NIL has changed me as a college sports fan...and it ain't for the better

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Years ago, pro sports became all about the laundry. I stopped caring about individual players whose only loyalty was (justifiably) to their own bottom lines. College sports used to be different. Players used to be every bit as invested in a school as fans. I'd see a kid on campus and high five him knowing he was every bit as invested in being on that campus as I was.

It was special.

NIL has changed that. With the exception of a very small number of truly elite level schools with deeper than deep pockets, everyone else will always be at risk that after 1, 2, 3, even 4 years a player will just vanish in search of a better offer.

This is not a judgement. Repeat for the back of the room. I am not BLAMING PLAYERS ...These players have every right to do what they need to for their own interests. I am merely stating how it has impacted me as a fan. NIL has absolutely has changed for the worse the passion and loyalty I have for individual Syracuse players.

It's all a business, right?

 

[Dmcnabbrules]

Yeah to me college basketball stinks. NIL and the free transfer are the final nails in the coffin.

 

[Scooch]

It’s not just NIL, college sports has been a cesspool for years and years. I’ve actually gravitated more towards pro sports because at least that business is (a) out in the open, and (b) regulated.

I’ve long said that college sports are the best on game day, and the worst on every other day.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Years ago, pro sports became all about the laundry. I stopped caring about individual players whose only loyalty was (justifiably) to their own bottom lines. College sports used to be different. Players used to be every bit as invested in a school as fans. I'd see a kid on campus and high five him knowing he was every bit as invested in being on that campus as I was.

It was special.

NIL has changed that. With the exception of a very small number of truly elite level schools with deeper than deep pockets, everyone else will always be at risk that after 1, 2, 3, even 4 years a player will just vanish in search of a better offer.

This is not a judgement. These players have every right to do what they need to for their own interests. But at the end of the day, NIL has absolutely has changed for the worse the passion and loyalty I have for individual Syracuse players.

It's all a business, right?

At least in the pros the rosters aren't flipping every year like potentially they will be in college. If our staff and administrators aren't prepared to make adjustments on the fly then it can get ugly quick.

Hopefully there are good things going on behind the scenes. Time will tell.

 

[Scooch]

At least in the pros the rosters aren't flipping every year like potentially they will be in college. If our staff and administrators aren't prepared to make adjustments on the fly then it can get ugly quick.

Hopefully there are good things going on behind the scenes. Time will tell.

Who would’ve thought that pro sports would have more roster stability than college?! But you’re right.

At the very least pro sport roster construction is predictable. We know how long contracts run for, when free agency hits, etc.

For the college have nots, which we seem to be surprisingly, every off season is chaos.

 

[Consigliere]

Years ago, pro sports became all about the laundry. I stopped caring about individual players whose only loyalty was (justifiably) to their own bottom lines. College sports used to be different. Players used to be every bit as invested in a school as fans. I'd see a kid on campus and high five him knowing he was every bit as invested in being on that campus as I was.

It was special.

NIL has changed that. With the exception of a very small number of truly elite level schools with deeper than deep pockets, everyone else will always be at risk that after 1, 2, 3, even 4 years a player will just vanish in search of a better offer.

This is not a judgement. These players have every right to do what they need to for their own interests. But at the end of the day, NIL has absolutely has changed for the worse the passion and loyalty I have for individual Syracuse players.

It's all a business, right?

It would be difficult to find a more passionate and supportive fan than me, but I am experiencing the same. The only thing I would change from your words is that it is not NIL that has changed the world for me.
Paying a basketball or lacrosse player a few hundred bucks to get up early on a fall Saturday to spend a couple of hours mingling with fans at a tailgate, or even a few thousand for the use of his name, image and likeness on tailgate banners, T shirts and autographed photos has been nothing but a positive for everyone involved.
It’s the abuse of the spirit of the concept, and more importantly the failure to police those abuses effectively, that has destroyed something that we have all loved for years. The NCAA punted on third down and proved to be exactly the feckless organization that they are.

 

[Scooch]

It would be difficult to find a more passionate and supportive fan than me, but I am experiencing the same. The only thing I would change from your words is that it is not NIL that has changed the world for me.
Paying a basketball or lacrosse player a few hundred bucks to get up early on a fall Saturday to spend a couple of hours mingling with fans at a tailgate, or even a few thousand for the use of his name, image and likeness on tailgate banners, T shirts and autographed photos has been nothing but a positive for everyone involved.
It’s the abuse of the spirit of the concept, and more importantly the failure to police those abuses effectively, that has destroyed something that we have all loved for years. The NCAA punted on third down and proved to be exactly the feckless organization that they are.

In fairness, the NCAA is merely the sum of its membership. It's the schools themselves that have punted, the NCAA is a useful scapegoat.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Need for the NCAA to restructure scholarships to counteract the NIL impact and create a more level playing field. Flagship State schools in major conferences can no longer offer scholarships. Private schools in major conferences can have up to 8. Public schools in smaller conferences can offer 6. Private schools in small conferences can offer full allotment of 12.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

It would be difficult to find a more passionate and supportive fan than me, but I am experiencing the same. The only thing I would change from your words is that it is not NIL that has changed the world for me.
Paying a basketball or lacrosse player a few hundred bucks to get up early on a fall Saturday to spend a couple of hours mingling with fans at a tailgate, or even a few thousand for the use of his name, image and likeness on tailgate banners, T shirts and autographed photos has been nothing but a positive for everyone involved.
It’s the abuse of the spirit of the concept, and more importantly the failure to police those abuses effectively, that has destroyed something that we have all loved for years. The NCAA punted on third down and proved to be exactly the feckless organization that they are.

That's fair and well said.

My bigger issue ultimately is that the NCAA fought so long against paying players they wasted the opportunity to create a system in which players were reimbursed equitably. Once NIL became the mechanism, it dramatically skewed things in favor of the largest schools with the biggest donors.

We are now at a place where anyone outside of maybe the 10 or so biggest hoops and football programs will always be vulnerable to be raided. Syracuse in particular just doesnt seem equipped, for a myriad of reasons, to make NIL work for these kids.

 

[ForeverOrange]

NIL is low hanging fruit. The real blame is the money machine college sports has become. I can't blame kids for wanting a piece of the pie. Nobody was complaining when the coaches were getting million dollar deals, but now when it's the actual kids who play the games turn, now it's a problem?

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Need for the NCAA to restructure scholarships to counteract the NIL impact and create a more level playing field. Flagship State schools in major conferences can no longer offer scholarships. Private schools in major conferences can have up to 8. Public schools in smaller conferences can offer 6. Private schools in small conferences can offer full allotment of 12.

I dont see anything like this happening. Closest I could MAYBE see is some sort of scholarship exemptions created for portal losses that aren't replaced within the same cycle.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

NIL is low hanging fruit. The real blame is the money machine college sports has become. I can't blame kids for wanting a piece of the pie. Nobody was complaining when the coaches were getting million dollar deals, but now when it's the actual kids who play the games turn, now it's a problem?

Again, to be clear, I am not judging the kids. They have every right to go get what they can. I'm simply speaking to how it has changed me as a fan and alum. I cannot and should not be expected to have deeper loyalty for individual players than they do for the school I graduated from.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

NIL is low hanging fruit. The real blame is the money machine college sports has become. I can't blame kids for wanting a piece of the pie. Nobody was complaining when the coaches were getting million dollar deals, but now when it's the actual kids who play the games turn, now it's a problem?

NIL is a direct result of the business machine that college sports has become. I don’t blame the players for maximizing their NIL opportunities. Schools had been massively profiting off them for decades.

 

[CardiacCuse]

unfortunately, the socioeconomic system in the US will turn anything it can into a money machine - without limit...to the maximum degree possible.

amateurism and purity simply cannot last in such an environment...

anything good will ultimately be full exploited.

regulation is needed...its the only chance to save anything worthy of being saved from the vultures who are "just doing their jobs" (although the process of regulating things is also highly commercialized, as well, unfortunately)

hard to blame the players for the failings of the system that exploits them...but they also do have a duty to protect the institution they are benefitting from...I don't blame them but I alos don't excuse them, either.

it's very symptomatic of this era - most people no longer feel any sort of duty at all to protect whatever institution or tradition that they themselves benefit from - and, as such, many of those institutions and traditions are disintigrating before our eyes.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Players have been getting money for more than a century. The NCAA just completely abdicated any kind of responsibility for managing the revenue and figured that they could just simultaneously pretend the volume of revenue didn't exist and work tirelessly to increase it. The benefit was to admin and coaches for the last 40 years and they made an incredible amount of money. When it came time to reconcile that revenue being made by publicly unpaid labor, they just sorta figured it wouldn't be a big deal or didn't care enough because they had built an institutional reality that couldn't comprehend a world where college players in revenue sports started getting a slice of the pie.

I don't think this current model is sustainable, not that it is good or bad, but that it's going to take a fundamental restructuring of the entire system and the NCAA is simply not capable of that.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Players have been getting money for more than a century. The NCAA just completely abdicated any kind of responsibility for managing the revenue and figured that they could just simultaneously pretend the volume of revenue didn't exist and work tirelessly to increase it. The benefit was to admin and coaches for the last 40 years and they made an incredible amount of money. When it came time to reconcile that revenue being made by publicly unpaid labor, they just sorta figured it wouldn't be a big deal or didn't care enough because they had built an institutional reality that couldn't comprehend a world where college players in revenue sports started getting a slice of the pie.

I don't think this current model is sustainable, not that it is good or bad, but that it's going to take a fundamental restructuring of the entire system and the NCAA is simply not capable of that.

I agree but restructuring will be almost impossible because those at the top with the biggest bankrolls have the power and will want to create a structure that maintains that power.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

I agree but restructuring will be almost impossible because those at the top with the biggest bankrolls have the power and will want to create a structure that maintains that power.

Restructuring wont happen IMO. The only way anything gets "restructured" is for the whole thing to collapse. The biggest schools peel off from the NCAA and the remaining 80% or so create a new equitable system that is at least fair among themselves. But that's not really an ideal solution for obvious reasons.

 

[syrBossHogg]

It’s not just NIL, college sports has been a cesspool for years and years. I’ve actually gravitated more towards pro sports because at least that business is (a) out in the open, and (b) regulated.

I’ve long said that college sports are the best on game day, and the worst on every other day.

Pro sports have their flaws but the product is better because the owners have a unified goal to make it better. College sports it's just every man (or woman) for themselves

 

[Dick_in_MI]

I'm in the same boat. I don't blame Jesse. Not even a little bit. He will have his SU degree and will always be Orange and a fellow alumnus. He was perhaps my favorite player on the team.

But Jesse didn't create this mess of a system. He'd be an idiot not to take advantage of it. If I were his father, I'd tell him the same thing.

As a fan, though...

It is becoming like a minor league baseball team where the faces change every year. It is becoming a LOT harder to develop any emotional attachment to the team and players.

I already donate to my old academic department and have made provisions for them in my estate. Rather than spend $$$ on road trips to follow players who may or may not be here the next year, I'm more inclined to just add the cost of that trip to what I donate to the academic side of my alma mater.

I'll always root for SU but I foresee a time when basketball and football will be like the minor sports at SU; I'll watch them on TV and root for them, but once the game ends, I won't give it another thought. I'm not there yet, but I can see it coming. The emotional aspect is simply not what it once was.

 

[MSOrange]

I'm in the same boat. I don't blame Jesse. Not even a little bit. He will have his SU degree and will always be Orange and a fellow alumnus. He was perhaps my favorite player on the team.

But Jesse didn't create this mess of a system. He'd be an idiot not to take advantage of it. If I were his father, I'd tell him the same thing.

As a fan, though...

It is becoming like a minor league baseball team where the faces change every year. It is becoming a LOT harder to develop any emotional attachment to the team and players.

I already donate to my old academic department and have made provisions for them in my estate. Rather than spend $$$ on road trips to follow players who may or may not be here the next year, I'm more inclined to just add the cost of that trip to what I donate to the academic side of my alma mater.

I'll always root for SU but I foresee a time when basketball and football will be like the minor sports at SU; I'll watch them on TV and root for them, but once the game ends, I won't give it another thought. I'm not there yet, but I can see it coming. The emotional aspect is simply not what it once was.

Even at my alma mater at the mid major level, it's hard to get excited. Sure we don't have the one and done players, But the minute someone gets good enough to play at a better school, he's gone.

Now I don't blame the players for doing that. It's just like a student who couldn't get into a school academically coming out of high school, but after a few years of getting good grades at another university, can try to transfer to a better school. But strictly from a fan's viewpoint, it kind of sucks.

 

[Consigliere]

In fairness, the NCAA is merely the sum of its membership. It's the schools themselves that have punted, the NCAA is a useful scapegoat.

Technically true. but the NCAA is not a true democracy. The Board of Governors and the individual committees rule the sports and their policies and decisions aren't always reflective of the majority of their membership. It's kind of like blaming every American citizen for each resolution passed by Congress.
The ruling body is an abject failure at this point. Failure to rein in NIL is just the latest and most severe example of this.

 

[Consigliere]

Technically true. but the NCAA is not a true democracy. The Board of Governors and the individual committees rule the sports and their policies and decisions aren't always reflective of the majority of their membership. It's kind of like blaming every American citizen for each resolution passed by Congress.
The ruling body is an abject failure at this point. Failure to rein in NIL is just the latest and most severe example of this.

The unwillingness to address blatant tampering with players before they even enter the portal is all the evidence you need. Nijel Pack, Jordan Addison, and now perhaps, Jesse Edwards is all the evidence you need,

 

[Dick_in_MI]

Even at my alma mater at the mid major level, it's hard to get excited. Sure we don't have the one and done players, But the minute someone gets good enough to play at a better school, he's gone.

Now I don't blame the players for doing that. It's just like a student who couldn't get into a school academically coming out of high school, but after a few years of getting good grades at another university, can try to transfer to a better school. But strictly from a fan's viewpoint, it kind of sucks.

Yep. I think that it is even worse at a mid-major. If a player is a star, they don’t stand a prayer of holding onto him.

At least at SU, we generally just lose the Jon Bols and Symir…until now.

 

[Fly Rodder]

The ruling body is an abject failure at this point. Failure to rein in NIL is just the latest and most severe example of this.

I don't think reining it in is as much of a problem as them just completely failing to understand what was happening around them and prepare for it. Instead they fought a lawsuit fully believing that their decades of counter-intuitive and contradictory stances would be enough to sway federal judges - and when they lost, they couldn't understand what it meant.

 

[CuseBBall]

I think we are spreading ourselves too thin. Our collective’s are trying to win at basketball, football and lacrosse. Where is school like Yukon or Gtown will be able to keep their basketball players more easily because they only focus on basketball.