So as some may have seen San Diego State Signed Dixon-Waters out of USC

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/story/2023-04-11/san-diego-state-sdsu-aztecs-basketball-reese-dixon-waters-usc-trojans-transfer-portal-commitmentp

It really got me thinking that a core challenge in NIL land is the information asymetries. N

And this signing is of interest as i have posted before because SDSU's NIL structure (at least the one that is being talked about openly) is, IMHO, far more sustainable than Seb Bear's (which I heartedly say thank you). SDSU has to raise about $4-500K a year to provide a 30K stipend to each scholarship athlete. That is an amount that CAN be raised in small bites at volume. Asking for 6 figure donations - especially when the Athletic department is asking the very same people for ongoing mid-5s for their courtside seats feels, from someone who has to raise money, pretty difficult.

Lets be honest, while "payers" (and schools) have no interest in disclosing the number the hanger ons/"representatives" of the recruit have EVERY interest in overinflating offers. It really is the wildwest.

They really need to become employees.

I wonder when we are going to see our first "breech of contract" lawsuit when a collective fails to raise money (especially in year 2) for the recruit promised X?

I certainly do not want to hijack this thread, I would love some additional information regarding how collectives work, as well.

Let us take the example of the commitment of Aimaq. It has been mentioned on this board that Aimaq will receive some NIL monies during his stay in Berkeley. My understanding is that the Collectives work independently of the university, correct? So, how do they coordinate, exactly? A simplified course of events may have been:

1. Mad Dog notes that Aimaq is in the portal.
2. After some amount of communication between the two, Mad Dog offers Aimaq a scholarship.

I assume that this is the start of it. But then the Collective/NIL piece has me confused. Is it:

3. Aimaq contacts the Collective??? (…but how does Aimaq know to do that? [Can Mad Dog say, "Contact the Collective at this e-mail address. They'll take care of you."???] How does the Collective then know that Aimaq has been offered a scholarship???)
OR 3. The Collective is in contact with all of the top transfers in the country (whether Mad Dog has any interest in the player or not)??? How does the Collective know that Aimaq has been offered a scholarship???)
OR 3. Someone on the Mad Dog staff causally/indirectly mentions to someone in the Collective that Mad Dog is "headed to Lubbock," but "can't say any more than that"???

That is a flip answer, to be sure, but I would love some clarity if anyone can provide some!

One concern I had, which believe is related to NIL, is the alumni/donor expectations for engagement during the recent hiring of the basketball coach. This depth of interest and expectation for engagement was greater than I recall seeing in my almost 50 years as a Cal fan. I hope that donors and alumni don't feel more entitled to this level of engagement because they are contributing NIL funds. Perhaps I'm wrong and interest was so high because the previous choice for a coach, Mark Fox, was such a terrible choice. Some posters here explained that the unusual interest was because donors were going to be expected to make substantial NIL contributions, which is a strange situation because NIL dollars don't even come to the university and go directly to the players. Yet it appeared that some donors were deeply offended by not being involved in the AD's decision process, which as far as I can tell was very sound this time with the selection and hiring of Mark Madsen. For donations that come directly to Cal, there are clear policies to maintain autonomy of the University and avoid favoritism and conflicts of interest. I've worked with some very large donors at Cal (hundreds of millions of dollars) and the way these donors ensure that their donations are going to be used in an impactful manner and not wasted is very impressive. However, there are very clear lines drawn concerning the influence the donors can have, with preservation of the university's autonomy, in particular when it comes to candidate selection in hiring, being of paramount importance. (A donor might make a gift to fund a new research institute, including funding for new faculty positions, but it is understood that the faculty will assess the candidates to fill those positions and will decide which candidate(s) to hire).

I would love to know too, but we might only get answers of voodoo magic and voila, the money somehow appears in a bank account.

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

---

I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

calumnus said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

---

I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

---

While Kav. concurring opinion went to that point the majority did not and only really focused in on NIL.

The NCAA flat out said that they would not allow institutions to directly communicate to the NIL that a student needs $X.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/NIL/D1NIL_InstitutionalInvolvementNILActivities.pdf

The unknown is whether the NCAA will act. I don't necessarily disagree with yours - that the fear of the full antitrust penalities and having the players be classified as employees is so scary that the NCAA has decided to simply ignore everything.

What I THINK will happen is that in year 2 something will blow up. A collective somewhere IS going to fail to raise the necessary funds to make good on a promise. SOme kid is going to have every reason in the world to flip.

socaltownie said:

---

calumnus said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

---

I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

---

While Kav. concurring opinion went to that point the majority did not and only really focused in on NIL.

The NCAA flat out said that they would not allow institutions to directly communicate to the NIL that a student needs $X.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/NIL/D1NIL_InstitutionalInvolvementNILActivities.pdf

The unknown is whether the NCAA will act. I don't necessarily disagree with yours - that the fear of the full antitrust penalities and having the players be classified as employees is so scary that the NCAA has decided to simply ignore everything.

What I THINK will happen is that in year 2 something will blow up. A collective somewhere IS going to fail to raise the necessary funds to make good on a promise. SOme kid is going to have every reason in the world to flip.

---

Note that it wasn't just a majority, it was a rare unanimous decision. The conservatives and the liberals, everyone agrees the NCAA's attempts to limit players receiving compensation for their name, image and likeness is illegal. Kavanaugh just spelled out the full impact and a preview how they would rule on pay to play or players rights to a share of the TV revenues. No one gave the NCAA any hope they do not feel the same. The NCAA even calls their new rules "interim" and has no means for enforcement.

It makes sense for schools to pay lip service to the NCAA as far as the university's actions. It makes no sense (and may even be illegal) for Knowlton to try to impose those rules on boosters and his coach, but he found a coach that said he will comply, and will.

I don't think so. I know many of the alums and their coach has been really clear he doesn't like the idea of players getting different $...at least though the mesa foundation. Don't dismiss this alternative approach

It sounds like the Lupoi coffee cup delivery method has gone the way of the dodo bird.

socaltownie said:

---

calumnus said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

---

I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

---

While Kav. concurring opinion went to that point the majority did not and only really focused in on NIL.

The NCAA flat out said that they would not allow institutions to directly communicate to the NIL that a student needs $X.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/NIL/D1NIL_InstitutionalInvolvementNILActivities.pdf

The unknown is whether the NCAA will act. I don't necessarily disagree with yours - that the fear of the full antitrust penalities and having the players be classified as employees is so scary that the NCAA has decided to simply ignore everything.

What I THINK will happen is that in year 2 something will blow up. A collective somewhere IS going to fail to raise the necessary funds to make good on a promise. SOme kid is going to have every reason in the world to flip.

---

And NIL is not the same as paying a salary and NIL was the only issue decided. Kavanaugh's concurrence might be predictive but the issue wasn't before the court and it's dicta. Given how badly the NCAA has failed at dealing with the issue and the differences in various state legislative proposals re NIL we'd probably need Congressional action to get any certainty in the area, and that body doesn't seem to agree on anything so it's the Wild West for the foreseeable future I think.

Are NIL deals year by year deals? And if the money doesn't show, who gets sued? The collective? Can't be the school, right?

Funny thing is that a collective bargaining agreement eliminates the antitrust concern but that idea probably scares the NCAA more than another lawsuit or two.

bluesaxe said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

calumnus said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

---

I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

---

While Kav. concurring opinion went to that point the majority did not and only really focused in on NIL.

The NCAA flat out said that they would not allow institutions to directly communicate to the NIL that a student needs $X.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/NIL/D1NIL_InstitutionalInvolvementNILActivities.pdf

The unknown is whether the NCAA will act. I don't necessarily disagree with yours - that the fear of the full antitrust penalities and having the players be classified as employees is so scary that the NCAA has decided to simply ignore everything.

What I THINK will happen is that in year 2 something will blow up. A collective somewhere IS going to fail to raise the necessary funds to make good on a promise. SOme kid is going to have every reason in the world to flip.

---

And NIL is not the same as paying a salary and NIL was the only issue decided. Kavanaugh's concurrence might be predictive but the issue wasn't before the court and it's dicta. Given how badly the NCAA has failed at dealing with the issue and the differences in various state legislative proposals re NIL we'd probably need Congressional action to get any certainty in the area, and that body doesn't seem to agree on anything so it's the Wild West for the foreseeable future I think.

Are NIL deals year by year deals? And if the money doesn't show, who gets sued? The collective? Can't be the school, right?

Funny thing is that a collective bargaining agreement eliminates the antitrust concern but that idea probably scares the NCAA more than another lawsuit or two.

---

There is no law preventing players from being paid, the laws are on the opposite side. Not paying a fair wage is against the law. When a player is paid for their "NIL" it is impossible to separate the payments from their play. If they were not players, would they get $millions from boosters for their NIL? Of course not.

To be legal, collective bargaining needs to be initiated from the labor side, but the logistics of over 20,000 athletes (including minors?) trying to organize would be daunting. You might say, only the top athletes could join, but they have the least incentive to unionize. And each would only be members for 4 years. Then you would have the 500 or so schools, with very different economics, trying to negotiate on the other side.

It really requires an act of Congress. Until then, it is a free market. Schools will give lip service to the NCAA rules, but schools and coaches that really try to curtail booster payments for pay to play are just shooting themselves in the foot.

calumnus said:

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bluesaxe said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

calumnus said:

---

socaltownie said:

---

SebBear is MUCH more in inner workings here but it feels like there are at least 3 archtypes out there.

1) The straight substitute for the former bag/coffee cup collectives.

Look, we all know that players have been getting paid for eons. NIL semi-legalized a lot of it. There are several collectives in SEC land that resemble this (and it also makes sense because it isn't clear that the other kinds of archtypes are available to those players in the semi-rural south. A variant is the individual whale collective (see the guy at U of Miami). I assume that there is close communication, on a burner phone, between the coach, the NIL coordinator and the key reps of these collectives.

2) The entertainment play. Here we get closer to what the SOCTUS seemed to be thinking about as collectives, usually with alumni that are involved in sports marketing/entertainment use connections to help players at their former alma matter leverage NIL opportunities out there. USC seems to have a couple of collectives that resemble this. Ditto UCLA. It works, I think, when your university is in a large metro market which a strong alumni pipeline to the entertainment/advertising/marketing world. I for the life of me don't understand "social media influencer" as a marketing tool but it works and is profitable.

A vairent here is the individual student entrepreneur. Olivia Dunn feels like this.

3) The innovators (not necessary a good thing). SDSU feels like it is here. I am sure there are others. These schools face the challenge that they do not have a history of bagmen AND they are not in markets where the players have value (or alumni that are pipelined into those markets). And so they are trying to stay within the rules but find other ways that players can benefit from the value of their NIL (as opposed to soley their ability to win games and provide joy to Bubba as they do so).

Overlaid on this are efforts by schools to connect players with opportunities. Sadly this is a place I fear Cal will SUCK (though perhaps things have changed) - though to be fair until Cal starts to win there is limited value in having our starting PF show up for a promo at TopDog.

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I think your #2, needs modification. It is closer to what the original legislation for "Name, Image and Likeness" in California and elsewhere had in mind. It is what the NCAA is endorsing.

However, in approving #2, the Supreme Court made very clear they would go much further and have no issue with #1. They view the revenue sports as businesses and the players as employees in that enterprise and, absent any exemption from Congress, any restrictions on their earnings for their performance on the field (the actual business) to be restraint of trade and a major violation of the Antitrust laws. The NCAA promotes #2 because they want to cling to their fiction of amateurism, but the rules are really a "suggestion" because if they try to enforce them the Supreme Court will slap them with a ruling that will make explicit that the players are employees of the universities and are entitled to be paid out of the universities' TV revenues for their labor.

Thus, we are where we are. The boosters elsewhere are paying players in clear pay to play schemes and the NCAA will do nothing because the payments are legal and enforcement of the NCAA's rules is illegal.

The Cal administration wants to stay within the NCAA's cute but repudiated (and illegal) idea of "no play to play" as if that is morally superior. We will play by stricter rules than is necessary. Thankfully Sebasta has put together a really good organization to maximize money under those constraints, so we can all just pay big money for "signed photos" as if that is what we are really paying for. Mark Madsen is about as good of a coach we could have hoped for who will honestly tell Knowlton he will play within those self-imposed constraints.

Until we get an athletics administration that really understands that they are running a business in a highly competitive industry and need to hire competent professionals in sports management and marketing, able to maximize our revenues within the law while maintaining only our academic integrity, we will continue to underperform to our great potential. Madsen will be a good coach until that time. Wilcox hasn't been, but is being given a lot of time to try to get there.

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While Kav. concurring opinion went to that point the majority did not and only really focused in on NIL.

The NCAA flat out said that they would not allow institutions to directly communicate to the NIL that a student needs $X.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/ncaa/NIL/D1NIL_InstitutionalInvolvementNILActivities.pdf

The unknown is whether the NCAA will act. I don't necessarily disagree with yours - that the fear of the full antitrust penalities and having the players be classified as employees is so scary that the NCAA has decided to simply ignore everything.

What I THINK will happen is that in year 2 something will blow up. A collective somewhere IS going to fail to raise the necessary funds to make good on a promise. SOme kid is going to have every reason in the world to flip.

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And NIL is not the same as paying a salary and NIL was the only issue decided. Kavanaugh's concurrence might be predictive but the issue wasn't before the court and it's dicta. Given how badly the NCAA has failed at dealing with the issue and the differences in various state legislative proposals re NIL we'd probably need Congressional action to get any certainty in the area, and that body doesn't seem to agree on anything so it's the Wild West for the foreseeable future I think.

Are NIL deals year by year deals? And if the money doesn't show, who gets sued? The collective? Can't be the school, right?

Funny thing is that a collective bargaining agreement eliminates the antitrust concern but that idea probably scares the NCAA more than another lawsuit or two.

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There is no law preventing players from being paid, the laws are on the opposite side. Not paying a fair wage is against the law. When a player is paid for their "NIL" it is impossible to separate the payments from their play. If they were not players, would they get $millions from boosters for their NIL? Of course not.

To be legal, collective bargaining needs to be initiated from the labor side, but the logistics of over 20,000 athletes (including minors?) trying to organize would be daunting. You might say, only the top athletes could join, but they have the least incentive to unionize. And each would only be members for 4 years. Then you would have the 500 or so schools, with very different economics, trying to negotiate on the other side.

It really requires an act of Congress. Until then, it is a free market. Schools will give lip service to the NCAA rules, but schools and coaches that really try to curtail booster payments for pay to play are just shooting themselves in the foot.

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Sure. But on the topic of that third sentence, no NIL arrangement can be "separated" from the thing that makes the NIL worth paying for, whether it's a student playing hoops, a Tik Tok "influencer" doing whatever works to get followers, or an actor doing ads. And all sorts of players will play without getting NIL money. Those people aren't getting paid to do what made their NIL worth something. So if it's actually NIL I'd argue it isn't the same. However, in a lot of places it will be and that's reality for sure.

https://saturdayoutwest.com/usc-trojans/usc-basketball-loses-starting-guard-to-the-transfer-portal/