rcade

I am glad the athletes are making money but there has to be a better way to do it. The current NIL and transfer portal are bonkers. They're taking a jackhammer to the foundation of the sport.

Yes. You must take at least 12 credit hours a semester and pass 9 credit hours with a 1.8 GPA (year 2), 1.9 GPA (year 3) or 2.0 GPA (year 4-5). Or someone who looks like you and can fake your signature must meet those requirements.

Athletes are the only college students who had to overcome a presumption that it's wrong for them to make money while in school. Everyone else -- like the dot-com types -- didn't have the NCAA blocking them from income. When I was in college in the 1980s, Michael Dell was running a computer business out of his dorm room at UT-Austin. He made $200,000 profit his first year. I don't think it's insane for college athletes to want some of that sweet green cheese. A lot of them won't make the NFL or will only be there for a short time on cheap rookie deals. When the money truck arrived on campus of course everybody got in line.

How does this topic make someone barf? It's one of the only things about the NIL that isn't bad for fans!

I heard this during the NFL Draft over the weekend: Only 58 underclassmen declared for this year's draft, the lowest since 2011. https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/2024/1/19/24044307/2024-nfl-draft-fewest-underclassmen-declare-in-over-a-decade This is way down from a peak of 130 in 2021. The chance to earn serious NIL money in college is keeping more athletes from shortening their college careers. One pundit said this trend meant there were a lot fewer NFL-ready players available during the final day of the draft. I don't know if that's true since the team here in Jacksonville has a long tradition of avoiding NFL-ready players.

Encouraged by head coach Trent Dilfer, the entire University of Alabama at Birmingham football team has joined Athletes.org, one of several players associations attempting to organize players ahead of the anticipated future where they can collectively bargain for a slice of the sport's revenue. "I wanted to make sure I helped pour gasoline on something that is going to happen no matter what," said Dilfer, who was paid zero dollars and zero cents playing for the Fresno State Bulldogs from 1990-93. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40024327/uab-becomes-1st-d-football-team-join-players-association

We need to put player names on the front and back of uniforms so they know what to call each other.

If that was in Latin it could be SMU's motto.

The Florida attorney general has sued the ACC, saying the conference's media rights contracts and ESPN agreements must be made public under the laws of the state. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/sports/college/fsu/2024/04/25/fsu-gains-support-from-florida-ag-in-battle-with-acc-ag-files-lawsuit/73450812007/ I look forward to hearing from @SMU2006 how this makes it even more certain the ACC will prevail.

I know the ACC means a lot to you since your school has been a member for so long, but that judge sending the case to mediation has nothing to do with the merits of the suit. It is his normal practice. “I send every case to mediation except mortgage foreclosures. This is not being done any differently.” -- Judge John C. Cooper https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/22/judge-orders-florida-state-and-the-atlantic-coast-conference-to-mediation-in-latest-legal-round/

This sounds like a marriage counseling session that went off the rails. Nobody needs to be reminded when the season starts that they declared their intention to quit supporting the school during the offseason. Everybody knows supporting UNT is like herpes. You think it's finally gone and it flares up again.

If Mean Green fans grousing could kill your vibe, how did it survive on GMG for 21 years?

The girls all get prettier at closing time.

What I don't understand: How do we know our NIL is underfunded compared to our conference mates and other peers when the financials don't have to be publicly reported?

Now just hold on a minute. She's clearly a "they don't make quarterbacks like Derek Football anymore" kind of person.

I don't see anybody in the AAC with brand recognition far above the rest, aside from Navy but they are a special case. Before the NIL UNT was doing well in our conferences in terms of financial and facility support. Whether that's true with our collectives is an open question.

We can hold them accountable based on how their peers at the same level of the sport are doing. Almost everybody is facing the same problem of the here-today gone-tomorrow roster.

I am fine with players making money and playing where they want to play, but I have to admit the current Wild West era of the NIL and transfer portals is making the product less enjoyable. I miss having a good chance of following an athlete for their entire college career. It would be nice to have some incentives for players to stay put.

If you were the coach you would be looking to move too when a better opportunity arose. Everybody in the NCAA is looking out for number one. As a coach I would love to see players who entered the portal decide to stay. It would be one less hole I had to fill next season.

To the person who gave this a Confused: FirefightnRick and I played on the same middle school basketball team in Burleson in the early 1980s. I'd like to say we dominated the league. It isn't true but I'd like to say it.

That may have been for the best. When he was on Twitter with the Light the Tower NIL collective he kept posting political opinions because he forgot which account he was on.

I don't underestimate it. I just accept that it is the way things are until somebody figures out how to bring more order to the chaos. Bigger schools damage us. We damage smaller schools.

The people forking over money for NIL probably don't want to fork over more for commercials, since that money could be spent on more athletes. If I was bankrolling NIL deals for UNT I would make the players endorse Morrison's Corn Kits.

It is against the rules to tie NIL money to performance. An athlete has a name, image and likeness regardless of whether he plays a down of football, and that's what the money is buying. It's like paying Randy White to endorse SKOAL.

Does it suck he didn't stay? Yes. But he should always be remembered for the NIT championship, CUSA championship, CUSA player of the year and NIT Most Outstanding Player honors. He scored over 1,000 points in 67 games and the team went 56-14 in his two seasons in Denton. We need more players like that even if they eventually get lured away by deep-pocketed rat bastards higher than us in the food chain.