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NCAA To Consider a CFB Salary Cap

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PalyCane said:
It's one of the few things that might work. Put a limit on the number of total staff and limit total staff expenditures to say $7MM or $10MM.
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what makes anyone think it would be legal for a private organization to attempt to effect a price fixing conspiracy?
 
Well they do need some socialist measure to make it interesting/watchable Again. Right now college football is like capitalism. The rich leverage their richness to get richer, make it harder for anyone to reach their level and to not have to abide by the same rules everyone else has to (they don’t get punished the same way). It’s really fun when you’re on top but 💩 for everyone else
 
HamburgerSV said:
Well they do need some socialist measure to make it interesting/watchable Again. Right now college football is like capitalism. The rich leverage their richness to get richer, make it harder for anyone to reach their level and to not have to abide by the same rules everyone else has to (they don’t get punished the same way). It’s really fun when you’re on top but 💩 for everyone else
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I hate this mentality so much
 
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HamburgerSV said:
Well they do need some socialist measure to make it interesting/watchable Again. Right now college football is like capitalism. The rich leverage their richness to get richer, make it harder for anyone to reach their level and to not have to abide by the same rules everyone else has to (they don’t get punished the same way). It’s really fun when you’re on top but 💩 for everyone else
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You literally just described socialism, and labeled it capitalism. *SMH*
 
GojiraCane said:
NCAA Commission to Study Efficacy of Salary Cap
Indianapolis, IN (UT) - Sources within the offices of Recruiting and Competitive Balance have indicated that the NCAA is prepared to launch a comprehensive study to determine the need for a salary cap. And while the earnings of coaches have indeed escalated, it is not these payments that the NCAA is seeking to investigate and control. Rather. multiple sources within the organization have said that the study will instead review the immense payments by boosters, alumni, coaches, and mentors to college athletes. "The spending has gotten out of control", said one member. "We're now seeing some student athletes making in excess of professional players." Another unnamed official said, "It has the potential of upsetting competitive balance. College football has thrived for years with the familiar brands of Alabama, LSU, Clemson, and Georgia. What's at stake is an undeserving program illicitly spending, leaping ahead of the pillars of our sport and ruining it for everyone."
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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
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PalyCane said:
I don't know that anyone has found pro league salary caps/price fixing to be illegal.
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That’s partially wrong and partially off-point, i think. Pro sports caps are subject to collective bargaining and the legal framework comes from that. Absent collective bargaining, the salary caps would be illegal. That’s why union decertification came up back in the ‘90s. In football, careers are too short for the union to have much power. Also, no pro sport tto my knowledge has ever tried to limit salaries for non-players. Presumably it’s because they’re not unionized and it would be unlawful to do so.

The so-called ‘sports’ exemptions to anti-trust law have generally (to my knowledge) dealt with horizontal regulatory matters like draft and eligibility to be selected (and limiting the number of teams).
 
Ethnicsands said:
That’s partially wrong and partially off-point, i think. Pro sports caps are subject to collective bargaining and the legal framework comes from that. Absent collective bargaining, the salary caps would be illegal. That’s why union decertification came up back in the ‘90s. In football, careers are too short for the union to have much power. Also, no pro sport tto my knowledge has ever tried to limit salaries for non-players. Presumably it’s because they’re not unionized and it would be unlawful to do so.

The so-called ‘sports’ exemptions to anti-trust law have generally (to my knowledge) dealt with horizontal regulatory matters like draft and eligibility to be selected (and limiting the number of teams).
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How did I just know you'd come back with the collective bargaining counterpoint lol! I don't think it completely obviates my comment, but it's a valid point.

In any event if we're looking for ways to bring back more competitive balance to college football I believe the best way would be by reducing and equalizing staff salaries and numbers. The goal then would be to figure out a way to implement it. There would be several ways to do it I think.

And college football/NCAA is already fraught with many dubious anti-trust, collusion, unfair labor, etc practices that seem to be overlooked.
 
PalyCane said:
How did I just know you'd come back with the collective bargaining counterpoint lol! I don't think it completely obviates my comment, but it's a valid point.

In any event if we're looking for ways to bring back more competitive balance to college football I believe the best way would be by reducing and equalizing staff salaries and numbers. The goal then would be to figure out a way to implement it. There would be several ways to do it I think.

And college football/NCAA is already fraught with many dubious anti-trust, collusion, unfair labor, etc practices that seem to be overlooked.
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Im a free marketer for the most part, so not going to defend the ncaa. But i also think staff salaries isn’t the issue. CFB behaves properly for the most part. There’s a reason the yankees have the most titles, too. If anything, the problems in cfb are that the ncaa acts like the SEC’s henchmen rather than a neutral party. Just like a ref can ***** up a lot with a flag on a key drive, the NCAA can mess up a lot with investigations. Miami, USC (both private), Ohio State over tattoos! That’s part of the deal here.

I disagree you could limit staff legally or practically, but also - why would you want to? This is like prohibition. The money’re there. It’s going to flow towards highest and best uses. People complain about Alabama but if you took Saban out of the equation, the real issue is the programs that should be competitive aren’t quite. LSU and Texas could be competitive. UGA could. OSU is good but not quite there. When UM had the ball rolling, we had an alabama like run, minus some bad calls, bad poll votes and an ncaa investigation. No one here thought we needed a salary cap back then.
 
Ethnicsands said:
Im a free marketer for the most part, so not going to defend the ncaa. But i also think staff salaries isn’t the issue. CFB behaves properly for the most part. There’s a reason the yankees have the most titles, too. If anything, the problems in cfb are that the ncaa acts like the SEC’s henchmen rather than a neutral party. Just like a ref can ***** up a lot with a flag on a key drive, the NCAA can mess up a lot with investigations. Miami, USC (both private), Ohio State over tattoos! That’s part of the deal here.

I disagree you could limit staff legally or practically, but also - why would you want to? This is like prohibition. The money’re there. It’s going to flow towards highest and best uses. People complain about Alabama but if you took Saban out of the equation, the real issue is the programs that should be competitive aren’t quite. LSU and Texas could be competitive. UGA could. OSU is good but not quite there. When UM had the ball rolling, we had an alabama like run, minus some bad calls, bad poll votes and an ncaa investigation. No one here thought we needed a salary cap back then.
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A ton of Alabama's success comes from their HC and the excellence he's created at every level of the program. That has allowed players to feel that Bama will (a) develop them better than anywhere else, and (b) they will play for and win championships. Zero quarrel with their success as it stems from these reasons, and zero desire to impede. Excellence should rewarded.

But there are other factors at play as well. Specifically winners and losers are too much decided by money today, not only under the table (bags), but also now above board (coaches/staff salaries and total staff size). The latter is a new phenomenon. And it's a problem imo.

We don't think the ability for the SEC and OSU to literally buy players is a good thing (though it's never going to get reined in).

If we don't think it's a good thing that financially dominant programs utilize that monetary advantage to buy players, why is the ability to use that same financial dominance to massively outspend every other school in staff size and salaries ok? Those things are just two sides of the same coin. If one's not ok, the other shouldn't really be ok either.

Personally I'm not much interested in continuing to follow a sport where the largest determinant for success is financial dominance. Maybe others are good with it. I gather you're good with it. But as noted, I'm losing interest. I continue to follow UM rabidly. But less so college football in general today owing to the pre-ordained outcomes come playoff time. I'm far from the only one.

To keep me as a college football fan I'll need to see a better competitive balance, and the only available way to accomplish this that I can think of is to scrub out financial differences between programs. To be clear, the practice that I most want to see eliminated is the NFL caliber and size of back offices that only a handful of other schools can afford. Wipe that **** out. Go back to 11 coaches and a handful of of support staff.

That Alabama, in addition to its eleven named coaches, also has the equivalent of 3-4 full coaching staffs who are back in the office analyzing and breaking down every opponent and every opposing player and every possible recruit, while the rest of college football struggles to pay just the eleven named coaches, creates a competitive difference that shouldn't be part of college football. It's bad for the game imo.
 
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PalyCane said:
A ton of Alabama's success comes from their HC and the excellence he's created at every level of the program. That has allowed players to feel that Bama will (a) develop them better than anywhere else, and (b) they will play for and win championships. Zero quarrel with their success as it stems from these reasons, and zero desire to impede. Excellence should rewarded.

But there are other factors at play as well. Specifically winners and losers are too much decided by money today, not only under the table (bags), but also now above board (coaches/staff salaries and total staff size). The latter is a new phenomenon. And it's a problem imo.

We don't think the ability for the SEC and OSU to literally buy players is a good thing (though it's never going to get reined in).

If we don't think it's a good thing that financially dominant programs utilize that monetary advantage to buy players, why is the ability to use that same financial dominance to massively outspend every other school in staff size and salaries ok? Those things are just two sides of the same coin. If one's not ok, the other shouldn't really be ok either.

Personally I'm not much interested in continuing to follow a sport where the largest determinant for success is financial dominance. Maybe others are good with it. I gather you're good with it. But as noted, I'm losing interest. I continue to follow UM rabidly. But less so college football in general today owing to the pre-ordained outcomes come playoff time. I'm far from the only one.

To keep me as a college football fan I'll need to see a better competitive balance, and the only available way to accomplish this that I can think of is to scrub out financial differences between programs. To be clear, the practice that I most want to see eliminated is the NFL caliber and size of back offices that only a handful of other schools can afford. Wipe that **** out. Go back to 11 coaches and a handful of of support staff.

That Alabama, in addition to its eleven named coaches, also has the equivalent of 3-4 full coaching staffs who are back in the office analyzing and breaking down every opponent and every opposing player and every possible recruit, while the rest of college football struggles to pay just the eleven named coaches, creates a competitive difference that shouldn't be part of college football. It's bad for the game imo.
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We usually agree but not so here.

I am always distrustful of proposed anti-market regulatory solutions that are justified based on murky, poorly understood or just mis-characterized problems.

I'm not even clear there is an issue in CFB - there have always been a few dominant teams at any given period and it just happens that this cycle, it ain't us. If there had been a playoff during our ran, we'd have been a final 4 team so many of those years. But let's say that some things are different. Why do people blame money for the problems, or seek to regulate money as a first plan when they have zero evidence that money is the issue or the solution?

IMO if you look at CFB, the biggest change recently has been the playoff, which limited the universe to 4 teams. That change alone created real barriers to competitiveness for teams on the outside. The second, related change was the rule system allowing teams that don't even play for their conference title to be voted into the playoff over another team that wins its conference. Combine that with the heavy systematic bias towards SEC teams in the polls, and what you get is a major SEC bias in the playoffs that is unnecessary and not a function of staff spending. If you just changed the rules to 'must win conference' or 'only 1 team per conference', you'd dramatically open up the gates in CFB. Personally, I think they should make it 8 teams, with the 5 P5 conference champs guaranteed a spot, the top G5 team guaranteed a spot,, and two at-large spots awarded to the highest rated teams not invited, on condition they can't both come from same conference. I'd also support a rule that no team can go if it doesn't play for its conference championship - no reward for ducking the toughest game. The point is the competitive dynamic you decry isn't a function of staff spending - it's a function of a rigged rule system around CFP candidates that doesn't need to work that way.

Other changes that matter include technology and roster rules (tightening the 25 IC rules significantly). The IC tightening has benefitted the biggest and best recruiters, and hurt schools (like UM) that struggle to get their roster right and keep it full. Tech changes and the culture that goes with it have changed kids expectations for how they think about programs they'd be willing to go to, and that isn't going backwards no matter how much us old folks tut tut.

Anyhow, I don't even understand the proposal to limit staff jobs if you assume that you cannot limit payments to players. So the talent will still go to Alabama, it'll just be less well coached? It would never happen, nor work.

Where we differ is I'm okay with the buying of players, too. It goes on. Don't care. Capitalism fixes itself. Central planning gums up the gears much worse.
 
PalyCane said:
It's one of the few things that might work. Put a limit on the number of total staff and limit total staff expenditures to say $7MM or $10MM.
Click to expand...

The NCAA already limits the number of official staff each school can have, it's the seemingly infinite number of "analysts" that schools like Alabama have that needs regulating.
 
HamburgerSV said:
Well they do need some socialist measure to make it interesting/watchable Again. Right now college football is like capitalism. The rich leverage their richness to get richer, make it harder for anyone to reach their level and to not have to abide by the same rules everyone else has to (they don’t get punished the same way). It’s really fun when you’re on top but 💩 for everyone else
Click to expand...

Socialism already exists in College athletics, it's called Title IX.
 
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GojiraCane said:
NCAA Commission to Study Efficacy of Salary Cap
Indianapolis, IN (UT) - Sources within the offices of Recruiting and Competitive Balance have indicated that the NCAA is prepared to launch a comprehensive study to determine the need for a salary cap. And while the earnings of coaches have indeed escalated, it is not these payments that the NCAA is seeking to investigate and control. Rather. multiple sources within the organization have said that the study will instead review the immense payments by boosters, alumni, coaches, and mentors to college athletes. "The spending has gotten out of control", said one member. "We're now seeing some student athletes making in excess of professional players." Another unnamed official said, "It has the potential of upsetting competitive balance. College football has thrived for years with the familiar brands of Alabama, LSU, Clemson, and Georgia. What's at stake is an undeserving program illicitly spending, leaping ahead of the pillars of our sport and ruining it for everyone."
Click to expand...
Wow, just a tad bit late to the game...lol.

They were just stumped at how Dabo keeps 3 junior projected first round DL picks in college for a fourth year!? Must be the steak and crab legs on the training table.
 
CaneSince4Ever said:
Socialism already exists in College athletics, it's called Title IX.
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Exactly. Go one way or the other. I don’t mind Capitalism in any respect, just make sure it is an even playing field. Don’t make rules labeling some things as a “violation” and then enforce it in an arbitrary or biased manner. Every body can or every body can’t.

Problem is, like politics as we see them now, allowing Emmert to take over as President with the skeletons in his closet allowed Saban to operate risk free, while Miami had to worry about being treated fairly in an investigation.
 
PalyCane said:
A ton of Alabama's success comes from their HC and the excellence he's created at every level of the program. That has allowed players to feel that Bama will (a) develop them better than anywhere else, and (b) they will play for and win championships. Zero quarrel with their success as it stems from these reasons, and zero desire to impede. Excellence should rewarded.

But there are other factors at play as well. Specifically winners and losers are too much decided by money today, not only under the table (bags), but also now above board (coaches/staff salaries and total staff size). The latter is a new phenomenon. And it's a problem imo.

We don't think the ability for the SEC and OSU to literally buy players is a good thing (though it's never going to get reined in).

If we don't think it's a good thing that financially dominant programs utilize that monetary advantage to buy players, why is the ability to use that same financial dominance to massively outspend every other school in staff size and salaries ok? Those things are just two sides of the same coin. If one's not ok, the other shouldn't really be ok either.

Personally I'm not much interested in continuing to follow a sport where the largest determinant for success is financial dominance. Maybe others are good with it. I gather you're good with it. But as noted, I'm losing interest. I continue to follow UM rabidly. But less so college football in general today owing to the pre-ordained outcomes come playoff time. I'm far from the only one.

To keep me as a college football fan I'll need to see a better competitive balance, and the only available way to accomplish this that I can think of is to scrub out financial differences between programs. To be clear, the practice that I most want to see eliminated is the NFL caliber and size of back offices that only a handful of other schools can afford. Wipe that **** out. Go back to 11 coaches and a handful of of support staff.

That Alabama, in addition to its eleven named coaches, also has the equivalent of 3-4 full coaching staffs who are back in the office analyzing and breaking down every opponent and every opposing player and every possible recruit, while the rest of college football struggles to pay just the eleven named coaches, creates a competitive difference that shouldn't be part of college football. It's bad for the game imo.
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as a follow up, help me out - when were winners and losers not impacted by money? weren’t the big budget teams always the strong teams, more or less?

any state school in the country could go all in if it wanted.

the big budgets aren’t the thing. it’s mistaken. the thing that’s changed is the same as other industries - technology shrunk the world, so the advantages some schools have are magnified many fold. ohio staye and alabama can recruit more broadly, evaluate better and faster, and kids can more easily learn about far away places, meet kids who will go there, network on social media etc

schools spend more on support today because there’s a return on it technology makes it easier to scout and plan and collaborate and analyze.

all that is inevitable. the one thing that isn’t is the playoff format. that’s the thing people should take aim at. changing the dynamic would change everything competitively. meanwhile no salary cap will do anything under current playoff rules.
 
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