Caleb Williams - NIL

[Soko 128]

3 hours ago, soulpatch said:

Are we really suggesting that Ball State's "competitiveness" is going to get meaningfully worse because blue bloods are going to pillage their talent pool? How often is Auburn going there to take players? And, do we need to maintain the universities' amount of control over players or is the bigger problem giving players that are making a career out of this more mobility? 

But replace Ball State with FSU, Oklahoma, Notre Dame...

 

There will need to be some serious refinements to what is now an absolute free for all. These players are in effect free agents every year signing one year deals for max contracts. Even our professional leagues do not allow such freedom of movement.

[SDIrishFan 607]

25 minutes ago, Soko said:

But replace Ball State with FSU, Oklahoma, Notre Dame...

 

There will need to be some serious refinements to what is now an absolute free for all. These players are in effect free agents every year signing one year deals for max contracts. Even our professional leagues do not allow such freedom of movement.

I agree, sooner than later there needs to be some sort of rules or structure to protect both the schools and the athletes.

But having the Wild West for a few years and knowing what needs addressed will be a good thing.

im all for athletes getting money based on their individual name, but the unrestricted free agent thing is going to kill programs.

[jbrown_9999 1,023]

30 minutes ago, Soko said:

But replace Ball State with FSU, Oklahoma, Notre Dame...

 

There will need to be some serious refinements to what is now an absolute free for all. These players are in effect free agents every year signing one year deals for max contracts. Even our professional leagues do not allow such freedom of movement.

I believe that only the first transfer does not require sitting out a year. Schools are also limited on the total of new recruits and incoming transfers they can take. Not sure of the limit and whether or not it was relaxed due to Covid.

[NDhoosier 1,232]

4 hours ago, soulpatch said:

Are we really suggesting that Ball State's "competitiveness" is going to get meaningfully worse because blue bloods are going to pillage their talent pool? How often is Auburn going there to take players? And, do we need to maintain the universities' amount of control over players or is the bigger problem giving players that are making a career out of this more mobility? 

I used Ball State as a very basic example. But the other point is that when there is a talented kid at Ball State, he would stay at Ball State and do well in the MAC as there was no real incentive to go to another school. Now, there is a free transfer and money involved... Why wouldnt that star player from a lesser school frig his school over just to get more money than a school like Ball State ever could. The same could be said for lesser tier schools in Power 5. Essentially, it could create All-Star teams.

Plus, you know... education, loyalty, commitment. Things young adults should be taught.

[soulpatch 149]

40 minutes ago, Soko said:

But replace Ball State with FSU, Oklahoma, Notre Dame...

 

There will need to be some serious refinements to what is now an absolute free for all. These players are in effect free agents every year signing one year deals for max contracts. Even our professional leagues do not allow such freedom of movement.

There is a valid point in that this landscape is so nascent that the hardening that's occurred in other professional sports isn't in place. But, it's a leap to suggest A) players are signing one year deals and that B) those deals will be max contracts. As has already been covered in this thread, TAMU is layering multiple years on a deal. Granted, those terms likely won't be watertight across the life of the NIL agreement, but multi-year will be there. And, there really isn't such a thing as a max contract. I mean, sure, a school could come along and offer an extra [insert dollar figure] but what's to stop the homeschool from matching (or writing in first-right-of-refusal) language? 

Undoubtedly, the current NIL system is going to introduce new problems and going to be improved upon as humankind reacts and adapts to it. This is true of every system made by man. But, we're in here anticipating a bunch of problems/solutions and one thing is for sure about human beings - we're pretty shitty at predicting the future. 

This is now the system and it solves for a very real, absolutely pervasive problem - that the people making the actual product get an infinitesimally small portion of the financial benefit from the system compared to many people that just ride the coattails of the product (e.g. - it's an absolute joke that the gameday crew is criticizing players for sitting out bowl games while their collection millions of dollars for simply talking about bowl games). What happens next is to see the system play out and evolves out. 

I still stand by what I said earlier - if ND fails to be competitive in this new frontier it will be due to a lack of imagination and motivation rather than a lack of resources. I don't see anything today that says we can't uphold a high standard while also leveraging NIL to benefit players and the program.

[soulpatch 149]

12 minutes ago, NDhoosier said:

Plus, you know... education, loyalty, commitment. Things young adults should be taught.

Is NIL a development that introduces the problem of collegiate football players not receiving an education, erodes loyalty or destroys some bedrock of commitment that underpins college football today? I mean, we're not actually suggesting that are we? College football generates BILLIONS of dollars of revenue annually. It is a business. If you're viewing it as something else, that's a self-delusion, full stop. 

Is loyalty that thing Nick Saban gets twice a month that keeps him at Bama or the 96-million things that kept Mel Tucker at MSU? Where was the commitment to the thousands of Tyrone Prothro's that have been chewed up and spit out of the system? And, really, education? Are we still saying "student-athlete" with a straight face?

NIL is going to be about players that perform at the upper-reaches of the sport and are, for all intents and purposes, professional athletes building a career. Those are players that the system sees as building a career as early as middle school (and treats them as such). If we're saying that college is the one part of that whole journey where we should pretend like they're around for anything other than money/prestige, we're kidding ourselves.

Edited January 5, 2022 by soulpatch

[jbrown_9999 1,023]

Remember that SCHOOLS cannot make NIL payments. So it does not matter if a SCHOOL is high revenue. It matters if the BOOSTERS associated with a school are willing to make NIL payments.

In many cases, there is a direct correlation between a school's athletic revenue and the support of boosters to that school but there will be differences going forward. Nebraska or Tennessee may enjoy support from their state's population as the flagship programs in those states but they may not have the booster support to make $20MM plus in NIL payments where, theoretically, a Ball State might (using David Letterman or the Ball family as example boosters)

Edited January 5, 2022 by jbrown_9999

[NDhoosier 1,232]

55 minutes ago, jbrown_9999 said:

Remember that SCHOOLS cannot make NIL payments. So it does not matter if a SCHOOL is high revenue. It matters if the BOOSTERS associated with a school are willing to make NIL payments.

In many cases, there is a direct correlation between a school's athletic revenue and the support of boosters to that school but there will be differences going forward. Nebraska or Tennessee may enjoy support from their state's population as the flagship programs in those states but they may not have the booster support to make $20MM plus in NIL payments where, theoretically, a Ball State might (using David Letterman or the Ball family as example boosters)

Texas A&M is blatantly disregarding that rule

@soulpatch you can roll your eyes all you want. It seems even the term "Student-athlete" triggers you...

[EddieAngel 508]

8 minutes ago, NDhoosier said:

Texas A&M is blatantly disregarding that rule

@soulpatch you can roll your eyes all you want. It seems even the term "Student-athlete" triggers you...

I feel like if anywhere knows how to handle the nuanced complexity of football bribes, it is the state of Texas. I have faith that they are well within the rules. On paper.

[jbrown_9999 1,023]

49 minutes ago, NDhoosier said:

Texas A&M is blatantly disregarding that rule

@soulpatch you can roll your eyes all you want. It seems even the term "Student-athlete" triggers you...

I think someone else pointed this out in a different thread but Texas A&M is technically not paying the players (just like BYU is not paying their walk-ons). Boosters have created / funded one or more "companies" so that a third party is making the payments for "marketing" purposes. There is absolutely nothing stopping my company from paying 10 ND players (perhaps the OL) $2MM each to use their pictures in an ad campaign (except for me not having an extra $20MM laying around).

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by jbrown_9999

[coltssb 1,044]

Has anyone thought how this could be a college free agency?  Say, Williams gets so much to go play at Georgia this year. Well, next year, Texas calls and says we’ll pay you more if you come here. Williams bolts again. Starts a trend. Even if Texas doesn’t call, a player like Williams could be a hired fun every year or hold a college hostage every year by saying either pay me or I bolt. Anyone else think about this?

[TexasDomer 1,290]

I actually assumed that’s how it will play out 

[ndfanatic78 285]

37 minutes ago, coltssb said:

Has anyone thought how this could be a college free agency?  Say, Williams gets so much to go play at Georgia this year. Well, next year, Texas calls and says we’ll pay you more if you come here. Williams bolts again. Starts a trend. Even if Texas doesn’t call, a player like Williams could be a hired fun every year or hold a college hostage every year by saying either pay me or I bolt. Anyone else think about this?

This has been mentioned by another poster. You can only transfer once before you have to sit out a year. A university can only bring in so many a players a year, not including the Covid exceptions.

[coltssb 1,044]

1 hour ago, ndfanatic78 said:

This has been mentioned by another poster. You can only transfer once before you have to sit out a year. A university can only bring in so many a players a year, not including the Covid exceptions.

Oh thank you!  I must of missed it. 

[NDhoosier 1,232]

3 hours ago, jbrown_9999 said:

I think someone else pointed this out in a different thread but Texas A&M is technically not paying the players (just like BYU is not paying their walk-ons). Boosters have created / funded one or more "companies" so that a third party is making the payments for "marketing" purposes. There is absolutely nothing stopping my company from paying 10 ND players (perhaps the OL) $2MM each to use their pictures in an ad campaign (except for me not having an extra $20MM laying around).

 

 

[SDIrishFan 607]

1 hour ago, NDhoosier said:

 

The way I read that, it’s not A&M paying them, it’s A&M providing a list of players to a “donor” to be paid.

[soulpatch 149]

6 hours ago, NDhoosier said:

Texas A&M is blatantly disregarding that rule

@soulpatch you can roll your eyes all you want. It seems even the term "Student-athlete" triggers you...

I'm not coming here lamenting the demise of education at the hands of NIL.

[jbrown_9999 1,023]

2 hours ago, SDIrishFan said:

The way I read that, it’s not A&M paying them, it’s A&M providing a list of players to a “donor” to be paid.

The "list" for any given school is not even that big of a secret. I am pretty sure that most of us could pull together a list of 10-20 of the top recruits that the ND coaching staff want within 15-30 minutes of searching what's in the public domain.

[Soko 128]

5 hours ago, SDIrishFan said:

The way I read that, it’s not A&M paying them, it’s A&M providing a list of players to a “donor” to be paid.

And this is all above board. For now. Although this part of it is not what I have such a big deal with as it has been telegraphed for a long time what was coming. They just seem to have been more organised than some others may have been and have stolen a march on this years recruiting class. No doubt it will be imitated very, very soon by others if it works so well.

 

The OU players jumping ship to enter the portal and go to the highest bidder is the bigger problem imo. That is a bad can or worms to open for most programmes.

[NDhoosier 1,232]

12 hours ago, SDIrishFan said:

The way I read that, it’s not A&M paying them, it’s A&M providing a list of players to a “donor” to be paid.

that is against the rules... schools cannot facilitate the contracts (at least that is my understanding).

Edited January 6, 2022 by NDhoosier