Sebastabear said:
Quote:
It was interesting the past weekend having the opportunity to talk with people at the Bears rugby match. Almost everyone I talked to about this felt the same way. This is the first year in decades I'm not renewing my season tickets for football. While I love the game as it was, I'm less passionate about it now. The game day experience is all business now.....commercials, piped in crap, promotions......I've just grown tired of the hijacking of what was a once unique college (and particularly Cal) experience. The changing of conferences and loss of rivalries further drove me away. But rugby hasn't been tarnished by the monetary characteristics that football and basketball have been subjected to. And a great majority of those I talked with mentioned that's one reason they enjoy going to the rugby matches.
Tom, I am sorry to hear that Cal may be losing you as a football fan. That is a shame as the program needs all the support it can get.
I will admit I continue to find it disorienting that Nick Saban is being held out as the standard bearer making the argument for those feeling that college football has become too commercial and too much like a business. Has any individual on the planet benefited more from the money that has poured into college football than Nick Saban? He is not only the highest paid public employee in Alabama, he was probably the most highly compensated person in the entire state of Alabama over the past decade, public or private. Think about that for a moment. A football coach at a public university was likely making more money than anyone else in the entire state. And now he's leaving that job and will be paid $93.6 million to talk about his old job? And yet he's the one telling us "Oh my God, how horrible there's money in college football"?
You correctly note that there has been money entering college football for quite a while now. That's undeniably true. But we can't gloss over the fact that dear old Saint Nick, personally and individually was maybe the greatest beneficiary of that money the world has ever seen.
So I'll admit I find it increasingly hard not to to throw my hands up in the air when people recoil in revulsion upon hearing that college football players are getting $25,000 and $50,000 checks, and for the vast majority of them those are the amounts were talking about - there aren't a lot of Caleb Williams" running around out there. Or Jaydn Otts' either for that matter. Most players come from very humble family circumstances and $25,000 or $50,000 is incredibly impactful for them and their family. The ability to help with younger siblings. The ability to help with ill parents. That's where NIL money is mostly going. And it's not going for $17 million mansions like Nick Sabin constructed for himself.
He's actually the problem. Not NIL.
True enough. But college football is in some turmoil. NIL is not NIL. It is flat out pay for play. I do not have a problem with the money. But the process is very troubling.
NIL is a way for players to profit off their name, image and likeness. If players are to be paid then lets orgranize and find a way to get them paid. Let the players with really earning potential keep their NIL opportunities and money. Unlimited transfers is fine. But how it is done is impossible for coaches and programs to manage.
The players deserve to be paid. Yes Saban benefitted to a ridiculous degree and to many that makes him the worst person to bring these issues to light and work for a solution that works for all. But he also is a voice that many in the world of college athletics and media will pay attention to. I am glad he is speaking out. He has a big megaphone. More need to join the cause.
There is a way to get players paid. For NIL to flourish and allow for those that can benefit to do so. For there to be an organized path for transferring, recruiting and disbursing benefits to the players. It has always been a business, but now there is chaos. The pendulum always swings too far in each direction before it meets somewhere close to the middle. The game is too important to not find a solution. I agree that Saban is a pompous guy that has benefitted greatly by the way things were. But I am willing to accept that because of that he may have some ideas that can bring some structure to the sport.
The amount of money floating around is substantial. Everyone can get their piece of the pie. The NFL has a found a way. And it is not just Saban, it is the schools and conferences as well that are a big part of the problem.
Lets get the players paid. Lets get some structure to the entire recruiting model. Lets punish (severely) the programs that tamper. Lets put college back into the equation. I do not care what the players get paid. But the NFL has a structure. This world of hoping for boosters to fund a program that will undergo significant change each and every year is not the way. It is what is happening now though.
As poor a spokesperson as Nick Saban may be, I think folks should take a long look at the conference leadership like Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti. If the game is to be simply a business then it needs to do better. It can but greed and power are driving a stake into the heart of the game. Saban is a convenient villain. But there are a lot of villains in this.
The players need to be paid. There needs to be some organization and structure to the process. There needs to be some sort of competitive balance. The reality is these players are employees. The only thing at question now is how are they to be paid. What benefits they have and what sort of contractual obligations each has to each other.
If they do not get their collective acts together there will be more folks like Tom that just opt out.
