Rushinbear said:
cbbass1 said:
calumnus said:
southseasbear said:
I don't see how we can compete. Perhaps Blueblood is right and we will transition to the MWC.
If we think we can't compete we most likely won't.
I think we are in a great position to compete. There are over 9,000 kids playing college football every year. Clearly the vast majority are not going to the NFL. We need to recruit a solid core of the top level second tier players, players who might be shooting for the NFL but know it is not a sure thing, and some elite players that almost certainly NFL players.
The first group is easy. It is kids (and their parents) who value education, who know having a Cal degree is a great plan B. It is kids all across the country who are attracted to Berkeley, either academically, our reputation for social justice or just our great location.
The elite players are similar. The Jaylen Browns, Demitris Robertsons who who are attracted to the school and Berkeley. The key is finding those kids through research, which is easy now since they are all on social media. Search engines do the work for a relatively small fee.
The other part is NIL to compete for the elite players. Again, we sit in one of the 4 largest media markets in the country. We have a thriving tech industry nearby. We have a wearily alumni base. The Raiders have gone to Vegas, the Niners to the South Bay were they compete with our only local completion. If the program were marketed well, top players, especially local players could be local media stars. When Marshawn Lynch was at Cal, there was a minor rap hit using his name.
We are far better situated with more potential to succeed in the new environment than the majority of schools in the country. No, we won't be elite, but we can be regularly Top 20 with a shot a better with a little luck in any given year. Will we? Well, that is a different question. I think our program lacks visionary leadership and we will likely fall far below our potential over the coming years and by the time the current regime move on it will probably be too late.
However, this new booster group may be the answer. A passive Knowlton could be an asset to an active booster group.
YES!!!
Not only do we have the top Public University in the nation, top academics, a huuge media market, and excellent alumni connections; we also have a strong history of social leadership and innovation.
IF someone in the Cal community were to develop a platform so that players, coaches, and universities could manage posts to multiple social media platforms, notifications, communications (like recruiting communications, offers, commitments, portal & draft announcements), with adjustable levels of approval, revenue sharing, etc., then we could certainly take a leadership role in NIL. This would also set the stage for a negotiation between recruits & their parents, players, coaches, university administrators, sponsors, and media networks on what the settings should be over NCAAF, or over the entire NCAA. The athletes would need to organize, of course, to make sure that their economic & privacy interests were well represented.
Twitter & Instagram have carried the bulk of the social media traffic for NCAAF and its many related activities, but they're very general tools. It's time for NCAA sports to develop its own communications & NIL management infrastructure. Existing social media networks would certainly be part of the picture initially, but maybe not permanently.
There's simply no other university in the nation who's in a better position to do this than UC Berkeley, with academic excellence in software/tech, business, law, and public policy, and prominent alumni from each of these communities providing leadership.
Wake me when the top 300 recruits care about this. You've never met and talked to any of them, have you. Sweet dreams.
The top 300 football recruits wouldn't be the 1st adopters. But the NCAA, conferences, universities, coaches, sponsors, & the parents of recruits might be, especially if it applied to ALL NCAA student-athletes. Once the separate network exists, parents & coaches could agree to:
- use only the separate network for messages to HS recruits & their parents from either coaches or university/team-affiliated sponsors;
- limit the number of messages, as well as the number & timing of voice or video calls & text messages;
- honor the "dead periods" and "quiet periods" defined for each sport by the NCSA.
One option would be to create a social media platform that all parties would agree to use. The rules would be defined by a consortium of all parties, with the representatives of the organized student-athletes having
n% of the representation. (50% if I were king, since the players are the product in any sport, and it has to work for them, primarily. For some of you, the preferred student representation would be 0%, like the "good old days".)
There's an open-source platform called Mastodon that's basically a social media template. It allows you to create your social media network, like Twitter, but you get to define the "rules of engagement", including moderation.
The inclusion of NIL in college sports will be an evolutionary process. This is just one way to make it less chaotic, less disruptive, and better-aligned with the long-term interests of the student-athletes, and all college sports stakeholders.
With NIL, top HS recruits can come into college sports programs with their own following, and for California recruits, their own sponsorships. Clearly, top recruits will be showered with NIL compensation; and they will also come into their chosen program as a "big fish" from a small pond. Unless they went to HS programs that stress teamwork, humility, work ethic, responsibility, and accountability, the NIL could be more of an obstacle to their growth & development than a help.
I can't imagine how 4- or 5-star recruits ever manage to get any classwork done in their last 2 years of HS. Putting limits on the communications would be the entry point. The NCAA limits the number of in-home recruiting visits & phone calls by coaches; this would have to extend to potential NIL sponsors as well.
There are, of course, many unanswered questions. I'm just suggesting this as a starting point. It's one possible way to make the inclusion of NIL into college sports a more deliberate and democratic process, rather than one immediately seized by opportunists for their own gain.
