05-10-2022, 10:05 PM
I have less of an objection to your proposal than I do to many of the others, GR, but there is one thing I don’t get. Why would pro teams play ball, and pay athletes who might get injured or wind up as busts, when under the current system (the draft) they essentially get the players at below-market rates and have their entire collegiate careers to evaluate them. The only way you get this to happen is to declare the draft illegal.
The only sport I could see this working in is MLB, where teams already draft players out of high school. You could change the rule so that players have to sign with the team that drafts them and let the drafted players enroll in school instead of going to a club’s farm team, without a chance to declare for the draft again after their junior year. But I don’t see any scenario where the NFL allows high school players to sign contracts with teams and allows them to play in college. The system already extracts excess value out of recently drafted players (because they make a lot less than they would in a system without a draft).
BC
The only sport I could see this working in is MLB, where teams already draft players out of high school. You could change the rule so that players have to sign with the team that drafts them and let the drafted players enroll in school instead of going to a club’s farm team, without a chance to declare for the draft again after their junior year. But I don’t see any scenario where the NFL allows high school players to sign contracts with teams and allows them to play in college. The system already extracts excess value out of recently drafted players (because they make a lot less than they would in a system without a draft).
BC