NCAA v. Alston

If you could just replace Alabama Crimson Tide with Alabama High Tide, then someone would have already done so.

The partnership between the XFL and CFL is about as close as you will get to a “farm” system for the NFL. It definitely has potential imo.

How many XFL games did you watch? I didn’t even know that existed again.

I’m not going to pretend to understand antirust laws and if the NCAA is or is not price fixing, but I think people are drastically underestimating the name brand appeal/value of the NCAA sports teams themselves, the final four, the bowl system, etc.

Saying that “the players are the ones generating all the revenue” while ignoring that the free market has collectively decided to not fill that gap is silly. This seems especially true for basketball that only needs a handful of players to start a league.

None, but I’m Canadian and the CFL is still popular and had been slightly profitable pre COVID I believe.

It’s difficult for a business that wants to pay it’s employees market rate to compete with a business that relies on cheap or slave labor.

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Doesn’t the NFL also collude to keep salaries low? If college football starts paying “market rate” will that open the door to Pro players going back to school to make more money?

Rich boosters paying athletes to play for their schools team because reliving their college glory days is the one thing that makes their sad existence meaningful is actual trickle down economics in action, just let it happen.

But Sean is sort of right. It’s not just the players that make the NCA A the money, it’s a group effort with the brands the universities have built. But the NCAA has engaged in some massive anti-trust behavior to ensure the top players don’t get what they’re worth under some bullshit argument of the sanctity of amateurism in sports.

The solutions seem pretty simple.

  1. End all restrictions on players profiting off their likeness. This was always complete horseshit and has little to no real impact on the anyone other than fucking over the players.
  2. Universities are free to offer any additional compensation to their players they see fit. If you want to get by with guys who are content playing for scholarships, go for it. But if you want to recruit the next Trevor Lawrence and feel it’s worth a few million per year, who am I to stop them.

I’m pretty sure roster bubble NFL players aren’t going to get paid top dollar to play college. There may be big money in college football but I doubt the 53rd man on an NFL squad is going to be worth $1million plus per year to Bama or Clemson. Besides, the NCAA’s eligibility requirements aren’t really an issue here. Their 4 years and you’re done rule isn’t really a problem. It’s their slave like treatment of those athletes during those 4 years that’s some bullshit.

College football and basketball are never going away. These are some of the most valuable brands imaginable and the TV money is massive. Just pay the players real money, give them the option to go to school for free during or after their athletic career and put money aside for their future health care, or something. Nuke the NCAA, it serves no purpose.

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My understanding is Title IX is dollar for dollar.

Giving boosters unrestricted access and free rein to drop bags seems like the surest way for every match to be fixed.

Basically nobody fixes match results outside of lower league events. It’s too hard, it’s a death sentence to anyone on the inside if caught. Matches only get “fixed” by over/unders and props these days.

We’re talking about American college football and basketball. Bigly bets. Mucho dineros.

When Zion costs $10M/year, how many fuckbrain coaches with losing NBA records that don’t realize 3 > 2 do we think they’re gonna give $10M/year to?

college sports is such an abomination that even if you do understand it i don’t think you can fully grasp how awful it is if you grew up on it.

Not-so-veiled secret here is that whenever you see those lizard-tongued CEOs with the glassy doll eyes crooning on CNBC about the lack of “job skills” of recent college graduates, what they’re really saying is that they want universities to stop providing university educations and start training employees for free. It’s always the ownership class demanding more free shit for the ownership class.

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Yeah, like, I guess I’m impressed by the sheer audacity of the Hollwood accounting, turn-the-trouser-pockets-inside-out-like-a-Dickens-character illusion they’re trying to pull off with the LoSinG mOnEy narrative. It’s a pretty tough sell when playing fast and loose with money is something you’re known for, kind of like AI buying new clothes in every NBA road city because he was above checking a bag. These motherfuckers won’t even sleep in their own beds:

When I’m losing money, one thing I often try to do is pay several hundred dollars per night to stay in a hotel across the street from my condo so I can get my game face on.

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I’ll say it again though. How much can you afford to pay morons that can’t do basic equity calculations and in almost every case very likely have zero value add if the services of LaMelo or Joe Burrow would cost you 5 megas?

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So is the plan that there will be some kind of players union where the average players get massively overpaid at the expense of the superstars - like in the NBA?

I don’t oppose that necessarily, but I think plan A, or at least the incrementalist solution, is just to let the athletes profit off their name and likeness in endorsement deals and the like, even if they don’t get paid by the institutions.