Interesting argument here:

https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/28/only-congress-and-the-president-can-save-college-sports/

Roll it back to the early 1900s.

Ditch NIL, kill the transfer portal and go back to old school values, motivations and rewards. Having players earning (being paid) millions of $$$ walking around campus (if they even go to class) and we are being told they represent our school???? Not my school.

Baylor cannot and will not prosper in this new, NIL/Transfer Portal world.

I'd rather go watch a game played at Carroll Field between amateurs who love Baylor University, know the history of Baylor Football & are full time students too.

Thee University said:

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Roll it back to the early 1900s.

Ditch NIL, kill the transfer portal and go back to old school values, motivations and rewards. Having players earning (being paid) millions of $$$ walking around campus (if they even go to class) and we are being told they represent our school???? Not my school.

Baylor cannot and will not prosper in this new, NIL/Transfer Portal world.

I'd rather go watch a game played at Carroll Field between amateurs who love Baylor University, know the history of Baylor Football & are full time students too.

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I agree with almost everything you said besides the comment about us not being successful in this era. The entirety of this past class committed to Baylor after a 3-9 season, and they are arguably one of the best ones we've ever signed. Not to mention we just had 20+ blue chip recruits on campus this past Sunday

We'll be alright

I agree that Bears can compete, despite the deep pockets of other schools.

But unless college football is fixed, probably with anti-trust legislation, the game itself will become just another pro league.

Thee University said:

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Roll it back to the early 1900s.

Ditch NIL, kill the transfer portal and go back to old school values, motivations and rewards. Having players earning (being paid) millions of $$$ walking around campus (if they even go to class) and we are being told they represent our school???? Not my school.

Baylor cannot and will not prosper in this new, NIL/Transfer Portal world.

I'd rather go watch a game played at Carroll Field between amateurs who love Baylor University, know the history of Baylor Football & are full time students too.

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This is dumb. Get with the times old man. Not allowing people to make money for their efforts is slavery or communism. Both are horrible.

i have felt all along that college athletics, with all its benefits to student-athletes and the country as a whole will dissolve without congressional action. i'm pleased to see even some of the most conservative sectors agree.

historian said:

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Interesting argument here:

https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/28/only-congress-and-the-president-can-save-college-sports/

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I thought you said the government needs get out of our live. did I miss understand you?

Thee University said:

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Roll it back to the early 1900s.

Ditch NIL, kill the transfer portal and go back to old school values, motivations and rewards. Having players earning (being paid) millions of $$$ walking around campus (if they even go to class) and we are being told they represent our school???? Not my school.

Baylor cannot and will not prosper in this new, NIL/Transfer Portal world.

I'd rather go watch a game played at Carroll Field between amateurs who love Baylor University, know the history of Baylor Football & are full time students too.

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Great post my friend. Agree with you 100 percent. Hope all is well in Burnet, Texas.

BearlyBeloved said:

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Bring back leather helmets!

Ban facemasks!

Outlaw the forward pass!

I do agree with the OP about the need for federal action, but let's not "roll back the clock" totally.

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None of that stuff, obviously. But I'd still like to see the players have to go back to playing both ways to lower the average weight of the players (safety issue) and boost required athleticism. Also, the number of scholarships/salaries/nil would be reduced per school and produce more parity overall. It could also potentially shorten the game for TV purposes.

NFL would likely not let it happen, however, with the NFLPA involved.

BearlyBeloved said:

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Bring back leather helmets!

Ban facemasks!

Outlaw the forward pass!

I do agree with the OP about the need for federal action, but let's not "roll back the clock" totally.

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I'm not sure if federal action is the solution for the simple reason that the government usually ruins everything it touches. Unfortunately, that might be inevitable and we can only hope that it will work. Government has a terrible track record, especially over the past 50-100 years.

historian said:

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I'm not sure if federal action is the solution for the simple reason that the government usually ruins everything it touches. Unfortunately, that might be inevitable and we can only hope that it will work. Government has a terrible track record, especially over the past 50-100 years.

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Having been intimately involved with government at all levels, I agree with the generality that government frequently ruins things rather than fixing them.

However, in this case, I do NOT support federal action that would dictate the structure for college athletics, but simply legislation that would free them from the impossible burdens imposed by existing federal (and state) antitrust and labor laws, similarly to what has been done with other major sports. Plus bring some sanity into how Title IX operates.

It is those existing laws, created by legislation and regulation, that are at the heart of the maze of court rulings that have tangled everything into the current mess.

That makes a lot of sense. In many areas of our society the government could do us all a great service simply by repealing outdated & burdensome laws or consolidating the mishmash that they have become in the way you proscribe. However, all too often when Congress decides to fix something they end up making it worse. Do I'm not confident about them doing anything constructive.

Federal. labor law is an intractable morass of vagaries and technical codes. I'm no one's labor law specialist.

However...

In a 2021 Supreme Court ruling in Alston v NCAA (which kicked open the "pay the athletes" world), Justice Brett Kavanaugh excoriated the NCAA in his opinion. He noted that, in most instances, playing NCAA sports was the only real way to gain access to the professional world. As such, the NCAA controlled that part of the market. They can't just announce that they're constraining earnings because their consumers prefer it that way. He declared the NCAA to be an "illegal cartel".

Essentially, the NCAA realizes that the next case they lose regarding player movement or payment will close them down as an institution. Since they set playing standards in other areas besides payments, they really are necessary.

There are other cartels out there. Major League Baseball is also an illegal cartel. This brings us back to The Federalist's position - proving that, every once in a while, even a blind, lame squirrel with a TBI can find the proverbial nut.

MLB exists due to Congressional oversight. There's Federal legislation passed that allows MLB to exist. That legislation requires equity and labor negotiating provisions that prevent the owners from exercising unchecked power. If the NCAA will ever be able to regulate player movement and compensation, even in an eye toward maintaining competitive balance, they also will certainly require similar legislation from Congress.

Better roll back the television contracts to 1990s levels, then. Back then, giving a college scholarship was somewhat commensurate with the value of their contributions to the school. With television contracts being in the multiple of billions of dollars now, saying the players shouldn't partake in the value they're creating for the schools is ludicrous.

I always find it interesting that it's the "small government, free markets" types who always bang the pro-government regulations drum loudest when workers are the ones who start winning.

Aren't the NFL & NBA cartels as well? I don't know what legal arrangements they gave but they certainly are different than most organizations.

historian said:

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Aren't the NFL & NBA cartels as well? I don't know what legal arrangements they gave but they certainly are different than most organizations.

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I'd have to read further to see what agreements the NBA and NFL have. I just remember that the MLB is famously a cartel in the eyes of Congress.

US Labor law isn't something you can sort of get a feel for. It's insanely complex. It's likely that, once the money started flowing in (the MLB has a much longer history of deep pockets), the NFL and NBA knew what they had to do (because of baseball's lead) and structured their ownership and union contracts in a way that forestalled Congressional action.

College players were denied the right to unionize by the courts since they were not seen as "employees" of the schools. That's likely true enough. However, the NCAA also denied them the right to contract for their service. That made them compelled to give away their services if they wanted any chance at a professional job. There was clearly a market for their services, and the NCAA unfairly denied them access.

Whether or not they are legally labeled as cartels, it seems pretty clear that they are.

I can't get over the title. That's mind blowing. No. Just no. Feds need to stay out of it and let nature take its course.

Mitch Henessey said:

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Better roll back the television contracts to 1990s levels, then. Back then, giving a college scholarship was somewhat commensurate with the value of their contributions to the school. With television contracts being in the multiple of billions of dollars now, saying the players shouldn't partake in the value they're creating for the schools is ludicrous.

I always find it interesting that it's the "small government, free markets" types who always bang the pro-government regulations drum loudest when workers are the ones who start winning.

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it's true. "Workers" is easier to spell than "proletariat."

Mitch Henessey said:

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Better roll back the television contracts to 1990s levels, then. Back then, giving a college scholarship was somewhat commensurate with the value of their contributions to the school. With television contracts being in the multiple of billions of dollars now, saying the players shouldn't partake in the value they're creating for the schools is ludicrous.

I always find it interesting that it's the "small government, free markets" types who always bang the pro-government regulations drum loudest when workers are the ones who start winning.

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I don't want to roll anything back, but I do think there needs to be some reasonable guiderails on this or else the whole system will collapse under its own weight. The trajectory we are on currently is unsustainable.

Yes, I definitely think Alabama and, Ohio State, Texas and USC should be able to sign all the 5 star players every year and those players should never be allowed to transfer so the balance of power goes back to the coach. Sounds great. Do it.

the present situation reminds me of teddy roosevelt's robber baron days. the sec and b10 are blatantly colluding, fixing prices and contracts, aided by and at the behest of their cohorts at espn and fox. they are acting like present day vanderbilts and morgans. to suggest this is anything other than collusion is folly.

historian said:

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Whether or not they are legally labeled as cartels, it seems pretty clear that they are.

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"Cartel", of course, brings to mind drug empires. As applied to labor law, it's an entity or group of entities that work together to manipulate prices or services without allowing fair competition.

If there's 50 vendors for a given product or something, or it's an easy market to get in to, you can usually rely on free market forces to set the value. If the value is set incorrectly, one of the entities will offer the product or services at a better deal. The rest of the participants will have to follow that lead or lose share.

When there are few (or one) participants, and there's a huge barrier to entry, then it could occur that the few entities talk among themselves and agree to set the price of a product at a rate guaranteeing a certain profit, or only hire people at a certain rate to prevent those hirees from getting a better deal elsewhere. This is anti-competitive. The entities involved have formed an "illegal cartel" in the eyes of the law.

Robert Wilson said:

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I can't get over the title. That's mind blowing. No. Just no. Feds need to stay out of it and let nature take its course.

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Without a legislated exemption, the natural course will be the dissolution of the NCAA. The NCAA does things like certify rule books and officials. They set standards of competition in other areas besides compensation.

Yes. If there are different kinds of cartels. OPEC is another example.

But the federal government can investigate and bring suit against an organization engaged in collusion, price fixing, or creating a monopoly. We have antitrust legislation, some dating back to 1890, that would be applicable. One could argue that ESPN already has a partial monopoly over college sports and they are colluding with the P2.

The problem is proving it and whether if not they have any legal exemptions.

The problem is fixing it. I believe Justice Kavanaugh already called out the NCAA for being such an illegal cartel correctly (again, I'm no one's labor expert).

Now, we need a remedy. That's where Congress has to step in. Typically, an anti-competitive cartel or entity could be broken up into separate units in order to provide overall competition, as in tech units or other organizations where its unlikely another player would come along to provide competition (wireless carriers are a good example since you can't just start your own cell phone company to provide competition).

It doesn't really make sense to create multiple NCAAs or equivalents. Breaking up the NCAA doesn't have an immediately logical pathway. This leaves Congressional oversight (Congress creates a labor law that articulates what the NCAA can and can't do) as the most likely remedy.

Realistically, Congressional oversight can take whatever form. It just has to provide opportunity. It's your best hope for any guardrails to NIL, compensation, or free player movement.