bear2be2 said:
Bakersdozen said:
How much of that money should trickle down? It is like reparations...how do you ever make that decision? I think it would be impossible to decide. Instead, let's just pay for play and that way athletes make money like it is now?
This is not money going to athletes. Bigger schools with more money win. SEC/BIG are using big TV contracts and heavy donor base to separate. After separation, watch a lot of this NIL money to dry up.
Certainly more than $0 -- or whatever cost of living stipend they eventually arrived at.
As more and more money was pumped into these sports and generated through them, there should have been conversations going on about how to make a college athletics model work in a modern environment. Instead, those making all the money hid behind "amateurism" and did literally nothing.
That's why we're in the spot we're in currently. Because those making the money didn't want to share it with those generating it. NIL, as currently applied, is utter nonsense. But it's the natural -- and, eventually, court-mandated -- response to a complete and intentional lack of action on the institutions' part to create a fair system that passed some of these record revenues to the athletes.
This greed didn't happen overnight. There was video games that entered the market with player's likeness. No one anticipated the financial impact of that.. Jersey's with names on it for sale. College football became a much bigger business with TV contracts. I am sure every college President wanted to hang on to the money - sports programs are expensive.
Amateur status forbade sharing it. There was a time in the Olympics when professional athletes were unable to participate as well, but change doesn't always happen so quickly.
NIL has nothing to do with this honestly, or very little. NIL is an attempt by large donors to gain access by paying players. It is a way to buy success for their program. it used to be illegal and SMU got the death penalty for it.
Donors of NIL money don't care about these athletes more than they used to. They care about their team wining. They care about access and involvement. In some cases, big donors have taken over control of athletic programs. Boone Pickens is a good example. There are many more.
I know you want to have some sort of morality around NIL/Transfer Portal. It was done at last to avoid a Supreme Court ruling. At any time, the college Presidents could fix the issues, but there is a new way to win. Hold all the money cards in the name of paying players what we owe them. That is just naive.