[BillBradley]

I'm enjoying reading the different perspectives on this. Clearly we all don't all think the same, which is what makes the world go around. Responding to several points made:

1. Indentured servitude. Sure, that was a bit hyperbolic on my part. Most of us who paid much of their own way through as undergraduates, earned fellowships and were paid to teach in graduate school, put two kids through school (albeit with a massive assist from Uncle Sam), have extended 529s for grandchildren, and bought off a child's spouse's student debt because it was strangling them, appreciate the value of a scholarship and full stipend. We can get a little cranky at college athletes wanting more than that. I remembered the Fab Five 30 for 30 retrospective about the downfall of Webber and how while minting money for Michigan, the players couldn't afford decent meals. (Right, I don't remember them talking about what was wrong with the training table.) From the perspective of the best players in the revenue sports, the old system felt like indentured servitude. If you dislike your coach, school, or anything about your experience, your choices are to sit out a year, go overseas, or lump it?  Awesome.  Looking for a refresher on that 30 for 30, I ran into this clip in which Jalen Rose said the words "indentured servants."

2. I don't know what the best system is, other than there probably isn't a best system. Players must go to school (or really, what are we doing?), but I haven't seen anything other than slippery slope conjecture that universities will be sponsoring side show sports teams. I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved.

3. NIL will most benefit the best and most popular athletes in the most popular sports. That's the real world. Why does that affect the anonymous field hockey player? They can still get partial or full rides and call that a good deal. If you wanted big money, you should have devoted yourself to draining step back threes with a hand in your face. 

4. College can be pro-am and survive more or less. Of course there will be the haves and have-nots, just as there always have been. Name any sport without haves and have-nots, amateur, professional, or Olympic. Even the most cleverly constructed drafts and luxury taxes don't create parity. I'm not sure they even create level playing fields.  That's the beauty of sports. Oakland takes down Kentucky.

5. My modest solution is to go back to 4 years of college eligibility, with no partial-year redshirting, free transfers within the construct of college and university requirements (lots of schools have rounds of admission), progress toward degree requirements for eligibility (good luck making progress transferring six times in three years), and sports programs are forbidden from sponsoring NIL collectives.  Individual students are in charge of their own NIL. If they are too young and inexperienced to handle that, they need to get an advisor. Who knows what to believe, but the highest NIL valuations are supposedly Shedeur Sanders (famous dad, decent player), Bronny James (famous dad, potential as a player I suppose), Livvy Dunne (instagram sensation, gymnast), and Arch Manning (famous dad, can't get on field yet). It's not like the money flowing to these people is robbing rowers of a chance to compete. If you don't like NIL, don't help sponsor one.

6. I don't see why ADs would be axing sports due to NIL, just all the other financial pressures that cause ADs to axe sports.  Having to pay players directly could change all that. I suppose that if donors are funneling money to NILs rather than donating to scholarships, that might change the calculus too. Stanford also has a bazillion dollars if they want to use it. Right?  I've never understood how they have so much money, but beg poverty to donors.  I guess that's why they have so much money.

7. There is certainly a cloud hanging over basketball. Like the glory days of WBB may be over. It wouldn't surprise me if that is a significant source of the angst in this thread. We'll see.

8. Nick Saban and Tara VanDerveer aren't silly. But they liked control, and control is moving to the players, for good or bad.

9. Mick, never apologize for your mechanical skills. Cars are nearly impossible to work on yourself these days, but in junior high before they split us into trade school or college prep tracks (never, ever both), I had and loved shop. We started with drafting and model building in seventh grade; moved to engine disassembly and reassembly, metal foundry work, and basic woodworking (gun rack!) in eighth grade; and finished with fine woodworking (true scale stagecoach model entered at State) in ninth grade. Our high school had a beautiful auto shop, but alas I trudged down the road toward bio, chem, physics, and calculus with music as my only elective. My dad, brother, and I were able to easily maintain our straight six, just a carburetor CJ, but once the German cars started to show up in our driveway, that was it. Now all I can do is open a hood, nod my head like I know what I'm looking at, change fluids, and properly use jumper cables. Four sports is a lot for sure, but at least you stuck with it. For undersized nerds like me with poor eye-hand coordination, cross country was the sport of choice. Our high school had a great cross country program and despite coming off a gruesome leg injury the prior summer, I tried out.  We ran courses and a flat track mile with staggered starts, so it was just each of us against the clock. I thought my 4:53 was decent, but remember the coach saying that I could come back next year and try again if I could shave a minute off that. So on to more productive things like spending way too much time in basements and garages working with the guys (and one girl!) becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  My daughter received my athletic genes (fun playing volleyball and running track in middle school), while my son received my wife's. Two CCS titles (football and baseball) in high school and five years including one as defensive coordinator with Navy Sprint Football.

10. I'm not sure what to make of Iriafen being a "pretend" student. If she's enrolled in a graduate program, she's a student. If she's taking a slot from anyone, it is another basketball player and presumably Iriafen is better than the other player, so what's the problem? I get it; many of the graduate "transfers" are playing out eligibility without getting a degree, but again, who is that hurting other than themselves, maybe? If I'm a "regular" student at that university, it doesn't affect me one bit.

11. Leftcoast - YouTube is amazing. In addition to learning how to properly dash coat stucco (life changing for me after our second round of window replacements), there are soooooo many clips of Crazy Train on violin and other stringed instruments. Funny, I dropped needle on Sabbath last night, speaking of nostalgic laundry. [Fun fact: We can only embed one video per post.]

Lastly and back on topic, Iriafen is doing exactly what she should. She has a degree from a prestigious university, most of us were told to get a graduate degree from a different university, the team is most likely going to struggle next year, and someone is willing to dump a truckload of cash in her driveway. Why on earth should she run it back?

Postie. My fave point is how you summed up your position as a fan: "I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved."  Exactly how I feel. 

(FWIW, you had me at "becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.")

[BillBradley]

I'm enjoying reading the different perspectives on this. Clearly we all don't all think the same, which is what makes the world go around. Responding to several points made:

1. Indentured servitude. Sure, that was a bit hyperbolic on my part. Most of us who paid much of their own way through as undergraduates, earned fellowships and were paid to teach in graduate school, put two kids through school (albeit with a massive assist from Uncle Sam), have extended 529s for grandchildren, and bought off a child's spouse's student debt because it was strangling them, appreciate the value of a scholarship and full stipend. We can get a little cranky at college athletes wanting more than that. I remembered the Fab Five 30 for 30 retrospective about the downfall of Webber and how while minting money for Michigan, the players couldn't afford decent meals. (Right, I don't remember them talking about what was wrong with the training table.) From the perspective of the best players in the revenue sports, the old system felt like indentured servitude. If you dislike your coach, school, or anything about your experience, your choices are to sit out a year, go overseas, or lump it?  Awesome.  Looking for a refresher on that 30 for 30, I ran into this clip in which Jalen Rose said the words "indentured servants."

2. I don't know what the best system is, other than there probably isn't a best system. Players must go to school (or really, what are we doing?), but I haven't seen anything other than slippery slope conjecture that universities will be sponsoring side show sports teams. I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved.

3. NIL will most benefit the best and most popular athletes in the most popular sports. That's the real world. Why does that affect the anonymous field hockey player? They can still get partial or full rides and call that a good deal. If you wanted big money, you should have devoted yourself to draining step back threes with a hand in your face. 

4. College can be pro-am and survive more or less. Of course there will be the haves and have-nots, just as there always have been. Name any sport without haves and have-nots, amateur, professional, or Olympic. Even the most cleverly constructed drafts and luxury taxes don't create parity. I'm not sure they even create level playing fields.  That's the beauty of sports. Oakland takes down Kentucky.

5. My modest solution is to go back to 4 years of college eligibility, with no partial-year redshirting, free transfers within the construct of college and university requirements (lots of schools have rounds of admission), progress toward degree requirements for eligibility (good luck making progress transferring six times in three years), and sports programs are forbidden from sponsoring NIL collectives.  Individual students are in charge of their own NIL. If they are too young and inexperienced to handle that, they need to get an advisor. Who knows what to believe, but the highest NIL valuations are supposedly Shedeur Sanders (famous dad, decent player), Bronny James (famous dad, potential as a player I suppose), Livvy Dunne (instagram sensation, gymnast), and Arch Manning (famous dad, can't get on field yet). It's not like the money flowing to these people is robbing rowers of a chance to compete. If you don't like NIL, don't help sponsor one.

6. I don't see why ADs would be axing sports due to NIL, just all the other financial pressures that cause ADs to axe sports.  Having to pay players directly could change all that. I suppose that if donors are funneling money to NILs rather than donating to scholarships, that might change the calculus too. Stanford also has a bazillion dollars if they want to use it. Right?  I've never understood how they have so much money, but beg poverty to donors.  I guess that's why they have so much money.

7. There is certainly a cloud hanging over basketball. Like the glory days of WBB may be over. It wouldn't surprise me if that is a significant source of the angst in this thread. We'll see.

8. Nick Saban and Tara VanDerveer aren't silly. But they liked control, and control is moving to the players, for good or bad.

9. Mick, never apologize for your mechanical skills. Cars are nearly impossible to work on yourself these days, but in junior high before they split us into trade school or college prep tracks (never, ever both), I had and loved shop. We started with drafting and model building in seventh grade; moved to engine disassembly and reassembly, metal foundry work, and basic woodworking (gun rack!) in eighth grade; and finished with fine woodworking (true scale stagecoach model entered at State) in ninth grade. Our high school had a beautiful auto shop, but alas I trudged down the road toward bio, chem, physics, and calculus with music as my only elective. My dad, brother, and I were able to easily maintain our straight six, just a carburetor CJ, but once the German cars started to show up in our driveway, that was it. Now all I can do is open a hood, nod my head like I know what I'm looking at, change fluids, and properly use jumper cables. Four sports is a lot for sure, but at least you stuck with it. For undersized nerds like me with poor eye-hand coordination, cross country was the sport of choice. Our high school had a great cross country program and despite coming off a gruesome leg injury the prior summer, I tried out.  We ran courses and a flat track mile with staggered starts, so it was just each of us against the clock. I thought my 4:53 was decent, but remember the coach saying that I could come back next year and try again if I could shave a minute off that. So on to more productive things like spending way too much time in basements and garages working with the guys (and one girl!) becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  My daughter received my athletic genes (fun playing volleyball and running track in middle school), while my son received my wife's. Two CCS titles (football and baseball) in high school and five years including one as defensive coordinator with Navy Sprint Football.

10. I'm not sure what to make of Iriafen being a "pretend" student. If she's enrolled in a graduate program, she's a student. If she's taking a slot from anyone, it is another basketball player and presumably Iriafen is better than the other player, so what's the problem? I get it; many of the graduate "transfers" are playing out eligibility without getting a degree, but again, who is that hurting other than themselves, maybe? If I'm a "regular" student at that university, it doesn't affect me one bit.

11. Leftcoast - YouTube is amazing. In addition to learning how to properly dash coat stucco (life changing for me after our second round of window replacements), there are soooooo many clips of Crazy Train on violin and other stringed instruments. Funny, I dropped needle on Sabbath last night, speaking of nostalgic laundry. [Fun fact: We can only embed one video per post.]

Lastly and back on topic, Iriafen is doing exactly what she should. She has a degree from a prestigious university, most of us were told to get a graduate degree from a different university, the team is most likely going to struggle next year, and someone is willing to dump a truckload of cash in her driveway. Why on earth should she run it back?

Postie. My fave point is how you summed up your position as a fan: "I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved."  Exactly how I feel. 

(FWIW, you had me at "becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.")