Outside Topic California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - Printable Version
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RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - Embo - 09-30-2019
(09-30-2019, 01:01 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Press release from the AD:
"The Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics Bernard Muir's comment on SB 206. "Today, Governor Gavin Newsome signed into law California's SB 206, the Fair Pay to Play Act. With this historic legislation, the playing fields of college athletics will change drastically over the coming years. In keeping with our proud dedication to our student athletes and to honor our rich tradition of athletic excellence, Stanford will be adding a new department within the athletic department to help our athletic programs navigate this new landscape. I'm pleased to announce The William J. Le Petomane Director of Athletic Endorsements who will be charged to lead this effort." Further information can be found at gostanford.com."
I see. Will Lili von Shtupp be his secretary?
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - M T - 09-30-2019
I can't see how the NCAA can do anything but disqualify any team with professional players from competing in NCAA sanctioned activities. They'll have a majority of their membership wanting that. California football and basketball will necessarily disassociate from universities and become some sort of minor league, with all the attendance issues that such minor leagues have. Yeah, there might be a few years of intra-California football and basketball, but I don't think there will be enough interest to sustain it. In one possible scenario, NCAA football could continue in 49 other states, after California takes its ball and runs home just because it doesn't like the rules.
Heck, the NCAA might look at this as a good way to shed the future potential legal/health mines fields of football and basketball. Drop two sports and there are still 22 sports for which the NCAA would hold championships.
I won't mind seeing football and basketball minor leagues form and taking the players that aren't interested in the 40-year or even 4-year commitment. Whether any form of collegiate football and basketball remain, I can't say. But what remains of the big budget days of collegiate football, at least in California, may be gone, at least unless California back-pedals from this law (but when was the last time California ever admitted it was wrong, except when one political party gets to blame another political party).
Really, with all the interest of the people on the Cardboard for Stanford football, how many of you would still be interested to see the Palo Alto Trees play the Berkeley Slip-Faults, where the players aren't students and might be 30 years old, but not good enough for the NFL? If you think attendance is bad now, . . .
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - jonnyss - 09-30-2019
it might be time to refresh memories on the origin of the term "student athlete."
Friendly Reminder: the NCAA invented the term "student athlete" to get out of paying workmen's comp.
Today, much of the NCAA’s moral authority—indeed much of the justification for its existence—is vested in its claim to protect what it calls the "student-athlete." The term is meant to conjure the nobility of amateurism, and the precedence of scholarship over athletic endeavor. But the origins of the "student-athlete" lie not in a disinterested ideal but in a sophistic formulation designed, as the sports economist Andrew Zimbalist has written, to help the NCAA in its "fight against workmen’s compensation insurance claims for injured football players."
"We crafted the term student-athlete," [NCAA president] Walter Byers himself wrote, "and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations." The term came into play in the 1950s, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a "work-related" accident? Was he a school employee, like his peers who worked part-time as teaching assistants and bookstore cashiers? Or was he a fluke victim of extracurricular pursuits? Given the hundreds of incapacitating injuries to college athletes each year, the answers to these questions had enormous consequences. The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was "not in the football business."
The term student-athlete was deliberately ambiguous. College players were not students at play (which might understate their athletic obligations), nor were they just athletes in college (which might imply they were professionals). That they were high-performance athletes meant they could be forgiven for not meeting the academic standards of their peers; that they were students meant they did not have to be compensated, ever, for anything more than the cost of their studies. Student-athlete became the NCAA’s signature term, repeated constantly in and out of courtrooms.
Using the "student-athlete" defense, colleges have compiled a string of victories in liability cases. On the afternoon of October 26, 1974, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs were playing the Alabama Crimson Tide in Birmingham, Alabama. Kent Waldrep, a TCU running back, carried the ball on a "Red Right 28" sweep toward the Crimson Tide’s sideline, where he was met by a swarm of tacklers. When Waldrep regained consciousness, Bear Bryant, the storied Crimson Tide coach, was standing over his hospital bed. "It was like talking to God, if you’re a young football player," Waldrep recalled.
Waldrep was paralyzed: he had lost all movement and feeling below his neck. After nine months of paying his medical bills, Texas Christian refused to pay any more, so the Waldrep family coped for years on dwindling charity.
Through the 1990s, from his wheelchair, Waldrep pressed a lawsuit for workers’ compensation...His attorneys haggled with TCU and the state worker-compensation fund over what constituted employment. Clearly, TCU had provided football players with equipment for the job, as a typical employer would—but did the university pay wages, withhold income taxes on his financial aid, or control work conditions and performance? The appeals court finally rejected Waldrep’s claim in June of 2000, ruling that he was not an employee because he had not paid taxes on financial aid that he could have kept even if he quit football. (Waldrep told me school officials "said they recruited me as a student, not an athlete," which he says was absurd.)
The long saga vindicated the power of the NCAA’s "student-athlete" formulation as a shield, and the organization continues to invoke it as both a legalistic defense and a noble ideal.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - 76lsjumb - 09-30-2019
(09-30-2019, 04:49 PM)RedShift Wrote: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/why-49ers-richard-sherman-hopes-new-california-law-destroys-ncaa
Sherman pretty much summarizes my view on the issue.
In 2010, my son asked Richard Sherman after Big Game if he would please sign my son's shirt, and Sherman gladly did so. It was much appreciated.
Fast forward to 2023 Big Game, after we win [again]. "Hey Mr. [fill in the blank]: Would you please sign my shirt?"
Some potential responses:
"Sorry, I can't. You're wearing Under Armour. My contract only allows me to sign Nike shirts."
"Sure, kid. You paying cash or Apple pay?"
"I can't sign YOUR shirt, but my sales guy is over at Gate 8, with lots of already signed shirts you can buy."
Seriously, though, this seems like a great idea, since there's really never been any evidence of disreputable people trying to make money off of college athletes. What could possibly go wrong with this?
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - needle - 09-30-2019
I predict the Congress will get involved and force football programs and other sports with revenues over, say, 50 million, to pay out equal "salaries" to all players participating in these programs.
With a lot of hand-waving, the lawmakers will try to argue that these payments represent the aggregate fair market value of endorsements for all players in every high-grossing sport, and so these newly require institution-player agreements can require players to forego any endorsement opportunities.
I doubt this line of thinking will go unchallenged, and the Supremes likely will decide this, around 2025.
California schools will never, ever have a separate athletic league. No one wants this; it shall not come to pass.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - cardcrimson - 09-30-2019
(09-30-2019, 05:10 PM)2006alum Wrote:(09-30-2019, 04:49 PM)RedShift Wrote: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/why-49ers-richard-sherman-hopes-new-california-law-destroys-ncaa
Sherman pretty much summarizes my view on the issue.
I'm normally a big fan of Sherman's but his arguments are pretty specious in that piece. Nothing the CA bill will do will take away revenue for schools from bowl games and the NCAA from March Madness. All this does is invite lots of opportunities for corruption and distraction where the monetary benefits will go to a vanishingly small number of athletes that play a few higher-profile sports.
I find it especially interesting that Hayley Hodson testified in support of the legislation and argued that most student-athletes only have a small window to capitalize since they won't be lucrative post-graduation. If anything, she would seem to be the poster child against this legislation, insofar as:
1. She took a leave of absence from the team to address post-concussion symptoms and mental health issues, and wrote about how she felt her teammates weren't very understanding. But had she signed endorsement deals (which are usually predicated on staying on the roster, making appearances, etc.), she would have been under even more pressure to stay in the game, and probably at further cost to her mental health. And imagine if the players collectively signed an endorsement deal (since any individual WVB player may be worth less than having the whole team) - wouldn't that make them likely to put even more pressure on her to ignore her health because they were out the money?
2. Hodson later sued Stanford and the NCAA, alleging that they pressured her to return to the sport too soon after her concussions and that they had a duty of care to protect her well-being. So let's zoom forward to 2023. Can Stanford and the NCAA step in if Brand X is pressuring her to return to the court, and say no, we have a duty of care, no dice? Could Brand X arrange a "donation" in exchange for Stanford waiving its objection to her return? Or, alternatively, could Stanford be sued for tortious interference if it tells her she can't, won't or shouldn't play, and it comes at the expense of the terms of Brand X's endorsement deal?
3. Moreover, would Brand X pressuring Hodson to return to the court mean that Stanford and the NCAA would no longer have separate duties of care to their players, because now the player's return timetable is a "business decision" that isn't unilaterally under the control of a school or the NCAA?
All of these issues are resolved in pro sports by having a CBA between the players (and their union) and the leagues. But those are straight-up employer-employee relationships where both sides can bargain at arm's length. There will be no such arrangements among, and the conditions are not possible for, universities and their student-athletes, which means all of this just creates a whole bunch of new gray areas and a whole new set of perverse incentives.
OTOH, the sooner college football leaves college campuses, probably the better. It's an increasingly bad look for schools like Stanford to be educating young minds during the week and then supervising bashing them in - with serious long-term mental health repercussions - on Saturdays...
Agreed with you, right up until the last paragraph.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - 81alum - 09-30-2019
I made my feelings about the ethics of this known above.
But dropping the amateur ideal may well have terrible practical effects on Stanford in particular. Stanford currently spends much more on its athletes than other schools--since we give them an education that is worth so much more--both in much higher tuition and in the long term value of the degree. This comparative advantage can now be erased by buckets of cash.
It will be interesting to see how this legislation is implemented. Whatever they try to do, however, I see no reasonable way to limit large amounts of cash from flowing from boosters to athletes, through any number of manufactured opportunities to purchase $10,000 t-shirts etc. The floodgates will not easily be closed.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - OutsiderFan - 10-01-2019
It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals on others when it comes to compensation. The only reason for anyone to be against athletes being paid is that doing so will disrupt their ideas of what college sports should be.
As it is right now, there is rampant corruption and pay to play going on in college sports. The NCAA doesn't adequately enforce its rules and looks the other way all the time when it comes to cheaters from large institutions. The only reason college hoops programs are being hit now is because the FBI and Justice Department won criminal cases that required resources and authority the NCAA doesn't have.
The NCAA was created to address injuries and deaths in college football. It morphed into a gigantic bureaucracy that exploits young athletes and has brainwashed many people about its holier than thou "student athlete" nonsense.
The notion that universities - including Stanford - are going to give up sports so they don't have to deal with professional athletes, is sheer folly. There is simply far too much money at stake, and far too much alumni pride baked into sports for them to ever go away on college campuses. When push comes to shove, the schools will acquiesce as Stanford has by already announcing a Dept. of Athlete Endorsements.
The NCAA is gonna lose this battle. I've said many times I think each sport should have a CBA for its athletes that sets standards of compensation for anyone on scholarship. But it may be that just this small evolution for athletes to get paid for their NIL, may be enough to satisfy athletes. As it is, they do get scholarships, room, board, etc. that they know has value. Moreover, it will take a lot of engineering to create the systems through which athletes get paid.
It sounds like by setting up a department, Stanford is effectively telling its would be athletes that they won't have to bother finding an agent, because Stanford will provide those services for them. Should be fascinating to see how this all plays out, at Stanford in particular because it has so many Olympic and individual sports stars, but also the Pac-12, and how other states and even Congress responds.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - M T - 10-01-2019
(10-01-2019, 05:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals on others when it comes to compensation.
Funny. That's what I thought when I read your post.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - CornFed - 10-01-2019
We will see how this evolves, but I believe CowboyIndian is correct about the slippery slope that exists. Humans are imperfect and just as there is "pay-to-play" now when the rules forbid it, there will be abuses of the system being proposed but at a different scale.
I do not think there should be players who cannot afford to eat on weekends when the player cafeterias are closed. I heard someone make that assertion in discussing this issue. Is that really occurring? If it is, it is disgusting. So at that end of the spectrum, something needs to be done for all players.
On the other end of the spectrum, I am not interested in having Stanford involved in some kind of bidding war for talent. If that is ultimately what we will face, I would be in favor of canceling athletic scholarships altogether and pursuing the Ivy League model.
I'm sure the initial payment arrangements of this plan will seem harmless and will offset some elements of unfairness in the current system. I am 100% confident, however, that such a system will be corrupted over time. I have zero interest in following another pro league that doesn't have anywhere near the talent levels of the NFL. I don't think Stanford should lend its reputation to such a league.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - cardcrimson - 10-01-2019
(10-01-2019, 05:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals . . .
It sounds like by setting up a department, Stanford is effectively telling its would be athletes that they won't have to bother finding an agent, because Stanford will provide those services for them. Should be fascinating to see how this all plays out, at Stanford in particular because it has so many Olympic and individual sports stars, but also the Pac-12, and how other states and even Congress responds.
Amusing indeed. . . .
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - OutsiderFan - 10-01-2019
(10-01-2019, 05:58 AM)M T Wrote:(10-01-2019, 05:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals on others when it comes to compensation.
Funny. That's what I thought when I read your post.
Nobody has a right to prevent anyone from earning what they can in a market, unless there is a collectively bargained agreement to allow it.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - Treefence - 10-01-2019
(09-30-2019, 06:12 PM)76lsjumb Wrote:(09-30-2019, 04:49 PM)RedShift Wrote: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/why-49ers-richard-sherman-hopes-new-california-law-destroys-ncaa
Sherman pretty much summarizes my view on the issue.
In 2010, my son asked Richard Sherman after Big Game if he would please sign my son's shirt, and Sherman gladly did so. It was much appreciated.
Fast forward to 2023 Big Game, after we win [again]. "Hey Mr. [fill in the blank]: Would you please sign my shirt?"
Some potential responses:
"Sorry, I can't. You're wearing Under Armour. My contract only allows me to sign Nike shirts."
"Sure, kid. You paying cash or Apple pay?"
"I can't sign YOUR shirt, but my sales guy is over at Gate 8, with lots of already signed shirts you can buy."
Seriously, though, this seems like a great idea, since there's really never been any evidence of disreputable people trying to make money off of college athletes. What could possibly go wrong with this?
Is that how it is with all professional athletes these days? I know they often do scheduled signings, but I'm pretty sure most athletes are happy to sign items for kids assuming it's a reasonable situation. Why would NCAA athletes be any different?
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - ColoradoTree - 10-01-2019
I've made this point on this board before, but I remain flabbergasted that the NCAA has refused to innovate in this area, even when profits from college football and basketball programs continue to climb. Where schools are building lavish football lounges and practice facilities because the NCAA bars them from actually sharing some of the profits with the players who helped generate them, something is woefully wrong.
A simple proposal: schools set aside a certain percentage of athletic profits and creates 401(k) accounts for student-athletes. Or HSAs, since you can invest once those go beyond a certain threshold. Or you provide health insurance after graduation to those athletes who have been injured representing Stanford (there would be a sliding scale, and some formula to determine what sort of benefits you'd actually get, taking into account likely subconcussive impacts, etc.). The idea of health insurance to bridge the gap until Medicare would cover them is appealing to me, as it recognizes the physical risks athletes take on behalf of the university. If representing Stanford has caused a student to be physically impaired (or at greater risk of future injury/illness), we have a moral obligation to that student beyond the value of the degree we confer.
The point is this: sharing money with students doesn't have to destroy amateur athletics. The NCAA could have been creative about this and led on the issue years ago, and that would have lessened the pressure for players to be able to make their own endorsement money. But the horse looks to be out of the barn now, and by resisting as long as they have, the NCAA and its member institutions may have lost the ability to help control the future.
Talk about a 40-year decision! Come here, and not only will you get a degree more valuable than any other in the FBS, but a percentage of the profits you help generate will be there for you in a retirement account down the line.
The core of amateurism can still be maintained without the distasteful excess that some of us fear might come of this. But that's not going to happen unless the NCAA and individual schools start trying to shape the world to come instead of just letting change happen to them. (From a legal perspective, I would think an account that accrues while a student is attending but is accessible only at some time after graduation doesn't have to present a NCAA eligibility concern.)
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - 2006alum - 10-01-2019
(10-01-2019, 08:21 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote:(10-01-2019, 05:58 AM)M T Wrote:(10-01-2019, 05:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals on others when it comes to compensation.
Funny. That's what I thought when I read your post.
Nobody has a right to prevent anyone from earning what they can in a market, unless there is a collectively bargained agreement to allow it.
For a million different reasons, university admissions, athletic recruiting, and higher education in general are not free market systems, cannot be, and never will be. I would encourage you to resist imposing one normative value system on another system, because there's much more to your claim that is not merely descriptive.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - M T - 10-01-2019
(10-01-2019, 08:21 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote:(10-01-2019, 05:58 AM)M T Wrote:(10-01-2019, 05:45 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: It sure is amusing seeing how people want to impose their ideals on others when it comes to compensation.
Funny. That's what I thought when I read your post.
Nobody has a right to prevent anyone from earning what they can in a market, unless there is a collectively bargained agreement to allow it.
I believe this discussion is (naturally) straying into politics here.... With the intent to follow the rules of this organization (CARDboard), I removed my question about that "right" (quoting OutsiderFan) and the recently imposed law. I hope any responses try to stay clear of violating those rules.
That is, after all, how governments work, and people under a government accept its laws, until they don't. Those under other governments don't have to accept them. Members (schools) of organizations (NCAA) generally accept the rules of the organization, especially when the members set the rules. If some members don't want to accept some rules, they can chose to try to change the rules, to accept the consequences of not following the rules, or (in most organizations) to leave the organization.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - 2006alum - 10-01-2019
M T, if this is a veiled reference to Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, I salute you on multiple levels. ;)
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - ColoradoTree - 10-01-2019
Ultimately, I can't imagine any outcome other than significant NCAA reform, because California is not going to be the only state that takes action here. The idea that California will continue to stand alone on this is farfetched, I think. Enough states will pass similar laws over the next couple of years that the NCAA won't have a choice.
We think of the NCAA as all-powerful, but several other states are considering legislation similar to California's (with some bills, like one pending in New York, going further and permitting students to hire agents or receive a specific share of athletic revenue). Change is happening, and time is rapidly running out for the NCAA to try and ride the wave rather than get crushed by it.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - CowboyIndian - 10-01-2019
If I were a NCAA member institution, I would try to get my fellow members to agree to have any (maybe not all) monies earned through image and likeness go toward defraying the cost of the athlete's scholarship.
RE: California's Fair Pay to Play Act. . . . - Mick - 10-02-2019
(10-01-2019, 08:59 AM)Treefence Wrote:(09-30-2019, 06:12 PM)76lsjumb Wrote:(09-30-2019, 04:49 PM)RedShift Wrote: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/why-49ers-richard-sherman-hopes-new-california-law-destroys-ncaa
Sherman pretty much summarizes my view on the issue.
In 2010, my son asked Richard Sherman after Big Game if he would please sign my son's shirt, and Sherman gladly did so. It was much appreciated.
Fast forward to 2023 Big Game, after we win [again]. "Hey Mr. [fill in the blank]: Would you please sign my shirt?"
Some potential responses:
"Sorry, I can't. You're wearing Under Armour. My contract only allows me to sign Nike shirts."
"Sure, kid. You paying cash or Apple pay?"
"I can't sign YOUR shirt, but my sales guy is over at Gate 8, with lots of already signed shirts you can buy."
Seriously, though, this seems like a great idea, since there's really never been any evidence of disreputable people trying to make money off of college athletes. What could possibly go wrong with this?
Is that how it is with all professional athletes these days? I know they often do scheduled signings, but I'm pretty sure most athletes are happy to sign items for kids assuming it's a reasonable situation. Why would NCAA athletes be any different?
I don't like the idea of autographs. It's a momentary contact and proves nothing. I have a football autographed by the 1995 Super Bowl winning team. I traded a color copier for it, but it's essentially meaningless to me.