As we had discussed on here at his retirement, players entitlement and the nil/player environment was a reason why saban retired.

He doesn’t say it directly, but today’s system is not in a good place.

College football needs to figure this out. Every professional sport has structure when it comes to contracts and commitment to the team you're playing for.

I personally would like to see there be a cap to NIL. I'd propose having tiers with how much players can get paid. Something along the lines of incoming freshmen can only make $2K max. Once a player has participated in a game $5K. Starters can make a max of $25K per year. All-conference players $50K. All-American $250K. Heisman or other award winners can be uncapped.

I just hope they can get control before they ruin everything.

"this doesn't work anymore" - sad AF

AggieUprising50 wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 7:39 am

College football needs to figure this out. Every professional sport has structure when it comes to contracts and commitment to the team you're playing for.

I personally would like to see there be a cap to NIL. I'd propose having tiers with how much players can get paid. Something along the lines of incoming freshmen can only make $2K max. Once a player has participated in a game $5K. Starters can make a max of $25K per year. All-conference players $50K. All-American $250K. Heisman or other award winners can be uncapped.

The amount of legislation and organization that it would take to something like that is difficult and still would result in something very different from what you propose. First you would need a league or leagues of college teams to apply for anti-trust exemptions from Congress. The league would have to have an NFL type organization that encompassed media rights, (along with its accompanying union of course). Contracts could never be capped at anything below minimum wage and the ridiculous low salaries you would be talking about giving the money involved at SEC and Big 10 levels would mean that this type of tier would have to be organized by schools in the mid G5 levels. There would need to be contracts with players for official licensing endorsements.

In the end though it wouldn't change a thing. NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) is a right that any individual has to capitalize and earn from his own name image and likeness apart from using teams and league identification. You can't ultimately stop that or try or successfully punish players and private boosters from using that in even the least opaque manners.

After all of that you run smack dab into title 9. Absent its repeal (ha ha) any salary caps tied to a University are going to have to at the very least be equal between men and women's sports. That raises the question as to why the football and men's basketball programs at any FBS university would have any incentive to remain an official part of school athletics.

The only solution to the chaos are teams breaking off as separate semi-pro leagues with like minded schools and then getting either separate anti-trust exemptions or having a governing entity that gets the exemption with 3-4 minor league conferences that can have contract, transfer, and interleague play rules between the conferences. It would probably look something along the lines of an SEC/Big 10 alliance as an NFL feeder with those conferences picking taking Notre Dame and a few other Big 12/ACC schools and dumping their dead weight. A second semi-pro league of the Big 12/ACC leftovers and SEC Big ten pariahs combined with 2-3 G5s that make demographic sense (Comparable to baseball Double AA). Finally you would have a conference of whichever G5s and a few upper FCS schools think that revenue will be enough to be worth the hassle to have a lower minor league.

Teams would contract with the Universities for name and facility rental rights which Universities would then use to try and keep their Olympic sports afloat.

The FBS teams that don't want to play the game could essentially agree to give schollies and decide to pay for some living costs and essentially have their own league for players who can't make money at the lower levels and essentially be FCS schools. Booster NIL would still exist at this level and probably create somewhat of a pecking order like we have now albeit at a much lower level. For it to function properly it would also probably require some national legislation that would give it the ability to enforce transfer rules and TV/Champion revenue sharing although it could probably hobble along as the crumbs of the current system.

In the end market value will sort out the chaos. There is too much value in the South and Big 10 markets for it not to get worked out in some form as I have described. What will be left of the rest college football before that happens and what market there will really be for the mid and lower tiers probably depends on how soon things get figured out because I think if this goes on another 10-20 years there is going to be a disassociation of fans from a lot of lower and mid level college programs that will create a pretty small market for lower level semi pro college associated leagues. Just look at how attempts to create both competing and lower level pro leagues for post college players has worked out. If the college football tradition further erodes before this happens who knows how it will work out for most schools.

I certainly wouldn't be sad if the teams like USU, Wyoming exc. that I follow just chose the FCS route in these scenarios, but if they can hang in there and are willing and able to be part of a lower tier semi-pro league, it certainly would be far preferable to the mess that is now. With salary caps, uniform enforceable contracts, and agreed upon processes for contract buy-outs when players want to move to a higher league, at least there will some stability and interest to see teams tangently associated with the university to compete.

Something eventually happening along these lines is inevitable. Too much money left on the table for it not to happen. What college athletics looks like in its chaotic wake is a different question?

I'm looking forward to the new NCAA game where I have to build my own NIL program in order to keep my players and recruit new ones.

ViAggie wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 9:06 am

"this doesn't work anymore" - sad AF

Amen!

trevordude wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 2:41 pm

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 11:58 am

I'm looking forward to the new NCAA game where I have to build my own NIL program in order to keep my players and recruit new ones.

Most of the game play is boozing donors, offering game trips, hiring peppy relations girls , etc

I played a demo of it cause my dad works at Microsoft and I can confirm that it is very realistic that way. I got fired for making a joke with the punch line “take your dick out of that boys (I can't express myself without swearing)!”

Hoot wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 4:29 pm

trevordude wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 2:41 pm

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 11:58 am

I'm looking forward to the new NCAA game where I have to build my own NIL program in order to keep my players and recruit new ones.

Most of the game play is boozing donors, offering game trips, hiring peppy relations girls , etc

I played a demo of it cause my dad works at Microsoft and I can confirm that it is very realistic that way. I got fired for making a joke with the punch line “take your dick out of that boys (I can't express myself without swearing)!”

You didn't learn from real-life mistakes made by someone else? I get the feeling you're a learn-the-hard-way kind of dude. Haha!!

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 5:03 pm

Hoot wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 4:29 pm

trevordude wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 2:41 pm

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 11:58 am

I'm looking forward to the new NCAA game where I have to build my own NIL program in order to keep my players and recruit new ones.

Most of the game play is boozing donors, offering game trips, hiring peppy relations girls , etc

I played a demo of it cause my dad works at Microsoft and I can confirm that it is very realistic that way. I got fired for making a joke with the punch line “take your dick out of that boys (I can't express myself without swearing)!”

You didn't learn from real-life mistakes made by someone else? I get the feeling you're a learn-the-hard-way kind of dude. Haha!!

Wait you’re supposed to learn from mistakes?

slcagg wrote: ↑

March 7th, 2024, 5:01 am

As we had discussed on here at his retirement, players entitlement and the nil/player environment was a reason why saban retired.

He doesn’t say it directly, but today’s system is not in a good place.

It's interesting because teams like Alabama have been winning throughout history by paying players under the table and taking every sneaky advantage they can to become the powerhouses that they are. It hasn't worked for a long time for the smaller schools. How could anyone not know that this is where things were going, and what it was all doing to the game.

If any of you have never seen the 30 for 30 on SMU, DO IT! It's crazy to think that the stuff outlined in that documentary has now been legalized. Should the NCAA restore all of SMU's vacated wins?

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 10th, 2024, 6:59 pm

If any of you have never seen the 30 for 30 on SMU, DO IT! It's crazy to think that the stuff outlined in that documentary has now been legalized. Should the NCAA restore all of SMU's vacated wins?

They should for sure give Reggie his Heisman back.

aggies22 wrote: ↑

March 10th, 2024, 6:59 pm

If any of you have never seen the 30 for 30 on SMU, DO IT! It's crazy to think that the stuff outlined in that documentary has now been legalized. Should the NCAA restore all of SMU's vacated wins?

It is like the the untouchables. Elliot ness spends the whole movie fighting bootleggers, but at the end when prohibition ends and the reporter asks him what he is going to do now? He says "get a drink." SMU did break the rules of their era(even though other schools certainly were as well). If it was up to me I'd be more lenient on players than programs. Reggie Bush should get his Heisman back as hoot said.

I fear we're being priced out of college sports

That's it, I understand

ViAggie wrote: ↑

March 12th, 2024, 2:32 pm

I fear we're being priced out of college sports

Agree, the question is, will it remain "college" sports? What kind of association are universities going to have or want to have with semi-pro league? Are the decades of tribalism enough to not have those links severed? For those of you who work for the university, does it makes sense for USU to take on the headache of managing two-semi pro sports teams in Logan?

Alabama is an interesting case. Aside from the university, Tuscaloosa is a pretty poor rural town that couldn't support a semi-pro team without the university's involvement. The dichotomy between university property and the rest of the city is striking. If they split, would either succeed on their own in that town? You'd think the university would keep going, but their identity is so tied up in football tradition, that I'm not so sure. Seems like it would be a shell of itself within a decade. Would it make make more sense for the FB team to move to a larger city for better resources?

We are on the cusp of a seismic shift in college sports fandom. By the time I retire, I don't expect to be a fan of the college BB teams I support now. Given all of the change forthcoming, I don't expect they'll even exist in 20 years. Our kids and grandkids will look back in derision on the quaint era of old-timey college sports, and it will be devastating to the older generations.

There are too many people who love to watch/support college football, and too many players who love to play it. Just look at the Montana schools. Sure the landscape might look different in 10-20 years, but I don't believe for a second it will dissipate. Utah State is a big enough school with enough money, support, and resources that we will remain in the "top tier" of the small guys.

Let the big guys be big guys (which they already are to some extent), and we'll enjoy our smaller scale (and probably more entertaining/authentic) league.

I don't really think the sky is falling an more today than it has been for several years, and do think Utah State is in as good a spot as they have been for most of my lifetime.

More close competitive MWC or peer conference games (AAC/MAC/CUSA/SBC) home and away games are what we need to focus on.

Continued prostitution of the school, the Football Program, and the kids in the Program in exchange for a for a quick and meaningless payday on the road on the road more than once per year is never going to be the answer.

In fact, I would argue that contracting with games with perennial Top 10 programs on the road is not really the way to go at all.

ViAggie wrote: ↑

March 12th, 2024, 2:32 pm

I fear we're being priced out of college sports

Nah, there are the same amount of players out there who want to play football and the same amount of programs. We will just have more turnover like everyone else.