Supreme Court to take up case on paying college athletes

Per the article: "The last time the Supreme Court heard an NCAA case was in 1984."

While technically true, constitutional law scholars can never forget the case of United States v. Morrison, which involved a few fine student-athletes under legendary coach Franklin Beamer. The case is a key "Commerce Clause" case. I'll let the opening paragraph of the opinion of the US Supreme Court speak for itself:

"Petitioner Christy Brzonkala enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in the fall of 1994. In September of that year, Brzonkala met respondents Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, who were both students at Virginia Tech and members of its varsity football team. Brzonkala alleges that, within 30 minutes of meeting Morrison and Crawford, they assaulted and repeatedly raped her. After the attack, Morrison allegedly told Brzonkala, "You better not have any ... diseases." Complaint ~ 22. In the months following the rape, Morrison also allegedly announced in the dormitory's dining room that he "like[d] to get girls drunk and .... " Id., ~ 31. The omitted portions, quoted verbatim in the briefs on file with this Court, consist of boasting, debased remarks about what Morrison would do to women, vulgar remarks that cannot fail to shock and offend."

The opinion then goes on to state that Mr. Morrison "admitted having sexual contact with her despite the fact that she had twice told him "no.""

Finding the punishment of 2 semesters of suspension to be too harsh, Virginia Tech waived the suspension and allowed Mr. Morrison back in school just before the football season started.
 
However this thing ends up, there’s no debating that the NCAA made the bed it has to lay in now.

Mark Emmertt is EASILY top 5 hugest slime balls in all of sports. He made $2.7 million dollars in salary last year strictly because there are kids willing to play sports, but has the balls to go on 60 Minutes and tell everyone how the NCAA is non-profit, and how their main concern is the sanctity of amateurism. And then he still has the balls to ban a kid who had a YouTube channel and made a couple bucks. And a thousand other hypocritical situations.

You guys who don’t want players to get paid better not participate in the huge machine that is college football/basketball or you’re just as big a hypocrite.

At one point the NCAA had the ability to make a compromise of sorts and it would have been able to find a middle ground. There was a time when student athletes just wanted to be able to make money on their own likenesses or on their own talent by selling some autographs or maybe doing some commercials. But was there even an inch of compromise? Nope. None.

So should the student athletes be willing to compromise with the NCAA now that they have the de facto upper hand? I’m not one of them so I can’t speak for them, but as an outsider I’d say no way.

Emmert, your chickens have come home to roost, you slimy mofo. I’m gonna laugh all the way to StubHub next year when I’m paying ridiculous prices for seats in Kinnick. Amateurism is dead, and ironically your stupid fucking logic is what drove the last nail in the coffin.

And I love it.
 
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I wonder if it would be possible for 2 tracks to solve this for the college athlete.

Track A: They take the scholarship like normal and that is the compensation.

Track B: No scholarship, but get a standard hourly rate for all practice hours/mandated strength and conditioning sessions/games played in. Also paid for all likeness, promotions, and endorsements.
 
Fryowa said:
He made $2.7 million dollars in salary last year strictly because there are kids willing to play sports, but has the balls to go on 60 Minutes and tell everyone how the NCAA is non-profit, and how their main concern is the sanctity of amateurism.
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Yeah, it is a non-profit. It doesn't have any shareholders and so by definition the leadership of the organization needs to come up with a way to spend as much of the non-profit's money as they can since they don't really answer to anyone. What better way than through executive compensation?!?!?!?

It's rampant. The universities, their athletic departments, the hospital system in the US, the huge charities. Wherever you go and find a deep pocketed non-profit, you're almost guaranteed to find some sociopathic grifter who is more than willing to concoct a tale of how they "deserve" to leave their hand in the cookie jar just a little longer because of all of the public good they create. It's completely fucking disgusting.
 
Actually, Jay Bilas (who is a lawyer) on that podcast in a different thread does a great job of explaining how very difficult it is to get student athletes paid secondary to all the contracts that universities are involved in. I.E. If the university has a Under Armour contract, the student wouldn't be able to be sponsored by Nike. Same for athletic drinks, etc..

He said he didn't agree with it so much but it is the way it is. All the contract tie ins. So I guess the student would be left getting sponsored by the local shifty red haired used car salesman down on Riverside Drive. Perhaps the moped shop who provides moped rentals to the students.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Yeah, it is a non-profit. It doesn't have any shareholders and so by definition the leadership of the organization needs to come up with a way to spend as much of the non-profit's money as they can since they don't really answer to anyone. What better way than through executive compensation?!?!?!?

It's rampant. The universities, their athletic departments, the hospital system in the US, the huge charities. Wherever you go and find a deep pocketed non-profit, you're almost guaranteed to find some sociopathic grifter who is more than willing to concoct a tale of how they "deserve" to leave their hand in the cookie jar just a little longer because of all of the public good they create. It's completely fucking disgusting.
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Ah, remember 20 years ago or so the Red Cross Prez basically being forced to resign when her $600,000 salary was outed after the Red Cross seemed to come up short on some of their mission. Yet you would think non-profits would not even need to be outed as I would think all their financials should be open to the public if at least donors.
 
So many laws covering so much minutia are the bane of this country. Too many loopholes yet obstacles for people that are not based on true ethics of right or wrong. Are athletes being held under some restraint of trade based on not being able to profit even a small amount on their "being". Not allowing players to make money seems to go against the constitution, free enterprise, capitalism (yes we have a whole lot of govt socialism in business), and various individual rights.

Yes, there might need to be limits on how much one could make in a year based on concerns of pay for play issues. I think the original intent of this monetary scrutiny came from the booster paying big money for jobs that players didnt really have to perform, etc.
But if some good rules are put in place to monitor pay for services I think letting athletes make some capped amount of money is ok. Why limit how much they can make, well because it gets back to the schools and boosters helping to line up income for players.
 
I am for paying players. But would easily go for just letting them profit off their likenesses and names.
I would think that would satisfy both parties and would be a good compromise.

And as a bonus, EAs NCAA football franchise would be back.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Actually, Jay Bilas (who is a lawyer) on that podcast in a different thread does a great job of explaining how very difficult it is to get student athletes paid secondary to all the contracts that universities are involved in. I.E. If the university has a Under Armour contract, the student wouldn't be able to be sponsored by Nike. Same for athletic drinks, etc..

He said he didn't agree with it so much but it is the way it is. All the contract tie ins. So I guess the student would be left getting sponsored by the local shifty red haired used car salesman down on Riverside Drive. Perhaps the moped shop who provides moped rentals to the students.
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Yeah it'll be interesting. The sports drinks and shoes/apparel are the obvious but what about like say restaurants? If say Subway sponsors Iowa can a kid sign on with Blimpie? Or whatever? Where's the line in the sand?

But what if a kid were to challenge the whole Nike/Under Armour thing? Like what if at a Nike school like Iowa Garza wanted to represent Under Armour but just not during games and press conferences. At some point he's 'off the clock' isn't he? (Other then Under Armour not wanting him wearing Nikes during games)Why couldn't they have him do commercials or whatever to endorse Under Armour? It'd be a contradictory thing but if they thought it'd sell them stuff maybe they'd do it I dunno.

That'd also work with say Nike having 2 deals going one with the school and another with the individual kid.

I suggest this because it's not like Nike owns the kid when they go to the schools now. Garza can wear whatever he damn well wants to class and around campus when he's not at practice or games/any any event representing the school publicly I would think.

Lawyers are salivating all over this. There's no losing for them with any of it just a whole lot of winning. There's a ton to sort out with it still. But the house of cards is crumbling a little faster then the NCAA would like.
 
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Hawkfnntn said:
Yeah it'll be interesting. The sports drinks and shoes/apparel are the obvious but what about like say restaurants? If say Subway sponsors Iowa can a kid sign on with Blimpie? Or whatever? Where's the line in the sand?

But what if a kid were to challenge the whole Nike/Under Armour thing? Like what if at a Nike school like Iowa Garza wanted to represent Under Armour but just not during games and press conferences. At some point he's 'off the clock' isn't he? (Other then Under Armour not wanting him wearing Nikes during games)Why couldn't they have him do commercials or whatever to endorse Under Armour? It'd be a contradictory thing but if they thought it'd sell them stuff maybe they'd do it I dunno.

That'd also work with say Nike having 2 deals going one with the school and another with the individual kid.

I suggest this because it's not like Nike owns the kid when they go to the schools now. Garza can wear whatever he damn well wants to class and around campus when he's not at practice or games/any any event representing the school publicly I would think.

Lawyers are salivating all over this. There's no losing for them with any of it just a whole lot of winning. There's a ton to sort out with it still. But the house of cards is crumbling a little faster then the NCAA would like.
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Jo Bo stated years ago doing a presser after a NCAA tournament game that he couldn't take his "Fish" crackers up to the table for the post-game interview. These were crackers given to each player in their gift bag at the tournament. When going up to the table at the post-game presser, some guy went up to him and took them out of his hand saying he couldn't have them up there.

Bilas said back in the day the same thing happened to him when he was trying to take a StarBucks coffee with him. Wouldn't let him. He also stated that his mother gave him a "Polo" shirt for Christmas that he as going to wear instead of his jersey and they wouldn't let him wear that either.

A lot of smaller products like that.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Jo Bo stated years ago doing a presser after a NCAA tournament game that he couldn't take his "Fish" crackers up to the table for the post-game interview. These were crackers given to each player in their gift bag at the tournament. When going up to the table at the post-game presser, some guy went up to him and took them out of his hand saying he couldn't have them up there.

Bilas said back in the day the same thing happened to him when he was trying to take a StarBucks coffee with him. Wouldn't let him. He also stated that his mother gave him a "Polo" shirt for Christmas that he as going to wear instead of his jersey and they wouldn't let him wear that either.

A lot of smaller products like that.
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Sure but they weren't even talking about endorsing those other products just having them for themselves while 'on the clock' so to speak for the school. I'm talking about actually being endorsed by said companies that may already have deals with competitors. Iowa can't be seen as endorsing Star Bucks if they don't or are by some other coffee outfit that's all that is.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Sure but they weren't even talking about endorsing those other products just having them for themselves while 'on the clock' so to speak for the school. I'm talking about actually being endorsed by said companies that may already have deals with competitors. Iowa can't be seen as endorsing Star Bucks if they don't or are by some other coffee outfit that's all that is.
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If it gets a millisecond of TV time it's considered "advertising."
 
HuckFinn said:
Whatever happens will be a comprehensive definition of unintended consequences.
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This litigation will not end well for the NCAA. I predict they're either going to lose or strike an out of court compromise.

I don't have a solution but the system needs reformation. The fact that a coach can be paid over $20 mill to leave (Auburn) while the indispensable part of the system (players are indispensable) has tremendous restrictions on everything they do and can not do is strong evidence that the system is out of whack. I hope there is no out of court settlement - let the Supremes create some defining law here; it is long overdue.
 
carneyhawk said:
...let the Supremes create some defining law here; it is long overdue.
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330px-The_Supremes_1967.JPG
 
carneyhawk said:
This litigation will not end well for the NCAA. I predict they're either going to lose or strike an out of court compromise.

I don't have a solution but the system needs reformation. The fact that a coach can be paid over $20 mill to leave (Auburn) while the indispensable part of the system (players are indispensable) has tremendous restrictions on everything they do and can not do is strong evidence that the system is out of whack. I hope there is no out of court settlement - let the Supremes create some defining law here; it is long overdue.
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Nah, the current athletes are totally dispensable. They turn over every 4 years. The value is in the stadium, the logo and decades of goodwill.

IMHO, the biggest advancement the NCAA made was establishing at least a modicum of relative parity. Iowa State has taken down UT and OU. Iowa is better than Nebraska. Iowa at least would have a fighting chance against OSU and beat them by 31 the last time they met.

That parity led to a massive spike in interest of college football and drove monstrous revenue gains for the entire system through media deals and insane ticket/donation prices even at middling schools. I'm totally opposed to the draconian rules they've put on college athletes, but at the same time, I completely understand that without some sort of limits on that we're basically going to send the whole system back into the dark era where there are effectively no scholarship limits (the boosters can just pay tuition along with the grease) and guys like Ricky Stanzi or DJK will find themselves stockpiled on OSU's enormous roster.
 
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