The most important NCAA lawsuit is set for December

[Capt. Tuttle]

NCAA amateurism, scholarship rules to go on trial

 

[upperdeck]

how is this any different than any other rules a group makes up to enforce a collective? can a school sue that 85 scholies is wrong, can they sue for no grade restrictions? what would stop high schools next from paying kids?

 

[Waltdods]

how is this any different than any other rules a group makes up to enforce a collective? can a school sue that 85 scholies is wrong, can they sue for no grade restrictions? what would stop high schools next from paying kids?

The logic behind antitrust exemptions (its not exactly an exemption for the NCAA but close enough) for sports leagues is that the collective rules limit intra-league competition but make a better product on the whole. The nfl draft, for example, would be literally criminal in most industries but is accepted because the NFL as a whole has an interest in ensuring parity. The 85 scholarship limitation has a similar rationale.

The we-refuse-to-pay people rule can’t really rely on the competitive balance justification. Instead the NCAA relies on this amateurism idea. There are basically two arguments here: 1) the amateurism idea is bs and (2) even if you accept the promotion of amateurism as a justification for otherwise anticompetitive behavior in the abstract these rules are overly restrictive.

 

[upperdeck]

but its already been shown that resources make it unfair for the majority. if you remove this restriction you might as well go to a 20 team field and put about 40 in a 2nd division and then the rest below that.. the sport falls apart, no one watches and the guys who wanted this end up removing the system for 90% of the people..

colleges would be smart to go away from scholies completely let the few big boys play and become the ivys.

the question is the good for the player bad for the sport a bad thing.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

how is this any different than any other rules a group makes up to enforce a collective? can a school sue that 85 scholies is wrong, can they sue for no grade restrictions? what would stop high schools next from paying kids?

It's not collectively bargained. It's imposed. High schools are not in the commercial business of athletics.

 

[upperdeck]

i dont get the HS and colleges are that different in the rules they impose for sports.. HS offer scholies to play sports, hs charge and make money to support costs.

 

[Cheriehoop]

i dont get the HS and colleges are that different in the rules they impose for sports.. HS offer scholies to play sports, hs charge and make money to support costs.

Yes, many high schools teams etc are cash strapped and shoe/apparel companies are underwriting high school athletics. Everyone's complaint seems to be that colleges make money not that athletes are bought,paid for & many agents/shoe co's etc get their hold over kids well before college. It's naive to believe that colleges are causing the problems. Many times the most talented players & their families have been dealing with, financed by others well before college in AAU and/ or high school. Below is an article from over 4 years ago

High school sponsorship contracts raise concerns, but also benefit programs

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

i dont get the HS and colleges are that different in the rules they impose for sports.. HS offer scholies to play sports, hs charge and make money to support costs.

An individual school can impose caps. The issue is that there is a national organization artificially suppressing the market value of the services provided.

 

[Waltdods]

but its already been shown that resources make it unfair for the majority. if you remove this restriction you might as well go to a 20 team field and put about 40 in a 2nd division and then the rest below that.. the sport falls apart, no one watches and the guys who wanted this end up removing the system for 90% of the people..

colleges would be smart to go away from scholies completely let the few big boys play and become the ivys.

the question is the good for the player bad for the sport a bad thing.

It isn’t obvious to me that your speculation above about what would happen if you allowed more compensation is right. There is already a massive resource imbalance in college basketball (and football). The teams that have the resources use them - on coaches, on practice facilities, on chartered planes, etc. This obviously already has massive implications for competition. (No one seriously thinks central Michigan can compete with Alabama in football for example even though they are both nominally playing by the same compensation rules.) Its just that the resources are being spent every way other than by directly going to the players.

These rules don’t equal the playing field, they don’t keep money out of the sport, they don’t prevent many people from making millions of dollars. What they do is keep the money away from the 18-22 year olds who would otherwise have it were it not for these rules.

(I do believe in a somewhat milder version of your argument - that part of the value of college sports is the veneer of amateurism. But before we start talking about what that means and how to preserve it we need to honestly confront what the system is today.)

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I think Congress will step in, and give some anti-trust protections