Transfer Portal is a disaster

At which point the schools need to suck it up, cut football and basketball loose to be their own privately run businesses, and get back to the work of building donations and alumni support for the "student-athlete" acceptable sports. If college football and college basketball want to exist solely for the purpose of profiting their coaches and their players, then it has nothing - NOTHING - to do with the either the school or the other sports. Once upon a time, it was all one big mission to support collegiate athletics, and the school put all the revenue into one big pot to promote their athletics department as a whole - but since supporting the department and the opportunities it affords its students is irrelevant now, then let the reverse also be true. The knife cuts both ways.

Let the money-oriented wild west sports go be their own thing, and let the schools get back to actual collegiate athletics. Like it was back before they slapped skirts on college football and basketball and put them on the street corner.
I agree that's a possible option IF the courts even allow that.

Once they've declared the unpaid "student athlete" model in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, I'm not sure that works. What the SCOTUS, particularly Justice Kavanaugh said, was the entire MODEL of college athletics wasn't legal.

That's the mess the NCAA has left us. They stuck with lawsuits instead of trying to find a way, and I'm not sure it was possible, to compensate players OR separate out the huge money making programs many years ago. The NCAA let some conferences get rich and never tried to divide them from the non-revenue producing programs. It may be too late, legally, to pull that off and have the court accept it.
 
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I can’t even keep track of who our team is anymore. Used to be you follow the recruits and learn the class names and in two years they start to be major players. Now your team is flipping out players left and right and half your team is from the portal and you’re watching a game and you are like who the hell is this dude.


My buddy is a huge OSU fan. Think they lost 19 guys in the portal. Just make it employee based at this point with contracts and stop pretending to be a college system anymore. This crap is just nuts. No issues with dudes getting paid but this is like the Wild West.
 
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NIL as originally conceived was fine--but it's been completely corrupted, as we've seen.

However, any judge who thinks that college football and the players should be treated as a conventional business--with the players as "employees" who should be paid--is insane. It's not a conventional business, never has been, given that football revenues, much of them, are devoted to subsidizing all the other sports that are money-losers. No conventional business operates like that, and it's absurd to think so.
I get what you are saying and in principle, I don't disagree, however I would like to point out that lots of businesses run in a way that is arguably similar to what you are describing. Any business that has a large R & D budget, for instance, will take the profits from one part of the organization and slide them over to help cover research and development of new products. Very often those are losing endeavors.

Think pharmaceuticals, or a company like Boeing/Lockheed.
 
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At which point the schools need to suck it up, cut football and basketball loose to be their own privately run businesses, and get back to the work of building donations and alumni support for the "student-athlete" acceptable sports. If college football and college basketball want to exist solely for the purpose of profiting their coaches and their players, then it has nothing - NOTHING - to do with the either the school or the other sports. Once upon a time, it was all one big mission to support collegiate athletics, and the school put all the revenue into one big pot to promote their athletics department as a whole - but since supporting the department and the opportunities it affords its students is irrelevant now, then let the reverse also be true. The knife cuts both ways.

Let the money-oriented wild west sports go be their own thing, and let the schools get back to actual collegiate athletics. Like it was back before they slapped skirts on college football and basketball and put them on the street corner.
You do realize that football brings in money for other things also. If you consider there are about 100 students a year at a school that participate in football alone the connections the university makes are invaluable for the whole donation department to fund other scholarships, not just athletic. Why do you think ETSU added football back? They saw all the donations for the school drop. Football brings excitement to the school, not just in the athletic department.
 
You do realize that football brings in money for other things also. If you consider there are about 100 students a year at a school that participate in football alone the connections the university makes are invaluable for the whole donation department to fund other scholarships, not just athletic. Why do you think ETSU added football back? They saw all the donations for the school drop. Football brings excitement to the school, not just in the athletic department.
I see that and I agree but if the courts determine it's actually illegal NOT to call the players employees of the university when they contribute to revenue, you're at an impasse.

I'm uncertain any sport in college athletics was ever supposed to be a "cash cow" to help donations, fund other sports, etc. It appears that turning football and basketball into "spotlight" sports has turned the spotlight of the SCOTUS toward saying "If you're using these players to raise money, they are employees who deserve a cut of that money."

Whether we disagree with the court or not, they make the rules about who is and isn't an employee when it comes to interstate commerce. Giving the NCAA the finger is one thing, but giving the SCOTUS the finger will not end well.
 
I agree multiple transfers without restrictions is crazy and the NCAA had a rule about that but seven states sued, including Tennessee BTW, because that's a violation of Antitrust Law.

Currently, they're winning and the NCAA backed down for now.

18-20 something year olds running the show and who could give a $h!t about the schools is a disastrous plan and will fail miserably !
 
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I see that and I agree but if the courts determine it's actually illegal NOT to call the players employees of the university when they contribute to revenue, you're at an impasse.

I'm uncertain any sport in college athletics was ever supposed to be a "cash cow" to help donations, fund other sports, etc. It appears that turning football and basketball into "spotlight" sports has turned the spotlight of the SCOTUS toward saying "If you're using these players to raise money, they are employees who deserve a cut of that money."

Whether we disagree with the court or not, they make the rules about who is and isn't an employee when it comes to interstate commerce. Giving the NCAA the finger is one thing, but giving the SCOTUS the finger will not end well.
"giving the SCOTUS the finger will not end well."


......Unless you were Andrew Jackson.
 
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For those of you who think the TP and NIL is a great idea, let’s discuss how crappy it’s become in just 2.5 years. We have gone from players wanting some money shares for jersey sales and player cards signings for money to pay for play and basically uncontrolled free agency! Bowl season was laughable with players opting out during the game. Starting QBs for new years six games transferring out. Now Quinshon from Mississippi has left and he’s leaving what I feel a very real contender for the Natty next year.

If we don’t get some sort of overseeing body on this soon, college football will not survive!

Thoughts?

yeah, quite accurate. it's absolutely nuts. they need to move that Dec signing day or get rid of it. i don't see how fans can sustain the money that's needed for these NIL, especially since our economy is so bad.
 
I can’t even keep track of who our team is anymore. Used to be you follow the recruits and learn the class names and in two years they start to be major players. Now your team is flipping out players left and right and half your team is from the portal and you’re watching a game and you are like who the hell is this dude.


My buddy is a huge OSU fan. Think they lost 19 guys in the portal. Just make it employee based at this point with contracts and stop pretending to be a college system anymore. This crap is just nuts. No issues with dudes getting paid but this is like the Wild West.

exactly, you cheer for players all year for them to just leave. what's the point?
 
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You do realize that football brings in money for other things also. If you consider there are about 100 students a year at a school that participate in football alone the connections the university makes are invaluable for the whole donation department to fund other scholarships, not just athletic. Why do you think ETSU added football back? They saw all the donations for the school drop. Football brings excitement to the school, not just in the athletic department.

That's exactly what I said in my comment. I said that the schools used the popularity of football and basketball to generate money, which they pooled to promote athletic opportunities across all the other sports. It was admittedly a bit socialist but it benefitted a lot of student athletes. Now we seem to be through with that though. And if we're through with that -- if football and basketball get to a place where it's just "money in, money out" and the players are made employees which would force the schools to cut the other sports -- then maybe the right thing to do is separate the entertainment businesses from the schools. The schools could focus on soliciting donations and support for actual athletics opportunities for actual student athletes the school. You know, like how it used to be. Oh it'd never be as popular. Sure. Those other sports would never reach same heights as football. But, they'd remain a lot more focused on supporting college athletics. Maybe that's how it ought to be.

Also, just thinking about "those other sports" but a lot of young people I know these days are playing youth soccer rather than football (basketball seems safe). Depressing, I know. But it'd be especially funny to go through these paroxysms for college football, only to see soccer emerge and then go through the same convulsions many decades down the road.

Anyway, "football is exciting" is how we got here. It sure is exciting, and college football was light years better than that corporate cadaver called the NFL. But if it's incompatibile with the idea of students participating in sports as part of their college education, or if it's just solely a marketing gimmick for the schools, then there's a lot bigger, uglier questions to think over. Unfortunate, all of it.
 
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That's exactly what I said in my comment. I said that the schools used the popularity of football and basketball to generate money, which they pooled to promote athletic opportunities across all the other sports. It was admittedly a bit socialist but it benefitted a lot of student athletes. Now we seem to be through with that though. And if we're through with that -- if football and basketball get to a place where it's just "money in, money out" and the players are made employees which would force the schools to cut the other sports -- then maybe the right thing to do is separate the entertainment businesses from the schools. The schools could focus on soliciting donations and support for actual athletics opportunities for actual student athletes the school. You know, like how it used to be. Oh it'd never be as popular. Sure. Those other sports would never reach same heights as football. But, they'd remain a lot more focused on supporting college athletics. Maybe that's how it ought to be.

Also, just thinking about "those other sports" but a lot of young people I know these days are playing youth soccer rather than football (basketball seems safe). Depressing, I know. But it'd be especially funny to go through these paroxysms for college football, only to see soccer emerge and then go through the same convulsions many decades down the road.

Anyway, "football is exciting" is how we got here. It sure is exciting, and college football was light years better than that corporate cadaver called the NFL. But if it's incompatibile with the idea of students participating in sports as part of their college education, or if it's just solely a marketing gimmick for the schools, then there's a lot bigger, uglier questions to think over. Unfortunate, all of it.
The scary and sad thing about this is that courts seem to be operating on the assumption ALREADY that the NCAA is complete violation of Antitrust Law, if the WV "multi transfers can play without sitting out a year" case is an indicator.

It wasn't players who sued in that case. It was state Attorney Generals, including TN, that argued the NCAA is in violation.

To me, that means states, again..... including Tennessee, are ready to "blow up" the NCAA.

Someone posted a video suggesting the schools and NCAA are "trying to get the NFL in the room" to "help" and I'm sure the NFL doesn't care about anything but getting a piece of that TV revenue. They aren't in the "amateur sports" business and REALLY won't care what happens to "non NFL prospect" athletes.

Mostly, though, the state Attorney Generals getting involved in suing the NCAA tells me the NCAA is very likely legally on the wrong side of Antitrust Law and it must be pretty obvious.

TN, and any other state, stand to lose LOTS of opportunities for lesser skilled athletes to play in college if schools end having to pay college athletes. Still, the states sued the NCAA about the transfer issue and that's very troubling.
 
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Spyre only hurts UT as a brand if they try to sign long-term contracts then sue to enforce them.

I recall the kid from FL who signed a dreadful and bogus "NIL" deal and that company came after his earnings after he was drafted because that was the contract. Okay, yeah, read contracts before you sign them. He's an idiot.

But who is going to sign with that company after that? Spyre would hurt the UT brand to try to punish kids who transfer because other schools aren't going to be doing that kind of thing.
People have really short memories. Especially when someone is waving a bunch of money under their previously broke nose.
 

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