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- Dec 22, 2011
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But you are making my point that this issue has relevance to a a very small percentage of people and politicians. Outside of the Southeast, Michigan, PA, Ohio and Cali I’m not sure this is the ”pressing” issue that the people in the world of college sports thinks it is.
Part of this is because there is a greater systemic issue of college football becoming an increasingly regional sport.
But the biggest issue for me is that I am confident it would be unconstitutional for congress to pass a law limiting how much money a college student can make via endorsements. And the politicians know this even if the idiots at the NC2A and people like Nick Saban do not. So I would expect a few politicians to care, not many, and it ends right there because anyone who read the Supreme Court opinion knows where they stand on this issue.
And I’m sure the NC2A isn’t asking for anything fair either like making athletes employees and giving them collective bargaining rights. This will be the idiot NC2A, which created this nonsense with their archaic rules and moronic appeals, asking Congress to limit how much money college students can make.
Well at least Tubberville will care because he is too stupid to understand the Supreme Court opinion.
That's a fair point. I was just saying that state politicians frequently become US politicians.
I also want to clarify, I've never said "limit" the income. But they can definitely set some guidelines and there are a whole host of things that can be done in addition that I don't want to bore people with.
The big key here is this. To the extent that any of this money could implicate the schools (such as how certain states are allowing the schools to set up NIL deals), then it very well COULD become an "employer-employee" relationship. Many court cases have already noted that several of the commonlaw elements of employer-employee have already been met (such as setting "work" schedules and making various activities compulsory). So all that will be needed is a bit more involvement by the universities on the payment side, and I strongly suspect that you'll find a judge out there to rule in favor of the athletes.
If you create a bright line that divides "endorsement" type income from anything that COULD be viewed as salary (such as the scholarship money), you are probably OK. For instance, the fact that PROFESSIONAL athletes go out and earn additional endorsement income does NOT impact their salary or team salary caps. Note that pro athletes don't wear their team uniforms and logos (sometimes they use the team colors).
We shall see. There's plenty of room for the feds to legislate, but whether they have the appetite or desire to do so, I'm not as sure.