Potential Booster Loophole - FanAngel.com

[Ozcuse]

Crowdfunding has now come to NCAA athletes.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...-fanangel-allows-fans-donate-college-athletes

This is going to get shot down quick. I just heard it on Mike & Mike this morning and it immediately did not pass the smell test. What's to stop a wealthy booster from recruiting players to a certain school and setting up an "NCAA 401k" for these players to access once they have left the school. If a player knows it exists they can possibly borrow against it making this a total sham.

What do you think?

 

[Tobias Funke]

Crowdfunding has now come to NCAA athletes.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...-fanangel-allows-fans-donate-college-athletes

This is going to get shot down quick. I just heard it on Mike & Mike this morning and it immediately did not pass the smell test. What's to stop a wealthy booster from recruiting players to a certain school and setting up an "NCAA 401k" for these players to access once they have left the school. If a player knows it exists they can possibly borrow against it making this a total sham.

What do you think?

I believe NCAA rules would protect against an athlete receiving money, and/or receiving promise of funds to be paid out in the future. Therefore any money put into escrow to be paid post graduation or termination of the player amateur status would be looked at similar to their taking cash. Cool concept though, and really makes me realize how crazy it is that these kids cannot make any money.

 

[javadoc]

Crowdfunding has now come to NCAA athletes.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...-fanangel-allows-fans-donate-college-athletes

This is going to get shot down quick. I just heard it on Mike & Mike this morning and it immediately did not pass the smell test. What's to stop a wealthy booster from recruiting players to a certain school and setting up an "NCAA 401k" for these players to access once they have left the school. If a player knows it exists they can possibly borrow against it making this a total sham.

What do you think?

Not sure how this is truly supposed to work, as the article is confusing. But it only talks about donations to encourage a kid to stay in school and not bolt for the pros early. On its face it sounds well-intentioned, but it also may not work. Why would a kid considering going pro choose to stay based on fan donations? You'd need to overcome the risk of injury, lost salary, etc. And the central concept sounds fishy. The money is delayed payment for athletic participation in college (in addition to ongoing academic participation, perhaps even finishing the degree), which cancels amateur status. The kid would need to know the money is there in order to make the decision that the donors want, so it's (IMO) clearly pay for play.

The original idea was OK, because it concerns professional athletes.

 

[Ozcuse]

Not sure how this is truly supposed to work, as the article is confusing. But it only talks about donations to encourage a kid to stay in school and not bolt for the pros early. On its face it sounds well-intentioned, but it also may not work. Why would a kid considering going pro choose to stay based on fan donations? You'd need to overcome the risk of injury, lost salary, etc. And the central concept sounds fishy. The money is delayed payment for athletic participation in college (in addition to ongoing academic participation, perhaps even finishing the degree), which cancels amateur status. The kid would need to know the money is there in order to make the decision that the donors want, so it's (IMO) clearly pay for play.

The original idea was OK, because it concerns professional athletes.

It was discussed on Mike & Mike this morning and they didn't seem to understand how it "legitimately" works either. It was stated that employees from FanAngel would not discuss the potential funding with athletes until after they exhausted their NCAA eligibility but why would the athlete stick around another year vs. enter the draft if they didn't know about the money? It would be easy for a booster to notify the athlete of money being held in escrow for them to stay longer, or to even steer them to a certain school where money would be held in escrow until they were no longer ncaa eligible.

Also I don't think the original idea for professional athletes passes muster either as it would be a creative way to get around the salary cap. What's to say that a team couldn't put together a super roster of all stars and pay them exactly enough to get under the salary cap and then anonymously pay them millions through a crowd funding site to make up the difference? I know it's kind of similar to the fuzziness of endorsement deals however this seems to cross that line.

 

[Rocco]

Well it wouldn't be a "401k", but they could set up a brokerage account for a player. 401k is pre-tax and if someone dips into it before age 59 1/2, 10% penalty tax in addition to ordinary income taxes.

 

[Ozcuse]

Well it wouldn't be a "401k", but they could set up a brokerage account for a player. 401k is pre-tax and if someone dips into it before age 59 1/2, 10% penalty tax in addition to ordinary income taxes.

I don't literally mean a 401k but it's an escrow account they cannot touch while they still have NCAA eligibility. I guess calling it a trust fund would be more apt.

There is so much wrong with this and I believe the whole thing is a sham and ripe for abuse by savvy boosters and schools who don't mind bending the rules.

The part about sharing 10% of the award with a player's teammates when he accepts the award is going to instantly make the rest of the team declared ineligible. So dumb.

 

[Rocco]

I don't literally mean a 401k but it's an escrow account they cannot touch while they still have NCAA eligibility. I guess calling it a trust fund would be more apt.

There is so much wrong with this and I believe the whole thing is a sham and ripe for abuse by savvy boosters and schools who don't mind bending the rules.

The part about sharing 10% of the award with a player's teammates when he accepts the award is going to instantly make the rest of the team declared ineligible. So dumb.

It would be the end of the NCAA as we know it. At least the P5 conferences.