NCAA in "Deep Discussion" to Implement Revenue Sharing with Athletes

Whole can of worms here...
- Would this open the door for Universities to "fire" an underperforming player?

- As a public university, would all "employee" pay become public information? 
- Are academic requirements waived? Is Cardale Jones a prophet? 

Too bad we didn't have a governing body that could have helped navigate these conundrums over the past several decades. Real shame.  :sarcasm

 
Wistrom Disciple said:
Whole can of worms here...
- Would this open the door for Universities to "fire" an underperforming player?

- As a public university, would all "employee" pay become public information? 
- Are academic requirements waived? Is Cardale Jones a prophet? 

Too bad we didn't have a governing body that could have helped navigate these conundrums over the past several decades. Real shame.  :sarcasm
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There are a lot of interesting points here, but at the end of the day these points will be settled by the eventual unionization of players and they will sign a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that will address a lot of these points. It works the same as any professional sports league:

1. In the NBA, for example, the money for players is usually fully guaranteed. Even if a player doesn't perform or suffers a season ending injury, they get paid their full money. It's going to be up to the union and schools to negotiate the terms of their employment.

2. I'd image that yes, they would. Or even how most players salaries on professional teams salaries are known (for rules around the salary cap). I'm not sure this is a big deal, since the players aren't being paid by tax payer money. They're going to negotiate a share of the Athletics Revenue money, which is mostly football related.

3. Again, up to the schools and the union to negotiate. I fully expect that schools will require the players to be "in good academic standing" as one of their expectations of employment of the players. The players can opt to try and negotiate their way out of this, but this faces blowback from the fans. I think it's more likely they negotiate some favorable class schedules and things of that nature.

Most issues can and will be negotiated. The real problems they're going to face are related to Title IX, how schools will afford the massive revenue sharing ($20 million is probably less than half of what players will eventually get), and if CBAs are going to be negotiated on a per school basis, a per conference basis, or if a new governing body representing both the SEC and B1G negotiate their side of the CBA in lockstep with each other.

 
Dr. Strangelove said:
2. I'd image that yes, they would. Or even how most players salaries on professional teams salaries are known (for rules around the salary cap). I'm not sure this is a big deal, since the players aren't being paid by tax payer money. **
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** Yet  ;)

Dr. Strangelove said:
3. Again, up to the schools and the union to negotiate. I fully expect that schools will require the players to be "in good academic standing" as one of their expectations of employment of the players. The players can opt to try and negotiate their way out of this, but this faces blowback from the fans. I think it's more likely they negotiate some favorable class schedules and things of that nature.

Most issues can and will be negotiated. The real problems they're going to face are related to Title IX, how schools will afford the massive revenue sharing ($20 million is probably less than half of what players will eventually get), and if CBAs are going to be negotiated on a per school basis, a per conference basis, or if a new governing body representing both the SEC and B1G negotiate their side of the CBA in lockstep with each other.
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I'm not sure how negotiating a class schedule would work given that players are already gifted quite a few academic advantages. 

I think you're spot on with the Title IX issue. Seems to be a quiet elephant in the room at this point.

 
Wistrom Disciple said:
** Yet  ;)

I'm not sure how negotiating a class schedule would work given that players are already gifted quite a few academic advantages. 

I think you're spot on with the Title IX issue. Seems to be a quiet elephant in the room at this point.
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Current Department of Education leadership says the $20M will be subject to Title IX.

Title IX will apply to college athlete revenue share, feds say - ESPN

It will also be interesting to see how much of the stuff the athletes get that isn't their share of the $20M will be considered fringe benefits (income).  In theory any food from the training table, any tutoring, any swag (Adidas gear that isn't part of their uniform) & probably lots of stuff that I'm not including could be considered income by the IRS.

 
ECisGod said:
Current Department of Education leadership says the $20M will be subject to Title IX.

Title IX will apply to college athlete revenue share, feds say - ESPN

It will also be interesting to see how much of the stuff the athletes get that isn't their share of the $20M will be considered fringe benefits (income).  In theory any food from the training table, any tutoring, any swag (Adidas gear that isn't part of their uniform) & probably lots of stuff that I'm not including could be considered income by the IRS.
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It's certainly possible that the current revenue sharing model will be subject to title IX. I suspect that the eventual CBA's that get signed will not be, mostly because the schools or conferences that do will be at a massive competitive advantage. Chances are, we're heading down a path where football programs are private and they enter into licensing deals to play for a university.

Wistrom Disciple said:
** Yet  ;)

I'm not sure how negotiating a class schedule would work given that players are already gifted quite a few academic advantages. 

I think you're spot on with the Title IX issue. Seems to be a quiet elephant in the room at this point.
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I'm not sure how or why tax payer money would fund player pay. Now, it's possible that as part of a CBA, schools will share so much revenue with players that in order to fund other areas of operation they have to cut other sports - or find funding from the University general fund. I think this is sort of unlikely, as schools at major conferences will have plenty of money to fund their operations. What will be impacted, however, is coaches salaries in the future. The escalating pay of coaches, the funding of nap pods in new Football facilities, and other things will probably stop.

Players are going to share a pool of revenue that is probably closer to ~$50+ million at B1G and SEC schools. It'll be interesting in how it all plays out.

 
Dr. Strangelove said:
I'm not sure how or why tax payer money would fund player pay. Now, it's possible that as part of a CBA, schools will share so much revenue with players that in order to fund other areas of operation they have to cut other sports - or find funding from the University general fund. I think this is sort of unlikely, as schools at major conferences will have plenty of money to fund their operations. What will be impacted, however, is coaches salaries in the future. The escalating pay of coaches, the funding of nap pods in new Football facilities, and other things will probably stop.

Players are going to share a pool of revenue that is probably closer to ~$50+ million at B1G and SEC schools. It'll be interesting in how it all plays out.
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The athletic department is a quasi-public institution due to their partnership with a University, and all University employees are on payroll. A payroll in which public tax dollars pay for non-athletes at this stage. Unless there is some clear separation between athletic departments and the University, tax dollars along with media money and donations would all fall into the same pot. 

And given that athletic budget shortfalls were a big part of the reason several programs including Rutgers, Maryland, & UCLA joined the Big Ten recently (among other obvious reasons), I don't think there's as much money to go around as implied. I also don't see how the athlete payouts will jump from zero to ~$50 million, but I never thought Nebraska would share a conference with schools in New Jersey and California at the same time either. 

As for the CBA concept you mentioned, unless there is a unified arrangement across all schools and all athletes, I'm not sure how steady conference or school-specific CBAs would work. Will be an interesting next few years to say the least.

 
Wistrom Disciple said:
The athletic department is a quasi-public institution due to their partnership with a University, and all University employees are on payroll. A payroll in which public tax dollars pay for non-athletes at this stage. Unless there is some clear separation between athletic departments and the University, tax dollars along with media money and donations would all fall into the same pot. 

And given that athletic budget shortfalls were a big part of the reason several programs including Rutgers, Maryland, & UCLA joined the Big Ten recently (among other obvious reasons), I don't think there's as much money to go around as implied. I also don't see how the athlete payouts will jump from zero to ~$50 million, but I never thought Nebraska would share a conference with schools in New Jersey and California at the same time either. 

As for the CBA concept you mentioned, unless there is a unified arrangement across all schools and all athletes, I'm not sure how steady conference or school-specific CBAs would work. Will be an interesting next few years to say the least.
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I definitely see how all of this gets pretty wild. I do think that CBAs will be negotiated for known TV Revenue, ticket sales, etc. Schools are probably going to have to reveal those numbers as part of the negotiating process to ensure that the only money being shared is not from taxes. That's my best guess, but some schools may honestly have a hard time figuring those numbers out since - as you allude to with schools like Rutgers (or recently Arizona) - they may not have the most competent people working the numbers.

Especially for the bolded, I feel like we're heading towards CBAs but the interesting part is that this would require cooperation and agreement between all schools in a conference OR the two biggest conferences agreeing. Something that... seldom is the case in College Football to say the least. 

I do think big changes are on the horizon, nonetheless. Non-revenue sports are probably not going to be involved in the conference anymore (instead they'll form regional sub-conferences) in order to save money. Expensive football facilities will probably stop being built, coaches won't get as massive contracts, etc. It'll be a wild time for collegiate sports over the next decade.

 
How to distribute the revenue has been a top question for many this summer. Multiple SEC coaches told Yahoo! Sports last week the figure was somewhere between $14 to $17 million. On3 previously reported that 75% of TV revenue will be paid back damages to football. From there, 15% would be funneled to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball and the final 5% divided by the remaining athletes.

That model, if certified, is expected to be used as a framework.

“There’s going to be three categories,” Bjork said of the next iteration of college sports. “Financial aid for athletes, the traditional scholarship, academic award money, cost of attendance. There’s going to be revenue share for some sports, not all sports. And then you’re going to have the third bucket, which is the NIL ecosystem.”
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Mavric said:
There's half of the revenue sharing dollars...
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To put it in a different perspective, NFL teams each receive about $250 million per year in TV revenue. For all the talk about how much money there is these days in college football, it's still chump change in comparison. I've always wondered what it would be like if the power conferences negotiated TV deals as a single combined entity, instead of per-conference...

 
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Toe said:
To put it in a different perspective, NFL teams each receive about $250 million per year in TV revenue. For all the talk about how much money there is these days in college football, it's still chump change in comparison. I've always wondered what it would be like if colleges negotiated TV deals as a single combined entity, instead of per-conference...
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So the total dollars are probably pretty similar.  It's just getting sliced up in a lot more pieces for college teams.

 
Toe said:
To put it in a different perspective, NFL teams each receive about $250 million per year in TV revenue. For all the talk about how much money there is these days in college football, it's still chump change in comparison. I've always wondered what it would be like if colleges negotiated TV deals as a single combined entity, instead of per-conference...
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This just proves that there is a s#!t ton of money here. 

250mil * 32 = 8 billion dollars

75.2mil * 18 = 1.35 billion dollars for one conference and only 7% of the total teams in FBS

 
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