Anybody else loving the portal?

[GojiraCane]

What about professionals? Should they be able to go to any team they want and leave at any time? The coaches can.

If you want to sustain the health of any league there needs to be some form of competitive balance. If there’s not, the entire sport suffers.

If this heads in any more of the direction it’s going you’re going to have all time lows in attendance and ratings. Not saying this is really due to the portal, but really the attitude toward college athletics now where the players should be able to do anything they want. That doesn’t work when trying to maintain attractive sports viewership. You can’t know who’s going to win it all every year.

It’s been that way since 2010. A tiny number of teams consistently make the playoffs or on the cusp of making it (Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Georgia) and one team is consitently winning titles in Alabama.

How many Alabama/Clemson matches did we get in the last six years? And the Georgia/Alabama matchup for the title - this is the second time they’ve faced for the championship in the last five years. College football has the least competitive balance of any sport, including the NBA.

 

[GojiraCane]

Is an NBA-style G League in college football's future, taking the better players into that sort of arrangement? What % of players are at a college only because there is currently no alternative, and would welcome not having to "bother" with classes and grades?

I would imagine that if and when the NFL G League starts up, you’ll someday have colleges acquiring teams. Or sponsoring them, allowing them to use their existing facilities. And eventually as talent shifts from CF to the NFL G League, the schools begin to shut down their “amateur” programs.

Which brings the hilarious specter of franchise free agency forty years down the road. Let’s say Alabama doesn’t pay for the new stadium that the Crimson Tide G League franchise demands. But the University of South Florida - at this point without a team - puts together an incredible financial and stadium package. Thus, like the Colts long ago, the Crimson Tide packs up and abandons the University of Alabama and relocates to Florida.

 

[DTP]

An industrious group of boosters can put together NIL deals for Alabama walk ons. These deals would pay a similar rate to non premiere scholarship players at the Crimson Tide, but would be enhanced to cover the cost of tuition. Ergo, Alabama could add dozens of additional four star players. The only limitation would be how long you could lie to these players about eventual playing time.

You’re right theoretically but it’s unrealistic. The walk-on guys would have to use that NIL money on tuition, books, housing and food and everything else scholarship guys already get for free. I’m not sure even Alabama could give huge deals to all 85 scholarship guys and still give deals to walk-ons that would make up for the costs of attending the school. And that’s not even scratching the problem that you can only play 11 guys at a time and four star players aren’t usually cool with just sitting the bench for four years.

 

[CaneSince4Ever]

Is an NBA-style G League in college football's future, taking the better players into that sort of arrangement? What % of players are at a college only because there is currently no alternative, and would welcome not having to "bother" with classes and grades?

If these upstart leagues like the XFL & USFL can ever achieve financial sustainability I think they can. Until then, the College system is the best we have.

 

[GojiraCane]

You’re right theoretically but it’s unrealistic. The walk-on guys would have to use that NIL money on tuition, books, housing and food and everything else scholarship guys already get for free. I’m not sure even Alabama could give huge deals to all 85 scholarship guys and still give deals to walk-ons that would make up for the costs of attending the school. And that’s not even scratching the problem that you can only play 11 guys at a time and four star players aren’t usually cool with just sitting the bench for four years.

My thought is, if a Texas A&M is willing to spend $30M on one signing class, what is the upper limit for an entire team? $50M? $150M? $250M? At a certain level I can imagine a number of four stars would be willing to take the risk of riding the bench and never playing if they were to earn $2.5M over four seasons.

 

[CaneSince4Ever]

Bro…. Scholarship is nothing compared to the money these kids kids generate for these schools….. Unless it’s a private school like Miami, where the cost of a degree is well into 6 figures.

Understood, but until these schools or a judge concedes what these student-athletes really are, which is employees of the school, then they'll continue to be exploited. This whole notion that an athlete should be treated like any other student is BS.

 

[Cknucks305]

The only thing I don’t like is kids hitting the portal in season. Maybe they should close the portal from September to the end of December.

 

[KANE]

Understood, but until these schools or a judge concedes what these student-athletes really are, which is employees of the school, then they'll continue to be exploited. This whole notion that an athlete should be treated like any other student is BS.

Agreed!

 

[CANEMC]

It's all fun and games until your entire roster enters it.

 

[supacane]

The portal is the best thing that happened to college football. When few teams can stack all the top talent on their roster and then those players are limited in what they can do because of transfer rules it was a game for the few. The Portal fairly new but it will pay off for alot of teams. Look at a team like Mich St, Baylor, Cincinnati with a former Bama RB. That's spreading the wealth. I love the fact that these schools have to think of the players more than before. And if players leave because they are beaten out by better players then schools should not be upset either. And for the people who don't like it, i guess u want Bama, UGA and Ohio St every season of Miami or USC can't get right.
Miss St is gonna play Bama next season with a blue chip Bama recruit, u don't think that makes the game atleast more difficult for Bama in some way?

What they need to do next is pay the players from the massive tv guaranteed contracts they get. Atleast the bowl games should.

 

[TemplarCane]

What about professionals? Should they be able to go to any team they want and leave at any time? The coaches can.

If you want to sustain the health of any league there needs to be some form of competitive balance. If there’s not, the entire sport suffers.

If this heads in any more of the direction it’s going you’re going to have all time lows in attendance and ratings. Not saying this is really due to the portal, but really the attitude toward college athletics now where the players should be able to do anything they want. That doesn’t work when trying to maintain attractive sports viewership. You can’t know who’s going to win it all every year.

NFL players and coaches have contracts. Player movement is restricted to trades, waivers, or being released. Coaches do leave, but this is usually when an assistant is offered a promotion by another team, with permission of his current team.

College athletes do not have contracts. Classifying student athletes as employees or independent contractors has been resisted under the sham of amateurism, and is a slippery slope leading to other issues related to labor law and unionization. Inevitable, perhaps.

 

[Rellyrell]

No, I don’t love the portal.

This is becoming the Wild, Wild West. I’m all for players getting paid & player mobility, but there needs to be structure.

The reason y I hated the NIL was not due to players getting paid, but b/c there were no parameters. No parameters meant it would be an open free market w/ no salary cap. So if ur program have more resources than another program, well w/ no parameters, it would be the NYY & LA Dodgers vs the AZ Diamondbacks. What we just saw from Texas A&M is now we’re going to LLC u all to death b/c there’s no rules. The rich will & have become richer.

The reason y I hate the portal is b/c, again, there’s no structure. If we’re trying to treat CFB like a mini NFL, then even in the NFL, once a player signs a contract (NLI), there’s restrictions on when said player can leave. Even FA doesn’t start until AFTER the season. So if these collegiate kids are being treated like FA, then parameters need to be set on when they can enter the portal.

Finally, parameters need to be set around coaches as well. Again, coaches leaving for better gigs is fine, but using the NFL as a template, that doesn’t happen until AFTER the season.

So if we’re going to treat CFB like it’s the baby NFL, then there should be some set guidelines. At the end of the day, this is still collegiate sports. Last I checked, & I could be wrong since I haven’t really did a deep dive, but these young men are not being taxed on earnings. When there is no structure, when it’s every man (team) for itself, it leads to chaos, which will eventually lead to a bad product. CFB is not dead, but ppl r tired of seeing the same chit, same teams b/c they outspend (legally now), kids not honoring commitments, coaches not honoring contracts.

Just my two cents w/ a nickel on the side.

 

[TemplarCane]

No, I don’t love the portal.

This is becoming the Wild, Wild West. I’m all for players getting paid & player mobility, but there needs to be structure.

The reason y I hated the NIL was not due to players getting paid, but b/c there were no parameters. No parameters meant it would be an open free market w/ no salary cap. So if ur program have more resources than another program, well w/ no parameters, it would be the NYY & LA Dodgers vs the AZ Diamondbacks. What we just saw from Texas A&M is now we’re going to LLC u all to death b/c there’s no rules. The rich will & have become richer.

The reason y I hate the portal is b/c, again, there’s no structure. If we’re trying to treat CFB like a mini NFL, then even in the NFL, once a player signs a contract (NIL), there’s restrictions on when said player can leave. Even FA doesn’t start until AFTER the season. So if these collegiate kids are being treated like FA, then parameters need to be set on when they can enter the portal.

Finally, parameters need to be set around coaches as well. Again, coaches leaving for better gigs is fine, but using the NFL as a template, that doesn’t happen until AFTER the season.

So if we’re going to treat CFB like it’s the baby NFL, then there should be some set guidelines. At the end of the day, this is still collegiate sports. Last I checked, & I could be wrong since I haven’t really did a deep dive, but these young men are not being taxed on earnings. When there is no structure, when it’s every man (team) for itself, it leads to chaos, which will eventually lead to a bad product. CFB is not dead, but ppl r tired of seeing the same chit, same teams b/c they outspend (legally now), kids not honoring commitments, coaches not honoring contracts.

Just my two cents w/ a nickel on the side.

A dollar’s worth of input my friend.

 

[Rellyrell]

A dollar’s worth of input my friend.

I was thinking this morning bro, like the NCAA is supposed to be a “governing body”, right? Like every sports entity have some sort of governing body to establish structure, parameters, to make it “as” fair & equitable as possible. Of course some products r going thrive more than others b/c of infrastructure, fan support, etc…but, the key phrase is “as fair”. So yeah, boosters doing shady chit to give an unfair advantage was around, but there were parameters around impermissible benefits” to curtail it as much as possible.

Even transfers; the NLI meant something. So if u decide to transfer, cool, but u have to sit out a season, so that was a bit of a deterrent, & the results were teams were able to build.

Now, I’m not saying that we need to go back to this formula, what I’m saying is that parameters are still needed. If the NCAA is incapable of continuing to be a governing body setting parameters to make this product “as fair” & equitable for both programs & student athletes, then just be disbanded & become unionized b/c literally they would serve no purpose.

 

[TrumpyCane]

Make it so if the Head Coach or players position coach leaves they do not have to sit out a year or if they are a grad transfer

Otherwise player has to sit out a year

Sounds pretty fair to TrumpyCane

 

[TemplarCane]

I was thinking this morning bro, like the NCAA is supposed to be a “governing body”, right? Like every sports entity have some sort of governing body to establish structure, parameters, to make it “as” fair & equitable as possible. Of course some products r going thrive more than others b/c of infrastructure, fan support, etc…but, the key phrase is “as fair”. So yeah, boosters doing shady chit to give an unfair advantage was around, but there were parameters around impermissible benefits” to curtail it as much as possible.

Even transfers; the NLI meant something. So if u decide to transfer, cool, but u have to sit out a season, so that was a bit of a deterrent, & the results were teams were able to build.

Now, I’m not saying that we need to go back to this formula, what I’m saying is that parameters are still needed. If the NCAA is incapable of continuing to be a governing body setting parameters to make this product “as fair” & equitable for both programs & student athletes, then just be disbanded & become unionized b/c literally they would serve no purpose.

The NCAA is done, more or less. Too much time resisting change than being proactive. Nearly every change to CFB was due to courtroom losses, from TV contracts in the 1980s to last years SCOTUS ruling in NIL.

You’re right, CFB will eventually need real structure to NIL, player movement, coaching moves, and even recruiting. The ESD has made the traditional signing day almost moot. In time the need to rid ourselves of the ‘amateur’ label and honestly treat college athletes as professionals, at a lower level than the NFL. This will require a CFBPA.

The conferences and divisions in CFB will need come together like NFL owners did and realize parity, as best as possible, is best for the sport.

 

[CaneSince4Ever]

The reason y I hated the NIL was not due to players getting paid, but b/c there were no parameters. No parameters meant it would be an open free market w/ no salary cap. So if ur program have more resources than another program, well w/ no parameters, it would be the NYY & LA Dodgers vs the AZ Diamondbacks. What we just saw from Texas A&M is now we’re going to LLC u all to death b/c there’s no rules. The rich will & have become richer.

But NIL's are professional sports version of individual endorsements, you can't put a salary cap on how much an athlete independently earns on His own. Has nothing to do with how much resources a program has, see Jackson St. & Travis Hunter. If a HS prospect has commercial appeal, the endorsements will follow Him anywhere He goes.

 

[Rellyrell]

But NIL's are professional sports version of individual endorsements, you can't put a salary cap on how much an athlete independently earns on His own. Has nothing to do with how much resources a program has, see Jackson St. & Travis Hunter. If a HS prospect has commercial appeal, the endorsements will follow Him anywhere He goes.

That was the “theory” behind that notion, but it has turned into something else. The NIL is for monetary value to be given to a student athlete for their name, like, and image…meaning if an athlete signs an autograph, asked to be in a commercial, promote a product, selling of a jersey, used to sell tickets, placed in a video game, etc. they were to be compensated. That was the gist of the whole lawsuit that sparked this, headed by broke *** Ed O’Bannon.

The NIL is no longer that, my friend. The reason y is b/c the NCAA tried to fight it. Each state has its own bylaws regarding it. There is no structure, hence, the NIL has now become the booster bidding war, which means, it has become a FA spending war vs. what it was intended for. The NIL has become a disguise for school’s boosters to manipulate this new rule to openly pay kids outside of its original purpose.

 

[The Sphinx]

It’s been that way since 2010. A tiny number of teams consistently make the playoffs or on the cusp of making it (Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Georgia) and one team is consitently winning titles in Alabama.

How many Alabama/Clemson matches did we get in the last six years? And the Georgia/Alabama matchup for the title - this is the second time they’ve faced for the championship in the last five years. College football has the least competitive balance of any sport, including the NBA.

THIS.

When you can year after year after year buy the best players, hire the best coaches, run the best training facilities, AND enforce full and unfettered support for the program from the BOT, the Pres, the AD and all the way down to the faculty, school/town police and local media to ensure that absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing) gets in the way of the success of the football program, then you've got a **** good chance of doing very well.

And this is much, much easier to achieve in a small town.

Mario is going to do extremely well at Miami. We will have our best years since the early 2000s. You can book it. But rest assured he will never get the wholistic support as mentioned above. Too many faculty who have the 'we should be an academic school' mindset, and too many adversaries littered throughout S. Florida with absolutely no allegiance to UM who relish at the thought of our football team continuing to be irrelevant.

Mario will have his hands full no doubt, but I can't think of a better HC to lead the charge for Miami.

 

[TemplarCane]

That was the “theory” behind that notion, but it has turned into something else. The NIL is for monetary value to be given to a student athlete for their name, like, and image…meaning if an athlete signs an autograph, asked to be in a commercial, promote a product, selling of a jersey, used to sell tickets, placed in a video game, etc. they were to be compensated. That was the gist of the whole lawsuit that sparked this, headed by broke *** Ed O’Bannon.

The NIL is no longer that, my friend. The reason y is b/c the NCAA tried to fight it. Each state has its own bylaws regarding it. There is no structure, hence, the NIL has now become the booster bidding war, which means, it has become a FA spending war vs. what it was intended for. The NIL has become a disguise for school’s boosters to manipulate this new rule to openly pay kids outside of its original purpose.

And Boosters will resist any change they perceive to reduce attempts to rule the sport.