Proposed FBS Subdivision to Directly Pay Players

This is probably closer to how it should be given the direction NIL has taken or should I say a more honest approach of doing what is being done behind the scenes.  But, it appears obvious they ran into the obstacle of complying with Title IX while developing it.  Seems general managers will be a reality in college football soon.  

 
As I said yesterday, I think this is really the only way to bring some stability to the Transfer Portal/NIL landscape.

Presuming the athletes would be under some sort of contract, if you can sign a more than one year contract, it would go a long ways toward easing the chaos we see today.

 
Entry into the subdivision requires a school to invest, at minimum, $30,000 per year per athlete into what is termed an “enhanced educational trust fund” for at least half of a school’s countable athletes. Schools would determine when athletes receive the amount, which, for four-year athletes, will total at least $120,000. Schools must continue to abide by the framework of Title IX, assuring that 50 percent of the investment be directed toward women athletes.

The new subdivision will remain under the umbrella of the NCAA, and its members will continue to compete for NCAA championships with others in Division I. Under the proposal, the NCAA maintains oversight of the existing national championship model across all Division I sports, except FBS football, which continues to operate under the rubric of the College Football Playoff, Baker writes in the letter.

Schools in the new subdivision would also gain control of decision-making around scholarship limits and countable coaches, the NCAA's way of handing major conference programs the freedom to increase the limits or do away with them altogether.
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Yahoo

 
I don't know all the answers.  (shocker...I know).  

But, I do know what is happening now is not sustainable as a spectator sport that would want to build brand loyalty from the fans.  It's complete chaos.  And, I don't blame the players.  I blame the adults managing everything that has allowed it to get to this point.

If this somehow stabilizes the system and comes to some type of normalcy where the sport is on solid grounds and the players feel they are respected and compensated.....ok.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
But, I do know what is happening now is not sustainable as a spectator sport that would want to build brand loyalty from the fans. 
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I'm going to get beat up for this, but it is what it is.

I grew up watching NASCAR.  I watched it when no one did in the 80's and 90's.  I watched it all the sudden become popular with the masses and it has pretty much leveled off.  I think this was the first year in 30+ years that I didn't watch one race.

Branding is so important.  I know people want to see the N on the helmet, but they also want to identify with the players.  They want to know their story.  They want to consider them Nebraskan's even if they are from Compton.

I think this is one thing NASCAR has destroyed in Branding.  The cars use to have one sponsor and you'd build a familarity with Tide, GM Goodwrench or Valvoline.  Now the look of the car changes every week and I think it's hard to connect.  The bigger thing has been the revolving door of very young drivers.  You never build that bond with the driver(player) when they constantly changing and you don't anything about them.

Different players every year, specifically at the skilled positions will hurt CFB.

 
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Mavric said:
Yahoo
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This is a good start and I applaud the NCAA for at least seeing the writing on the wall.

But I do think that $120k over four years is nowhere near the value the average player brings to a B1G or SEC team. I understand that they're trying to keep a similar model complying with Title IX in order, but that amount is far to low. 

I think college sports - to deal with Title IX issues  @floridacorn mentioned previously - is heading toward a separation of Football from the universities. Schools will form an LLC, they'll license their likeness and stadiums to the LLC, and then players will be able to negotiate for sums MUCH larger than $120k over 4 years. Just assuming current revenue, players will negotiate similar CBAs to the NFL/NBA. The math looks like this:

Total revenue: $110 million, although the amount is probably a little higher

Negotiated split: 50% players/50% school. Each side gets $55 million

85 scholarship players divided by $55 million = $647,000 per player, per year

This of course assumes that roster sizes stay the same, which may change as soon as the power 2 structure and the B1G/SEC agree to new rules.

 
From a quick reading, there is a minimum of $30k/year for half the student-athletes put into a fund.  Then money from that fund must be distributed equally among men/women due to Title IX?  That doesn't sound like a good deal for the current football or basketball players.  Many would be making less under this framework.

One thing that I haven't seen yet is if outside NIL is still a thing in this?  Because if so, then this really changes nothing outside of creating a new NCAA division that would just be schools from the current P4.

 
So full ride and pay?  Boy do walk-ons get screwed.

I have always said, pay the kids and make them pay their tuition, room and board.  So yes, the payment has to be higher.  I am not sure how this all gets done, but it is a start.  The NIL things is crazy and is there any transparency?

The problem is always going to be the inequity between the sports, the genders, the schools and the conferences.  I am not sure what all of the answers are.

 
For example, NU has ~600 student athletes.  So the school would have to put $9M (600*30,000*0.5) annually into a fund where half would go to male athletes and half to female athletes, and then the schools could choose how much goes to each male/female from that.  This is a great thing for all non-rev athletes (especially female ones) and a bad thing for football players.

This just sounds like a way to get around Title IX challenges.  And there has to be still outside NIL or the schools are putting themselves up against lawsuits for capping earnings that aren't collectively bargained.

 
307husker said:
It won't matter. NIL can exist outside and on top of any NCAA institutional direct payments.
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I agree, the payments to football players is really low in this proposal. It comes out to barely more than minimum wage. They're essentially trying their best to keep an old athletics model afloat when it shouldn't be kept afloat.

Now, I think that schools are going to come out and widely give this proposed plan praise, because it keeps (mostly) intact business as usual. They don't want to split Football away from the school and they don't want to split 50% of their football revenue with players. 

Eventually, players and certain schools who want to compete will separate football anyway. The University of Miami or Florida State aren't going to sit around and watch while they fall into obscurity; they're going to rid themselves of responsibilities to Title IX and split football off from the school, allowing the players a huge piece of the pie. Even for ACC revenue, the payments per player would still be much higher than 30k per year (it would be closer to 250k per player, per year under their current revenue models).

College Football is heading towards a split from schools anyway, it's dumb to continue to try and hold onto an old way of doing things. Let Football split away, the players deserve the money, and schools will be able to operate just the same as normal with their share of the money.

 
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