NCAA, power conferences agree to allow schools to pay players

[FloridaCuse]

What if a school says no thanks, we’re not going forward with this craziness. Are they on the hook for “back pay”?

By their conference voting to agree to the settlement probably means they are on the hook for their portion of the settlement. I think they would also be on the hook to pay their athletes within the settlement guidelines unless I suppose they drop all their sports from D1.

 

[CousCuse]

5) The one surprising thing in this is that MARCH MADNESS isn't going away. It was thought that when (again when not if) the BIG 10/SEC split away from the NCAA and all of the other conferences that they would do their own version of March Madness just with those schools. There is actually now protections in place to stop that. So, even if the SEC/BIG10 do split away, March Madness is preserved and they still have to play with the small schools each March in postseason basketball. Odd this got lumped in with everything else but ultimately good.

No one would watch a touney with 8 or 10 teams from the B1G/SEC glob, they NEED to be part of March Madness. The teams that aren't part of the glob should break away totally from them and start their own division, with more equal disbursements. As Stalin was fond of saying about the Soviets huge numerical superiority of less than top notch equipment, " Quantity has a quality all its own".

 

[javadoc]

A couple of thoughts
Eliminate NIL payments for charity appearances.
Establish simple means of establishing NIL value for endorsements.
Require all school compensation and NIL compensation to be recognized and documented.
Last point. The ACC increased its revenue last year by approximately 100 Million.
43 Million per team
FSU.

Has there been any talk in all this of what power the NCAA actually has to set the terms of membership and participation? What can't be sued away?

Can they require the players to be in school and make academic progress any more, or is that an interference with commerce (if the school is willing to pay them to play, NCAA can't impose additional requirements for that business arrangement)?

Is the concept of amateur athletics completely out the window? If so, does that mean someone can go to the NFL, get cut after a year, then come back and rejoin a college team?

Aren't roster sizes an unlawful barrier to participation in commerce? Teams wants to pay 200 players, so be it?

I assume of course that this pay will be fully taxable.

Is the "eligibility clock" also a thing of the past?

 

[Toga]

Has there been any talk in all this of what power the NCAA actually has to set the terms of membership and participation? What can't be sued away?

Can they require the players to be in school and make academic progress any more, or is that an interference with commerce (if the school is willing to pay them to play, NCAA can't impose additional requirements for that business arrangement)?

Is the concept of amateur athletics completely out the window? If so, does that mean someone can go to the NFL, get cut after a year, then come back and rejoin a college team?

Aren't roster sizes an unlawful barrier to participation in commerce? Teams wants to pay 200 players, so be it?

I assume of course that this pay will be fully taxable.

Is the "eligibility clock" also a thing of the past?

You sure do have a lot of questions for someone from New Jersey.

 

[Stern]

Is the concept of amateur athletics completely out the window? If so, does that mean someone can go to the NFL, get cut after a year, then come back and rejoin a college team?

Yes amateur athletics is officially dead. It died when NIL became legal, but with this news this week, it is now formally dead.

NO, you can't go from the NFL to college. This is still a feeder system (not in the true sense of AAA baseball and a player bouncing from AA to AAA or from AAA to the majors), but there are still rules around College Sports being played by College aged athletes and not having grown men competing with 19 and 20 year olds.

 

[JimBoston]

4) Total Scholarship limits (aka Roster limits aka Roster caps) are going to be the big fallout from this. There has to be somewhat of an even playing field and expect to be in total scholarship limits for each school. And the key is for each sport scholarship number cannot exceed the roster limit.

Say each school gets 150 scholarships (again just an example and round number) Football will have a roster limit of 90 roster spots, No school can allocate MORE than 90 scholorships to it's football team. Some schools may only want 75 scholarships allocated to football, have 15 walk-ons, and that is how you get to 90 roster spots. And use the 15 they can allocate towards football if they want and use them elsewhere instead and beef up its baseball, field hockey, and track and field teams.

But a school like CLEMSON (just for example) can't allocate 105 scholarships towards football, get rid of their walk-on program, because they are only allowed 90 roster spots and 90 scholarships max towards football.

And in the sports that bring in little revenue, say field hockey. If the roster limit is say 25 for example, you may have one school with only 8 scholarship girls on roster, rest walk-on's. And one school with 20 scholarship players on roster because each school will divide up the scholarships differently amongst all the sports. But to sum it up...a lot of these "nonrevenue sports" will be going away, unfortunately because of this. And the ones that won't go away will have MAJOR staff cuts as more money is now going out in all athletic departments. Everyone will be tightening up and counting pennies.

I don't think you are correct on scholarships/rosters. It appears that there will be restrictions on roster sizes, but scholarships will be allowed for all roster spots. This doesn't really change college football or college basketball, but it would be a major change for non-revenue sports. For example, in women's lacrosse, you can offer 12 scholarships which can be broken into pieces so a school can provide some support to more women. If a school wants to be highly competitive in women's lacrosse, in the future it looks like they could offer say 20 scholarships.

At Syracuse, let's say you have 85 football scholarships and 13 men's basketball scholarships for a total of 98 men's scholarships. So, you need 98 women's scholarships so those women's sports will survive. After that, everything will be on the table, but Syracuse will have to continue to participate in a minimum number of ACC sports but some of those teams might not be competitive in the conference if other ACC schools invest in them and Syracuse does not.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I don't think you are correct on scholarships/rosters. It appears that there will be restrictions on roster sizes, but scholarships will be allowed for all roster spots. This doesn't really change college football or college basketball, but it would be a major change for non-revenue sports. For example, in women's lacrosse, you can offer 12 scholarships which can be broken into pieces so a school can provide some support to more women. If a school wants to be highly competitive in women's lacrosse, in the future it looks like they could offer say 20 scholarships.

At Syracuse, let's say you have 85 football scholarships and 13 men's basketball scholarships for a total of 98 men's scholarships. So, you need 98 women's scholarships so those women's sports will survive. After that, everything will be on the table, but Syracuse will have to continue to participate in a minimum number of ACC sports but some of those teams might not be competitive in the conference if other ACC schools invest in them and Syracuse does not.

Does the settlement say that compensation is limited to scholarship players? If not, walk ons will need to be compensated as well. That is an extra 15-20 FB players. They are part of the team. Sure a school might pay them less money, but they will need something or you could see lawsuits.

Also the networks are going to have to assign actual values to each sport. Otherwise how can a school give more to men's BBall players vs women's? Something like 65% FB, 25% MBBall, 5% WBBall, 5% everything else.

I think in the future that will lead to unbundling the sports and having revenue sport conferences and olympic sport conferences. It will be better for everyone. The B18 makes sense for FB and BBall but nothing else. They don't need to stay together if the TV is no longer one contract.

 

[Stern]

Does the settlement say that compensation is limited to scholarship players? If not, walk ons will need to be compensated as well. That is an extra 15-20 FB players. They are part of the team. Sure a school might pay them less money, but they will need something or you could see lawsuits.

Also the networks are going to have to assign actual values to each sport. Otherwise how can a school give more to men's BBall players vs women's? Something like 65% FB, 25% MBBall, 5% WBBall, 5% everything else.

I think in the future that will lead to unbundling the sports and having revenue sport conferences and olympic sport conferences. It will be better for everyone. The B18 makes sense for FB and BBall but nothing else. They don't need to stay together if the TV is no longer one contract.

The issue is once you have (For example) USC/UCLA in one conference for football/basketball, and they screwed over past conference mates altogether, those schools left behind do not want to bail out USC/UCLA softball, tennis, golf...etc just because they are "regionally close" to one another.

Does it make sense, what you propose, yes. Will it happen, no.

The Big 10 and SEC need to be looked at like the AFC and NFC in the NFL. That is where this is going. They are going to break away, cut major TV deals, and all sports (well if your in one of those two conferences) will be fine once that happens and yeah its dumb for the USC field hockey team to travel to Rutgers to play, but the money will be so great, and the athletes (now paid employees) will just be doing their job that nobody will bat an eye at it and it will be the new normal.

The world has changed

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Also remember the Ivy League does not offer alethic scholarships. Those players are going to want a piece of the Ivy League TV contract and the Ivy League share of the NCAAT contract. We already saw issues at Dartmouth of all places.

Plus in FB you have plenty of walk ons who actually see the field, especially STs. Are you telling me a walk on K who plays a roll on the team will be fine making $0 while a 3rd stringer who will never see the field gets $25k?

So IMO the walk ons will need to get something even if just a bone.

 

[Stern]

I don't think you are correct on scholarships/rosters. It appears that there will be restrictions on roster sizes, but scholarships will be allowed for all roster spots. This doesn't really change college football or college basketball, but it would be a major change for non-revenue sports. For example, in women's lacrosse, you can offer 12 scholarships which can be broken into pieces so a school can provide some support to more women. If a school wants to be highly competitive in women's lacrosse, in the future it looks like they could offer say 20 scholarships.

That is what i said. You just can't have an unlimited roster with more scholarship players than the roster limit allows. How each school divides them up is up to them. If SCHOOL A wants only 7 scholarships for women's lacrosse, but 15 for women's field hockey and SCHOOL B wants 10 for women's lacrosse and 12 for women's field hockey, have at it. Up to each school

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The issue is once you have (For example) USC/UCLA in one conference for football/basketball, and they screwed over past conference mates altogether, those schools left behind do not want to bail out USC/UCLA softball, tennis, golf...etc just because they are "regionally close" to one another.

Does it make sense, what you propose, yes. Will it happen, no.

The Big 10 and SEC need to be looked at like the AFC and NFC in the NFL. That is where this is going. They are going to break away, cut major TV deals, and all sports (well if your in one of those two conferences) will be fine once that happens and yeah its dumb for the USC field hockey team to travel to Rutgers to play, but the money will be so great, and the athletes (now paid employees) will just be doing their job that nobody will bat an eye at it and it will be the new normal.

The world has changed

I don't think schools are that spiteful that they won't take in UCLA.

You also have to factor that pretty much all conferences will break up in non revenue sports. Everyone will be starting from scratch. How many conferences are actually regional today? very few.


Edit

Also in the case of the Western schools you already have Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal. Plus Oregon State and Washington State. Or even if they wanted to keep it closer to home you have USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal and then they can steal other Cali schools (Fresno St, San Jose St, San Diego St, etc). If it is more prestigious and shorter travel, why wouldn't schools join? Same with the core of Washington/State and Oregon/State. They can grab schools close by (Eastern Washington, Boise State, Idaho, etc).

Technically the PAC was too big. Same with the MWC. You can start from scratch in the other sports. The only reason schools were together prior was for FB and BBall. You needed to be with schools that played at an FBS level.

 

[Stern]

Also remember the Ivy League does not offer alethic scholarships. Those players are going to want a piece of the Ivy League TV contract and the Ivy League share of the NCAAT contract. We already saw issues at Dartmouth of all places.

Plus in FB you have plenty of walk ons who actually see the field, especially STs. Are you telling me a walk on K who plays a roll on the team will be fine making $0 while a 3rd stringer who will never see the field gets $25k?

So IMO the walk ons will need to get something even if just a bone.

What will be interesting to follow and see how this plays out in time is when the players unionize if walk-ons will be viewed as "non-union players" who aren't paying union dues if they aren't being paid, and if "walk-ons" become a thing of the past.

 

[DoctorBombay]

Well I don't like it. Not one bit.

 

[Willy75]

Is Division 1 now like a roach hotel where schools can't exit because they need NCAA revenue to pay "damages" to former players?
Do schools have the ability to opt out of the settlement?

 

[orange79]

Do schools have the ability to opt out of the settlement?

Do you think schools would opt out? And face trial, opening themselves for multiple the damages they just settled for?

 

[Willy75]

Some schools outside the Power 5 (or4) might want to; there are already reports of unhappiness about the share allocated to them. In plaintiff class actions there's always an opt out mechanism. What about Divisions 2 and 3, are they supposed to pay too.