Transfer portal and NIL Money, how they have changed college sports".

[Heyjoe4]

I have a friend, retired, who practiced labor law. I talked to him about this. He mentioned something that I thought was actually something that could happen. If players, particularly football and basketball, ask for money from the schools, at the DI level, whatever is determined by law would also effect all schools in DII and DIII, as well as other affiliations. You could kiss all those programs goodbye, because none of them are profitable to start. At the DI level, the number of sports would diminish considerably.

This thing is going to be a real mess before it's over.

That makes sense. Worst case, D2 and below would be wiped out and at the D1 level, there would be fewer schools participating. I mean that’s the worst case, but a good example of being careful what you ask for (NIL).

I understand the ethics behind paying players for helping the schools make money. That’s what is happening, college sports are a big business. Captain Obvious here.

Just seems like there hasn’t been much thought behind NIL. So the law of unintended consequences will be in force.

I don’t think the worst case will happen. D2 and lower will still have athletic programs. How they look though could be very different from what we’re used to.

 

[Voyageur]

That makes sense. Worst case, D2 and below would be wiped out and at the D1 level, there would be fewer schools participating. I mean that’s the worst case, but a good example of being careful what you ask for (NIL).

I understand the ethics behind paying players for helping the schools make money. That’s what is happening, college sports are a big business. Captain Obvious here.

Just seems like there hasn’t been much thought behind NIL. So the law of unintended consequences will be in force.

I don’t think the worst case will happen. D2 and lower will still have athletic programs. How they look though could be very different from what we’re used to.

One thing that should scare the bejeebers out of everyone is unions. For the most part, employees at schools at the teaching level are unionized. I'd venture a guess that a lot of the employees at the schools are also in unions, especially those at state owned schools, since the people employed there would be state employees. As we've already found out, through recent court actions, not even religious organizations can claim exemption from unionization. It's an endless stream of problems, demands, litigation, appeals, and chaos, with the NCAA being right in the middle, neutered by their own doing.

I like your reference to the laws of unintended consequences. Merton's Law. Totally appropriate.

 

[weeds]

I scroll through a lot of sports related news sites including Florio's looking for stories that potentially MIGHT be worth reading - hard to sift through the click-bait. Well, Florio used to be an attorney - probably an ambulance chaser - and seems to have an unhealthy preoccupation with how much athletes make and how much MORE they're worth, it's almost roll your eyes stuff but he claims that "Rumors" is part of the title of the website, so he feels free to post a lot of half-baked stuff.

Still, this one caught my eye and yeah, I think there are going to be a lot of unprepared kids at the mercy of Uncle Sam AND their State's Department of Revenue:

Unpaid taxes are the next wave of NIL complications

As the dust settles on the NIL explosion, Uncle Sam will be looking for his cut.

www.nbcsports.com

 

[Heyjoe4]

I scroll through a lot of sports related news sites including Florio's looking for stories that potentially MIGHT be worth reading - hard to sift through the click-bait. Well, Florio used to be an attorney - probably an ambulance chaser - and seems to have an unhealthy preoccupation with how much athletes make and how much MORE they're worth, it's almost roll your eyes stuff but he claims that "Rumors" is part of the title of the website, so he feels free to post a lot of half-baked stuff.

Still, this one caught my eye and yeah, I think there are going to be a lot of unprepared kids at the mercy of Uncle Sam AND their State's Department of Revenue:

Unpaid taxes are the next wave of NIL complications

As the dust settles on the NIL explosion, Uncle Sam will be looking for his cut.

www.nbcsports.com

Good catch Weeds. Yeah the tax law is actually simple. It says "All income is taxable, except...." and after the word "except" there are about a million pages that provides a full employment act for tax accountants and lawyers.

But at its core, income is always taxable, at least to start. What's worse is that after one year of not keeping up with taxes, the IRS requires us to pay estimated taxes so we aren't paying a huge amount at the end of a year. So there are a few ways the IRS can hurt us unexpectedly.

So a lot of these guys will need agents or accountants or lawyers or all three long before they ever go pro.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

One thing College athletics can do to help maintain the level of competition is to put more focus on tweaking the Transfer Portal. I think they really dropped the ball with it. I have no problem with allowing an athlete to switch schools, without having to sit out a year. However, unlimited incoming transfers for any program is where they made the mistake. Put a cap on the number of transfers allowed by each team in a single year. Vary that number based on the sport and roster size. Teams are currently limited to how many scholarships they can hand out, not much different.

Speaking of scholarships, programs may want to reconsider those too. Why would an athlete making $200K or more in NIL money need/deserve a scholarship?

Lots of big decisions ahead for College Athletic Programs, mostly involving money and how best to split up the big old pie of it.

 

[Heyjoe4]

One thing College athletics can do to help maintain the level of competition is to put more focus on tweaking the Transfer Portal. I think they really dropped the ball with it. I have no problem with allowing an athlete to switch schools, without having to sit out a year. However, unlimited incoming transfers for any program is where they made the mistake. Put a cap on the number of transfers allowed by each team in a single year. Vary that number based on the sport and roster size. Teams are currently limited to how many scholarships they can hand out, not much different.

Speaking of scholarships, programs may want to reconsider those too. Why would an athlete making $200K or more in NIL money need/deserve a scholarship?

Lots of big decisions ahead for College Athletic Programs, mostly involving money and how best to split up the big old pie of it.

Good points. Certainly the TP and NIL are connected. I didn't know transfers were unlimited. To try and maintain some semblance of competitiveness, at least at the national level and ideally within conferences, makes sense to put some limits own the number of transfers per program per year.

And yeah, any player receiving NIL money in excess of his or her scholarship value should have to pay some or all of their tuition. The problem is that scholarships are handed out for a number of reasons, but here they're probably all of the athletic variety. Start clawing that back once a player starts getting paid. Save the scholarship money for bright minds from poor families.

This is all getting analogous to how the tax code is used to affect individual behaviour - tax credits especially. That has failed spectacularly in rewarding those truly in need. NIL will take major and minor NCAA sports down that hole unless some common sense safeguards are put in place.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Not sure how up to date this list is, but the top 25 NIL money athletes are listed.

Bronny James at #1 : $4.9M

Kyle McCord @ #25: $857,000

MSN

 

[Voyageur]

Not sure how up to date this list is, but the top 25 NIL money athletes are listed.

Bronny James at #1 : $4.9M

Kyle McCord @ #25: $857,000

MSN

That's the list of known amounts. It's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

This doesn't shock me one bit and what we all have to "look forward to" in college sports and the NIL and Transfer portal takes over and changes college sports.

"Whitlock also pointed to player behavior as a symptom of the larger financial strain. He reported that several offensive players spent two consecutive nights at a rented strip club during their time in Texas. “This was primarily offensive players,” Whitlock noted. “They spent two nights partying… and you wonder why their focus wasn’t there.”

https://athlonsports.com/college/colorado-buffaloes/colorado-ran-out-of-money-for-alamo-bowl

 

[Voyageur]

The Federal government has stated that the proposed issuance of NIL money from collectives to football and basketball players in DI college is not going to be in the 80-85% range like schools were planning on applying. Title IX requires more of an equal distribution.

Everyone should have known that eventually Title IX would come into play. It's going to be interesting seeing how far this goes. What balance will be struck? It's going to seriously change the face of college sports.

 

[Heyjoe4]

The Federal government has stated that the proposed issuance of NIL money from collectives to football and basketball players in DI college is not going to be in the 80-85% range like schools were planning on applying. Title IX requires more of an equal distribution.

Everyone should have known that eventually Title IX would come into play. It's going to be interesting seeing how far this goes. What balance will be struck? It's going to seriously change the face of college sports.

What was inevitable was that courts would allow players to get paid for NIL. I don't know where the portal came from. Probably the courts.

 

[Voyageur]

What was inevitable was that courts would allow players to get paid for NIL. I don't know where the portal came from. Probably the courts.

It was a lawsuit filed by Ed O'Bannon who felt he should have been paid for the NCAA and the school using his name and likeness in video games. It grew from there into a monster that the NCAA couldn't beat in court.

I understand why the players should have these rights, and at the same time I understand the position of the schools. The problem is that the NCAA didn't work in good faith from the start trying to kill it all and it backfired. Now they have this monstrosity of a problem.

 

[Heyjoe4]

It was a lawsuit filed by Ed O'Bannon who felt he should have been paid for the NCAA and the school using his name and likeness in video games. It grew from there into a monster that the NCAA couldn't beat in court.

I understand why the players should have these rights, and at the same time I understand the position of the schools. The problem is that the NCAA didn't work in good faith from the start trying to kill it all and it backfired. Now they have this monstrosity of a problem.

Good point. If the NCAA had been up front about this and recognized it was coming, a better plan could have been worked out. Maybe. No one really knows how this will end, other than to say college football is gonna suffer.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Good to see the Big10 is backing the Badgers on their stance with Xavier Lucas.

This will be an important "case" to follow and see how it rolls out. I would be surprised if Lucas plays for the Badgers again, but I will also be surprised if the NCAA doesn't go after Miami for tampering and somehow keep Lucas from playing for them as well. I also hope that somehow Lucas is penalized for thinking he can just jump from 1 agreement to another.

Watch, Lucas will probably end up with the Buckeyes.

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MSN

 

[Pkrjones]

The Badgers & Lucas signed an NIL deal which isn't, yet, legal. UW did not enter Lucas into the portal based on this non-legal document. Imho, the transfer portal system will be swiftly dying, as its structure and "rules" are very imperfect. Lucas supposedly wanted to be closer to home, was denied the "standard" portal procedure, so unenrolled from UW & enrolled at Miami. I'm sure there was contact with members of Miami football, as Lucas is a football player, so not sure how tampering gets proven.

 

[Voyageur]

The Badgers & Lucas signed an NIL deal which isn't, yet, legal. UW did not enter Lucas into the portal based on this non-legal document. Imho, the transfer portal system will be swiftly dying, as its structure and "rules" are very imperfect. Lucas supposedly wanted to be closer to home, was denied the "standard" portal procedure, so unenrolled from UW & enrolled at Miami. I'm sure there was contact with members of Miami football, as Lucas is a football player, so not sure how tampering gets proven.

What I say about this comes from information I have from a source that's usually right. Someone who knows a quite a bit about how some schools have been operating within the system and outside. He also knows people in the Miami consortium, and at the University of Miami. Here's what he has told me about what happened. Is he right? Believe what you want. I think he's on the money with it for reasons I can't divulge.

Lucas signed an NIL deal, but it hadn't kicked in yet. He's a Florida boy and someone he knows was talking to someone close to the Miami program, and they said they'd really like to get Lucas at Miami, if he was available. So, the word goes out to the deep pocket alumni, and they come up with a package of NIL money that Lucas can't refuse. So, he figures he'll just enter the portal, and Wisconsin can suck it up because the contract he signed hasn't kicked in yet. Apparently, his agent at least suggested that was okay or said that Wisconsin would just let him go.

The problem is, someone found out that the money was offered as an "incentive" to leave Wisconsin for Miami and wasn't a question of Lucas wanting to leave and submitting to the portal before fielding offers. He was "induced" to leave by the offer of several times the amount of NIL money he had from the Wisconsin consortium.

Let's look at Wisconsin's position in this. They obviously have some documentation or hard evidence that Lucas was given an offer before entering the portal. In fact, it could come from players on the Badger team. Guys he thought would keep his secret and haven't. Additionally, they must be pretty much aware of the timeline of communications between someone representing getting him and/or his agent, to pull the plug at Wisconsin. There has to be enough data for them to even consider the lawsuit against Lucas and whomever else is involved.

There's no way that the University of Wisconsin would even embark on this journey if it was just a fishing expedition. They have a smoking gun, or they would have let the kid go.

Anyhow. Make your own decisions.