Perpetual eligiblity

Screw it. Let the NCAA be a quasi competitor to the NFL. Good for the goose and the gander. "Colleges" can keep players longer, and the NFL still has its feeder pool to pluck from. If MG is happy making a mil per year at Iowa when he wouldn't be getting PT in the NFL I say let him cook...

And before anyone comes at me about the sanctity of college sports and how it's supposed to just be a 4 year tour of duty while you get your degree...spare me.

College football is a professional sports league...period, FULL stop.

It ain't what it was anymore and it ain't going back. If that's not what you want to watch anymore and you check out because you don't like it, I totally respect that. I don't watch WBB or soccer or field hockey because they don't interest me in the least. But I also don't think they should change those sports up to suit what Fryowa wants to watch. I just choose not to consume it.

Let's not pretend that football is a college sport anymore. That simply doesn't exist at the P4 level and hasn't in a long time. It's gone. Doneski. And if it's gone, let's at least turn it into something fun to watch and call it what it is...the best version of a minor league there is. The infrastructure is already there and it's a perfect turn key setup.
 
Disagree with you, Fry, but we have been through this.

I agree that athletes are testing the boundaries of what the NCAA can enforce. And, the debate between employee and highly compensated amature student athlete is hard to suss out. As little confidence as I have in Congress right now, I think there will eventually be enough political will to stop a system that is producing 8th year college athletes. "Saving" college athletics in some semblance of its old form would be very popular with the middle age and older voters who actually show up. This could be a bipartisan win if they get it right. We shall see.

As I have said many times, when the athletes wholly stop being at least pretend students at Iowa, I am out. Done.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Disagree with you, Fry, but we have been through this.

I agree that athletes are testing the boundaries of what the NCAA can enforce. And, the debate between employee and highly compensated amature student athlete is hard to suss out. As little confidence as I have in Congress right now, I think there will eventually be enough political will to stop a system that is producing 8th year college athletes. "Saving" college athletics in some semblance of its old form would be very popular with the middle age and older voters who actually show up. This could be a bipartisan win if they get it right. We shall see.

As I have said many times, when the athletes wholly stop being at least pretend students at Iowa, I am out. Done.
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I respect that like I said. I just think everyone is kidding themselves that this isn't already a minor league football operation and I think they should just stop fighting the inevitable and it'd be a better product if they stopped fighting it. I do think it's inevitable and that's where we disagree. It's an opinion thing. Your ide of a better product and mine are just different.
 
Rip Van Winkle just woke up to realize that American Universitities are in the business of professional football. He wants to know how this happend. No other part of the univeristy do we have students operating as professionals in their feld. ? or do we? Journalist? Biologists? Medical Students? Theatre? Fine Arts?

It was a slow steady slide butressed by lawsits and unprecidented demand and TV money.

Theres just nothing to compare it to.


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Fryowa said:
I respect that like I said. I just think everyone is kidding themselves that this isn't already a minor league football operation and I think they should just stop fighting the inevitable and it'd be a better product if they stopped fighting it. I do think it's inevitable and that's where we disagree. It's an opinion thing. Your ide of a better product and mine are just different.
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I think if it just went straight pro it would lose what makes it special. If a second rate pro league is what you are after, why is the XFL or other iterations of a second pro league always been a massive failure?

Seeing a bunch of second rate pros out there in Iowa uniforms that have been there for 10 years does nothing for me.

Pay the kids. Make some rules, but 90% of those kids are not good enough to make the NFL. So, they just stay at Iowa for a decade? None for me, thanks.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
I think if it just went straight pro it would lose what makes it special. If a second rate pro league is what you are after, why is the XFL or other iterations of a second pro league always been a massive failure?
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The XFL and others have failed because...

1) They tried to fill a void that didn't need to be filled. Football fandom has never needed an additional level or step between college ball and the NFL.

2) The infrastructure, culture, and fanbases didn't already exist.

Those are the reasons they failed. There's not enough interest to generate attention and revenue.

Those fanbases and infrastructure already exist in college towns. What game is naturally going to have more exposure, excitement, and revenue...Georgia vs Alabama, or the Idaho City Donkeystompers vs the Biloxi Tadpoles in a 30,000 seat D3 stadium?

Even a "professionalized" version of college football is going to FAR outdo any other league. Sure, there will be fans such as yourself who say peace out, but at the end of the day a lot of those fans are gonna come back and it's going to be just as big of a deal as it is now already. It won't look the same and I'm with you in that I liked 1993 college football better than what we have now, but whether I like it or not it ain't changin' so I say make it better than the shitty free agency thing we have now.
 
I don't see the University Presidents just ceding their football colors to a professional league. That seems a bridge too far. But hey, 5 years ago where we are now would have seemed a bridge too far.

That all said, if the NCAA cannot maintain basic eligibility standards (must be a student, must get minimum grades, must not be a former professional, only play a certain number of years), then what is the point of the NCAA? You don't need the NCAA to establish rules on the field, TV deals, refs, etc. The conferences already do all that anyway. In my humble opinion, these latest court battles may well determine the NCAA's very existence and relevancy in major college football.

I don't have a problem with a nail in the NCAA coffin when it comes to major college football, but is there anything that replaces it? I continue to advocate for a commissioner with powers granted by Congress to regulate the sport without antitrust and Title IX considerations, and with specific jurisdictional grants of authority in the federal courts alone to remedy disputes in this arena. Anything else is just more of the same.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
I don't see the University Presidents just ceding their football colors to a professional league. That seems a bridge too far. But hey, 5 years ago where we are now would have seemed a bridge too far.

That all said, if the NCAA cannot maintain basic eligibility standards (must be a student, must get minimum grades, must not be a former professional, only play a certain number of years), then what is the point of the NCAA? You don't need the NCAA to establish rules on the field, TV deals, refs, etc. The conferences already do all that anyway. In my humble opinion, these latest court battles may well determine the NCAA's very existence and relevancy in major college football.

I don't have a problem with a nail in the NCAA coffin when it comes to major college football, but is there anything that replaces it? I continue to advocate for a commissioner with powers granted by Congress to regulate the sport without antitrust and Title IX considerations, and with specific jurisdictional grants of authority in the federal courts alone to remedy disputes in this arena. Anything else is just more of the same.
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I've been against the NCAA for years in revenue generating sports. It's fine for the golfs and field hockeys and divings of the world where it can still serve 80% of it's purpose. But it's obsolete when talking football and basketball.

That said, there's a reason why the Mark Emmerts and Charlie Bakers of the world (and their underlings) become bigger millionaires than they ever were before working for them. Without football and basketball they wouldn't be making those people rich.

In reality maybe it would get people in the jobs for the right reasons.
 
The problem is that even if you break off from the NCAA, if the governing body, be it Nick Saban or Nick Wright or Old Saint Nick, is handcuffed with the same rules you will get the same results. The NCAA would love to pass rules to place order to this process, but they are constrained by antitrust laws, state laws on NIL, Title IX, and subject to the whims of any hometown judge in Oxford who wants to lay down a nationwide impact TRO so a 30 year old pro can play college sports. Its maddening.

I would love to see a more agile body take over college football's governance, but they have to have the authority to actually implement the guard rails that are needed to keep the sport competitive and fair.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
The problem is that even if you break off from the NCAA, if the governing body, be it Nick Saban or Nick Wright or Old Saint Nick, is handcuffed with the same rules you will get the same results. The NCAA would love to pass rules to place order to this process, but they are constrained by antitrust laws, state laws on NIL, Title IX, and subject to the whims of any hometown judge in Oxford who wants to lay down a nationwide impact TRO so a 30 year old pro can play college sports. Its maddening.

I would love to see a more agile body take over college football's governance, but they have to have the authority to actually implement the guard rails that are needed to keep the sport competitive and fair.
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Yeah there's really no pathway to have a pay system but still keep governance by a body like the NCAA because the government has no interest in getting tangled up in it. It's why I think the only route to keep things buttoned down is a pro framework with contracts and CB. It isn't perfect but it meets in the middle as best as possible IMO.

The most frustrating thing is they are already professionals. There's nothing college about it. Why not call a spade a spade and at least you don't have transfer mania going on and you can have some salary caps? Make it about who the best coaches and players are again. Who cares if MG or whoever is doing one online class a week and never sets foot in a classroom...it's what's already happening. Guys freely admit they aren't going to class anyway.
 
NEW: SEC commissioner Greg Sankey asks courts to uphold the NCAA’s eligibility rules in the Charles Bediako case: “I respectfully ask the Court to uphold the NCAA eligibility rules challenged in this case, which are essential to the integrity of college sports, to the educational mission they serve, and to the opportunities they provide for current and future student-athletes.”
 
Good to see Sankey do the right thing. Others need to step in here as well. Where are the adults in the room?

Look, if the NCAA 4-year eligibility standard is overturned, and a court basically says that these are jobs and cannot be artificially limited in years, it will have a profound impact upon future kids opportunities to participate. Let's say a guy like Mark Gronowski decides he is not going to make it in the NFL, but he can make 7 figures at Iowa in perpituity. Basically, he will be divesting future 18 year olds of a roster spot. This could happen on a large scale across the sport with guys that are great in college, but not going to make it in the NFL. The beauty of college ball is that it should be up and out. Rotate the opportunities to the next group of young athletes. This could be as important as the House case.
 
you remember that NYC taxi cab scene in Planes Trains and Automobiles. "Anyone who'd pay 50 dollars for a cab would certainly pay 75"... We'll if we've granted 6 years elibility why not 10? If you've been in pro football why not come back afer 5 years, 10 years, retiement.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Good to see Sankey do the right thing. Others need to step in here as well. Where are the adults in the room?

Look, if the NCAA 4-year eligibility standard is overturned, and a court basically says that these are jobs and cannot be artificially limited in years, it will have a profound impact upon future kids opportunities to participate. Let's say a guy like Mark Gronowski decides he is not going to make it in the NFL, but he can make 7 figures at Iowa in perpituity. Basically, he will be divesting future 18 year olds of a roster spot. This could happen on a large scale across the sport with guys that are great in college, but not going to make it in the NFL. The beauty of college ball is that it should be up and out. Rotate the opportunities to the next group of young athletes. This could be as important as the House case.
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I agree. One of the things I like most about college football is the roster turnover. I like to see new young kids get the chance to show their stuff.
 
Chickenlounge said:
I agree. One of the things I like most about college football is the roster turnover. I like to see new young kids get the chance to show their stuff.
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That's my beef with Fry's (well-reasoned) desire to just turn college ball into an actual minor league football scheme. If its pro its pro. These kids don't have to be kids. They don't have to be students. They can stay at Iowa for 15 years. Its basically the Iowa Cubs. Yippee. Who the F wants to watch a 33-year old part time plumber play left guard for Iowa on Saturdays for a decade? Who?

There is a better way. We can keep the soul of college football while the kids still get paid. Its more than possible. It just takes some adults making adult decisions.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
why is the XFL or other iterations of a second pro league always been a massive failure?
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You will have to pry the Battlehawks from my cold, dead, hands.
$25 for tickets? That's not much more than you pay for a movie....and a movie is only 2 hours long.
And even the oddest movie doesn't attract the same variety of freaks and weirdos that Battlehawks game attracts.

I'm mid 50s. First season, I saw occasional oldz (I mean, like 70 year oldz) who clearly were Rams season ticket holders and were going because it was football at The Dome. Don't see them anymore. I go to these games and I'm easily the oldest person in my section. I swear, I see theater kids going, because it's a chance to put on jumpsuit with patches sewn on to make it look like a flight suit and aviator glasses and make boisterous noise at a sporting match. I see people who if I met them on the street...I would never guess they would go to a football game and scream their head off. Normally this would annoy me. I tend to roll my eyes at performative behavior. But, they're having a ton of fun. And surprisingly, makes it more fun for me.

There is, of course, plenty of people who I would consider just football fans. And plenty of groups of 20 year olds just going to drink, make some noise and have a good time.

The in game hosts are better than at Cardinals or Blues games. The DJ idea is fun. And the funky brass band that comes out and plays in the endzone before the 4th quarter? As close to a marching band as you can get, but with a great STL flair.

I hope it survives. It's literally the best value sporting ticket in town.

The football is good enough.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
That's my beef with Fry's (well-reasoned) desire to just turn college ball into an actual minor league football scheme. If its pro its pro. These kids don't have to be kids. They don't have to be students. They can stay at Iowa for 15 years. Its basically the Iowa Cubs. Yippee. Who the F wants to watch a 33-year old part time plumber play left guard for Iowa on Saturdays for a decade? Who?

There is a better way. We can keep the soul of college football while the kids still get paid. Its more than possible. It just takes some adults making adult decisions.
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Quite literally the only difference been college players and “pro” players is they can only play on their teams for 4 years. They don’t have to be on campus, they don’t have to be enrolled full time (btw it’s been that way LONG before NIL), they have no academic eligibility requirements. Sure, the academic eligibility rules are there on paper, but like I’ve mentioned, when was the last time you heard about someone being academically ineligible in P4 football? Be honest.

Again, there’s nothing college or amateur about it. It’s 100% in your head. The college student, “be a kid” part of it only exists in your head. If you can lie to yourself about them being college students first and football players second you can lie to yourself about them being college students while restricting free agency and enforcing contracts/salary caps.
 
This would kill off any 2 & 3* recruiting. There just wouldn't be any development playing time. Especially against 30 yr olds.
 
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