Yahoo! Sports: NCAA to propose new subdivision with direct athlete compensation

[jbcarol]

Why NCAA unveiled its reform proposal now is crystal clear: The writing is on the wall

By Eric Prisbell

NCAA's bold, progressive proposal – which would for the first time enable schools to directly pay athletes – sent shock waves through an entire industry Tuesday morning.

As NCAA President Charlie Baker himself said, "It's a starting point."

It's also very much not on-brand for an association carrying an enduring reputation of being a rigid, unyielding association. So the overarching question: Why did Baker unveil the potentially groundbreaking proposal now – much to the surprise of many industry stakeholders?

That is at least one answer that is clear, or as the line from "A Few Good Men" goes: How clear? "Crystal."

The NCAA sees the writing on the wall.

The association faces a perpetual threat of litigation – two lawsuits were filed against the NCAA within hours on Thursday alone. It could already be on the hook for as much as $4.2 billion in damages from one antitrust suit. A potential landscape-shifting employment train is also barreling down the tracks.

The NCAA is in search of a lifeline.

At Wednesday's Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletic Forum, Baker urged for "urgent patience" regarding the work needed to bring his proposal to fruition.

Baker wants to create a new subdivision –

[BrianG]

Well...we have a hard time getting to a bowl winning our G5 and FCS games.  Lol...forget the playoffs or bowls when we play all SEC with BIG OOC teams. It would be nice to have a winning season sometime.  That's done for if this is adopted!!

[Ex-Trumpet]

We almost certainly won't be left out. Those "12-16" schools will want at least 25-40 other schools in their division, and our revenue is high enough to be in it. I would expect competitive balance measures that allow us to compete.

Nah....we will be their non-con-whipping-post-rent-a-win-Kent-State-schedule-padding opponent.

[Ironhawg]

Nah....we will be their non-con-whipping-post-rent-a-win-Kent-State-schedule-padding opponent.

I agree with this.  We basically are taking TV money from the SEC to be the Washington Generals to the rest of the conference.  If you disagree, take a look at our conference record since joining the SEC.

[Occams Razorback]

If we make it, we'll be top five in baseball, and track and field, top 20 in basketball and top 50 (one can hope) in football.

Instead, what if we joined up with Memphis, Arkansas State, Southern Mississippi, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe, Tulane, Central Arkansas and a combination of Little Rock and UAPB? If those two merge, they could field some dang good teams.

[jbcarol]

Biggest issue in college sports? Good luck choosing just one

By Eric Prisbell

There are no serious issues facing college sports these days, well, except for a potential employee or revenue-sharing model, a potential $4.2 billion damages bill for the NCAA, a reckoning over athlete rights and Title IX, ballooning coaching salaries and severance packages, athlete well-being in the age of cross-country conference travel, a patchwork of state NIL laws, escalating sports wagering issues and the NCAA's contention that it can't govern without being sued.

Other than those minor peccadillos, it's all kumbaya, right?

Given the number of existential issues at play, how there is no certainty that the NCAA's potentially ground-breaking reform proposal will ever be implemented, and how the enterprise's upper crust is printing money by the billions –

[jbcarol]

National Labor Review Board (NLRB) hearing begins weighing consequential athlete employee question this week

By Eric Prisbell



Amid widespread industry tumult, one question hovers:
Should NCAA college athletes be deemed employees of their universities

One of the ongoing proceedings weighing that question – which could determine just how radically the college sports enterprise is reshaped in the coming years – takes another step forward beginning Monday in the National Labor Relations Board's regional office in West Los Angeles.

All stakeholder eyes will be on developments that emerge from the in-person hearing – proceedings will not be available via Zoom – in the potentially seismic case addressing charges that the USC football and men's and women's basketball players are employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The complaint alleges the three charged parties – USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA – are joint employers. It also alleges they misclassified the players as student-athletes and maintained certain rules in the USC Student-Athlete handbook.

A growing number of leading stakeholders have told On3 that they believe college sports is on a slow march toward at least some athletes being deemed employees unless the NCAA secures its long-sought Congressional codification that athletes are not employees.

Employee ruling would create new NCAA era

What about contractors

[hogsanity]

There has always been a different split for football. Only 133 fbs teams currently, yet over 330 in d1 basketball. Many teams that are fcs in football are d1 in basketball and other sports. So splitting off the top 48 or 64 really isn't earthshaking.

[Fan1958]

Something similar to this came up several years ago and I posted a solution as follows:

At the time, there just so happened to be 128 D1 programs in the country. That number divides nicely by 32, the number of NFL teams.
 
With "student-athletes" now to be directly compensated, college football should be run just like minor-league baseball. Each NFL team could have four farm teams made up of different colleges. Allow all high school players eligible to play college football to be put into a draft just like major-league baseball.

For instance, perhaps Dallas could be assigned Texas State, Baylor, aTm and UT as their farm clubs with Texas State being the equivalent of rookie ball, Baylor A ball, aTm AA and UT AAA.  There would be 32 teams at each level with four divisions and eight teams in each division. Winner of each division (and maybe wildcard teams such as the next four best records) goes into a playoff.

Dallas drafts and assigns the draftees to each level to be developed. These teams would then be the feeder to the NFL squad. Pay the players much like minor-league baseball players.

What the NCAA is proposing a league of semipro players. We all know how semipro leagues have fared over the years thus the reason for keeping the colleges involved as there is a built-in fan base.

[daprospecta]

This is the birth of the super conference of about 12-16 teams that can spend big amounts of money and have those resources. The normal schools like AR, will be left competing with more like schools that don't have an endless budget.

The truth is we could have an endless budget.

[jbcarol]

As he pursues reform proposal, NCAA president urges athletes to 'make your voice heard'

By Eric Prisbell

Two weeks after unveiling a potentially landmark reform proposal, NCAA President Charlie Baker addressed student-athletes in a lengthy letter in which he doubled down on the central points in the plan, stressed the need for Congressional intervention and implored athletes to "make your voice heard and be part of the solution that shapes the future of college sports."

The first-year president – who has earned positive reviews for his earnest, unpretentious approach – reiterated that he sought to ignite debate and discussion with a proposal that would enable high-resourced schools to join a subdivision to craft their own policies and allocate a minimum of $30,000 annually to each athlete in a trust fund.

Additionally, Baker endorses a rule change that would allow any Division I school to be able to enter into NIL deals with their athletes, a dramatic departure from the current model that leans heavily on third-party, donor-driven collectives.

Charlie Baker's memo

Charlie Baker's War

[31to6]

Maybe so, unless Title IX is amended.  Doesn't mean Frank Fletcher can't pay Arkansas's starting QB $100,000 per year to endorse his car dealerships.  It's the schools' direct payment of NIL or collectives sponsored by the school that are in question at the moment under Titke IX. 

The obvious question is whether it makes sense to pay the backup catcher $30,000 so that the starting QB can be paid the same.  That's insanely inefficient from a business perspective. 

The real winners might be the already thriving cottage industry of trainers, camps, and travel teams for 5 year old volley ball players and every other scholarship sport for males and females. Hopeful parents and those folks must be licking their chops. 

Do you think it will be possible for female athletes to sue successfully by arguing that Title IX requires the institutions to provide equal funding and visibility for promotional activities? (And that by not doing so they are negatively impacting their ability to monetize their NI&L.)

[hogsanity]

The truth is we could have an endless budget.

Current projections are that each current sec school will be getting 100mil, annually, from the sec for their share of the sec media rights revenue. The current amt is in the 35-40mil range.

[jbcarol]

NCAA takes next step on its bold college sports reform proposal

by:
Eric Prisbell
•

The traditionally slow-moving NCAA is swiftly moving the ball forward on a key item within its bold reform proposal that caught many stakeholders off guard early last month.

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors on Thursday formally tasked the Division I Council with working on specific recommendations related to the progressive plan, marking an important next step in the association's legislative process.

The move, made during the NCAA's annual convention in Phoenix, signals that first-year President Charlie Baker and industry leaders want to try to fast-track legislation specifically related to moving NIL activity under the umbrella of schools, a significant change from the current model that consists of third-party, donor-funded collectives. This legislation would enable schools to enter into NIL deals with athletes.

The fact that they are moving this quickly on the legislation reflects the urgency that is palpable throughout the landscape amid mounting legal threats and potentially seismic change on the horizon.

"I can't say where it [this process] is going to go or where it is going to end," Board Chair Jere Morehead told The Athletic...

[jbcarol]

Cole Cubelic, Andy Staples construct what teams get added to potential super league starting with B1G, SEC

by:
Thomas Goldkamp
•

With the College Football Playoff already weighing expansion before a 12-team playoff is even run for the first time, there remains a healthy degree of skepticism that conference realignment is actually over and done with.

For one, Florida State remains actively engaged in ways to figure out whether it can get out of the ACC's Grant of Rights.

So if another round of realignment happens, it could well mark the dawn of the super conference. If we're not already there...

On3's Andy Staples sat down with ESPN's Cole Cubelic to discuss the idea of super conferences forming that could essentially split the sport in two. Currently the Big Ten and the SEC have a big leg up on the other leagues, and it stands to reason they'd be best positioned to absorb other teams should super conferences form.

"There are a lot of people that will tell you when Greg Sankey floated the 'we'll have our own playoff' at SEC Media Days, that this was kind of the reason why," Cubelic said.

"It would be the freaking Hunger Games to figure out who those teams are," he said.

Candidates for expansion from the ACC ...

[RebelliousHog]

There are approx 420 athletes on athletic scholarship at the University of Ar. Most of them will get their degree. Many of them either couldn't have afforded to go to school or would have had to take on student loan debt to get that degree. Extrapolate that over 133 fbs schools and that's almost 56,000 student athletes.

I don't think that was their point.


The point was these kids are going to "college" and learn no skills outside athletics.

[Grizzlyfan]

the question is not whether Arkansas has enough TV/SEC money to pay the football players.  The question is which non-revenue sports will survive.

[East Clintwood]

Their revenue will be a lot higher if they allow the Arkansas and Indianas of the world in as opposed to the teams who will be grateful for the check to play, and we will demand competitive balance measures

We won't demand crap except our yearly beatdown check.

[AwholeHog]

Cole Cubelic, Andy Staples construct what teams get added to potential super league starting with B1G, SEC

by:
Thomas Goldkamp
•

Lawsuits, lawsuits and more lawsuits. Injunctions will be filed to stop it dead and things will spin in place like they are forever and ever and ever. Talking heads like to talk but this will be the biggest f***ing mess of all time. Ain't saying they won't try it but it's going to be mess of epic proportions, much like it is now.
Supreme Court...WTH were you thinking. You were out of your element entirely. Abstention was the right call. Instead, one of the most destructive rulings of all time. Did you purposely choose to destroy NCAA athletics?? Kind of looks that way.

[liljo]

We won't demand crap except our yearly beatdown check.

Apparently so!

[Mike Irwin]

This proposal would add about $13 million to Arkansas annual budget. The extra TV revenue from such a super division would probably cover that. What is unclear is how this will affect individual NIL deals. If you pay that money to begin with and then have to find high dollar boosters that will pay in the millions for the high profile athletes in football and basketball, winning championships will still boil down to who has the deepest pockets.

[hogsanity]

I don't think that was their point.


The point was these kids are going to "college" and learn no skills outside athletics.

And my point is that a vast majority of people on athletic aid will learn skills outside of athletics and will get degrees and enter the workforce.

Yes, there are some that are just there to play ball, but it's not most athletes.

[thebignasty]

Their revenue will be a lot higher if they allow the Arkansas and Indianas of the world in as opposed to the teams who will be grateful for the check to play, and we will demand competitive balance measures

They'll agree to them and then cheat around.

The circle of life in collegiate athletics.

[Boardon Hamsay]

This is the birth of the super conference of about 12-16 teams that can spend big amounts of money and have those resources. The normal schools like AR, will be left competing with more like schools that don't have an endless budget.

I really want a relegation and promotion model. Would be fantastic!

[hogsanity]

I really want a relegation and promotion model. Would be fantastic!

Could sure add importance to an otherwise meaningless late season game. Can you imagine AR vs Mizzu, loser leaves D1 matchup.

[Boardon Hamsay]

Could sure add importance to an otherwise meaningless late season game. Can you imagine AR vs Mizzu, loser leaves D1 matchup.

That is the exact scenario I had in mind as the benefit and value creator example for what a relegation and promotion model could do. Of course, a good chunk of Hog fans would likely endure 5+ seasons of relegation at the hands of Mizzou before remotely being willing to consider them as a rival but that model would do wonders for rivalry games around the country.

[RebelliousHog]

And my point is that a vast majority of people on athletic aid will learn skills outside of athletics and will get degrees and enter the workforce.

Yes, there are some that are just there to play ball, but it's not most athletes.

Vast majority? Yes.  It is the kids who leak through thinking the NFL is just waiting for them to join the draft and never make the the grade that I worry about AND don't get a quality education.  One is too many.

[jbcarol]

Charlie Baker's War

Project D-I proposal stuck in Quagmire

by: Eric Prisbell

Giggity

When the NCAA Division I Council meets (this week) to weigh expanding how schools can operate in the NIL space, the proposals in play reflect changes on the margins.

The biggest takeaway is what will not be discussed: Elements of NCAA President Charlie Baker's Project D-I reform proposal that was unveiled in large headlines in December.

During January's NCAA Convention, the Division I Board of Directors charged the D-I Council with "developing recommendations for a framework" that would address the key elements included in Baker's plan.

So, what happened?

Three months later – amid unprecedented industry disruption and a growing mountain of legal threats – elements of Project D-I have been assigned to various committees within the NCAA's multilayered structure.

They have not yet come back to "clowncil" claims a person familiar with the times.