest bidder. It's college. I refuse to think it's a pro sport. It's not, and shouldn't be. There need to be rules. I'm not against players being paid, but i think insolvency is near when players are asking $4M+ a year. Again, it's college. That is not sustainable, or even possible for the majority of schools.
College sports could very well end up trying what the powerhouses of the soccer world tried, and failed to do: take the top 12 or so club teams and complete against each other only. Stupid. I guess they are already trying with conference realignment.
If we refuse to impose rules and regulations, just ditch the academic part and call it a day. There will be a salary cap, and players can use NIL as endorsement money. Some will get paid, some won't.
Next thing you're getting into forming unions, collective bargaining, and who knows what else. Nightmare. I repeat, it's college.
If you're fine with a player earning all he or she possibly can, i understand, but it could be the ruin of college sports.
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@BeddieKU23 said in Saving College Sports!:
Iowa St just canceled their gymnastics team for an example of what your saying
That situation isn't in the same category to me because ISU is replacing gymnastics with another women's sport, rumored to be wrestling.
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The solution to breaking the antitrust laws should not be disallowing protections to an entire class of people. It should be to find the same solution as in all pro sports: make the players employees. Then, yes, collective bargaining can lead to transfer and compensation rules and restrictions.
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@rockchalkjayhawk I have yet to hear about a single athlete forcing any school to pay him or her a dollar. The schools seem to be willing to throw millions at the elites. Most don't get anything anywhere near mid-5 figures, let alone the 4 million dollars you may think is so common.
Like baseball owners, schools spend like crazy (and thus my post about coaches' salaries) and keep crying for someone to stop them from destroying their sports with the high NILs they offer. "Oh, no, please make new laws to protect me from myself!" "But you just negotiated billions in revenue from TV because people want to see your athletes play!" "Hell, yeah, we earned that. The kids didn't organize anything, did they?"
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@mayjay said in Saving College Sports!:
The solution to breaking the antitrust laws should not be disallowing protections to an entire class of people. It should be to find the same solution as in all pro sports: make the players employees. Then, yes, collective bargaining can lead to transfer and compensation rules and restrictions.
See, there ya go. "pro" sports.
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@mayjay said in Saving College Sports!:
@rockchalkjayhawk I have yet to hear about a single athlete forcing any school to pay him or her a dollar. The schools seem to be willing to throw millions at the elites. Most don't get that much.
Like baseball owners, schools spend like crazy (and thus my post about coaches' salaries) and keep crying for someone to stop them from destroying their sports with the high salaries they offer. "Oh, no, please make new laws to protect me from myself!"
Sure, let's talk about athletes "forcing" payment for a second.
Here's how it ends up...if the athletes at Kansas aren't paid going rates, or what top athletes get on the market, then Kansas Basketball is no longer gonna be Kansas basketball. How's that leave us fans? not that we're that important, but we are. Without fans, you really have no major college sports.
I can't speak to the laws as you can, so not sure how to argue your point.
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@rockchalkjayhawk said in Saving College Sports!:
Here's how it ends up...if the athletes at Kansas aren't paid going rates, or what top athletes get on the market, then Kansas Basketball is no longer gonna be Kansas basketball. How's that leave us fans?
You want the best, you should pay the best. Why should my fandom require athletes to not be paid fairly? Isn't that what capitalism is all about?
And college basketball has paid elites for over 50 years, and football since the beginning of the 19th century, so the "pro" question was answered long ago.
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@rockchalkjayhawk One last observation: A number of posters have spent a few years complaining about one-and-dones first, and more recently about upperclass transfers, as not adding to the KU legacy in their short time. A number have emphatically denounced those players as ones they will never consider "true" Jayhawks like the guys on the banners.
Todays comments about our outgoing seniors White and Council, who came for just 1 year, shows that players who give their hearts to KU can always find a way into the hearts of the faithful. Maybe fans can adjust to new realities. I mean, Dear Lord, the 3 point shot didn't destroy basketball, and the DH hasn't destroyed baseball. Go back far enough, virtually every change made in most sports has been decried as bad for the sport. But sports are more popular than ever.
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@Jayhawk_69 said in Saving College Sports!:
Reagan once said that there is nothing scarier than someone from the government saying "I'm here to help." I don't think that is always true, but I think its true here.
Sadly it is a 100% true then and now. What government agency has anyone ever had to deal with is happy with their service? Remember when college was affordable before the government got into students loans or when housing was much more affordable before the government start subsidizing it? Like I tell everyone regardless of theres a D or R next to the name involved, the government is one big money milking party. We just ain’t invited, pay your taxes or go to jail.
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@kjayhawks2.0 There are a lot of examples of that being the case. I do think there are some good things governments have done (infrastructure, safety regulations, standards for work safety, law enforcement) which is why I don't think it is always true. But when governments overstep their bounds it is almost invariably a disaster.
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Personally, I want the players to be fairly compensated for their contributions. "Fair" is hard to determine in a world where there is such insane discrepancy in compensation from our current system. I'm not for socialism at all. But I feel like our current system of unfettered capitalism invites a lot of greed and that invites a lot of fraud and so it's not going great.
I'm not trying to be political -- so let me bring it back to the point. The college system seems to face a similar bipolar crossroads.
What it needs is a goldilocks solution -- not what it was (players were used, other people got rich), but not succumbing to a "whatever the market will bear" (unfettered capitalism) concept. I feel like that approach would be akin to throwing up our hands and letting the product compete with the professional product (i.e. NBA) where it will certainly fail and lose its soul in the process.
There's some place in or near the middle where this needs to land and be STABLE for a while. That means key parameters (such as compensation) need to have boundaries and restrictions established which can be both enforced and adjusted over time.
Right now the approach is patch-this... patch-that, like band-aids on band-aids — and it's wearing out. I do think a wholistic look at the system would be good. I disagree that one guy (who probably ought to be spending all of his time thinking about more important things than CBB NIL) is the best way to get to that system. The best solutions usually are hashed out by a collective of experts. Should be the same here.
Just my 2cents.
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@bskeet said in Saving College Sports!:
Personally, I want the players to be fairly compensated for their contributions. "Fair" is hard to determine in a world where there is such insane discrepancy in compensation from our current system. I'm not for socialism at all. But I feel like our current system of unfettered capitalism invites a lot of greed and that invites a lot of fraud and so it's not going great.
I'm not trying to be political -- so let me bring it back to the point. The college system seems to face a similar bipolar crossroads.
What it needs is a goldilocks solution -- not what it was (players were used, other people got rich), but not succumbing to a "whatever the market will bear" (unfettered capitalism) concept. I feel like that approach would be akin to throwing up our hands and letting the product compete with the professional product (i.e. NBA) where it will certainly fail and lose its soul in the process.
There's some place in or near the middle where this needs to land and be STABLE for a while. That means key parameters (such as compensation) need to have boundaries and restrictions established which can be both enforced and adjusted over time.
Right now the approach is patch-this... patch-that, like band-aids on band-aids — and it's wearing out. I do think a wholistic look at the system would be good. I disagree that one guy (who probably ought to be spending all of his time thinking about more important things than CBB NIL) is the best way to get to that system. The best solutions usually are hashed out by a collective of experts. Should be the same here.
Just my 2cents.
Maybe Condoleeza Rice and the IARP are available? Oh wait, they folded! doh!
But i'm with ya. All good points. Hard to find a solution without pissing somebody off. we are a capitalist country, but of course have regulation everywhere you look. no need to reinvent the wheel here (i hope).
My main worry is that all these player salaries are gonna bankrupt the system and keep just a few teams at the top. well, and the year to year transfers, too. that i really dislike.
So we're back to collective bargaining i guess. Players need to unionize to see if they can get a big share of that TV revenue stream.
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Here is the problem with this conclave being convened to "fix" college athletics: they aren't inviting the people who make it happen.
From The Athletic Friday about that alleged roundtable:
"Trump will chair the panel, working with expected vice chairs Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Yankees president Randy Levine. Invitees include college sports leaders such as NCAA president Charlie Baker, commissioners from the Power 4 conferences and Group of 6 ranks, select athletic directors, university administrators — including Trump adviser and Texas Tech board chair Cody Campbell — and former coaches Nick Saban and Urban Meyer; sports executives such as NBA commissioner Adam Silver, CEO of the USA Olympic Committee Sarah Hirshland, and New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; media executives such as ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks; and business leaders such as Gerry Cardinale, David Blitzer and Marc Ganis, among others.
"There were no known current college athletes expected to attend."
Seems fair to me.
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Anything done with an EO is worthless here. The court rulings are driving the NCAA currently, so any changes to those rulings would need to come from laws passed by congress, not EOs.
