[washingtonismoney]

Well, it's bad for competitive balance. But competitive balance in CFB is already really bad so I'm not sure that's a compelling reason. I also think it's pretty difficult to know how this would shake out, plenty of players already turn down offers from big name brands to go elsewhere as recruits, it's not clear why that would change for transfers.

Right. As Bob noted earlier in this thread, other sports already have a free-transfer rule. Maybe some of the bigger fans in Olympic sports can comment more definitively than I can, but it doesn't *seem* like there are brobdingnagian exoduses from the have-nots to the haves. Why? Well, probably because of the reasons people noted elsewhere on the thread: it's a brobdingnagian hassle, and if you're a star player for Small School X or Bad Team Y, you have a system that's set up to help you thrive. (Definitionally! You're a star player.) So why disrupt that by moving to Big School Z? Some people will take the risk, others won't. It's all an individual choice, which is great, because freedom and individual choice are generally good things.

We would literally *never* accept this logic in any other field. "You can't work for Amazon because your startup needs you." "You can't transfer to Harvard because blah blah blah."  B.S. While pro sports get away with these kind of labor restrictions -- and to some degree I think they make sense -- pro athletes are compensated with millions of dollars. So I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. Either offer lots of compensation for players' abject lack of freedom, or give them freedom. Having it both ways is ridiculous.

[washingtonismoney]

Well, it's bad for competitive balance. But competitive balance in CFB is already really bad so I'm not sure that's a compelling reason. I also think it's pretty difficult to know how this would shake out, plenty of players already turn down offers from big name brands to go elsewhere as recruits, it's not clear why that would change for transfers.

Right. As Bob noted earlier in this thread, other sports already have a free-transfer rule. Maybe some of the bigger fans in Olympic sports can comment more definitively than I can, but it doesn't *seem* like there are brobdingnagian exoduses from the have-nots to the haves. Why? Well, probably because of the reasons people noted elsewhere on the thread: it's a brobdingnagian hassle, and if you're a star player for Small School X or Bad Team Y, you have a system that's set up to help you thrive. (Definitionally! You're a star player.) So why disrupt that by moving to Big School Z? Some people will take the risk, others won't. It's all an individual choice, which is great, because freedom and individual choice are generally good things.

We would literally *never* accept this logic in any other field. "You can't work for Amazon because your startup needs you." "You can't transfer to Harvard because blah blah blah."  B.S. While pro sports get away with these kind of labor restrictions -- and to some degree I think they make sense -- pro athletes are compensated with millions of dollars. So I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. Either offer lots of compensation for players' abject lack of freedom, or give them freedom. Having it both ways is ridiculous.