Could NIL actually foster more stability than what the NCAA ever provided?

[NorthKCHawk]

Hear me out. To my understanding, the NCAA/conferences are really not regulating NIL deals in any meaningful way. Collectives are being established or big boosters are just writing checks directly to players. But, at a minimum, there has to be at least the appearance of a quid pro quo and I have to believe that any NIL deal has to be reduced to a written contract.

Many service contracts, for instance, employment agreements, contain length of service provisions. That is especially so when the employer fronts capital for education or signing bonuses or moving expenses. Usually those provisions provide that if you do not stay in your position for a year or two or whatever, you have to pay back the money that was fronted.

So, in the NIL world, when Iowa collective or a booster puts together a contract, why not have a provision that states that if the player leaves before 4 years, he has to pay the money he was fronted back? Would that stop all movement? No. Rich schools could buy out those deals or the kid could say, "sue me." But, it would slow things down and create a disincentive to freely skip to greener pastures after the school invested much resources into developing the player.

I think this type of provision could really help a developmental school like Iowa. Say we give a Linderbaum a 100,000 NIL deal as a sophomore and then he blows up to the #1 center in the country and USC tries to lure him away with a boatload of cash. Iowa would have some level of protection given the NIL contract.

As many of you know, I think unregulated NIL is terrible for college sports generally (I know many of you disagree), but this COULD be a silver lining of sorts.

 

[Fryowa]

Hear me out. To my understanding, the NCAA/conferences are really not regulating NIL deals in any meaningful way. Collectives are being established or big boosters are just writing checks directly to players. But, at a minimum, there has to be at least the appearance of a quid pro quo and I have to believe that any NIL deal has to be reduced to a written contract.

Many service contracts, for instance, employment agreements, contain length of service provisions. That is especially so when the employer fronts capital for education or signing bonuses or moving expenses. Usually those provisions provide that if you do not stay in your position for a year or two or whatever, you have to pay back the money that was fronted.

So, in the NIL world, when Iowa collective or a booster puts together a contract, why not have a provision that states that if the player leaves before 4 years, he has to pay the money he was fronted back? Would that stop all movement? No. Rich schools could buy out those deals or the kid could say, "sue me." But, it would slow things down and create a disincentive to freely skip to greener pastures after the school invested much resources into developing the player.

I think this type of provision could really help a developmental school like Iowa. Say we give a Linderbaum a 100,000 NIL deal as a sophomore and then he blows up to the #1 center in the country and USC tries to lure him away with a boatload of cash. Iowa would have some level of protection given the NIL contract.

As many of you know, I think unregulated NIL is terrible for college sports generally (I know many of you disagree), but this COULD be a silver lining of sorts.

You're overthinking it.

Go back to making transfers sit a year.

Free agency problem solved and players can still make NIL money.

 

[HawkGold]

How many of you would sign a non-compete contract with an employer without some sort of additional compensation? It would take a lot of money to get a good recruit to sign their life away when someone else will pay the cost.

Sitting out a year would violate fair trade as a rule which is why we really have NIL.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

If I am 18 years old and someone offers me 100k on top of a free scholarship to go to the school I want to play football, I am signing whatever they ask me to sign.

No one gets married thinking they will get divorced......

 

[NorthKCHawk]

You're overthinking it.

Go back to making transfers sit a year.

Free agency problem solved and players can still make NIL money.

I would be fine with this, but the problem is that guys like Farta have said that they want to reinstitute the transfer rule specifically to slow down free agency and NIL. I think if they reinstate it they will be sued for antitrust violations and lose. A lot. Of money.

The NCAA and the member schools know that unregulated NIL is a real problem, but they don't have a solution. If they could do this solution (sit out a year) they would have done it already.

 

[Fryowa]

It would take a lot of money to get a good recruit to sign their life away when someone else will pay the cost.

That's exactly what would happen. Initial NIL deals would get better because they'd have to be.

For the record, I'm not saying to reinstitute the transfer rule. But it would stop the free agency which was what the OP was about.

 

[okeefe4prez]

There's no way a clawback would work. People fronting NIL money just have to stagger it by year. If it is a $1 million deal they better split it up over 4 years. You ain't getting money back from a college kid and even attempting to collect on a clawback could destroy your recruiting in the future.

 

[Fryowa]

...unregulated NIL is a real problem, but they don't have a solution...

It's only a problem in the sense that it changes a game that we as fans (who have zero stake in it) like to watch a certain way. It's better for the players and hurts the NCAA which was taking advantage of kids who had no other alternate route.

All that's happened is there's been a transfer of power between two parties. The NCAA wants exciting athletic performances but doesn't want kids to get paid for them. Well, now the kids are saying, "F you, pay me. Or I'm not gonna perform for you." If the member schools don't like it they are free to shut down sports programs. Something tells me they won't, even during NIL...

It can't be stressed enough that the demographic complaining about this (affluent middle aged and elderly white guys) has literally nothing to do with Kris Murray playing basketball or Jack Campbell playing football. Neither affects the other one bit. If college sports has NIL or doesn't, or even if it ceases to exist, it has absolutely zero effect to our lives. Thus, it shouldn't be us telling athletes they can't get paid.

No one has ever been able to explain for me in the seemingly hundreds of times I've asked, "Why should you have a say in whether college kids who you have literally no connection to get paid to play bouncy ball games for your entertainment?"

 

[Fryowa]

There's no way a clawback would work. People fronting NIL money just have to stagger it by year. If it is a $1 million deal they better split it up over 4 years. You ain't getting money back from a college kid and even attempting to collect on a clawback could destroy your recruiting in the future.

That's why I said initial NIL deals would get better (from market pressure) if there was a transfer rule.

Again, not promoting it because I think it should be open, but that would stop a lot of the school hopping.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

It's only a problem in the sense that it changes a game that we as fans (who have zero stake in it) like to watch a certain way. It's better for the players and hurts the NCAA which was taking advantage of kids who had no other alternate route.

All that's happened is there's been a transfer of power between two parties. The NCAA wants exciting athletic performances but doesn't want kids to get paid for them. Well, now the kids are saying, "F you, pay me. Or I'm not gonna perform for you." If the member schools don't like it they are free to shut down sports programs. Something tells me they won't, even during NIL...

It can't be stressed enough that the demographic complaining about this (affluent middle aged and elderly white guys) has literally nothing to do with Kris Murray playing basketball or Jack Campbell playing football. Neither affects the other one bit. If college sports has NIL or doesn't, or even if it ceases to exist, it has absolutely zero effect to our lives. Thus, it shouldn't be us telling athletes they can't get paid.

No one has ever been able to explain for me in the seemingly hundreds of times I've asked, "Why should you have a say in whether college kids who you have literally no connection to get paid to play bouncy ball games for your entertainment?"

I'm a fan. I pay for cable and I pay for tickets and I donate to the school. I think everyone who is passionate about college football has a voice here. You clearly have an opinion and you express it all the time.

Here is the reason it matters. Remember when baseball was the most popular sport in America? Remember when boxing was a Top 5 US sports and every big fight literally half the country would shell out money and watch? Remember when most cities had horse racing tracks? Remember when the NBA was watchable?

My point is this. If a sport simply ignores its fans, the times, and the ethos of its existence, it start walking down the path of irrelevancy. And if the fans dry up, so does the money. That is not good for the kids, the fans or the schools.

I would guess many, if not most, college football fans do not like the idea of NIL without some rules and guardrails. Ignore that sentiment at your peril.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

Stability hell no with the way it is currently set up with the free agency portal or NIL guidelines.

Now, can it possibly provide more parity in college football. Yes, except for the 10-12 true blue blood teams that are currently in the right place now to go from here. But, the rest of the worst can possibly have the talent spread out amongst the rest of the 120 teams to make more competitive, if players are looking for better opportunities for playing time.

 

[HawkGold]

I'm a fan. I pay for cable and I pay for tickets and I donate to the school. I think everyone who is passionate about college football has a voice here. You clearly have an opinion and you express it all the time.

Here is the reason it matters. Remember when baseball was the most popular sport in America? Remember when boxing was a Top 5 US sports and every big fight literally half the country would shell out money and watch? Remember when most cities had horse racing tracks? Remember when the NBA was watchable?

My point is this. If a sport simply ignores its fans, the times, and the ethos of its existence, it start walking down the path of irrelevancy. And if the fans dry up, so does the money. That is not good for the kids, the fans or the schools.

I would guess many, if not most, college football fans do not like the idea of NIL without some rules and guardrails. Ignore that sentiment at your peril.

Football is already walking down that path before NIL

 

[Fryowa]

I'm a fan. I pay for cable and I pay for tickets and I donate to the school. I think everyone who is passionate about college football has a voice here. You clearly have an opinion and you express it all the time.

Here is the reason it matters. Remember when baseball was the most popular sport in America? Remember when boxing was a Top 5 US sports and every big fight literally half the country would shell out money and watch? Remember when most cities had horse racing tracks? Remember when the NBA was watchable?

My point is this. If a sport simply ignores its fans, the times, and the ethos of its existence, it start walking down the path of irrelevancy. And if the fans dry up, so does the money. That is not good for the kids, the fans or the schools.

I would guess many, if not most, college football fans do not like the idea of NIL without some rules and guardrails. Ignore that sentiment at your peril.

You want sports.

You want sports played by young adults that you don't know and have no association with.

You want them to entertain you.

You also want to limit the ways in which they can make money in return for providing you that entertainment, because you want the sport (again, performed for your entertainment by young adults you have no association with) to be played the way you want it to be played.

In summary, you want people to provide you a non-essential service in a very specific way, while limiting the ways and amounts they're compensated for said service, and suggest that doing otherwise "isn't good for the kids" who you don't know and whose situations you don't know. Your justification is tradition and nostalgia.

That doesn't jibe.

 

[thedukeofearl]

I like the way it used to be

Free college/university education and being a BMOC with the possibility of playing in
the pros, in America or Overseas

Also the possibility of becoming a coach/assistant on several levels

What is the difference between paying/buying players for professional play or enticing/paying them
to go to a particular University/College

I admit that I have paid Zero Attention to NIL

And don't really know the nuts and bolts of it, but on the surface, IT STINKS

However, it is what it is

Whoever has the most booster money will eventually have the top teams

In a word: FUCKTHAT

 

[MelroseHawkins]

Football is already walking down that path before NIL

???????

Boy, I have a hard time following you sometimes.

 

[HawkGold]

???????

Boy, I have a hard time following you sometimes.

Watch Taxi and learn the language. Football popularity is waning. Attendance...declining. HS particpation... declining. Middle aged men alive that grew up fans of college football....declining. CFP viewership...declining.

All before NIL was instituted.

I"m not this guy though...

​

 

[CP87]

You're overthinking it.

Go back to making transfers sit a year.

Free agency problem solved and players can still make NIL money.

You and Barta...of one mind.

 

[CP87]

Hear me out. To my understanding, the NCAA/conferences are really not regulating NIL deals in any meaningful way. Collectives are being established or big boosters are just writing checks directly to players. But, at a minimum, there has to be at least the appearance of a quid pro quo and I have to believe that any NIL deal has to be reduced to a written contract.

Many service contracts, for instance, employment agreements, contain length of service provisions. That is especially so when the employer fronts capital for education or signing bonuses or moving expenses. Usually those provisions provide that if you do not stay in your position for a year or two or whatever, you have to pay back the money that was fronted.

So, in the NIL world, when Iowa collective or a booster puts together a contract, why not have a provision that states that if the player leaves before 4 years, he has to pay the money he was fronted back? Would that stop all movement? No. Rich schools could buy out those deals or the kid could say, "sue me." But, it would slow things down and create a disincentive to freely skip to greener pastures after the school invested much resources into developing the player.

I think this type of provision could really help a developmental school like Iowa. Say we give a Linderbaum a 100,000 NIL deal as a sophomore and then he blows up to the #1 center in the country and USC tries to lure him away with a boatload of cash. Iowa would have some level of protection given the NIL contract.

As many of you know, I think unregulated NIL is terrible for college sports generally (I know many of you disagree), but this COULD be a silver lining of sorts.

I think anything that creates school vs. athletes is a non-starter. If Iowa was the only one with such a provision, it would be tough to get athletes to come here in the first place.

 

[HawkGold]

Muse

I think anything that creates school vs. athletes is a non-starter. If Iowa was the only one with such a provision,it would be tough to get athletes to come here in the first place.

What is Iowa's Offense for $300

 

[CP87]

You want sports.

You want sports played by young adults that you don't know and have no association with.

You want them to entertain you.

You also want to limit the ways in which they can make money in return for providing you that entertainment, because you want the sport (again, performed for your entertainment by young adults you have no association with) to be played the way you want it to be played.

In summary, you want people to provide you a non-essential service in a very specific way, while limiting the ways and amounts they're compensated for said service, and suggest that doing otherwise "isn't good for the kids" who you don't know and whose situations you don't know. Your justification is tradition and nostalgia.

That doesn't jibe.

Not to put words in his mouth, but I don't think he has a problem with compensation, more a problem with athletes transferring like crazy in search of the buck.

If someone wants that restricted, they basically just want NCAA football to operate like almost every other professional sport, where the LEAGUE is the entity that matters, and hence they can get anti-trust exemptions that constrain the ways teams can compete against one another.

Does it limit an athlete's opportunities? Yes. Is it the way every other pro sport in USA operates? Yes. So not too crazy of an ask.