Federal documents detail NCAA violations

This is what’s going to happen, but it can’t be done until 2023

 

Agreed. It will only take one top ranked recruit to try the G league with some success before others will quickly follow. If I'm an NCAA program and I wanted to be way ahead of the curve here, I'd just get an NBA team to make me an affiliate and 'sponsor' players to play at my school. They can still attend class and get a degree and get paid. NBA still gets talent development on the cheap. And I as an NCAA school won't be left in the dust in the alternative scenario where the best players just go straight to G league, especially now that I can't pay them illegally nor pay them enough legally. I'd still get to keep my rabid fan bases and make NCAA tourney money, etc. But I'd have to get a few more blue blood programs to support me so I can get NCAA to change their rules on amateurism.

Another perspective on potential G league growth: https://theundefeated.com/features/...ying-the-ncaa-game-and-consider-the-g-league/

 

And if the NBA isn't going to do it, someone is and that may be Lavar Ball or one of the shoe companies, who after this scandal may just screw the NCAA and put their money towards a pro league and snatch up the likes of Zion Williamson before he is even a senior in HS. Maybe I'm off here and those that know the current AAU circuit better than me, but is it that far of a leap from all these nationwide shoe tournaments at the AAU level to a 10 team league paying these prospects and offering some online degree (if they want it) and hoping one of them turns out to be the flagship shoe spokesperson?

 

Why is it that a kid can go to a school on a full scholarship in music and play gigs and no one complains yet athletes can't get paid. College sports is a sham to protect the NCAA,the NBA players union, the schools, the coaches, the shoe companies and who gets used? The kids. OK so the best kids go to whatever minor league to get paid. What would happen next is the usual cheaters will bribe the next level kids to go to their university.

 

Are you wanting the schools to pay the athletes or do you want them to be able to earn money on the side doing endorsements, etc?

 

I want amature basketball and I want amature Olympics but it is never ever going to happen. So I prefer that us gullible fans know how much Arizona, Kentucky or Louisville is paying for their players and thus their national championships. If the schools want to pay let them pay the kids. I'd also let the kids endorse businesses or shoe companies or agents. But I'd also tax college athletic programs and would not allow tax deductions for athletic donors. Let's get this crap out in the open and let the free market work. Why should kids be indenture servants?

 

The difference is amateur and professional. Your music analogy fails as I have yet to encounter an individual artist paid while participating as part of a school sponsored group. (I'm a professional audio engineer and work across the platform from little tykes to top 10 touring performers). Take golf, college students as well as others have competed in top tourneys though there are no payments. The Olympics? Do away with college athletics and form many multi-faceted leagues and let universities develop engineers, scientists, doctors, teachers, etc.

 

I guess what I'm saying is let universities sponsor professional teams and not require the players to take classes. We are fooling ourselves if we think university amateur sports exists on a level playing field and corruption will be policed.

 

The issue w this right now is that if a high school player decides to skip college for the G-League, the team that signs him isn’t guaranteed to get him a year later. For example, say Romeo Langford decides to skip college and signs w the Pacers G-League team, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. There’s no real incentive for the Pacers to play him over their other players the Pacers are trying to develop bc after the season Romeo will enter into the Draft. The likelihood of the Pacers ending up w a draft pick high enough to land him is nil. So congrats Knicks, Kings, Nets, etc. we just paid a player $20k and made him better for you to reap the rewards. That’s one of the major issues w the system right now and it can’t be fixed until 2023.

 

I can see this happening especially for Power 5 schools. So what do you think is first domino to fall? With conferences getting TV contracts and networks they have a revenue stream and platform to showcase their talent (even more so for schools like Texas with their own network). That alone puts them at an advantage of BBB league or Nike/Adidas leagues. Texas couldn't do it alone because the NCAA and its member institutions would just bar them from competition but if an entire conference or two did it, then we'd have a real fire on our hands. Goes back to that age old question - what is the point of the NCAA?

More importantly though, what do the universities get out of this? They will have to potentially pay more for players than they do now and potentially have all kinds of labor laws to navigate (possibly anti-trust laws as well). All for what? A potential windfall on ad revenue or maybe bigger selling rights of the top talent onto the NBA a la European soccer leagues? The fun of thumbing it to Mark Emmert?

 

If that becomes a better option than playing a year in college, I don't know why you wouldn't just let those guys turn pro instead of adopting some kind of keep them in college for a year enticement.

Most guys are choosing the year in college now. There could be several reasons for that, including college is actually the better route for their career. They get far more exposure playing in college than they would in the D-League/overseas. In that regard, they're actually using the schools just as much as the schools are using them. That often gets lost in these discussions.

 

Nice take Trog, I’ve never thought about it that way.

 

Here is what I simply cannot understand: College Sports makes money, lots of it. However, having colleges pay players beyond scholarship benefits is basically turning the whole enterprise into a professional sports league. Should colleges be negotiating contracts with players? What about Title IX? Easy to say "just pay them" but in reality it is not easy or probably possible. Where some changes could be made is to allow college athletes to earn money off of apparel, video games, etc. I think that is possible and probably makes sense. College Basketball allows athletes an opportunity to live out their dreams, to develop and showcase their skills, provides an opportunity to play that most would not otherwise have and, of course, the opportunity for a free education which at Butler is about a $300,000 deal.

To me, you establish the rules and make other options available be it G League, Europe...Basically, you tell them these are our rules. We are not forcing you to play college basketball but if you choose to do so, this is what is expected. Why is that hard? No one is making these players go to college. Enforce your rules, penalize offending coaches.. Getting recruiters out of the AAU cesspool would probably solve a lot of problems, but that is not likely. Most importantly, get rid of the one and done stupidity. Go pro if you want.


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I am with you. I get tired of the indentured servant argument. Nobody is forcing them to do anything. You made a deal to exchange your physical skills for an education. You don't like the education, school or coach? Transfer. You think your real value is more than the education your getting? Transfer.

I do not see why the NBA not letting kids in right after HS has to fundamentally change college sports. If the kid wants to play in the NBA, but the NBA does not allow him yet, that is not an NCAA issue. He is still not forced to go to college. College just happens to be the best place for him to improve his skills and brand.

Maybe he needs to view this year as an investment in his future. If he is as good as he thinks he is, the taxes on his signing bonus will be more than any school would pay him. If he wants to make the $50,000-$100,000 while trying to improve his skills for that year, he can go to Europe and make money. Easy.

We are talking about changing the entire system for maybe a dozen players a year. I do not know actual numbers and maybe somebody on here does, but there are 30,000-40,000 kids that graduate each year thanks to their athletic scholarships. We want to turn this while system upside down for 15-20 kids?

If there rules on the books, enforce them. If you have end a few coaches' or ADs' careers, end them.



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Not sure how much you guys are following along, but sounds like a lot of holes being punched in ESPNs report about Sean Miller. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out both from a college basketball and journalistic integrity stand point. If the article isn't true there might be multi-million dollar lawsuits flying around.

 

Same thing with some of the MSU stuff.

ESPN has moved from reporting sports to becoming more political and an awful TMZ. Can't trust anything they say now. Very disappointed and I am not the only one.

 

The market for minor league basketball isn't comparable to those other sports, if it were we would have it. Saying expand and develop without a profitable model doesn't work.

 

Yeah that's why I always shake my head when someone spouts off about the "fair market value" of college athletes. Your market value is whatever the open market is willing to pay , not what you are earning for someone else.

 

As a follow up to what Jared posted above-Who goes to see the G games?