Let's clarify the OP title somewhat. It's primarily what Power 5 (...maybe fewer in the coming years) football has become. It is the intense competition for media rights and the amount of money surroundiing these top 40-50 schools that has driven it to what it is today. The majority of the remainder of what is college sports hasn't changed much.

capitalism is relentless. Margins are squeezed, inefficiencies are eliminated. The world goes on.

Eventually there will be unions and salary caps and advanced metrics.

I'm not bashing it. It is what it is.

The NCAA is an idiotic organization that had a chance to prevent this from being a chaotic thing but blindly marched on saying "players will never receive money". It was clear at some point that they would. Have a contingency plan.

Had 2 decades ago they done some basic math on what a working student makes over the course of the year they could've implemented a stipend for student athletes. Could've slowed the pay train down, while a longer term solution was worked on. P5 guys were also already getting paid by bagmen.

Our country as a whole does a piss poor job of teaching kids about personal finance. There was an opportunity to teach these kids about managing money, investing, etc. This could've helped lead to a broader conversation on the subject. I knew too many people in college who said "I can't afford to go to the $5 movie," while holding a $15 Starbucks cappalattefrappe whatever. On the flip side people who drove a fancy truck or Jeep and didn't understand why everyone else's parents didn't just get them a nice car on the family credit card. End of rant

Art_E_Guinn said:

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longtimebear said:

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There s no loyalty. There is no respect. Accepting a school's scholarship means nothing anymore.
Commitment is no longer in our language base. Why should coaches work so hard to recruit? Let the players apply for what school they would like to attend and then if they feel like they made a mistake, then tough toenails. No free ride after that.

It's just not a system I agree with. Very old school I suppose.

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when did the schools make a commitment? scholarships have always been limited to one year, subject to renewal. players can and have been dropped for any reason. it's funny when fans question the loyalty of the good players, then call for the bad players to find another home.

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I would be willing to force a school to guarantee 4 years of scholarship in return for players 4 year commitment. I think schools would be willing to do that as well. Maybe even leave an out for a kid who isn't getting playing time? I think a kid who isn't playing ought to be able to make a change.

I also think that if you are getting any NIL money you also should also be required to sign a contract committing to an agreed-upon period of time.

What longtimebear said about the decline of loyalty, commitment & values and what others have said abou college education reflects an overall decline in American culture. The value of college education has declined accordingly, especially as they often are laboratories of new ideas & trends. Unfortunately, many of the changes have been more detrimental to schools & to society.

JP1037 said:

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Art_E_Guinn said:

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longtimebear said:

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There s no loyalty. There is no respect. Accepting a school's scholarship means nothing anymore.
Commitment is no longer in our language base. Why should coaches work so hard to recruit? Let the players apply for what school they would like to attend and then if they feel like they made a mistake, then tough toenails. No free ride after that.

It's just not a system I agree with. Very old school I suppose.

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when did the schools make a commitment? scholarships have always been limited to one year, subject to renewal. players can and have been dropped for any reason. it's funny when fans question the loyalty of the good players, then call for the bad players to find another home.

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I would be willing to force a school to guarantee 4 years of scholarship in return for players 4 year commitment. I think schools would be willing to do that as well. Maybe even leave an out for a kid who isn't getting playing time? I think a kid who isn't playing ought to be able to make a change.

I also think that if you are getting any NIL money you also should also be required to sign a contract committing to an agreed-upon period of time.

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You're comparing NIL to pro salaries and it's not quite the same. Pay-to-play is still technically illegal. Some guys get paid for their potential. Some get paid b/c they have 4.5m followers on TikTok. They might even be scrubs.

It's one thing if the NIL agreement were with the school, but it technically isn't. The players have more of the power for the first time ever. The NCAA can adopt NIL restrictions, but they need to tread lightly.

It's not like they're free agents every offseason. They get one transfer + one more as a grad senior. It seems worse right now b/c of the Covid exemption.

Would you also support requiring coaches to stay at the same school during the length of their contract? Would you support requiring schools to keep coaches employed as HC throughout the entirety of their contracts? That would suck for the fans in most cases. Same applies to athletes who are stuck in regretful situations.

It wasn't my post but I will try to write what I think was said;

1. No more focus on being a student athlete. One and dones, do they even need to go to class? In the past, the idea was to give opportunity to young men and women playing sports in exchange for a college degree, something that could help them through life.
2. Money is now the driver. Players have less-than-professional agents. Parents look for money for the family. While they are not paid for playing, they are paid for name-image-likeness which has now become the same thing.
3. Lack of loyalty. There is no loyalty but to self. That is a huge societal shift that really started with free-agency back in the 1970s in pro sports.
4. NIL encourages under the table negotiations that go on all year long during school and the season. Agents are in contact with NIL groups to get their best deals as they make 20%.
5. Coaches have to recruit their own players? A coach now spends more time recruiting his own players than maybe maybe coaching.
6. Coaches can't focus on development? Why waste time bringing in high school kids that might play in 3-4 years when you can dip into smaller schools starters or big school backups and get maturity and talent? It is changing the game.
7. Interference by big donors - something SMU got the death penalty for. How does this improve the game? How much of a pain is more access to the program for coaches, athletic directors and Presidents? Money has quit flowing from external sources to the athletic department and instead is going to NIL.

How does this reflect the changes in society? Because things like loyalty, commitment, integrity and many more values appear to be changing in exchange for $1.

Don't get my response confused. NCAA screwed this up not paying players earlier in some way but portal and NIL are not the answer for what college sports used to be. I actually believe it was embraced by 25 large schools that can see the future where only the largest schools with big TV contracts get on major TV and can pay the kids. What a travesty you don't see NCAA or any of the large school President's standing up to change this.

It hasn't change college sports YET for me, but it sure appears to be headed in that direction.

The power brokers do not care about mid-majors.

I think you will see in football a much broader mix of transfers to high school players. Maybe in a recruiting haul of 25 kids in a season you will see up to third to half transfers. Marginally recruited high school players go to small schools to get playing time to get recruited by the larger programs and leave.

In basketball, it will go even faster. So much easier to get 4-5 portal players that can immediately help rather than pick up 5 less mature (physically, athletically, emotionally, etc.) high school players. And, they best ones leave in a year for the NBA.

College athletics is no more or less loyal than the workforce.

Loyalty? Haven't we all seen coaches assure us they're staying on Wednesday and sign new contract on Friday? Haven't we all known employers that demand a two week notice shut off your access and give you 20 minutes to pack and be out?

I accept that our players are ours as long as we are the right fit for them.

I have corrected the original to clarify my meaning:

"What longtimebear said about the decline of loyalty, commitment & values and what others have said abou college education reflects an overall decline in American culture. The value of college education has declined accordingly, especially as they often are laboratories of new ideas & trends. Unfortunately, many of the changes have been more detrimental to schools & to society."

I wasn't talking about NIL or money specifically but about changes in America over the past few decades. It was also based partly on the posts of boykin_spaniel & others.

As it relates to NIL, this is partly what I was thinking. Especially #1 & #3.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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CSD will always stay upbeat and put a positive spin on things but gotta wonder behind closed doors, how this whole mess is affecting CSD.

Scott Drew: "Our goal is to bring in people that can represent our university in a manner they can be proud of, and at the same time we want to win the last game. Pray for talented, high-character, Godly men that can represent us the right way." pic.twitter.com/9KwR32B87J

— Darby Brown (@darbyjobrown) April 14, 2023

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Exactly the kind of response I would expect from CSD. Thank God for men like him & Coach Tang in Coolidge sports.

I'm sure the enhanced speed of todays society plays a major role. Anything anyone wants is a click away. The internet has no loyalty. As mentioned coaches don't have loyalty and don't they set the tone? Obviously some people CSD, Pitre, JTT, etc do.

If you're Adam Flagler why would you not take a scholarship offer to Baylor? Great basketball on a national stage and solid academics. Should he not be able to pursue that from Presbyterian?

I don't really know where I'm going with this but times are changing as they always have. The internet is like agriculture, the printing press or industrial revolution. A major jump quicker than usual happened and humanity is still trying to figure out how to live with it. It's having an effect on more than just technology but how people behave and think.

Dallas and Mitch Bear seem to understand the modern dynamics better than most here. Anyone who has had to start off in the world post 2000 and especially post 2008 knows and internalizes these lessons quickly.

I wish it wasn't the case (lack of loyalty / stability ) and it could have been mitigated but it is way too late now. Was very easily anticipated but per usual those with the decision making ability to pivot instead doubled down in the face of a new reality. I agree with Dallas that the only way to keep the whole thing from canibalizing itself will be targeted regulations typical to sports leagues.

Everything is for the taking. Everything that can be cannibalized,will be, without constraints. What the players are doing is just taking the system to its very logical conclusion.

100% and unbelievably discouraging it has all come to this. All good things must come to an end, including the culture of JOY.

historian said:

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I have corrected the original to clarify my meaning:

"What longtimebear said about the decline of loyalty, commitment & values and what others have said abou college education reflects an overall decline in American culture. The value of college education has declined accordingly, especially as they often are laboratories of new ideas & trends. Unfortunately, many of the changes have been more detrimental to schools & to society."

I wasn't talking about NIL or money specifically but about changes in America over the past few decades. It was also based partly on the posts of boykin_spaniel & others.

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Culture, ie., loyalty, patriotism, honesty, etc., are not commodities or assets that are handed out and we keep them in our wallets. The important values for me at least exist in an equilibrium requiring trust and reciprocal actions from those who lead and those who are led. Getting back to sports, NCAA was not wrong in allowing an athlete compensation for their name and likeness, nor was it wrong to allow those athletes the opportunity to change direction in their career and not be tied to a place they no longer wanted to be. Where the NCAA failed, and failed spectacularly, is in their complete failure to lead in these matters. By allowing changes without any control system, without any limits, they have taken us more than a 100years backward to when there were no recruiting rules. I seem to remember a story about early Texas Football where the dominant player from one college made a deal to play for the other team at halftime. When you take away the rules, and the leadership, the money rules.

Makes it super easy for me to cancel cable.

longtimebear said:

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There s no loyalty. There is no respect. Accepting a school's scholarship means nothing anymore.
Commitment is no longer in our language base. Why should coaches work so hard to recruit? Let the players apply for what school they would like to attend and then if they feel like they made a mistake, then tough toenails. No free ride after that.

It's just not a system I agree with. Very old school I suppose.

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I couldn't agree more with your post. It's a shame that the concept of commitment and loyalty seems to be disappearing from college sports. Scholarships used to represent a mutual agreement between players and coaches, but now it seems like they're just a temporary convenience for players until they find a better opportunity elsewhere. I think it's important for players to honor their commitments and understand the impact that their decisions can have on their coaches and teammates. If players want to pursue other options, they should do so before accepting a scholarship, rather than reneging on their commitment and leaving their team in the lurch. For me, who wasn't good at sports I had to do a lot of stuff to get a scholarship, I even used this site https://essays.edubirdie.com/english-assignment-help to increase my chances, but college teens nowadays don't appreciate what they have. I also think it would be valuable for coaches to reassess their recruiting strategies and place more emphasis on finding players who value loyalty and commitment. At the end of the day, college sports should be about more than just getting a free ride - it should be about building relationships and working towards a common goal.

Loyalty goes both ways. Most coaches and programs get rid of players when they don't perform or when they recruit someone better to replace them. Thankfully CSD abides by a different culture compared to other programs who just use players like cattle.

I hear what you are saying about getting rid of players.So I mostly agree.However my experience is that many if not most coaches will live with their own recruiting mistakes.The roster turnover is much more likely to occur when a new coach comes in.Of course Sanders and the transfer portal have taken this concern to a new level.

the portal is bringing parity to the game. nil is completely out of hand presently. overall, i like both. they are in spirit ethical changes to the game. adequate regulation will help make them better.

Portal is not bringing about parity. Portal now only exists with NIL. Players are entering the portal only to transfer - not always to seek their options. NIL groups from one school contact the agent for a player at another school. All paperwork is done, player enters the portal, announced a team and transfer is complete.

I am sure there are lots of lower level players where this does not happen. They are looking for an opportunity or a lifeline. They might not get either.

Here is what is happening in the next few years:

1. Fewer high school players will get P5 offers
2. Smaller colleges will lose their best players to transfer
3. Coaches have to spend time recruiting their own players all year long
4. If you don't play NIL, you will lose players.

Simple as that.