No oversight from the NCAA that serves the NCAAs interests, but not the coaches. And no need to recruit -- which is a massive, massive part of a college coach's job.

Plus, the players are under contract.

That prevents them from saying "see ya" I'm off to .......".

I shared my thoughts on this topic a few months ago. My thoughts have been, dating back many years before NIL/portal, that I would hate to be a college coach having to kiss a$$ of 17- and 18-year-old recruits. In other words, the recruiting process of prima donnas with over-inflated egos. This job description, as noted by others, is probably 10-fold that today with year-round recruiting and re-recruiting and dealing with NIL.

Therefore, coaching in the NFL is becoming more and more preferable than coaching in college.

Check out this old interview of Bobby Knight talking about John Wooden and recruiter Sam Gilbert. It makes me wonder how Knight would feel about the portal and NIL if he was coaching today. Probably no different than Saban?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ee9hMccdP8

meh. good for him. He'll be replaced. What is SC getting for all that money? The law of diminishing returns applies here. They can pay 10x as much for their assistant coaches, but how much does it move the needle for their program?

He was previously the head coach for six games. Spent six years there under Spurrior previously before moving to Georgia State.

He's probably tired of playing this game at Georgia State with minimal payoff, might as well go make the same money and not have to deal with any of the nonsense. And at least if he's at this level if he does have to deal with the nonsense, he'll be better equipped.

It definitely will lead to tectonic changes.

But I think people are thinking about "employment" in the wrong way, and make a baseline assumption that the only way money can change hands in an employment agreement is through hourly or salaried pay.

In my mind, "employment" in this context is going to be about carving up the existing pie in a way that gives athletes a share of the money. I don't think any party has any incentive to insist that the pie has to get bigger and schools expenses have to change. Everybody knows what the pie looks like.


Instead, I think what you end up with is a union that collectively bargains a revenue share. It'll look just like the NBA, but with much smaller numbers. The NBA salary cap is directly tied to a percentage of basketball revenue. The union will negotiate what share of revenue they get, and how that gets divided amongst its members. They'll also negotiate around things like time requirements, schedules, access to benefits, etc.

But I entirely expect that many members of this union will basically make nothing. Maybe some extra cash in their pocket -- two grand a semester or something -- but that the money will be allocated based on who contributed. Schools & sports that generate revenue will get a larger share, and schools like Ohio will get very little.

In other words, in the scheme of things all that will change is where the money flows. Not how much is spent. And the vast majority of college athletes will still receive 99% of their compensation through educational benefits alone, though there will no longer be restrictions on schools who have the ability to do so sharing revenue with the players that create value for them.

I also think you're right that some sports will become club sports as a result. But the driver of that will be the schools themselves, not some massive change in the cost of college athletics. Right now, schools spend way more on Men's Basketball and Football than anything else. That'll continue, and they'll funnel more money to the players in the interest of being competitive. The same arms race that's already in flight, but some of the money going to the programs that are the wisest investment.

Title IX deals specifically with educational benefits. It's significant precisely because the NCAA insists that all "compensation" currently be considered educational.

Once these are employees, I think there's a clear case that compensation is not an educational benefit, and that paying men's basketball players more than women's basketball players will be no different than paying your men's coach more than you pay your women's coach.

Edit: there's actually existing case law where courts have ruled on Title IX as it relates to compensation. They've basically stated that the relevant policy is The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which allows for different pay for different levels of skill, effort, or responsibility.

FLSA requires all employees must be paid in an actual wage. For anyone to suggest we would not know what compensation would look like if athletes became "employees", well yes, we do, they would be employees and fall under federal and state laws as such, and would require being paid as such. Which, again, is great! I have ZERO problem with young people making a buck, but the problem is how do schools afford this? Because, as many national legal experts have noticed, this does NOT stop at the athletes, but these rulings would apply to the Marching 110, performing arts, etc.,

And who is tracking this? The 'student' athlete? Anyone who has ever played sports, or been a coach at any level, will tell you L-O-L

They're gonna have to hire a team of administrators just to track everyones hours.

One of the few teams I have genuine excitement for, but I didn't expect them to win so quickly now I feel like I gotta abandon the bandwagon lol

I bought an IU hat when Kurtis signed, now I'm like idk if I should wear this, I'm a fraud, but I love Cig. I love how they built the team with experience over genuine flash, and ended up with major flash. Signs of an insanely well-coached team.

All it takes is a good coach and a billionaire backer. Simple as that!