FBI
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BucknellJayhawk3 said:
“I wasn’t able to read all 140 posts.”
You weren’t ABLE - or more likely, you weren’t committed to it. Why don’t you tell the truth once in a while? I’ll tell you why:
YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!
Sorry, all in jest - saw the “Bucknell” thing and had flashbacks. Deep breath. All better now.
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@wissox THE SCHOOLS DO NOT PAY THE PLAYERS. THE PLAYERS FETCH ENDORSEMENTS ON AN OPEN MARKET.
If a rower can get someone to pay them for rowing, by God, let them get paid.
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@BigBad I firmly believe that the schools are paying the players plenty in free education and infrastructure. And that is fair across the board for all sports and athletes in college.
But the top recruits could easily be fetching $100k+ from endorsements every year while in school. How do I know this? Because they are literally getting that right now even while it is against the rules. Allowing them to get endorsements based on an open market takes title IX right out of the window. It isn’t gender based, it is what the market is willing to pay for a player.
Stifling those players abilities to earn has created a strange legal issue that could be fixed if we just let players fetch endorsements. Again, the school would not pay one single penny more. The open and free market would dictate what players got paid and what players didn’t. It’s that simple.
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I live in Ohio. I know maybe 3 people who could name a player on Kansas team this year before the final four. I cant believe the money that is out there for them. Crazy
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mayjay said:
@BigBad Well, maybe they would have to stop letting the schools get paid for making kids wear (read: endorse) products they don’t want to use. Are you okay that currently the school gets paid literally millions to endorse a product while the person whose name and image are publicicized with that product gets nothing he wouldn’t get anyway?
Not quite. I don’t believe anyone thinks that players wearing a certain brand of sports gear constitutes an endorsement; they wear it because that is the uniform the school provides to them. Even the schools don’t really “endorse” the product, they provide mostly exposure.
Now, student athletes know exactly what they will or will not get or be allowed to do or not do when they agree to play for a program and in return they get a full ride, luxurious accommodations, meals specially prepared for them by sports dietitians, the best coaches and trainers, state of the art facilities, a monthly stipend and national exposure. Seems like a pretty good deal to me and this is why every up and coming player aspires to play for a program like KU.
The option is to play in the G League or overseas for a low salary, sharing an apartment with a couple of other players, taking bus rides to the next game and playing before a couple of hundred fans. They can endorse anything they want from shoes to dog food. Nobody forces them to go to college, obviously they do it because they believe is the best deal for them.
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JayHawkFanToo said:
Nobody forces them to go to college, obviously they do it because they believe is the best deal for them.
There is a trend nowadays to constantly show how EVERYONE is somehow a victim and being exploited.
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mayjay said:
@JayHawkFanToo Do you think the enforcers would have targeted the guardian only? Interesting twist. But bottom line, “I didn’t know my guardian took a second batch of money from addidas to pay back the first from someone else so I could go to addidas school KU” is not very convincing against a presumption of ineligibility.
I could be wrong, of course, but I see a lot more wishful thinking going on here today than compelling arguments.
It really sounds like Silvio did not know of the Under Armour deal and when he decided to come to KU it threw a monkey wrench on the guardian’s plans. I believe the Cam Newton defense would apply in this case.
BTW, non enforcer would mess with the athlete, particularly since he apparently was not even part of the deal. The last thing they need is publicity.
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@JayHawkFanToo maybe on the guardian. Could have pocketed the cash.
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It is possible the guardian conned both Under Armour and Adidas.
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@JayHawkFanToo I don’t see how a case (that involves a kid who went to a different school than the one who paid his dad) provides a defense in a case like this (where the money paid to the guardian was paid by a company with the specific intent to steer him where he actually went).
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Like I said, if the kid was not involved and he ended up going to a school other than that negotiated by the guardian, then the Cam Newton defense kicks in.
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@Kcmatt7 I appreciate your passion. I am not tied to players staying four years. I don’t like OADs.
But here’s what’s important. I want players that want to play in college. I am all for competition.
Further, I don’t think you have to pay players to entice them to come. If you do, then they should choose something else if they want to get paid.
The concern I see above with universities getting paid for their players is off base. What company or entity does not make money off those that perform services for them? It’s a red-herring.
Further, if the value of a college player’s services is what the market will bear, right? Where is the market? It certainly isn’t restricted.
See, what you and others want is for a private organization to change its rules to accommodate the desires of a few. Instead of competing, folks want to change an entities rules and make them something they aren’t. See, the NCAA works great for most every athlete.
The market is there and open to be exploited. Start a league. Pay the players. Let them get endorsements. But if it was there, wouldn’t someone have done it by now?
Ah, but that’s the tricky part isn’t it – the players derive most all of their value from the stage that the NCAA provides. That’s right, the universities have the facilities, the tourney, the TV contract, the national exposure, the marketing, the brands, right? Without it, there’s nothing.
Thus is why the players just don’t sign with UA, or Nike, or Adidas out of high school, or go sign autographs, or whatever, and skip college.
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Exactly.
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@JayHawkFanToo for some reason I don’t think he did.
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Hell yeah, Silvio plays. This is pure bull crap. Its a damn conspiracy. Its ridiculous. I havent heard as much as a peep from the NCAA on these other issues. The NCAA says these are merely FBI investigations and they wont act.
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What happened to Zona? Nothing from the NCAA. This is more about the shoe companies, not the players. NCAA will not touch schools or players.
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Any school who recruits the top end guys will be tainted at some point.
Cal and UK are Trump and any slip up is front news and repeated over and over. K and Duke are Obama and any slip up gets buried. Go look at the Marvin Bagley situation.
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Too much to backread in this topic with how this board loads. That’s really my only complaint with this forum software.
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“Your first reaction is being upset. You work hard for something. You sacrifice so much. I know Silvio’s family, where she (De Sousa’s mom) lives. If you saw where she lived right now (Angola), that article would really make you upset because he is going through what he is going through to pursue his dreams and take care of his family, take care of his mom. He is doing it the right way. For people to take that away from him and away from me, it is crazy.” Of KU, Falmagne said: “Coach Self is not about that (paying players). That is one of the things I really appreciate about him. He is, like ‘Coaches are gonna offer you this. What I’m going to say is I am not going to jeopardize my livelihood for that. I can guarantee you if he really wants to be an NBA player, I can make him NBA. It’s going to take a lot of work from him, but I can get him there. That’s when his reward is going to come. Right now is not the time for it.’ I was like, ‘Wow, Coach Brown was right about this guy.’ That’s when we went over there (to visit KU).’’’
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I recall Preston’s mom reacting to certain things with a good dose of indignation as well, but I could be wrong …
So did he take the UA money as alleged? I wonder if money was sent to Angola? I speculate on wire transfers. Prosecutors love those.
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@BShark Wow, hard work and time put in equal success? That’s a hard sell these days.
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HighEliteMajor said:
@Kcmatt7 I appreciate your passion. I am not tied to players staying four years. I don’t like OADs.
But here’s what’s important. I want players that want to play in college. I am all for competition.
Further, I don’t think you have to pay players to entice them to come. If you do, then they should choose something else if they want to get paid.
The concern I see above with universities getting paid for their players is off base. What company or entity does not make money off those that perform services for them? It’s a red-herring.
Further, if the value of a college player’s services is what the market will bear, right? Where is the market? It certainly isn’t restricted.
See, what you and others want is for a private organization to change its rules to accommodate the desires of a few. Instead of competing, folks want to change an entities rules and make them something they aren’t. See, the NCAA works great for most every athlete.
The market is there and open to be exploited. Start a league. Pay the players. Let them get endorsements. But if it was there, wouldn’t someone have done it by now?
Ah, but that’s the tricky part isn’t it – the players derive most all of their value from the stage that the NCAA provides. That’s right, the universities have the facilities, the tourney, the TV contract, the national exposure, the marketing, the brands, right? Without it, there’s nothing.
Thus is why the players just don’t sign with UA, or Nike, or Adidas out of high school, or go sign autographs, or whatever, and skip college.
But you are ignoring the fact that they ARE getting paid with endorsements right this second. Ignoring that Nike and Adidas are never going to stop finding ways to pay players to attend certain schools or involve themselves in basketball. I do not think the NCAA should pay players. Or the Universities should pay players. I just do not think that they should restrict players earnings.
Why do you think they should restrict players earnings? How would that change the already screwed up landscape of College Basketball and College Basketball recruiting? How would it change KU basketball? What would it do?
Why continue the song and dance? Instead of players taking dirty money and the NCAA looking the other way full well knowing it is happening, why not just accept it and regulate it.
Your argument is, “its free market,” and that is it and if the players don’t like it, go somewhere else. I mean you are basically just opposing something just to oppose it if you can’t tell me simply, why you think the NCAA should not let players fetch endorsements when it would cost the NCAA and its member schools absolutely nothing or, more likely, it would save everyone millions from the reduced compliance and investigating that would need to take place.
These rules were made to only apply to the small number of athletes in the first place. So saying a rule works for the large majority of athletes when it wasn’t created for them in the first place is not actually digging into the problem.
You are basically saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Except it is broke, and now you are really saying “well it still kind of works and we don’t really want to fix it, so just leave it how it is.” What happens something comes around that actually does work, effectively ends CBB, and all we had to do was change a simple rule that was created for and only effected a small number of athletes? I love CBB and don’t want to see it go away. But not being proactive about these types of things is exactly how you see large companies go out of business all the time.
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@Kcmatt7 I’m not saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Really, I’m saying competition would be good. Competition would allow CBB to be more clearly in one lane. I do appreciate that endorsements are your focus. I think your approach is the same as many folks, with many issues – make it legal and then regulate or profit from it (taxes).
I have told you in bold exactly why players should not fetch endorsement money. It is not their right. The NCAA owns the product and creates nearly all of the value. The players are interchangeable. That is a strong argument. It’s not different than an employer with a non-compete. You can’t sell your wares if you are working for us. That’s akin to the voluntarily executed LOI. You agree to the rules when you sign.
So, I am not opposing just to oppose. Please then address my point about the NCAA creating the value. You avoided that. You agree there, don’t you? I mean, the players – the interchangeable parts that move in and out at 8 months to 5 year increments – don’t own anything, correct?
The rules apply to all NCAA athletes. Different sports have different specifics, but a rower can’t sell their likeness, or endorsement (which is your topic).
And when you say it won’t cost the NCAA and schools anything, you may be missing a small point. Don’t you think what has been uncovered, under the table, with the top guys, will then engulf the game? Meaning, the company will say, “You go to this school, and we’ll pay you. You go to Texas El-Crappo, and we won’t.” Further, the schools reap endorsement monies. There are only so many dollars. Further, the player endorsements will inevitably conflict with the school – think of the shoe issue alone.
It would destroy CBB. You know slippery slopes. This is one, as I mentioned above with no on satisfied with whatever money that they get.
The better solution is the market. If there was a better alternative to the benefits college players now receive, they’d do that.
But the issue there is what has folks stumped – there is no real market for these guys. If there was, we’d have a league where they could make enough to get the value over what they get from the NCAA (which should give you pause).
The CBB product – the stadiums, arenas, schools, mascots, everything that goes with it – that’s what sells. Not the players at this level (to a very large degree).
And don’t forget what the NCAA does to propel these players to their future earnings. Can the NCAA claw back money paid to players for the value provided?
That’s an idea … pay the players. But as part of the deal, the NCAA gets 20% of future earnings. Most wouldn’t like that. Jay Bilas whines about paying players, but without his CBB notoriety, he’d just be another lawyer making a good living.
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@BShark 100% agree, issus perusing long threads may be addressed in newer versions of software… Not sure. Will update to latest and greatest some day in the doldrums of summer most likely.
@nuleafjhawk LOL @ “you aren’t committed”
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@BShark where did you see this? Tears me up! Good read.
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@Kcmatt7 @HighEliteMajor The Olympics used to claim it would destroy everything to let the athletes collect salaries and fees. The endorsement model doesn’t stop the schools and the NCAA from continuing to collect broadcast fees and their other revenue streams from licensing, etc. Both, incidentally, collect their millions as non-profits, as bizarre a legal fiction as exists.
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@Kcmatt7 it unbalances the playing field even more. Most Colleges/Universities lose money on sports programs (however, I’m open to facts and arguments that would show impact of sports on ‘pure’ University funding efforts that could be indirectly fueled from athletic persona of the school).
I think a thorough analysis of all intended and unintended consequences needs to be completed.
To some extent, athletics is an unnatural situation set up to put some element of a level playing field in place.
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@approxinfinity That would be a nice bonus.
@Crimsonorblue22 From the statement Silvio’s guardian put out.
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@HighEliteMajor The NCAA absolutely creates a ton of value for these athletes. No doubt about it. It is a smart move for the players to come play through the schools, gain exposure, have an opportunity to get a good education, receive top of the line training, etc. But to think you could throw 10 white guys all under 6’5 out on that court and get the same National exposure, you would be mistaken. It is a balance of future pros, America’s thirst for live sporting events, and school pride that have driven NCAA Basketball and Football into another level of profitability. The NCAA is honestly a victim of it’s own success. It has done a great job building up amateur sports. But now things have changed and there is more money in the sport than they could have ever anticipated in 1910.
I do not think what is going on behind the scenes could get any worse when brought into the light. Companies are dictating where players go now. I think there is a better way of doing it. One where the NCAA is essentially the middle man. Once a player has chosen his school, they can then work through the “endorsement office” to secure any endorsements that are offered. And I honestly think that it would work just fine.Sure a Nike rep could say that if you go to an Adidas school, we may not sponsor you. But that would then be the same thing that is going on now.
Texas El-Chapo isn’t going to be effected by this in the slightest. We are talking P5 schools and a handful of mid-majors with a decent basketball product. And that is it. Trying to regulate this doesn’t make it any more of a slippery slope than it is right now. Especially when it is based around what the players value, itself, is. This isn’t giving someone a raise and not others. It is whatever someone’s market value is.
I’d love to read any response you have, but I’m exhausted on the subject and done responding on it. I think we have aired out all of our points by now.
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The players are not interchangeable. College basketball would plummet if the players were D2 level.
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@Kcmatt7 nice counter. I enjoy the back and forth and the subtleties that are exposed so we all can deepen our understanding. Appreciate you enjoining the debate.
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@Bwag Universities that lose money from their sports teams just shouldn’t have sports teams. Problem solved.
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@Bwag The truth though, is even teams that lose money from operating a sports program itself have actually found that they make money from it through enrollment. Two great local examples. When WSU made their FF run, enrollment JUMPED immediately. I don’t think the program was any more or less profitable as a result. But the university became more profitable as a result of having an Athletic Department through increased enrollment.
Then there is Missouri. The issues they had with there football team has cost them tens of millions of dollars from enrollment dropping.
So, I would say that some Universities should probably drop their sports. But most that can get even close to breaking even, it is probably worth having an athletics department.
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I’m sure you have seen this but still it’s the first time I had seen. pretty interesting to see the names that have be mentioned in the probe:
Iowa St - - Virginia - -Vanderbilt - -Norte Dame - -Creighton - -Clemson - -Wichita State - -Arizona - -Xavier – - Utah- - Louisville- -S Carolina- - Washington - -Duke- -North Carolina- - Texas- -Kentucky- -Michigan State- - USC- -Alabama- -North Carolina St- -Seton Hall- -LSU- -Maryland. - So ALOT and I mean a lot of teams under the gun in some sort in this dam thing - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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Kcmatt7 said:
Well at least we know that Adidas was trying to do it’s part for us against Nike lol. The “embargo” was real for a period of time.
I’m sure other schools are laughing at us right now. But I can’t wait to see what comes out of the EYBL raid. Adidas didn’t just start paying players $90k while Nike wasn’t lol.
Cal and K just landed 9 of the top 25 player for 2018 lol. BUT NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS.
I know, right!? @ NIke, Nothin to see here!! Gimme a break!! GTFO!
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For the NC if vacated, there is no champion crowned. So if we vacate season who wins the big 12.? If no champ then we could win 14 in a row twice as it were.
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@jayballer73 Ummm a lot of those are Nike schools…WTF? Im confused
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@Lulufulu This thing not just Aidias this thing is crazy - -all dirty
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Kcmatt7 said:
@wissox THE SCHOOLS DO NOT PAY THE PLAYERS. THE PLAYERS FETCH ENDORSEMENTS ON AN OPEN MARKET.
If a rower can get someone to pay them for rowing, by God, let them get paid.
Why you yelling at me bro?
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@wissox My bad dude. Works been too slow lately. Misdirected boredom.
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I’m curious where the IRS fits into all these payments. Surely it must be declared as income to the parents. “Follow the money” is spot on here. If reported, it’s definitive (unless hidden as another type of income). If not reported - well, who wants to mess with the IRS??? Will/can the FBI subpoena tax returns? Your thoughts are appreciated, as I haven’t seen the IRS mentioned anywhere…
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@Gorilla72 Still a few days to report the 2017 payments, but there might be penalties for not making sufficient estimated tax payments when the money was received.
Unless, of course, the IRS waives the penalty because of the unexpected nature of accepting a large corruption payment from a shoe company.
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Gary Parish was on 810 AM in KC and the interview was interesting to say the least with a clear anti-KU bias. Some of the statements include…
In the last 6 months the question I hear the most from coaches I talk to is…Adidas is the target of the investigation, why is it that KU, the flagship program from Adidas, is not yet implicated?
==> I seriously doubt that any coach would ask such a question, even off the record.
Question: have you ever heard of any player that was paid money that the program was not aware of the payment?
Answer: I never heard of a program where a player was paid that the program did not know, it would stretch my imagination to think that the program did not know about the payments.
Everybody was wondering when KU was going to be mentioned in the investigation.
I know that Gatto is more than a business acquaintance and he isa close friend of Bill Self.
The FBI has Gatto’s computer with all the correspondence with KU and they will find out what went on.
Gatto is not a street thug and he does not have an honor code like snitches get stitches and he does not want to be away from his kids and grandkids so he will cooperate with the FBI and will name names.
The entire interview had a heavy undertone of presumed KU guilt. For being the new KU station the entire interview sure sounded like a hatchet job. Of course, with Kietzman in charge we should expect nothing less.
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So after all the investigating of billy Preston and holding him out, Self decides it’s ok to pay Silvio’s guardian, months after the investigation has started. How dumb would that be?
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Kcmatt7 said:
@Bwag Universities that lose money from their sports teams just shouldn’t have sports teams. Problem solved.
Then college sports would cease to exist. No woman’s sports program, not even UConn with its string of national titles, makes a profit. Since Title 10 program requires equal participation then the men’s sports would need to shut down as well. The truth about college sports is that only men’s football and basketball, particularly football, make a profit, the rest just live off that income.
As far as endorsements, who exactly would be doing the endorsement? Realistically there are 30-40 athletes that will move to the NBA every year out of app. 6,000 players in Division I and maybe another 30 that will go overseas. The question is…should the NCAA change the entire college sports structure and provide a free marketing platform for that 1% of players who already derive well over $60K per year in benefits? More importantly, who would be the target audience for an 18 year old kid fresh out of HS endorser who most people can barely understand? Would you be swayed to buy a product just because athlete, say Devonté, endorses it? I believe the potential market for college athletes as endorsers is way overrated.
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There seems to be this idea among the East Coast MSM members that it is impossible for a program like Kansas, in what they call flyover country, to do that well without cheating but they don’t give a second though to programs like Duke and UNC or even a Kentucky.
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I suspect this “universities are the victims” distinction means more than most laymen realize right now.
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@jaybate-1-0 In fact, without the distinction, there isn’t even a hint of a case. The entire premise relies on this assumption. Which begs the question — how many university actors does it take, with knowledge, to change the university from “victim” to “co-conspirator”? I note that in most of the cases, there is an assistant coach (university actor) with knowledge. What if a head coach knew, who is likely the highest paid university employee (or 2nd to the football coach)? What if a university president knew?
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@Gorilla72 You are joking, right? A scuzzball taking large chunks of dirty shoe cash is going to report that on their taxes? Thanks for the early morning laugh.
@jaybate-1-0 It lept off the page and whipsawed me when I heard the sound bite. The “victim” spin bordered on OTT. the interesting twist is how adamant and vocal Silvio’s guardian was about not taking any money. The guardian said that Silvio never played for a 3 stripe AAU team or had any affiliation with Adidas. Cue movie plot twist: what if the dastardly villains at Adidas went after Silvio in retaliation for never joining their petro shoe complex. Maybe they fingered him and tried to drag him and KU into the muck. Many forces don’t like to see flyby schools in the F4. This thing is getting juicy! (read: out of hand ridiculous). It would seem stupid for them to go after a player at an adidas school, but weirder things have happened. Now if Preston took money it would not surprise me in the least. Seems like very dim bulbs in that camp.
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@JayHawkFanToo Wortying about media bias is distracting you from the real areas of concern. We would be engaged in exactly the same speculations–for example, the thread on Stumpy trashed him and UAz completely. Other media, not just east coast, are wondering where it could lead, and many posters here are worried about it. Rob Dauster’s article on NBCSports started with him saying exactly the same thing about all the questions since last fall about when the addidas inquiries would get to its most heavily supported program.
Here is my bigger take from your informative post about the interview: The discussion of Gatto being a close friend of Bill is pretty much a bombshell because I hadn’t seen that before. Why Parrish would say it was more than a business relationship is puzzling. Unless Bill knew him before, or got him the job at addidas or something. That road is one that doesn’t lead anywhere good.
Incidentally, for him to say he doesn’t believe someone on staff didn’t know about the payments should not concern us about bias or think that means he is smelling blood in the water. How many people here have stated as absolute certainty that Pitino, Boeheim, Roy, Cal, and K had to have known what was going on when their players or programs got in trouble? How many have responded to this indictment by trying to deflect it to Nike programs (“UK and Duke must be dirty to get so many 5-stars”).It is an almost instinctive suspicion and it is only when our own get questioned that we scream “Bias! Innocent until proven guilty!”
