[standfan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

+1.
I don’t think there’s any going back to the way it was. I do wonder whether it will be possible to bifurcate some college sport sports (football, basketball, ?)  into a “division“ with schools that are fine with running effectively unrestricted professional sports programs and a second division where substantial restrictions on the monetary aspects (and perhaps time commitments)  are imposed.

[standfan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

+1.
I don’t think there’s any going back to the way it was. I do wonder whether it will be possible to bifurcate some college sport sports (football, basketball, ?)  into a “division“ with schools that are fine with running effectively unrestricted professional sports programs and a second division where substantial restrictions on the monetary aspects (and perhaps time commitments)  are imposed.