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  • Continued.....

    "All that television, all that revenue goes back to the schools," Calipari said. "You probably have $10 million that would go directly to the schools, to their academics and not have anything to do with athletics. You'd be able to give that living expense to all your athletes.”

    School presidents are loath to discuss the idea of breaking away from the NCAA, though several have indicated that the largest football programs could soon split into their own division. But that doesn’t mean high-level administrators aren’t talking having quiet conversations about leaving the NCAA behind, especially given the amount of money at stake.

    “That’s absolutely a feasible option,” Bilas said. “There are things being talked about now that have never been talked about before. The big schools want to operate the way they see fit. If they can do that inside the NCAA structure, I think that’s preferable. But of course they’re thinking about it. They did it in football. We’re talking billions of dollars here. The amount of money that’s at stake, of course they’re considering it.”

    Such a break would not be unprecedented. In 1979, the College Football Association, a coalition of the biggest NCAA football programs, attempted to negotiate a national television contract for its members with NBC. The NCAA, involved in its own television negotiations, put its foot down, saying it alone had the authority to negotiate television contracts for members, which it restricted to no more than one televised game per year. The University of Oklahoma and University of Georgia sued the NCAA, claiming it had violated federal antitrust law, and the Supreme Court agreed. The ruling allowed the schools and their conferences to negotiate their own television rights deals and effectively split the largest schools from the NCAA for football purposes. (Even today, the NCAA does not regulate the championship and postseason for the Football Bowl Subdivision, college football’s top division. It is the only sport for which that is true.)

    Without control over football or a cut of the revenues generated by television, bowls or championships, the NCAA depends almost solely on the end of season men’s basketball tournament for revenue. And does the tournament ever generate revenue. In 2010, the NCAA reached an 14-year agreement, worth $10.8 billion, with CBS and Turner Sports to televise, for the first time, every one of the tournament’s games. If the largest schools, which, with the help of the Bowl Championship Series, just crafted a football playoff, figured out a way to manage an event similar to the NCAA Tournament, a full split from the NCAA would become even more lucrative – and even more probable. “It’d make (schools) more money because it all goes straight to them,” Bilas said. “TV would flock to that.”

    But even if the biggest conferences and schools abandoned the NCAA, what would stop them from perpetuating the status quo that avoids paying the athletes on which it would depend? After all, much of the support for paying players from coaches, Calipari included, is in the form of the stipend, and while that is an improvement over the current situation, it still leaves the players voiceless in the process. The claims that exist now -- that players are amateurs or that such a system would be unsustainable -- would still exist, even if the money was greater and the NCAA restrictions were no longer present. Wouldn't universities, awash in even more cash, want to hold onto it just the same?

    When Bilas was a senior on Duke University's basketball team, a former player-turned-activist approached him and his teammates about boycotting the 1986 Final Four. The players, under the proposed protest, would suit up and take the court like normal, but when the game was to begin, they would refuse to take the court, a show of symbolic unity against the NCAA.

    “My senior year, he came to me, he wanted us to boycott the Final Four,” Bilas said. “I said sure, but can’t we do it next year? I’m playing in it this year."

    The protest never materialized, and similar efforts that have been bandied about since haven't either. The problem, Bilas said, is that athletes view college sports as a gateway, a mere stepping stone, to the professional ranks. Rocking the boat and missing a once-in-a-lifetime chance at the Final Four or a championship over a compensation issue that likely won’t change while that player is in college is hardly a rational decision.

    “If you’re an athlete, you’re saying, ‘I’m only going to be here for four years,’” Bilas said. “These are issues that have lasted for almost 100 years. It’s going to take an athlete with a lot of foresight and a lot of guts and a long view beyond themselves to do that.”

    An unwillingness to act is hardly the only barrier to student protest or organization. Because they are not recognized as employees, players receive no rights under federal or state labor laws.

    “They don’t have any rights under federal labor laws,” Jeffrey Kessler, a labor attorney who has represented both the National Football League Players Association and the National Basketball Association Players Association in labor disputes, said. “They don’t get to form a union, strike, collectively bargain, file unfair labor practice complaints. That’s not available to college athletes.”

    What athletes can do, Kessler said, is form an association that can represent them in class-action lawsuits. “There has been some effort at this, to file antitrust cases against the various restrictions the NCAA imposes to basically exploit the athletes without paying them,” Kessler said, later adding that “there are good (legal) arguments that Division I football is basically a business, and that students are exploited as workers. And therefore schools should be free to compensate athletes in any manner that they want to, without NCAA restrictions.”

    Former players have begun challenging different NCAA restrictions in court. In 2009, former University of California-Los Angeles basketball star Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA, claiming his scholarship agreement did not grant it use of his likeness in video games, commercials, rebroadcasts, and merchandise sales “in perpetuity” without compensation. The lawsuit, now a class-action complaint, seeks to change the way athletes are compensated for use of their likeness both during and after college, and if the NCAA seeks to uphold its amateur values, the suit says, the compensation could be “temporarily held in trust for those individuals until cessation of their collegiate careers.” The suit wants players to receive 50 percent of television revenues and one-third of revenues from video games.

    Another lawsuit, dismissed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in June but reintroduced in July, is challenging NCAA scholarship restrictions, again claiming a violation of antitrust law.

    Meanwhile, organizations like the National Collegiate Players Association have come to the aide of players to fight for their rights and protections. The NCPA is not currently seeking to unionize players, but it is pushing alternatives such as the Student-Athlete Bill of Rights, the first version of which was signed into law by California Gov. Jerry Brown last year. The California law, based on NCPA models, provides better scholarship and health protections to athletes at California’s largest colleges and universities.

    Others, like University of Illinois professor Michael LeRoy, are examining ways college athletes could organize and associate even without full labor protections. LeRoy published a research paper that argues college athletes operate in an “invisible labor market” and function as employees, and as such, they should have the right to bargain collectively. His proposal to fix that – tailored specifically for college athletes -- would not allow athletes to bargain over wages and would not afford them the right to strike, but it would allow bargaining and arbitration on other issues, such as health protections and scholarships. The mere threat of organization, LeRoy argues, could cause the NCAA to grant players more of a say in the system.

    LeRoy described his proposal as a “piecemeal” reform that would lead to a more vibrant and complete conversation about athletes’ rights in the future.

    “As much as I think the NCAA is pretending that these football players are student-athletes and amateurs, especially at big programs, that’s an immovable concept,” LeRoy said. “And if that’s the case, the question becomes, how do you give them non-monetary forms of compensation that do benefit them? I think that would set up a conversation for future generations to say, ‘What the heck? This isn’t amateur athletics at all, so let’s not pretend anymore.’”

    But LeRoy says he is pessimistic about the organizing of athletes. Because of that, he thinks changing the status quo in college sports will ultimately come from outside the game, and from an unlikely place: state legislatures.

    As far back as 1988, the Nebraska state legislature approved a law that would allow the University of Nebraska, a football powerhouse, to pay a stipend to its players if other states in the Big XII, the conference Nebraska belonged to until 2011, passed similar laws. The legislation was vetoed by then-governor Kay Orr.

    State Sen. Ernie Chambers revived the legislation in 2003, and then-governor Mike Johanns pledged to sign that version if it passed. It never did. In recent years, similar legislation has been introduced in Ohio, California and Utah, but none of the proposals passed (though California did pass the aforementioned Student-Athlete Bill of Rights).

    LeRoy, however, believes that as the business of college athletics continues to grow, those efforts will continue.

    “At some point, this money-making beast is just going to fall under its own weight, where lawmakers either at the federal or state level are going to say it’s kind of ridiculous that players don’t get anything out of this,” he said. “That’s conjecture, but that’s where I think change has to come from.”

    The key to gaining even more traction in those debates goes back to the definition of student-athlete, and whether athletes are students or employees.

    “Everything about college athletes indicates that they’re more like an employee,” Bilas said. “You go when they say, you play when they say, you practice when they say. That’s what employees do,” LeRoy agreed.

    One way state or federal lawmakers could enhance the rights of athletes, he said, was “to literally open up their state wage and hour laws and define Division I football as a compensable form of employment.” That might be a radical step, he admitted, “but when you look at the legal condition of employment, there’s little or no trouble in qualifying this activity for compensation.”

    A similar fight has helped graduate students gained labor protections. The National Labor Relations Board ruled last year that graduate students served a dual purpose – they weren’t purely students or employees – and that ruling granted them protections under state labor laws. In multiple states, graduate students who also work for their university are allowed to collectively bargain for wages and benefits, and it is hard to draw a distinction between the dual purpose they serve and the purpose served by athletes in the big business of college sports.

    Using legislation and labor law to define athletes as employees, or at least as partial employees, could at least push some of that money toward the people whose backs bear the brunt of making it all work.

    How college athletes will break the NCAA spell of amateurism is still unclear. But the entire debate no longer has a feel of fatalism to it. There is growing sentiment that the system is broken, that arguments for the sanctity of amateurism or the sustainability of the status quo are not credible justifications for a business built on the back of free labor.

    Similar arguments against the rights of athletes, Bilas noted, were made when the Olympics abandoned the amateur model and when Major League Baseball’s reserve clause was disputed in the Supreme Court. The NCAA, he added, is unable to enunciate exactly what “amateurism” brings to its product, particularly when a growing chorus of doubters is beginning to see through the lie.

    “Their argument has no principle behind it,” Bilas said. “What is the principle behind denying athletes the same rights everyone else has?”

    “The whole thing,” he added, “is a sorry sham.”
    ?I don?t take vacations. I don?t get sick. I don?t observe major holidays. I?m a jackhammer.?

    Comment


    • LMAO at the guy's entire family moving to Ann Arbor. Bet they're getting a great deal on a house somewhere.

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      • Well, we wouldn't want them to have to settle for Ypsilanti.

        I hope the rich boosters who are paying for it will at least get them into someplace nice like Dexter or Saline .....
        "in order to lead America you must love America"

        Comment


        • There are more tattoo parlors in Ann Arbor. Derrick could probably get a lot of free ink by signing memorabilia. I wonder if he'll be needing a new car? Coach Hoke could even wear a blue sweater vest and call himself a Christian.
          I'll let you ban hate speech when you let me define hate speech.

          Comment


          • Shudder/I'll take Ypsi. Dos Hermanos Market is worth it alone.

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            • FSU reportedly wants to bring at least a couple 'neighbors' or rivals along with them to the Big XII, sounds like Clemson and/or Miami. They already are pretty isolated in the ACC.

              Comment


              • Coach Hoke could even wear a blue sweater vest and call himself a Christian.
                Now, Rocky ... don't be mean ...
                "in order to lead America you must love America"

                Comment


                • What? That act was successfully used to fool millions of really stupid people. It works!
                  I'll let you ban hate speech when you let me define hate speech.

                  Comment


                  • Ray Lewis isn't the only athlete alleged to have received the banned substances produced by Sports with Alternatives to Steroids (S.W.A.T.S.).

                    The same Sports Illustrated story that alleged Lewis obtained a banned deer-antler spray also contained a report that several Alabama football players received S.W.A.T.S. products prior to the Crimson Tide's January 2012 win over LSU in the BCS national title game.

                    S.W.A.T.S. representative Christopher Key showed Sports Illustrated video of him passing out "chips" to Alabama players two days before the BCS game. The "chips" are stickers that athletes place on their wrists and heart for an alleged energy boost. Crimson Tide linebacker Alex Watkins later confirmed the effectiveness of the company's chips, "negatively charged" water and deer-antler pills in a YouTube video, SI reported.

                    The players were given the products for free, though Key told them he'd claim they purchased the goods from him, according to the report.

                    LSU players used S.W.A.T.S. products prior to beating Alabama in November 2011, according to SI.

                    The S.W.A.T.S. products reportedly contain IGF-1, a natural, anabolic hormone that stimulates muscle growth. IGF-1 is banned by the NCAA, the NFL and other major pro sports leagues.

                    The SI report also stated that NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman, baseball player Johnny Damon and golfer Vijay Singh obtained products from S.W.A.T.S.
                    Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

                    Comment


                    • In dismissing a motion by the NCAA to prevent football and men's basketball players from legally pursuing a cut of live broadcast revenues, a federal court judge Tuesday raised the stakes for the governing body of college sports as it defends its economic model.

                      Judge Claudia Wilken issued her ruling Tuesday, rejecting the NCAA's motion that players in the antitrust suit led by former UCLA star Ed O'Bannon should be precluded from advancing their lawsuit on procedural grounds.



                      Now the (NCAA and its co-defendants) are facing potential liability in the billions of dollars instead of tens or hundreds of millions. It's a more accurate context for what the players deserve.
                      ” -- Michael Hausfeld, interim lead counsel for plaintiffs

                      The NCAA had objected to the players amending their lawsuit last year to claim a share of all television game revenues, not just those from rebroadcasts.

                      "Now the (NCAA and its co-defendants) are facing potential liability that's based on the billions of dollars in revenue instead of tens or hundreds of millions," said Michael Hausfeld, interim lead counsel for the plaintiffs. "It's a more accurate context for what the players deserve."

                      Unlike NFL or NBA athletes, players lack a union or similar body to negotiate a share of revenues flowing from media and other licensing contracts. The NCAA does not legally treat athletes as employees, and players have not organized to represent their interests collectively.

                      The O'Bannon suit attacks that model through the means of class-action, the legal question now before Wilken. Former college stars such as Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson have joined O'Bannon on behalf of all Division I players in football and men's basketball, asking Wilken to declare that they are similarly situated and to certify the class.

                      Wilken on Tuesday set the hearing on that motion for June 20 and ordered the NCAA to make its arguments against class certification on the merits rather than procedural objections such as the one she just rejected. The NCAA was joined in that motion by its partner, Collegiate Licensing Company.

                      In a statement, NCAA general counsel Donald Remy characterized the ruling as a partial victory for the NCAA.

                      "Although our motion to strike was denied, the judge has signaled skepticism on plaintiff's class-certification motion and recognized the plaintiffs' radical change in their theory of the case," Remy said. "This is a step in the right direction toward allowing the NCAA to further demonstrate why this case is wrong on the law and that plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that this case satisfies the criteria for class litigation."

                      The ruling was met with enthusiasm by Hausfeld, who leads a team that includes more than a dozen law firms that have invested more than $20 million in legal fees pursuing the lawsuit since 2009. The prospect of an award that recognizes live broadcast revenues helps support their efforts.

                      In the event that the plaintiffs prevail, Hausfeld has set up a mechanism for players to collect licensing revenues. The Former College Athletes Association (FCAA) would negotiate licenses with the NCAA, member colleges, video game and media companies, according to Jon King, a former Hausfeld LLC lawyer who worked on the case.

                      King disclosed the existence of the FCAA in a wrongful termination suit he filed against Hausfeld earlier this month. He was fired by Hausfeld for undisclosed reasons in October, after serving as one of the lead lawyers in developing the case for the plaintiffs.

                      Details about the FCAA are scant, but Hausfeld said it would not serve as a revenue stream for his firm. Overseeing formation of the FCAA are Sonny Vaccaro, an unpaid consultant who has worked with Hausfeld to build the anti-trust case; Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association; and Ken Feinberg, a prominent Washington D.C. attorney who helped distribute nearly $7 billion to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has run other major victim compensation efforts.

                      Wilken has set a jury trial on the matter, if it gets that far, for June 2014.
                      Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

                      Comment


                      • 5* WR Laquon Treadwell took a visit to Ole Miss over the weekend. Tweeted this pic and then subsequently deleted it. Rumor was that it was for "travel expenses" except those travel expenses didn't really exist. He recently picked Ole Miss over OU and Okie State.

                        Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

                        Comment


                        • Sounds like another one that I'm glad we didn't get.
                          "in order to lead America you must love America"

                          Comment


                          • Back to FSU & B12 expansion rumors; FSU wants multiple partners (2+) in a move while the Big XII doesn't want to go beyond 12 teams.

                            Comment


                            • for FSU, Clemson and Miami... they should grab away and add a 4th... like BYU.

                              the longer they wait, the more time the ACC has to do something to make the BIG12 the weak link
                              Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

                              Comment


                              • strategy wise... is it better for the BIG to have the ACC or the BIG12 disappear?
                                Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

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