IMHO this NLRB complaint could blow everything out of the water so far and
make all the extreme changes we have seen so far, look miniscule. Bottom line is that this could be headed to the Supreme Court, just like the NIL went there and changed everything on NIL, but this is much bigger IMHO. I get how you pay the revenue sports philosophically and financially, but how do you pay the non-revenue sports? Where does that money come from? This article is talking about all athletes, not just revenue sport athletes.
You can say your school will not play in this sandbox. However, if the Supreme Court says you have to, in order to have a team like they did with NIL, just throw out everything you have ever thought about college sports and we could easily be starting all over again. How do you think this will end up? Can and will the Supreme Court create a line between revenue and non-revenue sports? If they do and pay revenue sports, where does the money come from to fund non-revenue sports? If they don't, where does the money come from to pay all athletes?
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2hhoop3
3y
moving pieces to the collegiate landscape right now that make doing conference realignment deals a fairly iffy proposition for media and conferences. The new NCAA Executive Director probably feels like he is in a life size version of Whack-A-Mole. Meanwhile his predecessor who created, or at least supported, this chaos with inaction is collecting a golden parachute and once again celebrating his uncanny knack for getting out of town ahead of the posse and leaving his successor to clean up a mess.
(In response to this post by Stech)
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(In response to this post by 2hhoop3)
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and those athletes get paid. The rest drop to club level status.
(In response to this post by Stech)
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(In response to this post by HokieToph)
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to create a divide IMHO between revenue sports and non-revenue sports or I just don't see how they pay "all" the athletes. What do you think?
PS I work with High School Athletes in an, "other sport", I keep telling many of them, that they can get more money from a D3, because many of them have great grades. I also tell them, if you are going to play a sport in college, that is your social life, so don't pick the school over their social life.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
3y
They will want to be paid their full value based on the amount of revenue they bring in. Which means there won't be anything left over to pay all of the non-revenue athletes. And can you blame them? Why would football players want to subsidize the salaries for field hockey or lacrosse players? If the courts do what we are all thinking they will do, then all non-revenue sports will either have to be dropped completely or will be played by non-scholarship student athletes who just want to play on the university's team because they enjoy it.
(In response to this post by Stech)
3y
This current Supreme Court seems perfectly willing to overturn precedents that nobody thought would ever be overturned. And the way the courts have interpreted Title IX has been criticized over the years. I think the Supreme Court will limit the scope of Title IX in the next few years.
** Edited by tarheelblue at 5/26/2023, 2:05:17 AM
(In response to this post by daveinop)
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are the exception and not the rule. They also have to come through regular admissions standards to get into the school.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
3y
Can you imagine the political blowback on a college campus if all women's non-revs were turned into de facto club sports so that salaries can be paid to football players and basketball players?
I think universities will keep non-revs and send the bill through an additional fee to each student.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
3y
They will probably try to keep women's basketball and maybe a few others if they have to do it for Title IX compliance, but for every male scholarship athlete they cut, they will cut a female scholarship athlete also.
(In response to this post by LeadingEdge)
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daveinop
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daveinop
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and what might change would be how it is taxed and how standard employee benefits are provided. FLSA kicks in there somewhere as well.
The employer is still an educational PNP getting propped up thru donations, grants, and contracts; so does it really matter whether an particular athlete's sport makes money? The job requirements are all essentially the same...go to class, work out, play a sport; so why wouldn't the compensation be the same? How are TA's paid (I really don't know); does the biology TA get the same as the agronomy TA? Are all of the other student workers paid the same? I think the PD will likely be a very generic "student athlete"; not QB or goalie or high diver. And NIL isn't going anywhere and will reflect the differences in fan interest/demand/market.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
3y
And they do essentially the same job. If there's nothing wrong with doing that then there should be nothing wrong with paying the men's basketball players more than the women's basketball players.
** Edited by tarheelblue at 5/23/2023, 6:46:52 PM
(In response to this post by daveinop)
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daveinop
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The coaches are professionals and their salaries...and incentives...at least at Virginia Tech, are supplemented by non-university sources. Athletes could win the NLRB case and still be treated as any other student worker.
To me, the argument in the court case is more about rights (e.g., unions, workman's comp) than salaries and it doesn't seem to be a slam dunk one way or the other.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-complian...
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
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(In response to this post by daveinop)
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RJHokie
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higher admission fees and TV media rights fees.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
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daveinop
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(In response to this post by RJHokie)
I assume that many athletic programs will be cut..
Maybe Tech will drop sports like golf, tennis, volleyball, swimming/diving, lacrosse, cross country and even track and field and soccer in order to pay athletes in the sports they feel they can succeed at like wrestling, softball and baseball (mainly because of the investment in the ball park)? It would come down to how many full athletic scholarships Tech could afford. I'm sure Tech would try to save the Olympic sports programs that they feel have the best chance of bringing deep runs into the post season and bringing the school national recognition. Tech would also have to consider Title IX which will make the deletion/saving process even more difficult.
I'm sure the SEC and Big Ten would be able to pay all their athletes but it would take money away from their beloved football programs. Most of the non-Power 2 conferences would have to make cuts in sponsored athletic programs. Wealthier schools like UVA, Stanford and Notre Dame have the money to provide full scholarships.
(In response to this post by Stech)
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the courts should have a hard time distinguishing between a student on academic scholarship and one on athletic scholarship if the requirements/benefits of scholarships are academically based...courses, grades, eligibility, etc. i.e., these people are above all else students.
Where schools will get in trouble is if they kick kids with good grades off of scholarship because they throw too many interceptions or don't swim fast enough (crappy students that make all conference are retained while good students that ride the bench get "processed")...oh, so they actually ARE employees with non-academic requirements and therefore should get whatever all employees get in terms of benefits.
NCAA and its members built this mess...the student-athlete fairy tale that purely coincidentally happens to be extraordinarily profitable is about over. I don't think the courts will be impressed with game arcades, lazy rivers, and plush dorms that just happen to be more available to athletes.
(In response to this post by Stech)
3y
It could happen by any of these routes:
1. The NLRB case. That's a tough path because of the lack of NLRB jurisdiction over state schools.
2. States start forcing employee status in state legislation. Remember California got the NIL ball rolling with its statute. California might do it again with employee status. I think it will.
3. The courts rule that NCAA amateurism rules violate antitrust laws. This is what Justice Kavanaugh wrote about. I think the courts will so rule within five years if the issue is not first decided by the states (see #2).
When the courts strike down the NCAA amateurism rules, that won't force colleges to make SAs employees. But some colleges will rush for advantage by paying a salary, which will make the SAs employees. The arms race then kicks in an a all P5+ programs do the same, very quickly.
When that happens, likely non-revs (except women's basketball) are separated so that you have a revenue-sport athletic department and a non-rev department.
(In response to this post by Stech)
The NLRB is attempting to gain jurisdiction over athletes at state schools
By arguing they are jointly employed by the NCAA and the particular conference, which are private entities.
It’s a reach. The composition of the NLRB changes from administration to administration, and the current version has asserted theories on a number of fronts that are “interesting” to say the least.
** Edited by RoswellGAHokie at 5/23/2023, 10:10:30 AM
(In response to this post by LeadingEdge)
3y
When the non-revs are made a separate department, they will become a university-funded expense. Basketball and football will pay for themselves. The cost of non-revs will become a line item on tuition bills. For schools that already charge a student athletics fee (like U.Va.), that fee will go up. So, parents and students, you will pay more for college.
Non-P5 schools already charge athletics fees because their whole athletic programs are essentially non-rev. This will put P5 schools in the same boat regarding non-revs.
The "gender equity" stuff will be a battle. The gender equity crowd will want as much pay for women as football and men's basketball players. But only football and men's basketball generate positive revenue to use for salaries. If the gender equity folks win that argument, it's going to be a budgetary mess. Title IX doesn't require paying the women as employees, but that won't stop those advocating for it.
(In response to this post by LeadingEdge)
3y
E.g. imagine that men's basketball players end up getting paid $100k and viewership is 1M. They effectively get $0.10 per viewer for the sport (obviously this is highly oversimplified, but you get the idea). The argument for women's basketball players isn't going to be also asking for the $100k, they're going to say that they shouldn't get paid $0.04 per viewer or something. Everyone knows that most women's sports don't have as much viewership as men's sports, and that the top-line number will be lower as a result, but they shouldn't get further shortchanged on the lower rate.
(In response to this post by LeadingEdge)
3y
describe exactly how the relationship to the school of random athlete "A" differs from the relationship to the school of random athlete "B." "A" may be a field hockey player and perhaps "B" is the starting quarterback. Both have the same relationship to the school: scholarship athlete representing the school in on-field competition. If you are going to differentiate between those two based on a revenue calculation, then shall we compare the value of each football player as well?
I think all athletes will be represented by a collective bargaining organization, and all will be paid exactly the same. Those who are more prominent will get rich through NIL. The field hockey players... not so much.
Each school will need to look at the revenue that supports their athletic department and decide if they can stay in the game. Not a great many schools earn enough revenue to sustain the AD; they rely on subsidies from the school.
This is why there so much urgency to join The SEC/B1G.
(In response to this post by LeadingEdge)
3y
Just because they have a union? The NFL has a players union and not all NFL players are paid the same. There will probably be some kind of minimum salary, but I see no reason why every player would be pain the same. Why should a kicker be paid the same as a quarterback?
(In response to this post by 33laszlo99)
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laws. That allows them to set salary caps, which prevents the Yankees from buying all of the talent.
(In response to this post by tarheelblue)
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And it was granted to them by the Supreme Court, not by Congress.
(In response to this post by 33laszlo99)
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(In response to this post by tarheelblue)