[OutsiderFan]

It seems silly (i.e., self-serving hypocrisy) to say the schools cannot pay players, but it's perfectly fine for them to arrange a million dollar endorsement at a local used car lot.   They are all hand-picked ringers these days, so unless you change the recruiting system, you might as well pay them.  How about a new rule:  no NIL, no pay, and schools can only recruit within 500 miles of their campus.

This is why the NCAA has no chance of avoiding college athletes being classified as employees when the right challenges come along. Coaches and schools are arranging other people to pay their employees so they can get away with saying they aren't paid employees. I mean has there ever been a bigger anti-trust violation ever?

The only way the NCAA can save itself from this unregulated war of stupidity that is now going on, is to do what it never has done or demonstrated it is capable of doing. That is to be proactive and get ahead of an issue. Allow athletes to be paid by schools, with caps on spending. This may require schools to re-classify into more divisions with fewer teams, but it must be done.

You can say paying the labor requires athletes to be in a union and collectively bargain, but I don't think it really does.  If for example, all scholarship college football players were allowed to be paid say $25k per year, it's highly doubtful they would have pushed for NIL rights. And if you wanted to maintain the claim to amateurism, you could've held the money in escrow accounts until players graduated or increased stipends a bit and put the rest in escrow. The NCAA never would have come up with the transfer portal as it squirmed to relieve the pressure it felt to liberalize its rules in the face of athletes demanding more, and could have probably gotten away with prohibiting NIL money because nobody would have challenged it if they were paid. Imagine the incentive the NCAA would have had to increase athlete grad rates if it was smarter.

Instead, the NCAA was forced to allowed NIL money, and that is never going away.  It has the transfer portal and that is never going away. Now, all it needs is one  case by a player who "had to take an NIL deal the school arranged for me because the school wouldn't pay me directly, and fulfilling the NIL deal obligations compromised the time I had to spend on improving my academic performance."  When that happens, the NCAA will lose that case too, and be told schools have to pay the athletes and stop with arranging others to do it for them. Then the NCAA will ask how they are suppose to do that, and the courts will say that is your problem, figure it out. The NLRB has already said it will now classify college athletes as employees. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-...-status-of

All I know is history tells us that when there is no regulation and egos are driving decisions, financial ruin for many will soon follow. This is what happens in the sports business. It's why every major pro league has a salary cap and/or spending penalties. College sports will face similar dynamics on its current path, so the wisest approach is to be proactive. Schools will preserve more for themselves if proactive and volunteer to give up something than if they are forced to do it against their will.

[OutsiderFan]

It seems silly (i.e., self-serving hypocrisy) to say the schools cannot pay players, but it's perfectly fine for them to arrange a million dollar endorsement at a local used car lot.   They are all hand-picked ringers these days, so unless you change the recruiting system, you might as well pay them.  How about a new rule:  no NIL, no pay, and schools can only recruit within 500 miles of their campus.

This is why the NCAA has no chance of avoiding college athletes being classified as employees when the right challenges come along. Coaches and schools are arranging other people to pay their employees so they can get away with saying they aren't paid employees. I mean has there ever been a bigger anti-trust violation ever?

The only way the NCAA can save itself from this unregulated war of stupidity that is now going on, is to do what it never has done or demonstrated it is capable of doing. That is to be proactive and get ahead of an issue. Allow athletes to be paid by schools, with caps on spending. This may require schools to re-classify into more divisions with fewer teams, but it must be done.

You can say paying the labor requires athletes to be in a union and collectively bargain, but I don't think it really does.  If for example, all scholarship college football players were allowed to be paid say $25k per year, it's highly doubtful they would have pushed for NIL rights. And if you wanted to maintain the claim to amateurism, you could've held the money in escrow accounts until players graduated or increased stipends a bit and put the rest in escrow. The NCAA never would have come up with the transfer portal as it squirmed to relieve the pressure it felt to liberalize its rules in the face of athletes demanding more, and could have probably gotten away with prohibiting NIL money because nobody would have challenged it if they were paid. Imagine the incentive the NCAA would have had to increase athlete grad rates if it was smarter.

Instead, the NCAA was forced to allowed NIL money, and that is never going away.  It has the transfer portal and that is never going away. Now, all it needs is one  case by a player who "had to take an NIL deal the school arranged for me because the school wouldn't pay me directly, and fulfilling the NIL deal obligations compromised the time I had to spend on improving my academic performance."  When that happens, the NCAA will lose that case too, and be told schools have to pay the athletes and stop with arranging others to do it for them. Then the NCAA will ask how they are suppose to do that, and the courts will say that is your problem, figure it out. The NLRB has already said it will now classify college athletes as employees. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-...-status-of

All I know is history tells us that when there is no regulation and egos are driving decisions, financial ruin for many will soon follow. This is what happens in the sports business. It's why every major pro league has a salary cap and/or spending penalties. College sports will face similar dynamics on its current path, so the wisest approach is to be proactive. Schools will preserve more for themselves if proactive and volunteer to give up something than if they are forced to do it against their will.