At a 9 a.m. hearing, a judge could grant an injunction prohibiting the NCAA from enforcing its NIL recruiting policy, allowing athletes to legally receive inducements to move schools - an initial step in the courts further crippling NCAA amateurism.

More: https://t.co/HdimdBu51O https://t.co/KqwJ6wBJ4F

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) February 13, 2024

The NCAA's murky NIL policies difficult for even NCAA lawyers to explain. https://t.co/UCf0Il9iH1

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) February 13, 2024

This is already how it's practiced anyway. Anyone who thought the NCAA would be able to keep a lid on programs using NIL to only pay its existing players and not use that money to actively recruit them was insane, naive or both.

So there cannot be any rules at all on paying college players? That's the argument here? It's just a free for all? You can even leave in the middle of the season and play for a rival team for more money (assuming they'd let you enroll, and why wouldn't they) and they can actively recruit you to do that?

GoodOleBaylorLine said:

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So there cannot be any rules at all on paying college players? That's the argument here? It's just a free for all? You can even leave in the middle of the season and play for a rival team for more money (assuming they'd let you enroll, and why wouldn't they) and they can actively recruit you to do that?

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The legal argument is that you can't pay players when they're part of your program and simultaneously have a rule that you can't pay them as a reward for joining your program. I'm all for regulation but even I see that as a stupid distinction.

Once NIL was introduced, the NCAA lost leverage on this. There is no way they can legally argue that players can be paid for being part of your program but they can't be paid as a reward for joining your program.

GoodOleBaylorLine said:

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So there cannot be any rules at all on paying college players? That's the argument here? It's just a free for all? You can even leave in the middle of the season and play for a rival team for more money (assuming they'd let you enroll, and why wouldn't they) and they can actively recruit you to do that?

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There has to be some sort of rules in place. It just might need to come in a different wording, with a players union, etc.

Otherwise it will kill college football

Actually there is an obvious legal distinction. If I pay you to work for me, fine. If a company pays you to leave me and work for them, that's fine unless I have a contract with you. In that case, it's tortious interference with the contract, and I can sue both of you and probably even prevent you for working for the other company.

Those national letters of intent are supposed to be contracts. Not all athletes have to sign a NLI, but I doubt there are many D1 football players that haven't.

National Signing Day: Everything You Need to Know (2024) (ncsasports.org)

So yeah, if we are just going to let schools poach other team's players while they are on the team and subject to an NLI, that just complete chaos.

i imagine in the future that players will sign employment contracts

if we do end up there, then those contracts are likely to keep kids at a school for at least a couple of years

players might fight contracts longer than 2 - which kind of makes sense, as their window for college ball is rather short and they may not want to be locked into a school for 4 years