The Rest of College Football

[Hannibal]

And away we go…

Miami booster offers $540,000 NIL endorsement deal to all Hurricanes scholarship football players

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/miami-booster-offers-540000-nil-endorsement-deal-to-all-hurricanes-scholarship-football-players/

Dan Lambert said in an interview with CaneSport that he is offering Miami's 90 scholarship football players $500 monthly contracts to help promote his well-known American Top Team mixed martial arts training academies, most of which are scattered throughout the state. Players can earn up to $6,000 a year by promoting the gyms through social media, personal appearances and other marketing tactics.

It’s about damn time.

College football players are going to become millionaires. If you are letting players earn money from their likenesses, then you are letting them earn money on anything. The Alro Steel guy can set up an "endorsement" deal for the next Rashan Gary to pay him $1,000,000 to endorse Alro Steel.

[Mike]

Yep. As both parties should be able to do.

Actually, I heard that a gymnast from LSU will probably be the first millionaire. She has 6 million followers and does that influencing stuff, I guess.

[Cody_Russell]

College players at certain programs could become millionaires that is. A Trevor Lawrence or Zion Williamson-like recruit. How much is Kentucky (probably Kentucky... IDK who it really is) going to pay Kofi Cockburn for example?
Sign with Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State, receive your five/six figure endorsement contract! College players were certainly being paid under the table before. Now it will be MORE extreme. The elite will be MORE elite IMO.
The downside of paying players.
It may make college football hardly watchable. If we get a NCAA Football video game out of this, cool!

We need Stephen Ross to open his check book for endorsement deals with M football... otherwise, I'm not sure if M will beat Ohio State again in my lifetime.

[Hannibal]

That might be the case but I don't think that people have fully thought through the implications of this. Or maybe they have and they just don't care. Either way, shame on anyone gullible enough to fall for the Ed O'bannon nonsense about "likenesses" being used in video games when the video game avatars never looked anything like the actual players and the amount of money available per player is already pretty small. The real implication here is to decriminalize the massive bagman/booster stuff that funnels huge six figure sums to important recruits. A devoted billionaire can build up a program overnight now.

[Mike]

That’s exactly right. Michigan has deep pocketed donors and athletic boosters. Time to start legally buying high end talent. Need to jettison the HC first, tho. Then go full (Mike) Illitch for the new coach.

[Mike]

The bottom line for me is that it is inherently un-American that an adult citizen cannot profit from their talent. All of our livelihoods are based on the exchange of work for money. I do X and you give me Y dollars. The same opportunities should apply to 19 year old athletes.

[Hannibal]

The implications of this will be far reaching. I'll bet that we will no longer see hyperinflation of coach's salaries and hypercompetition in facilities. All of that stuff is legal proxy money used for winning. Paying recruits directly has got to be a far more effective plan.

That’s exactly right. Michigan has deep pocketed donors and athletic boosters. Time to start legally buying high end talent. Need to jettison the HC first, tho. Then go full (Mike) Illitch for the new coach.

In typical Michigan fashion, I expect our people in charge to still put dumbass restrictions on the players and boosters to handcuff them.

The bottom line for me is that it is inherently un-American that an adult citizen cannot profit from their talent. All of our livelihoods are based on the exchange of work for money. I do X and you give my Y dollars. The same rules should apply to 19 year old athletes.

I don't disagree, but I think that people ignore the extent to which the players already capitalize on their talent. Getting a free education that leaves everyone else deeply in debt is a pretty big deal. The current players aren't the sole income generators for any program. The income generated by these huge institutions is the result of not just the current players, but generations of tradition and winning established a long time ago. I don't put a lot of sentimental value into amateurism but one thing that worries me now is that with transfer restrictions gone, players are going to go to the highest bidder a year after they prove themselves. Relaxing the transfer rules IMHO was a big mistake.

[Mike]

In typical Michigan fashion, I expect our people in charge to still put dumbass restrictions on the players and boosters to handcuff them.

Oh, I have no doubt about that. Michigan is "above it" and will likely be pushed to the kiddie table as a result.

I don't disagree, but I think that people ignore the extent to which the players already capitalize on their talent. Getting a free education that leaves everyone else deeply in debt is a pretty big deal. The current players aren't the sole income generators for any program. The income generated by these huge institutions is the result of not just the current players, but generations of tradition and winning established a long time ago. I don't put a lot of sentimental value into amateurism but one thing that worries me now is that with transfer restrictions gone, players are going to go to the highest bidder a year after they prove themselves. Relaxing the transfer rules IMHO was a big mistake.

I don't really value the "education" they receive and, frankly, I don't think most of the revenue sport athletes do either. It's nice to say you have a degree from University X or whatever and it is a nice accomplishment, but they're putting in 40 hour weeks into their sport at major universities that would laugh in their face if they applied as a non-athlete. Michigan, in particular, has turned down family members of mine with 33 ACT scores. The same two kids were accepted to the engineering programs at Illinois, Purdue, and Iowa. There's a reason the General Studies program exists at Michigan.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There's also a reason why what happened to your two family members ...... the M administration is a giant bunch of arrogant fucktards.

I can't wait to see how they fuck over M's football players and potential football players who, for whatever shit the administration makes up, establishes barriers for athletes to get paid like is now possible. Might as well make application now for the FBS. Scholarships won't be worth diddly when millions are available.

I do agree with Hanni on this though. Not sure this was appropriately thought threw by the NCAA (no surprise there) with respect to unintended consequences. OTH, the snowball effect is in play here. The endorsements thing, once it was approved, was bound to result in completely above board payments to top recruits from deep pocketed doners with nothing else to do with their billions other than set up a way to attract the best of them to schools they support and want them to win.

[Cody_Russell]

Now that I think about it. Curious to see if this opens a pathway for a new college football giant. Assuming their donors are willing to spend more than an Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State. A pay to win sport.

Texas? Texas A&M? Oregon? I don’t have the financial numbers to back these options. Curious to see what happens with recruiting in the near future.

[lineygoblue]

I'm wondering if the new payments will become a way to circumvent the scholarship limit rules?

For instance, what's to stop a rich alum like Steven Ross from paying an extra 10 good football players an amount equal to their tuition, board and fees, along with a nice monthly stipend to attend Michigan as a "walk on"?

[Hannibal]

I'm wondering if the new payments will become a way to circumvent the scholarship limit rules?

For instance, what's to stop a rich alum like Steven Ross from paying an extra 10 good football players an amount equal to their tuition, board and fees, along with a nice monthly stipend to attend Michigan as a "walk on"?

Great question. You've more or less done away with scholarship limits for the big boys now. The next Rashan Gary can attend as a "walk-on".

[Da Geezer]

The scholarship limit has always been a method of achieving "equity" among the schools. When there were 120 scholarships allowed, UoM and Ohio St. would suck up the good players in the midwest and nationally. That led to the "Big 2 and Little 8" era.

The fundamental dissonance here is that, since the Baake decision, UoM has intentionally forfeited its position as a top-ten academic university. But the athletic administrators at UM didn't get the memo. They are still in the business of selling the "Michigan Man" narrative. Watch the posts of new commitments to UM football or basketball and you will see them all emphasize that the network of alums is a big deal to them. I don't think an 18-year old thinks of this, but, rather, he is told this by his recruiter. What is provably true is that UM has more alumni than any other D1 school. That alone should make the NIL value of UM players higher. UM is also the most popular D1 school in the NYC area.

But we know that the arrogance of the university and its administrators will never let them "stoop" to paying players. The people running things actually believe that a UM degree is more valuable than $ 100,000 per year for a top athlete. If UM is the "leader and best" they should lead now and set up a type of trust that fans could donate to in order to pay players top dollar. They should also play games in NYC as often as possible so as to become the NYC "home team". The push should be hard and it should be immediate.

[Mike]

Well, fools and their money…

I have a feeling this will all sort itself out in relatively short order. There already exists a huge imbalance among D1 schools. You have the Power Five conferences and the peasants. Then within the P5 there are clearly superior programs that routinely make the CFP which perpetuates their already elite-level recruiting.

We’ve already reached a point where programs like Michigan, Nebraska, and the entire PAC 12 conference are 2nd class citizens in the modern CFB landscape. Playing by the old rules (pre-NIL) would only exasperate that problem. Any disruption to that model is welcome and long overdue. Now if certain universities don’t want to modernize their approach to revenue athletics, they do so at there own peril.

There might not be anyone better at promoting their brand than Michigan. They need to get with some smart people over at the Ross School of Business and figure out creative and lucrative ways for their athletes to monetize their talents. Everyone keeps thinking some wealthy guy is just gonna come along and save the day by writing huge checks to buy recruits. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen but the university can and should be proactive in helping athletes navigate this new territory.

EDIT: This was in response to Liney and Hannibal’s exchange. I didn’t see Geezer’s post before I posted.

[THE_WIZARD_]

One issue I don't think has been brought up regarding this...I can see major discrepancies in players "compensation"...the stars are going to make major bank...and that's about it...I think you could see some negative synergies/jealousies when the big uglies who do the dirty work get squat but the prim a Donna stars make sick cash...you wanna block 70 plays a game for the Palmetto Barbie whilst you are getting the shit beat out of ya?