Transfer Portal: '22 - '23 Edition

[mse326]

9 hours ago, seminoles1 said:

Why can't they get a degree?

Most schools have a certain number of credits you have to take from their institution to get a degree. 

[ronjon1990]

11 hours ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Interesting take....

 

Not saying it's not making a longstanding issue worse but......most of these guys weren't getting degrees in the first place. 

A lot of the guys in the NFL didn't finish their degrees, a lot of guys who didn't make it to the NFL didn't get theirs either. They exhausted their athletic eligibility and bounced. That's been going on for years, so the newfound "concern" strikes me more as just having a hissy over certain schools/regions without deep pockets and business connections being left out. 

And the sports media spent years creating this beast. Albert should get a handle on it. 

 

At the end of the day, it has virtually NOTHING to do with players not getting degrees. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by ronjon1990

[candyman93]

I don’t understand companies paying college athletes to advertise for them. It’s easier to market pros as the face of your product over time, but these kids leave after 2-3 years of actual on field production.

[squire12]

32 minutes ago, candyman93 said:

I don’t understand companies paying college athletes to advertise for them. It’s easier to market pros as the face of your product over time, but these kids leave after 2-3 years of actual on field production.

national companies can seek out Pros.  Local companies (mom and pop type companies) probably aren't going to pursue pros when college options may be of equal cost

[MWil23]

8 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

Not saying it's not making a longstanding issue worse but......most of these guys weren't getting degrees in the first place. 

A lot of the guys in the NFL didn't finish their degrees, a lot of guys who didn't make it to the NFL didn't get theirs either. They exhausted their athletic eligibility and bounced. That's been going on for years, so the newfound "concern" strikes me more as just having a hissy over certain schools/regions without deep pockets and business connections being left out. 

And the sports media spent years creating this beast. Albert should get a handle on it. 

 

At the end of the day, it has virtually NOTHING to do with players not getting degrees. 

33% of all who attend college dropout and don’t earn a degree (32.9% to be exact).

In general, under half of college enrollees graduate on time. Even after 6 years, under 60% graduate with a 4 year degree.

This includes every student.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markkantrowitz/2021/11/18/shocking-statistics-about-college-graduation-rates/?sh=13e38fd72b69

Essentially, those who transfer at all for any reason find more difficulty. The community college % is around 20%.

[ramssuperbowl99]

9 hours ago, candyman93 said:

I don’t understand companies paying college athletes to advertise for them. It’s easier to market pros as the face of your product over time, but these kids leave after 2-3 years of actual on field production.

This is one of those where legitimately it works out better for everyone

1. Kid benefits because more money is better than less money
2. Business benefits because the cost of entry for advertising to get into the $60B (this number is old, I'd expect it to be $100B+) NCAA FB/BB market has dropped to relative peanuts. Don't believe me, try to get commercial air time on the Big 10 network during a game, or to become the "official partner of School" for anything. Giving a kid $100k to tweet up a storm and do a cheap commercial for an afternoon is absolutely viable as a business strategy.
3. Business also benefits because I, a school-supporting consumer, will see the hokey-*** ad and go "oh great that store helps the program", and will be more likely to purchase that brand in the future. And before you say not true, my dumb brain buys Bucky Badger salsa for gods sake (it's amazing don't judge me).
4. The identity of the kid doesn't matter a whole lot, because the base value is program support. If the kid turns into a Heisman contender, the advertiser got a deal. If not, they still got the helmet they paid for originally.

The schools most directly lose here, as there's less competition for the direct advertising goes down with the increased options. Though, this is only partially true, because it's a different class of advertisers (e.g. how much are Apple/Honda really going to compete with your local stores' advertising - some, sure, but not a lot).

 

I should note that the logistics of under the table payment often involved small business owners. Truth is, if you want lots of difficult to trace cash on hand, the best options are to own a business or deal drugs. So historically, it was the local car dealership that was using under the table revenue to support these. Instead, they've boosted their advertising budgets and are funneling the money legally.

It kills both the supply of excess cash for recruits and the demand for illegal cash from recruits at the same time.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ramssuperbowl99

[MWil23]

48 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

This is one of those where legitimately it works out better for everyone

1. Kid benefits because more money is better than less money
2. Business benefits because the cost of entry for advertising to get into the $60B (this number is old, I'd expect it to be $100B+) NCAA FB/BB market has dropped to relative peanuts. Don't believe me, try to get commercial air time on the Big 10 network during a game, or to become the "official partner of School" for anything. Giving a kid $100k to tweet up a storm and do a cheap commercial for an afternoon is absolutely viable as a business strategy.
3. Business also benefits because I, a school-supporting consumer, will see the hokey-*** ad and go "oh great that store helps the program", and will be more likely to purchase that brand in the future. And before you say not true, my dumb brain buys Bucky Badger salsa for gods sake (it's amazing don't judge me).
4. The identity of the kid doesn't matter a whole lot, because the base value is program support. If the kid turns into a Heisman contender, the advertiser got a deal. If not, they still got the helmet they paid for originally.

The schools most directly lose here, as there's less competition for the direct advertising goes down with the increased options. Though, this is only partially true, because it's a different class of advertisers (e.g. how much are Apple/Honda really going to compete with your local stores' advertising - some, sure, but not a lot).

 

I should note that the logistics of under the table payment often involved small business owners. Truth is, if you want lots of difficult to trace cash on hand, the best options are to own a business or deal drugs. So historically, it was the local car dealership that was using under the table revenue to support these. Instead, they've boosted their advertising budgets and are funneling the money legally.

It kills both the supply of excess cash for recruits and the demand for illegal cash from recruits at the same time.

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/12/03/chris-spielman-ohio-state-settle-lawsuit-over-use.html

Point #5 to your point:

Quote

 

Businesses and universities have been doing this for decades, making it very profitable:

In 2017, Spielman sued Ohio State and its sports marketing agency, IMG, and named them as "co-conspirators" with Nike USA Inc., which makes licensed OSU apparel, and American Honda Motor Company Inc., which sponsored a series of banners with him and other former star players' names and photos that hung in Ohio Stadium. 

“The conduct ... is blatantly anti-competitive and exclusionary,” the original 2017 complaint said, “as it wipes out in total the future ownership interests of former student-athletes in their own images – rights that all other members of society enjoy – even long after student-athletes have ceased attending The Ohio State University.”

Adams said he is happy his client and Ohio State have resolved the issue.

"Our full efforts can now be focused upon the primary defendant IMG," Adams told me in an email, adding that Ohio State paid $140,000 to Spielman in the settlement.

In November 2017, an amended complaint was filed that expanded the class action lawsuit beyond Ohio State to involve all 89 schools that have contracts with IMG.

Spielman said he is donating the $140,000 back to the university in the form of the William White Family Fund for ALS and the Stephanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research.

Spielman is represented by several Central Ohio attorneys from BKD Legal LLC in Sunbury and Wesp Barwell LLC and Kohrman Jackson & Krantz LLP in Columbus.

 

Shoutout to Spielman for proving his point and then proceeding to give that back to the university as "strings attached" money for that cause he's so rightfully passionate about from his late wife.

I still maintain, in my opinion, that you should force students to become employees of their respective institutions because the university does deserve a kickback for any/all player sporting their brand, mascot, and merchandise. I think a 50/50 split is very reasonable. While we love these players as individuals and their NIL has some major value, that value really only matters insomuch as them playing for my favorite team.

You aren't buying J.J. Watt Salsa, but you'll buy Bucky Salsa if it has J.J. Watt in a Badgers uniform.

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/12/03/chris-spielman-ohio-state-settle-lawsuit-over-use.html

Point #5 to your point:

Shoutout to Spielman for proving his point and then proceeding to give that back to the university as "strings attached" money for that cause he's so rightfully passionate about from his late wife.

I still maintain, in my opinion, that you should force students to become employees of their respective institutions because the university does deserve a kickback for any/all player sporting their brand, mascot, and merchandise. I think a 50/50 split is very reasonable. While we love these players as individuals and their NIL has some major value, that value really only matters insomuch as them playing for my favorite team.

You aren't buying J.J. Watt Salsa, but you'll buy Bucky Salsa if it has J.J. Watt in a Badgers uniform.

Ultimately, I agree with you that they feel more like employees and that's likely the more efficient sum total, but don't think we should rush into anything at this point. I want to see what the market looks like, and we're just now figuring that out. 

I can envision benefits of employee-izing everyone, but there's more overhead. Student athletes/employees would be hooked up with a university lead marketing team to make sure they aren't peddling FTX or anything overtly damaging, instead of having to rely on an informal "advisor"/agent to do it for them, or worse have to start comparison shopping 3rd party services that would take a bigger than needed cut. So that's good. But then we're adding non-revenue contributing staff, so that's bad.

And yeah whenever image rights and whatnot come up people freak out about video games, but the elephant in the room is health insurance. That is a conversation way outside of this website's paygrade. Like...where do you even start?

 

EDIT And I also wouldn't say colleges are getting the bad end of the deal, even now. Sure, no advertising kickbacks, but there's also no long term healthcare costs with the 1099 model.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ramssuperbowl99

[MWil23]

33 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Ultimately, I agree with you that they feel more like employees and that's likely the more efficient sum total, but don't think we should rush into anything at this point. I want to see what the market looks like, and we're just now figuring that out. 

I can envision benefits of employee-izing everyone, but there's more overhead. Student athletes/employees would be hooked up with a university lead marketing team to make sure they aren't peddling FTX or anything overtly damaging, instead of having to rely on an informal "advisor"/agent to do it for them, or worse have to start comparison shopping 3rd party services that would take a bigger than needed cut. So that's good. But then we're adding non-revenue contributing staff, so that's bad.

I'm not necessarily advocating for that entirely and am fine with the "wait and see" approach, but while players absolutely have NIL rights and are/should be within their rights to capitalize on those, so does the university with branding, as well as what they would be comfortable/uncomfortable with endorsing passively while that athlete is wearing their brand or representing that college/university.

33 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

And yeah whenever image rights and whatnot come up people freak out about video games, but the elephant in the room is health insurance. That is a conversation way outside of this website's paygrade. Like...where do you even start?

I could be wrong, but I thought every college student was given the opportunity to have insurance. So, vicariously speaking, wouldn't athletes as well? To be fair too, I don't know how "full time job" status would go with that since none of this is hourly pay either.

33 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

EDIT And I also wouldn't say colleges are getting the bad end of the deal, even now. Sure, no advertising kickbacks, but there's also no long term healthcare costs with the 1099 model.

I absolutely don't disagree. That said, I'm going to enjoy seeing some catastrophic PR fallout when one of these guys makes an endorsement deal with a company that doesn't fit that university's value system/perceived value system.

For example...gambling is going to be legal in Ohio here soon...what do you do here?

[ramssuperbowl99]

3 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

I'm not necessarily advocating for that entirely and am fine with the "wait and see" approach, but while players absolutely have NIL rights and are/should be within their rights to capitalize on those, so does the university with branding, as well as what they would be comfortable/uncomfortable with endorsing passively while that athlete is wearing their brand or representing that college/university.

I believe current NIL rules restrict direct conflicts of interest. If OSU sponsors Coca-Cola, Marvin Harrison Jr. can't do Pepsi. So they have some protections, as well as the common sense one. I don't imagine any major college football players are going to start doing stuff that's super controversial because the brand overlap is pretty much 100%.

21 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

I could be wrong, but I thought every college student was given the opportunity to have insurance. So, vicariously speaking, wouldn't athletes as well? To be fair too, I don't know how "full time job" status would go with that since none of this is hourly pay either.

Some do. I know Wisconsin did because we have a huge international student population.

Though I should have clarified, if they become employees then football isn't an after school scholarship club where athletes can waive away their rights to sue for health damages/workman's comp/etc.

That's the issue. No one is worried about paying for the surgery on a broken leg, it's the live-in care for advanced dementia as a result of CTE where everyone's wallets pucker up.

27 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

I absolutely don't disagree. That said, I'm going to enjoy seeing some catastrophic PR fallout when one of these guys makes an endorsement deal with a company that doesn't fit that university's value system/perceived value system.

For example...gambling is going to be legal in Ohio here soon...what do you do here?

And there are times the employment model would fail too. Imagine a kid running a successful Twitch stream before going to school, then he goes to school. His stream increases in viewership/profitability. How do you divide that up?

 

It's still changing too quickly to feel like we know how to specifically legislate this. And the NCAA not caring doesn't help.

[MWil23]

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

I believe current NIL rules restrict direct conflicts of interest. If OSU sponsors Coca-Cola, Marvin Harrison Jr. can't do Pepsi. So they have some protections, as well as the common sense one. I don't imagine any major college football players are going to start doing stuff that's super controversial because the brand overlap is pretty much 100%.

Got it, that makes sense. I guess I'm speaking more to values. For example, let's say student A from BYU wants to be a coffee/birth control/alcohol endorser in an institution with an honor code.

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Some do. I know Wisconsin did because we have a huge international student population.

Though I should have clarified, if they become employees then football isn't an after school scholarship club where athletes can waive away their rights to sue for health damages/workman's comp/etc.

That's the issue. No one is worried about paying for the surgery on a broken leg, it's the live-in care for advanced dementia as a result of CTE where everyone's wallets pucker up.

Makes sense.

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

And there are times the employment model would fail too. Imagine a kid running a successful Twitch stream before going to school, then he goes to school. His stream increases in viewership/profitability. How do you divide that up?

Very fair

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

It's still changing too quickly to feel like we know how to specifically legislate this. And the NCAA not caring doesn't help.

The bolded is the issue that I have. At least in my proposed model, you have the room to have some type of common sense (yeah, I know, it's problematic) with room to evolve and go with some semblance of institutional and individual balance, as opposed to the "Wild Wild West" model we have now.

Throw in things like states rights/the federal government and things like taxation, and imagine states like the Florida and Texas schools running away with recruiting for those reasons alone...or even your private religious institutions who have immunity as nonprofit schools/institutions.  

[ronjon1990]

4 hours ago, MWil23 said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/12/03/chris-spielman-ohio-state-settle-lawsuit-over-use.html

Point #5 to your point:

Shoutout to Spielman for proving his point and then proceeding to give that back to the university as "strings attached" money for that cause he's so rightfully passionate about from his late wife.

I still maintain, in my opinion, that you should force students to become employees of their respective institutions because the university does deserve a kickback for any/all player sporting their brand, mascot, and merchandise. I think a 50/50 split is very reasonable. While we love these players as individuals and their NIL has some major value, that value really only matters insomuch as them playing for my favorite team.

You aren't buying J.J. Watt Salsa, but you'll buy Bucky Salsa if it has J.J. Watt in a Badgers uniform.

This I agree with. 

The whole student-athlete thing is just a poor attempt at maintaining the image of amateur sports. 

So many don't graduate or get some sort of gen ed degree before seeking greener pastures playing in the pros, either in the states or abroad. There are, certainly, a few exceptions (Myron Rolle, anyone?) but by and large they're not attending their school for any reason other than sports. 

And hey, good for them, I say. Follow your dreams, and given the lack of options, they're simply doing what they're able to try and make that happen. 

To clarify, my gripe isn't with the players going to a school, taking up seats in classes, or getting paid. It's the system they were given. But schools and the NCAA have tried to straddle an impossible and redundant line with them. 

Drop athletics as a "program" related to or tied to study, make it employment offer a discount on tuition or something for those who care to take advantage of it, and stop pretending it's not a business. 

I get it. I went initially on a scholarship (and shout out to my first school for not revoking it when I got hurt in high school, btw!). I eventually gave it up in favor of working and later transferred elsewhere to finish and go on to law school in the states and then again overseas. 18-23 year old kids are gonna try to follow the money, especially if they don't come from a comfortable nest. 

I had a few classmates and peers from other schools that got signed and played. Most of them would have never bothered with college if not for football- they didn't care about education, they wanted to try their lot at getting to the pros somehow. If college ball is going to remain the only realistic option, that's not on the players, and schools and the NCAA should realize that and adjust accordingly. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

Got it, that makes sense. I guess I'm speaking more to values. For example, let's say student A from BYU wants to be a coffee/birth control/alcohol endorser in an institution with an honor code.

The NIL doesn't change anything about the honor code, so presumably in that situation it would be up to the university to pursue discipline consistent with it outside of the football program.

They may have to change it to specifically include references to "promoting" objectionable content, but they make every incoming freshman sign them anyway so easy enough.

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

Throw in things like states rights/the federal government and things like taxation, and imagine states like the Florida and Texas schools running away with recruiting for those reasons alone...or even your private religious institutions who have immunity as nonprofit schools/institutions. 

So this is interesting because the 1099 route means the state income tax would be based on the residency of the athlete, which could be home state and not school state.

Practically, that means with the current system it shouldn't be hard for a recruit (or their family) to establish residency in a state with no income tax to level that out if it becomes an issue, especially if the money is big relative to the family income.

[MWil23]

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

The NIL doesn't change anything about the honor code, so presumably in that situation it would be up to the university to pursue discipline consistent with it outside of the football program.

They may have to change it to specifically include references to "promoting" objectionable content, but they make every incoming freshman sign them anyway so easy enough.

Right, I guess that's what I was saying.

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

So this is interesting because the 1099 route means the state income tax would be based on the residency of the athlete, which could be home state and not school state.

Practically, that means with the current system it shouldn't be hard for a recruit (or their family) to establish residency in a state with no income tax to level that out if it becomes an issue, especially if the money is big relative to the family income.

Caveat as well. When I was recruited *mutters under breath* years ago, I was told that I could change my residency to California after living there for a year, in which case I could get the major in state tuition packages. The same could hold true for NIL deals after said year if that ever changed

But to your point, essentially this is what every celebrity/athlete/lottery winner with half a brain already does, minus the fact that pro organizations are paid out differently in taxes.

[ramssuperbowl99]

10 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Right, I guess that's what I was saying.

Caveat as well. When I was recruited *mutters under breath* years ago, I was told that I could change my residency to California after living there for a year, in which case I could get the major in state tuition packages. The same could hold true for NIL deals after said year if that ever changed

But to your point, essentially this is what every celebrity/athlete/lottery winner with half a brain already does, minus the fact that pro organizations are paid out differently in taxes.

I did this (to keep residency where I had, not to gain residency). Claimed residency with a girlfriend for 12 months during a family move to make sure it wouldn't slip. If I didn't do that, my family was going to "rent an efficiency" from a friend for 12 months so I had something with a WI on the end.

Showed up to the registrars office with 2 weeks worth a gym badge scans and was never a problem. Fooling a college residency application is the easiest thing ever.

(Allegedly.)

Edited December 7, 2022 by ramssuperbowl99