NIL-Focused Discussion

[caip]

Ironic that college only “pro” sport to not have some form of a salary cap. These aren’t NIL payments, they are NILS payments and they are getting paid for their skill. Nobody cares about their name, image or likeness. Billionaires outbidding each other.

[b52legend]

I would like to see NIL as a pot of money to reward performance. Not guaranteed money to get players. Line up donors and sponsors who are willing to pay NIL money, and then give the opportunities to the kids who perform. Give certain opportunities to the whole team so everyone gets something. Create a program where team success breeds NIL success.

[Nevada Hoya]

I'm with Charles.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Mar 27, 2023 12:32:46 GMT -5 caip said:

Ironic that college only “pro” sport to not have some form of a salary cap. These aren’t NIL payments, they are NILS payments and they are getting paid for their skill. Nobody cares about their name, image or likeness. Billionaires outbidding each other.

NIL is a legal way to pay kids for their athletic ability. It has nothing to do with NIL. For example, someone said Murray got $300-400K in NIL payments. If true, does anybody think his name, image, and likeness is moving that much in goods or sales or whatever? Of course not.

It’s a legal way of doing what people caught up in the FBI investigation were doing illegally.

[Lethal_Interjection]

“TV makes money, right? The shoe companies make money. The universities make money. The athletic directors… They benefit from their relationship with the shoe companies. And the coaches make a hell of a living. Well, what’s wrong with that filtering down?” Larranaga asked.

[hoyaguy]

Mar 28, 2023 10:10:17 GMT -5 Lethal_Interjection said:

“TV makes money, right? The shoe companies make money. The universities make money. The athletic directors… They benefit from their relationship with the shoe companies. And the coaches make a hell of a living. Well, what’s wrong with that filtering down?” Larranaga asked.

Well I'll tell him what's wrong with it "filtering down": Because it it downright UN-AMERICAN to get into a position of power and pay anyone a single dime more than you have to, even if it is a violation person's rights and would just be a drop in the bucket for you. 

[tgo]

I have a ton of questions and think some people here will know the answers:

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it.
2. How much did our players get this past year?
3. Is there anyone of any importance/influence talking about imposing a salary cap in college basketball?
4. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring?
5. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team?

Need to start having NIL amounts mentioned in the press about a signing, same way it is reported when Pitcher X has signed with the Yankees, for a reported $5 million over 2 years.

[vv83]

Wouldn't the courts strike down any effort by the NCAA/conferences/etc. to limit NIL payments or impose some kind of salary cap? It seems like the courts have already answered the question of whether the NCAA (or any other college sports institution) has the right to have any say whatsoever over the money that college athletes can make through selling their NIL rights.

I don't think there is any chance there will ever be any kind of salary cap/limit on NIL payments for this reason - the courts have probably already ruled that this would e illegal.

[tgo]

Apr 2, 2023 11:39:46 GMT -5 vv83 said:

Wouldn't the courts strike down any effort by the NCAA/conferences/etc. to limit NIL payments or impose some kind of salary cap? It seems like the courts have already answered the question of whether the NCAA (or any other college sports institution) has the right to have any say whatsoever over the money that college athletes can make through selling their NIL rights.

I don't think there is any chance there will ever be any kind of salary cap/limit on NIL payments for this reason - the courts have probably already ruled that this would e illegal.

There are salary caps in all the major sports, how could the courts say it is ok in MLB, NBA etc but not NCAA?

[hoya9797]

Apr 2, 2023 11:41:44 GMT -5 tgo said:

Apr 2, 2023 11:39:46 GMT -5 vv83 said:

Wouldn't the courts strike down any effort by the NCAA/conferences/etc. to limit NIL payments or impose some kind of salary cap? It seems like the courts have already answered the question of whether the NCAA (or any other college sports institution) has the right to have any say whatsoever over the money that college athletes can make through selling their NIL rights.

I don't think there is any chance there will ever be any kind of salary cap/limit on NIL payments for this reason - the courts have probably already ruled that this would e illegal.

There are salary caps in all the major sports, how could the courts say it is ok in MLB, NBA etc but not NCAA?

I’m no lawyer but probably because the cap (or tax in MLB) are collectively bargained. College athletes are not part of a union and can’t do that.

[vv83]

Apr 2, 2023 11:49:44 GMT -5 hoya9797 said:

Apr 2, 2023 11:41:44 GMT -5 tgo said:

There are salary caps in all the major sports, how could the courts say it is ok in MLB, NBA etc but not NCAA?

I’m no lawyer but probably because the cap (or tax in MLB) are collectively bargained. College athletes are not part of a union and can’t do that.

I think the only way there could be a salary cap on NIL is if the courts declared that the athletes are employees of the schools under the law. then the players could choose to unionize and collectively bargain. A salary cap on NIL (and probably on actual salaries, if the players are declared employees) could be one result of this process.

[CTHoya08]

Not only are the pro salary caps collectively bargained, but they’re for salary. NIL is essentially an intellectual-property right that the players already own. There’s no salary cap on how much the pros can make in endorsements.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Apr 2, 2023 12:59:51 GMT -5 CTHoya08 said:

Not only are the pro salary caps collectively bargained, but they’re for salary. NIL is essentially an intellectual-property right that the players already own. There’s no salary cap on how much the pros can make in endorsements.

Correct. And the stars, like LeBron James and others make more (sometimes way more) off their endorsement deals than off their NBA salaries.

[tgo]

Very few college players are actually "endorsing" anything right? They are not being approached by the local car dealership and being paid $100k to be in a commercial or getting a cut of the jersey sales at the book store.

They are being paid a signing bonus or salary to come to a school - they are just calling it something else to avoid an employee relationship. Seems to me that this whole system will be challenged in court in one way or another sometime soon. Do these kids have protections like workers comp? if not, then some leftist politician is going to take issue with the system at some point.

anyone know the answers to any of my other questions?

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it.
2. How much did our players get this past year?
3. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring?
4. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team?

[hoyasaxa2003]

Apr 3, 2023 13:03:58 GMT -5 tgo said:

Very few college players are actually "endorsing" anything right? They are not being approached by the local car dealership and being paid $100k to be in a commercial or getting a cut of the jersey sales at the book store.

They are being paid a signing bonus or salary to come to a school - they are just calling it something else to avoid an employee relationship. Seems to me that this whole system will be challenged in court in one way or another sometime soon. Do these kids have protections like workers comp? if not, then some leftist politician is going to take issue with the system at some point.

anyone know the answers to any of my other questions?

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it.
2. How much did our players get this past year?
3. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring?
4. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team?

Yes, it is basically a signing bonus or salary, but it's not called that. So, for legal purposes, it is not a salary (which, I believe, would violate NCAA rules and also eliminate "amateur" status for those receiving the funds). But for all practical reasons, it is:

I am not too knowledgeable about this, but my answers (as far as I know are in red):

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it. Media reports. There is no central repository of NIL deals (I think there should be for transparency). But, most of the deals get leaked or publicly discussed. But, there are surely many that are not, including smaller ones.
2. How much did our players get this past year? There are rumors that Brandon Murray got $300-$400K this past year. Otherwise, it's unclear.
3. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring? At least one football player at Michigan got a multi-year deal, so it must be permitted. It's unclear to me how it works with transfers. But, I assume the contracts address the issue. I doubt that the NIL deals could force a player to stay at a school, but surely they could lose their deal if they leave. Any sensible deal would have such terms.
4. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team? Based on news reports, at least one football player got use of a $200,000 car as part of his deal, so I assume one can get goods, too.

[seaweed]

Apr 3, 2023 13:19:42 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Apr 3, 2023 13:03:58 GMT -5 tgo said:

Very few college players are actually "endorsing" anything right? They are not being approached by the local car dealership and being paid $100k to be in a commercial or getting a cut of the jersey sales at the book store.

They are being paid a signing bonus or salary to come to a school - they are just calling it something else to avoid an employee relationship. Seems to me that this whole system will be challenged in court in one way or another sometime soon. Do these kids have protections like workers comp? if not, then some leftist politician is going to take issue with the system at some point.

anyone know the answers to any of my other questions?

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it.
2. How much did our players get this past year?
3. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring?
4. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team?

Yes, it is basically a signing bonus or salary, but it's not called that. So, for legal purposes, it is not a salary (which, I believe, would violate NCAA rules and also eliminate "amateur" status for those receiving the funds). But for all practical reasons, it is:

I am not too knowledgeable about this, but my answers (as far as I know are in red):

1. Where do people find the NIL amounts that often get mentioned? I have only seen amounts thrown around on msg boards and am wondering where those amounts are listed and why the media doesn't appear to report on it. Media reports. There is no central repository of NIL deals (I think there should be for transparency). But, most of the deals get leaked or publicly discussed. But, there are surely many that are not, including smaller ones.
2. How much did our players get this past year? There are rumors that Brandon Murray got $300-$400K this past year. Otherwise, it's unclear.
3. Can schools make multi-year deals that are back loaded as a way to try and keep people from transferring? At least one football player at Michigan got a multi-year deal, so it must be permitted. It's unclear to me how it works with transfers. But, I assume the contracts address the issue. I doubt that the NIL deals could force a player to stay at a school, but surely they could lose their deal if they leave. Any sensible deal would have such terms.
4. Is it money only that the kids are getting or is it like any other contract where you can throw any sort of compensation you have at your disposal at them, for instance every player on a team could get a new car from a local dealership whose owner is a huge supporter of the team? Based on news reports, at least one football player got use of a $200,000 car as part of his deal, so I assume one can get goods, too.

I’ve seen a lot of reports that Nigel Pack got $800k for two years

[hoyaboya]

"Speaking with the media, Hurley explained that he’s keeping tabs on the portal and recognizes that Connecticut will be dipping their toes in to fill out the roster each season, but he doesn’t want NIL to be the reason why athletes choose the Huskies.

“It’s weird, I guess. We’re not paying much attention to it, but obviously we saw some high profile players today going to the portal on Twitter. And I think who knows where this thing is going to go,” started Hurley. “For us, I don’t want a kid to pick my school because we matched an NIL offer or we gave the best offer. I want kids to come to UConn because they want to play for me. And obviously you hope that they can take the best possible advantage of NIL.

“But times are changing. And it will be interesting to see whether people still do it regular kind of the way we’ve done it. We don’t have a player on our team that is at UConn because of NIL. And we’re still going to do it with high level high school recruits that we’re going to develop over the course of time and supplement those guys with transfers out of the portal that make sense for our culture and the way that we run our program, which is more old school.”

www.on3.com/college/connecticut-huskies/news/dan-hurley-explains-how-much-the-portal-nil-have-impacted-uconn-huskies-tournament-run/

[hoya9797]

Apr 3, 2023 13:03:58 GMT -5 tgo said:

Do these kids have protections like workers comp?

The whole student-athlete charade started over a workers comp lawsuit in the 1950s.

Today, much of the NCAA’s moral authority—indeed much of the justification for its existence—is vested in its claim to protect what it calls the "student-athlete." The term is meant to conjure the nobility of amateurism, and the precedence of scholarship over athletic endeavor. But the origins of the "student-athlete" lie not in a disinterested ideal but in a sophistic formulation designed, as the sports economist Andrew Zimbalist has written, to help the NCAA in its "fight against workmen’s compensation insurance claims for injured football players."

"We crafted the term student-athlete," [NCAA president] Walter Byers himself wrote, "and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations." The term came into play in the 1950s, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a "work-related" accident? Was he a school employee, like his peers who worked part-time as teaching assistants and bookstore cashiers? Or was he a fluke victim of extracurricular pursuits? Given the hundreds of incapacitating injuries to college athletes each year, the answers to these questions had enormous consequences. The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was "not in the football business."

The term student-athlete was deliberately ambiguous. College players were not students at play (which might understate their athletic obligations), nor were they just athletes in college (which might imply they were professionals). That they were high-performance athletes meant they could be forgiven for not meeting the academic standards of their peers; that they were students meant they did not have to be compensated, ever, for anything more than the cost of their studies. Student-athlete became the NCAA’s signature term, repeated constantly in and out of courtrooms.

Using the "student-athlete" defense, colleges have compiled a string of victories in liability cases. On the afternoon of October 26, 1974, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs were playing the Alabama Crimson Tide in Birmingham, Alabama. Kent Waldrep, a TCU running back, carried the ball on a "Red Right 28" sweep toward the Crimson Tide’s sideline, where he was met by a swarm of tacklers. When Waldrep regained consciousness, Bear Bryant, the storied Crimson Tide coach, was standing over his hospital bed. "It was like talking to God, if you’re a young football player," Waldrep recalled.

Waldrep was paralyzed: he had lost all movement and feeling below his neck. After nine months of paying his medical bills, Texas Christian refused to pay any more, so the Waldrep family coped for years on dwindling charity.

Through the 1990s, from his wheelchair, Waldrep pressed a lawsuit for workers’ compensation...His attorneys haggled with TCU and the state worker-compensation fund over what constituted employment. Clearly, TCU had provided football players with equipment for the job, as a typical employer would—but did the university pay wages, withhold income taxes on his financial aid, or control work conditions and performance? The appeals court finally rejected Waldrep’s claim in June of 2000, ruling that he was not an employee because he had not paid taxes on financial aid that he could have kept even if he quit football. (Waldrep told me school officials "said they recruited me as a student, not an athlete," which he says was absurd.)

The long saga vindicated the power of the NCAA’s "student-athlete" formulation as a shield, and the organization continues to invoke it as both a legalistic defense and a noble ideal.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/?single_page=true

[bluegray79]

(apologies if this has been dealt with in pages 1-19)

This has been a nagging thought as I watch the transfer portal and hear of some eye-popping NIL numbers big name players are receiving: is it a good thing for college ball that a player (say Brandon Murray) makes hefty 6-figure NIL money AND still receives a full scholarship worth $65K+/year to attend and play for Georgetown? I support athletes getting financial benefits for being part of a program that brings in big bucks to the school, and I support a system that in no way exploits student-athletes. But if the school sets up an NIL deal that nets you 6-figures, should you also get the full scholarship?

[CTHoya08]

That’s the bias we have as Georgetown fans. Most schools aren’t as selective or expensive as Georgetown, so the “value” of the scholarship itself isn’t as high. It was often maddening to hear people say that the players “get nothing” when at a school like GU they (a) are admitted ahead of thousands of applicants who may have better academic credentials and (b) don’t have to pay the hefty sticker price of tuition, room, and board.

But that’s not universal. In our GU-centric world it’s easy to forget that some of these schools admit 70-plus percent of their applicants and (for in-state kids, at least) cost a mere fraction of what GU does. The privilege of being admitted and attending for free at, say, Kansas, simply isn’t the same. (And to be clear, I’m not making a value-of-the-degree argument here. I’m just saying that from a pure, out-of-pocket cost-to-attend perspective, a GU scholarship is more valuable than a comparable scholarship at a lot of other schools.)

I guess my point is that while we the HoyaTalk crowd might view a scholarship to GU as an inherently valuable thing, I don’t think any major basketball recruit is weighing the value of scholarships based on the cost of attendance at the given schools. (Maybe they’ll learn to look at it that way after taking an intro Econ course!) Most it the big-time recruits have probably long since internalized the idea that school will be free by the time the decide where to commit, and don’t give a lot of though to how much one scholarship is worth compared to another. (Again, talking pure out-of-pocket worth here. For a NoVa kid UVa is probably less expensive to attend than PC, but the Virginia degree is probably “worth” more.)

From our perspective, if a player is “worth” six figures in NIL money, what’s another $60k? I suppose we could imagine a world where the NCAA admits that NIL is pay-for-play, outlaws scholarships, and pushes the cost of funding tuition, room, and board onto the collectives. The end result for basketball and football players would probably be the same, though, and it would wreak havoc on non-revenue sports.