Need a RB in the Portal

[NorthKCHawk]

It’s going to have to go the route of collectives forming an association like the NFL has and agreeing on a salary cap, and doing away with the connections to the schools themselves and eliminating the NCAA. I’ve heard people at work talking about how there’s no way a Texas or OSU will agree to caps in a league with Rutgers or Vanderbilt or whoever, but I disagree. The benefit they’ll all gain is structured contracts. The players need to form a union, then the collectives will have no choice but to fall in line.

This is all basically a pro sports league with no restrictions on salary and no restriction on hopping from team to team. That’s never worked in pro sports and is doomed to fail. It’s in the interests of teams, players and collectives for the players to organize and create a league to administer everything that the NCAA isn’t built to administer.

The term they have thrown around is de-coupling. Basically, Iowa leases its name and facilities to an entity that runs the program and the athletes are just employees of that entity. As you said, pretty much the NFL light. As we have discussed in other threads, if they remove the student athletes from the equation I am out. Its just second rate football at that point. I do think this would be the demise of college football. It would be boxing in a half generation.

They really have two long term choices to make this work.

1. They can de-couple legally, but largely keep the form intact. Players still must be kids, they must go to school, there are still bands and cheer leaders and pep rallies and bowl games and trophies and rivalries and everything that makes college football cool and fun. The product looks the same, its just some legal maneuvering behind the scenes to skirt Title IX.

2. Congress finally does its job. The easiest way to save college football is for Congress to pass a law exempting college football from antitrust and Title IX considerations. The big boy schools break away from the NCAA, appoint Nick Saban commissioner, and establish salary caps and NIL regulations. The sport remains an excellent consumer product, the kids get paid, there is some level of parity, and there is order in the universe. But alas, Congress is Congress.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

The term they have thrown around is de-coupling. Basically, Iowa leases its name and facilities to an entity that runs the program and the athletes are just employees of that entity. As you said, pretty much the NFL light. As we have discussed in other threads, if they remove the student athletes from the equation I am out. Its just second rate football at that point. I do think this would be the demise of college football. It would be boxing in a half generation.

They really have two long term choices to make this work.

1. They can de-couple legally, but largely keep the form intact. Players still must be kids, they must go to school, there are still bands and cheer leaders and pep rallies and bowl games and trophies and rivalries and everything that makes college football cool and fun. The product looks the same, its just some legal maneuvering behind the scenes to skirt Title IX.

2. Congress finally does its job. The easiest way to save college football is for Congress to pass a law exempting college football from antitrust and Title IX considerations. The big boy schools break away from the NCAA, appoint Nick Saban commissioner, and establish salary caps and NIL regulations. The sport remains an excellent consumer product, the kids get paid, there is some level of parity, and there is order in the universe. But alas, Congress is Congress.

I totally see how schools can set whatever cap they want to set for paying players directly once they start that. But the NIL side that comes from outside sources isn't going to be 'regulated' And lets be real when people say that they mean to limit it. And that shouldn't happen cause it's already lost in the courts and I don't see that getting overturned. Either players have the right to make as much as they can or they don't. There's no limiting that.

It's no different then companies coming to agreements to pay anyone. Fox can pay Tom Brady whatever the heck they want. Well 3rd party NIL collectives and private companies can do the same for student athletes. So the schools paying kids is just going to be on top of whatever they can get outside of that too. It's not like a kid is going to get that and be like oh that's enough... Naw there's no such thing as that.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

I totally see how schools can set whatever cap they want to set for paying players directly once they start that. But the NIL side that comes from outside sources isn't going to be 'regulated' And lets be real when people say that they mean to limit it. And that shouldn't happen cause it's already lost in the courts and I don't see that getting overturned. Either players have the right to make as much as they can or they don't. There's no limiting that.

It's no different then companies coming to agreements to pay anyone. Fox can pay Tom Brady whatever the heck they want. Well 3rd party NIL collectives and private companies can do the same for student athletes. So the schools paying kids is just going to be on top of whatever they can get outside of that too. It's not like a kid is going to get that and be like oh that's enough... Naw there's no such thing as that.

Agreed this is a stickier issue. I do think that paying the players outright will relieve some of this. The other thing that can be done is if you pay the players you can start to look at things like terms of contract and non-compete type agreements that might limit some of the poaching that is occurring. As with anything, money provides leverage for contractual terms that might bring some order to this process.

Congress could limit or regulate this dark money too.

The thing I think that needs to be done is for the Commissioner or NCAA or whoever is setting the rules, to put an absolute prohibition against the schools coordinating with the collectives and donors. Make it a death penalty type offense for the coaches to coordinate with the dark money, and have serious investigatory power over this. Coaches get life time bans and schools get hammered. In that scenario, if a big donor or collective wants to throw some money at a given kid, so be it, but it would not be in coordination with the school and certainly not facilitated as part of the campus visit. At least make it harder for the dark money to do its dirty work. And, this still leaves the Caitlyn Clark's of the world perfectly free to negotiate a deal with Nike.

 

[#1DieHardHawk]

Right now, The schools can't. Legally. And I don't mean the NCAA. Despite what the lawsuit settlement may provide, if schools pay all these male athletes millions, without similar money going to women, its a serious Title IX issue. Its also a real big deal to make them all employees for a variety of reasons.

And, a cap is not legal absent Congress intervening or unionization, or frankly, it might take both. Its a clear anti-trust violation for competitors (schools) to collude to cap what they pay to their workers (the players) absent a change in the law or collective bargaining.

To be clear, it needs to head this direction, but man there are some thorny steps between here and there.

No doubt. Unionization with a CBA is about the only way to get a measure of control over the system and level the playing field. Other sports almost certainly would follow suit, which would be a mess. The interesting part will be whether schools will be able to negotiate based upon the individual revenues. With the current laws, that will become a landmine.

 

[trj]

I have heard from people in person who I trust, as well as online that ISU has more than we do. Smaller school, yes, but I'd argue that their fans are just as rabid and they're basically building a small town next to Trice for $200M here shortly. Google Cytown. There's LOTS of money being spent in Ames.

Brad Heinrichs who runs the Swarm collective has also been on record numerous times on podcasts and interviews showing his frustration with not having the level of money that's competitive even within our own "tier" of programs.

So for me at least I'm pretty sure we aren't competitive. There's definitely been zero creativity other than a branded beer in trying new things to get money coming in.

Lastly, I think the results to this point speak for themselves. If Iowa was competitive financially, we'd have been making some waves by now. To this point we haven't even made a ripple. As far as guys not leaving, I do think we have one of the best cultures around and that has to play a big part. Higgins could've bolted but he's said how much he loves the Iowa program and staff.

So, what I didn’t know, until 2 or 3 days ago, was Heinrichs was making up the difference, out of his own pockets. For example, if a kid was promised $300,000, and the collective can only pay $250,000, that Heinrichs is personally banking rolling the other $50,000.

I didn’t know running an actuary firm, you had deep pockets like that, but apparently he does.

You know this world better than I do…is that accurate?