the three current new hires are all pretty raw and need a lot of coaching up ..

I hope that he can pull in 1-2 more that are more prolific scorers, but getting a bunch of new guys to play well together is no easy task ..

If what he has next year stick around for another year, he might have something going

Johnfox said:

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Stojakovic is Madsen's number one target. Sharavjamts is also one he wants badly. Both are playmakers that can score with high upside

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Yes both high upside, but also unproven.

Are the cost of season tickets going to fluctuate each year based on portal success/failure?

Like the Oakland A's, a new roster to memorize each year.

It is disappointing that we could not do a better job of recruiting high school players this year. How are we going to build a strong core for the future otherwise? We don't have the wallet to compete for the top portal players that is quite clear. Tyson was a great get last year, but the odds of getting a first round draft choice to the NBA again are low. Our first season in the ACC is going to be challenging if not out right ugly.

Freshman can be very good and big contributors if given the opportunity. High school seniors often improve rapidly as their bodies mature, again, if given the opportunity. Lots of very good players are unheralded coming out of high school.

Jeremy Lin is a food example.

Good example.

bearister said:

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Are the cost of season tickets going to fluctuate each year based on portal success/failure?

Like the Oakland A's, a new roster to memorize each year.

---

I doubt they raise prices until we have a winning record

bearchamp said:

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Freshman can be very good and big contributors if given the opportunity. High school seniors often improve rapidly as their bodies mature, again, if given the opportunity. Lots of very good players are unheralded coming out of high school.

---

Of course. In a world where productive players aren't poached mercilessly at the conclusion of each season, I would prefer to recruit predominantly around high schoolers. Good prospects that have high ceilings and P5 D1 level floors cost a ton of money already. The ones that don't cost a lot of money have low floors and unknown ceilings. Stars and recruiting pedigree aren't everything, but they matter. For every Jorge and Andre Kelly, there's a lot more Brandon Chauca's, Kaileb Rodriguez's, Deschon Winstons', and basically everyone Fox recruited. Our best players recruited from high school have been mostly highly sought after (Powe, Ryan Anderson, Patrick Christopher, Crabbe, Wallace, Brown, Rabb, Bird, Mathews, Matt Bradley, Justice Sueing, etc.).

bearchamp said:

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Jeremy Lin is a food example.

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He's a Hot Dog

BeachedBear said:

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bearchamp said:

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Jeremy Lin is a food example.

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He's a Hot Dog

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He does have an Ike's Sandwich - "Linsanity is a turkey sandwich outfitted with voodoo heat chips, Godfather sauce, Sriracha, havarti, and avocado"

Oakbear said:

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I'm not a fan of NIL. Wouldn't it be great if it did not exist.

wouldn't it be great if Ego and Greed did not exist .. or for that matter, war/famine/pestilence, etc

---

I think it would be great if NIL did not exist and seemingly is the law of the land, replacing athletic scholarships.

Cal fans would not be happy if the amount of NIL for each college team were announced, as clearly Cal total football NIL would be left in the dust by most Southeastern Conference teams and many Big Ten teams.

In general, which teams are going to get the best talented NIL recruits? Most likely the ones with the biggest NIL budgets. I know there are ratings of the best recruits by organizations which rate sports recruits for football and basketball pn the basis of the sports prowess in those two sports which then can be compared to the list of relative school fan footba;; attendance. Normally, one would expect NIL payments by college football teams should correlate to relative team football attendance. For instance, I think Cal's average football attendance is dwarfed by the average attendance by the top teams in the most powerfull football conferences, which should correlate to NIL footbal payments made by those teams.

Would love to have others comment on what I have stated above and whether they feel NIL could be overturned as the law of the land relating to how rmuch football players are paid. I long for the days when college football players were largely compensated by flast per person football schoarships. I assume, but have not read, that athletic schlarships do not exist anymore for football and basketball by the big schools, as otherwise they would be doubly compensated -- NIL payments plus college scholarships.

I should point out that I have not seen any artricle covering this topic, which really is just a summary of how the flat per person payments to college players using the scholarship method compares to NIL payments and how NIL payments to the most popular teams in terms of their relatball footbal attendance changes how much players are paid in relation to football attendance of some other measurement.

I look forward to your comments.

barsad said:

---

Yes, I think there will be legal challenges to NIL, but those challenges will not be about "overturning" NIL. More likely the lawsuits will seek to better define what forms acceptable student compensation will take in the future.

Personally I am hoping that the challenges focus on how far governing bodies can go in regulating payments to students. Right now there is zero acceptable regulation, it's the Wild West and the roster chaos we saw in the last few months is a result. The first thing the courts will have to acknowledge is that this "name, image and likeness" thing is just another name for "compensation for play", it was a convenient way to get around being uncomfortable with paying students for the work they do (playing basketball).

Pro teams, along with three pro players' unions, all agree that a salary cap is needed for a common good: competitive balance within a league. The same anti-competitive problem exists right now in the NCAA under the no-regulation NIL regime. So I see no reason that the same legal argument wouldn't work for D1 teams, who all face the same problem (i.e. only a few NIL-fundraising powerhouses will take all of the good players and crush the competition every year).

There are a lot of differences between pro sports and college…. no players' union (yet) to make a deal with, a bunch of college presidents and NCAA executives who can't agree on what to order for lunch let alone hammer out an important labor agreement.
But with some leadership, creativity, good lawyers, backroom deals and/or a lot of time in court, reform can and should happen. But expect a 10-year process (or longer). I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years of roster musical chairs every off-season!

---

Right now NIL is mostly paid by boosters outside the school's budget as they used to under the table. A huge area for growth is players signing with agents and receiving "pre-payments" or loans based on speculation over their future NFL value. Cal can compete in this world. We have a large, wealthy alumni base. However, inevitably it will be pay to play outright and inevitably it will be players being paid from the school's media and ticket revenues. Both the law and competition will drive us there. (Cal will have trouble competing in that world as our media revenues are dwarfed by the rest of the P4)

I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal..

Thus, the only way I see to avoid "the Wild West" (unfettered, unregulated, free market competition) would be an act of Congress signed by the president, the easiest of which would be to give the NCAA antitrust immunity and the ability to regulate the market and institute salary caps.

However, I don't see Congress reinstituting "amateurism." As much as many older fans pine for a return to that era , it was based on a fundamental injustice and inequity, with schools making nearly $100 million in revenues while players essentially "got to go to class." Something that used to be nearly free at Cal and still is on other places in the world. On the other hand, who knows which way America's political winds will blow? There is a political movement that pines for the America of the 1950s so maybe a return to the days when athletes where unpaid will be taken up by them? The Supreme Court, however, seems to be very libertarian (on this issue at least, the opposite on others).

Dartmouth refuses to work with basketball players' union, potentially sending case to federal court
https://apnews.com/article/dartmouth-basketball-union-b8a1f60322aca1208c6f5677b6bb8c8f

calumnus said:

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I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal.

---

I won't be waiting around for Congress to do anything useful.
Calumnus, what do you think about players unions by conference? Then you're just talking about a couple hundred students and 18 schools? The Dartmouth case could establish a right to unionize, or the reverse.

barsad said:

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calumnus said:

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I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal.

---

I won't be waiting around for Congress to do anything useful.
Calumnus, what do you think about players unions by conference? Then you're just talking about a couple hundred students and 18 schools? The Dartmouth case could establish a right to unionize, or the reverse.

---

Individual schools like Dartmouth can have unions, sure. The players will be able to negotiate for base considerations. Individual conferences may be able to achieve them, especially for players already enrolled.

However, what we are talking about is a salary cap negotiated by a union with an "owners" group as is done in the NFL, NBA and MLB. I don't see the incentive on the part of the players to agree to one and I don't see a legal enforce mechanism to keep schools, especially their boosters, compliant.

A top player agrees to go to Alabama and will receive payment from Alabama,compliant with the SEC salary cap, but boosters will "boost" that amount.

A nationwide union and salary cap is unfeasible because the revenues per school are so disparate. MWC schools make $5 million whike the B1G makes $70 million. The SEC would never agree. Even on a conference level, I don't think the SEC thinks "parity" is desirable. And as I said, many of its states have adopted "right to work" laws so a top player simply doesn't join the Union and gets paid whatever he can get.

The bottom line is there are too many actors with too many disparate situations, motives and financial incentives for it to self organize as the professional sports have.

calumnus said:

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barsad said:

---

calumnus said:

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I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal.

---

I won't be waiting around for Congress to do anything useful.
Calumnus, what do you think about players unions by conference? Then you're just talking about a couple hundred students and 18 schools? The Dartmouth case could establish a right to unionize, or the reverse.

---

Individual schools like Dartmouth can have unions, sure. The players will be able to negotiate for base considerations. Individual conferences may be able to achieve them, especially for players already enrolled.

However, what we are talking about is a salary cap negotiated by a union with an "owners" group as is done in the NFL, NBA and MLB. I don't see the incentive on the part of the players to agree to one and I don't see a legal enforce mechanism to keep schools, especially their boosters, compliant.

A top player agrees to go to Alabama and will receive payment from Alabama,compliant with the SEC salary cap, but boosters will "boost" that amount.

A nationwide union and salary cap is unfeasible because the revenues per school are so disparate. MWC schools make $5 million whike the B1G makes $70 million. The SEC would never agree. Even on a conference level, I don't think the SEC thinks "parity" is desirable. And as I said, many of its states have adopted "right to work" laws so a top player simply doesn't join the Union and gets paid whatever he can get.

The bottom line is there are too many actors with too many disparate situations, motives and financial incentives for it to self organize as the professional sports have.

---

One challenge is jurisdictional. Public employee unions in California are regulated by California's Public Employment Relations Board. There are similar agencies in other states. Moreover, with Janus v. AFSCME, we pretty much have "right to work" in the public sector as employees cannot be required to join or even pay a fee to a union. In the private sector the National Labor Relations Board, not by state agencies, has exclusive jurisdiction.

Good knowledge, it's a very tangled Web. It seems shortsighted for the NCAA and top conferences to not care at all about parity… if the tournament turns into the football playoffs (same list of 15-20 teams every year, none of them Cal), I know I will lose some interest.
I think parity=competitiveness=broader interest= mo' $$$ for everyone involved.
But maybe that's too long of an equation to get to a reasonable consensus on how to improve this. Without regulation I just see an NIL arms race where the same elite fundraisers dominate.

calumnus said:

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barsad said:

---

calumnus said:

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I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal.

---

I won't be waiting around for Congress to do anything useful.
Calumnus, what do you think about players unions by conference? Then you're just talking about a couple hundred students and 18 schools? The Dartmouth case could establish a right to unionize, or the reverse.

---

Individual schools like Dartmouth can have unions, sure. The players will be able to negotiate for base considerations. Individual conferences may be able to achieve them, especially for players already enrolled.

However, what we are talking about is a salary cap negotiated by a union with an "owners" group as is done in the NFL, NBA and MLB. I don't see the incentive on the part of the players to agree to one and I don't see a legal enforce mechanism to keep schools, especially their boosters, compliant.

A top player agrees to go to Alabama and will receive payment from Alabama,compliant with the SEC salary cap, but boosters will "boost" that amount.

A nationwide union and salary cap is unfeasible because the revenues per school are so disparate. MWC schools make $5 million whike the B1G makes $70 million. The SEC would never agree. Even on a conference level, I don't think the SEC thinks "parity" is desirable. And as I said, many of its states have adopted "right to work" laws so a top player simply doesn't join the Union and gets paid whatever he can get.

The bottom line is there are too many actors with too many disparate situations, motives and financial incentives for it to self organize as the professional sports have.

---

Agree about the unlikelihood of a salary cap. One reason pro players have agreed to this because they are convinced that a competitive league benefits all; ensuring that players on mid-market teams have a chance to play for a Super Bowl team during their career. College players have no such incentive. Most hope to only be in college for a year or two and they can always jump to the next highest bidder the following season.

barsad said:

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Yes, I think there will be legal challenges to NIL, but those challenges will not be about "overturning" NIL. More likely the lawsuits will seek to better define what forms acceptable student compensation will take in the future.

Personally I am hoping that the challenges focus on how far governing bodies can go in regulating payments to students. Right now there is zero acceptable regulation, it's the Wild West and the roster chaos we saw in the last few months is a result. The first thing the courts will have to acknowledge is that this "name, image and likeness" thing is just another name for "compensation for play", it was a convenient way to get around being uncomfortable with paying students for the work they do (playing basketball).

Pro teams, along with three pro players' unions, all agree that a salary cap is needed for a common good: competitive balance within a league. The same anti-competitive problem exists right now in the NCAA under the no-regulation NIL regime. So I see no reason that the same legal argument wouldn't work for D1 teams, who all face the same problem (i.e. only a few NIL-fundraising powerhouses will take all of the good players and crush the competition every year).

There are a lot of differences between pro sports and college…. no players' union (yet) to make a deal with, a bunch of college presidents and NCAA executives who can't agree on what to order for lunch let alone hammer out an important labor agreement.
But with some leadership, creativity, good lawyers, backroom deals and/or a lot of time in court, reform can and should happen. But expect a 10-year process (or longer). I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years of roster musical chairs every off-season!

---

When players leave early to transfer we shouid all say, "wait, we hardly knew thee." Hard to get lock into any team where players are constantly transferring in and out.. The worst thing about NIL -- not enough carryover of players to the next year.

barsad said:

---

Yes, I think there will be legal challenges to NIL, but those challenges will not be about "overturning" NIL. More likely the lawsuits will seek to better define what forms acceptable student compensation will take in the future.

Personally I am hoping that the challenges focus on how far governing bodies can go in regulating payments to students. Right now there is zero acceptable regulation, it's the Wild West and the roster chaos we saw in the last few months is a result. The first thing the courts will have to acknowledge is that this "name, image and likeness" thing is just another name for "compensation for play", it was a convenient way to get around being uncomfortable with paying students for the work they do (playing basketball).

Pro teams, along with three pro players' unions, all agree that a salary cap is needed for a common good: competitive balance within a league. The same anti-competitive problem exists right now in the NCAA under the no-regulation NIL regime. So I see no reason that the same legal argument wouldn't work for D1 teams, who all face the same problem (i.e. only a few NIL-fundraising powerhouses will take all of the good players and crush the competition every year).

There are a lot of differences between pro sports and college…. no players' union (yet) to make a deal with, a bunch of college presidents and NCAA executives who can't agree on what to order for lunch let alone hammer out an important labor agreement.
But with some leadership, creativity, good lawyers, backroom deals and/or a lot of time in court, reform can and should happen. But expect a 10-year process (or longer). I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years of roster musical chairs every off-season!

---

barsad, I agree with you that it sucks, but it is kind of the sucky straw that breaks the camel's back that is the suckiness of what has happened to college sports over a course of decades. The NCAA is lucky they got away with this for so long.

The rules against NIL make sense in the context of an amateur league of school sports where students from schools compete against each other. They don't make sense in the context of a professional league. The NCAA was able to make everyone pretend these were amateur sports teams for a long time after they weren't. The killed the golden goose. Schools got greedy and they have essentially been running high revenue, professional sports teams for a long time. (most non-profitably).

When you are essentially running for profit sports programs, you can't unilaterally decide you aren't going to pay your athletes. And what you really can't do is decide what OTHER people pay your athletes.

I don't see a way around this because while, as you say, pro teams and players' unions agree to terms, some of which include various forms of salary caps. But what NONE of them do, or can legally do, is stop athletes from getting paid by third parties for endorsements. They don't try to do that and never will. This is already a big exception to the salary cap rule, just not one that anyone cares about. Players in LA or NY can get better endorsement deals. Most people think that Klay Thompson gets better endorsements as a Warrior than he could anywhere else for a number of reasons. So players might take less salary to play on a team that will enhance their NIL marketability.

So, the bottom line is, they can't stop NIL. If Alums want to pay $10M to market a player's football card, they can. The genie is out of the bottle. All they could MAYBE do is stop the schools from overtly diverting funds to NIL contracts. There is almost no point in even worrying about that, because it is very easy to just tell your donors to go donate to NIL instead. Hell, people here already do that.

You are 100% correct that it is a sham to allow schools to pay players for play. But the logistics matter. As long as they keep up the structure of private citizens running NIL, I don't see that they can stop it.

What CAN happen is for schools to self sort by what they do in practice. In other words, they won't be able to make rules against NIL, but they can sort of look at each other and say - well, from a practical perspective we all have about the same NIL activity and revenue, etc. - we should be in the same conference. This kind of happened in a way in East Bay high school sports when DeLaSalle and the rest of the schools in their league essentially agreed that they didn't belong together because they didn't have the same priorities and DLS was just crushing everyone. They mutually parted ways. I think you will see that happening more and more in college sports. But it won't be through a "NO NIL League" by rule. It will be because schools that can't compete will decide that they are tired of getting crushed. I also think that if big donors, who are usually smart with their money, see that their money doesn't ultimately make a difference at their school because there is just too much more money elsewhere, they will tend to stop giving for that and things will spiral for that particular school. But we are early days in this situation. Personally, I'm hoping schools sort by who wants to be a professional league and who wants to be student athletes. But it could just make things continue to get worse.

I also think that while there are a lot of schools' fans that just don't care about the professional nature and if there are new players every year, there are a lot that do and I do think that if the veil is lifted it will be hard to deny that this is just bad, minor league sports played under the auspices of your school.

BearlyCareAnymore said:

---

barsad said:

---

Yes, I think there will be legal challenges to NIL, but those challenges will not be about "overturning" NIL. More likely the lawsuits will seek to better define what forms acceptable student compensation will take in the future.

Personally I am hoping that the challenges focus on how far governing bodies can go in regulating payments to students. Right now there is zero acceptable regulation, it's the Wild West and the roster chaos we saw in the last few months is a result. The first thing the courts will have to acknowledge is that this "name, image and likeness" thing is just another name for "compensation for play", it was a convenient way to get around being uncomfortable with paying students for the work they do (playing basketball).

Pro teams, along with three pro players' unions, all agree that a salary cap is needed for a common good: competitive balance within a league. The same anti-competitive problem exists right now in the NCAA under the no-regulation NIL regime. So I see no reason that the same legal argument wouldn't work for D1 teams, who all face the same problem (i.e. only a few NIL-fundraising powerhouses will take all of the good players and crush the competition every year).

There are a lot of differences between pro sports and college…. no players' union (yet) to make a deal with, a bunch of college presidents and NCAA executives who can't agree on what to order for lunch let alone hammer out an important labor agreement.
But with some leadership, creativity, good lawyers, backroom deals and/or a lot of time in court, reform can and should happen. But expect a 10-year process (or longer). I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years of roster musical chairs every off-season!

---

barsad, I agree with you that it sucks, but it is kind of the sucky straw that breaks the camel's back that is the suckiness of what has happened to college sports over a course of decades. The NCAA is lucky they got away with this for so long.

The rules against NIL make sense in the context of an amateur league of school sports where students from schools compete against each other. They don't make sense in the context of a professional league. The NCAA was able to make everyone pretend these were amateur sports teams for a long time after they weren't. The killed the golden goose. Schools got greedy and they have essentially been running high revenue, professional sports teams for a long time. (most non-profitably).

When you are essentially running for profit sports programs, you can't unilaterally decide you aren't going to pay your athletes. And what you really can't do is decide what OTHER people pay your athletes.

I don't see a way around this because while, as you say, pro teams and players' unions agree to terms, some of which include various forms of salary caps. But what NONE of them do, or can legally do, is stop athletes from getting paid by third parties for endorsements. They don't try to do that and never will. This is already a big exception to the salary cap rule, just not one that anyone cares about. Players in LA or NY can get better endorsement deals. Most people think that Klay Thompson gets better endorsements as a Warrior than he could anywhere else for a number of reasons. So players might take less salary to play on a team that will enhance their NIL marketability.

So, the bottom line is, they can't stop NIL. If Alums want to pay $10M to market a player's football card, they can. The genie is out of the bottle. All they could MAYBE do is stop the schools from overtly diverting funds to NIL contracts. There is almost no point in even worrying about that, because it is very easy to just tell your donors to go donate to NIL instead. Hell, people here already do that.

You are 100% correct that it is a sham to allow schools to pay players for play. But the logistics matter. As long as they keep up the structure of private citizens running NIL, I don't see that they can stop it.

What CAN happen is for schools to self sort by what they do in practice. In other words, they won't be able to make rules against NIL, but they can sort of look at each other and say - well, from a practical perspective we all have about the same NIL activity and revenue, etc. - we should be in the same conference. This kind of happened in a way in East Bay high school sports when DeLaSalle and the rest of the schools in their league essentially agreed that they didn't belong together because they didn't have the same priorities and DLS was just crushing everyone. They mutually parted ways. I think you will see that happening more and more in college sports. But it won't be through a "NO NIL League" by rule. It will be because schools that can't compete will decide that they are tired of getting crushed. I also think that if big donors, who are usually smart with their money, see that their money doesn't ultimately make a difference at their school because there is just too much more money elsewhere, they will tend to stop giving for that and things will spiral for that particular school. But we are early days in this situation. Personally, I'm hoping schools sort by who wants to be a professional league and who wants to be student athletes. But it could just make things continue to get worse.

I also think that while there are a lot of schools' fans that just don't care about the professional nature and if there are new players every year, there are a lot that do and I do think that if the veil is lifted it will be hard to deny that this is just bad, minor league sports played under the auspices of your school.

---

That is why I think the best solution would be splitting the country into 4 geographical regions: East Coast, Midwest, South and West and then having divisions within each region with promotion and relegation between divisions in the European soccer model. Rather than schools trying to sort it out, let the market decide who your competitors are. If you want to be in a higher division, try harder.

I also think having the players be employees of the university is going to be a legal and bureaucratic nightmare and that the best solution, especially at a place like Cal is to outsource management of the revenue sports to a private alumni-run non-profit that would receive the revenues, employ the coaches and players, market the team , solicit alumni donations and then donate any net proceeds to the university. Alumni/fans could buy "shares" that would give them votes in important decisions but starting with the GM who would effectively be the AD, allowing the university to greatly downsize its own athletics bureaucracy as it will now only be running the non-revenue sports. It may even allow the university to take football out of its Title IX calculations.

bearister said:

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Are the cost of season tickets going to fluctuate each year based on portal success/failure?

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Aw come on, Bear!
You root for Cal because they are CAL, not because they win!!!

And you're DONATING to the university precisely so they can have some portal success, not as a result of it.