Auburn warns of potential ticket price hike ahead of revenue-sharing model

[NT80]

Fans will soon be paying Athlete's salaries in the P4...    

"Growing revenue opportunities because of additional expenses has become essential for Auburn's sustained success," (Auburn's AD) Cohen wrote in an email sent to season ticket holders. He called it "imperative that ticket prices in several seating zones be adjusted due to a new era of NIL,"

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story?id=43079089&_slug_=auburn-warns-potential-ticket-price-hike-ahead-revenue-sharing-model

 

[Tom McKrackin]

11 hours ago, NT80 said:

Fans will soon be paying Athlete's salaries in the P4...    

"Growing revenue opportunities because of additional expenses has become essential for Auburn's sustained success," (Auburn's AD) Cohen wrote in an email sent to season ticket holders. He called it "imperative that ticket prices in several seating zones be adjusted due to a new era of NIL,"

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story?id=43079089&_slug_=auburn-warns-potential-ticket-price-hike-ahead-revenue-sharing-model

 

Tennessee plans to add a "talent fee" to the price of sports tickets. Arkansas says it will charge 3% more at the concessions stands. Clemson is going to start adding an athletic surcharge to tuition bills.
 

^^^
We actually could benefit from this as it could

allow us to divert student fees and other revenue sources to paying players.  This can’t happen soon enough.

[meaniegreenie]

Most of y'all know more about the details of NIL since I really haven't been interested in looking into it, but I've got to wonder how much longer this NIL sham is going to go on before it becomes payment.

Has it officially been changed/recognized by the NCAA that it is no longer based on actual usage of N.I.L.?
It was obvious from the get-go that NIL was simply a stepping stone toward direct player payment (above the table) but I don't know if the NCAA has finally changed the rules to make it that way.

I may be missing some areas, but the only two places that I see where NIL is used "en masse" is in the video games and TV broadcasts.  Otherwise, the only other way I see their true N.I.L. revenue being earned is for a player to directly sell their "usage", i.e. advertisements, t-shirts, autographs, photos, etc.

So, I found the following regarding EA and TV.  Apparently, this accounts for essentially NONE of the NIL payment to players.  A mere $600 from EA and NOTHING from TV.
 

Quote

Games
EA Sports is paying a flat $600 to every player in the game along with a free copy of the game.  How (or is) the TV revenue distributed to the players? I assume it's based on each conference's TV deal. Is this money even paid to the players?

TV
Currently, TV game broadcast money is not directly paid to college athletes under NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) rules; instead, the revenue generated from broadcasts goes to the university athletic department, which then can be used to support NIL deals with athletes through sponsorships and other arrangements with local businesses, but not directly from the broadcast revenue itself.
NOTE: I also read that universities cannot directly donate cash or assets to NIL collectives s  sss

Indirect payments:

Athletes can benefit from broadcast revenue through the university's increased ability to fund NIL deals with companies due to the higher revenue generated from TV broadcasts.
 

NIL collectives:

Some schools utilize "NIL collectives" which are third-party organizations that pool money from boosters and donors to facilitate NIL deals with athletes

So, then we have the collectives, which have essentially created an opaqueness to the traceability, allowing funds to be built up and then distributed without any basis of NIL usage. 

If you start forcing fans to pay into this collective w/o any form of ACCOUNTING, AUDITING, etc., I suspect there will soon be lawsuits from the fans demanding to know that the collected money is being spent on the player wearing their team's jersey this year (or in this specific game when hit with a concession fee).

I think the collectives are also going to face some challenges when the money starts spanning seasons and the portal has players moving on after a year, i.e. you're paying into a collective for player X, but now he's moved on to another team.  Kinda' like coaches contracts, is money still being paid to a player in delayed form after he's moved?  Again, w/o any accounting/auditing, they may be in for some trouble.

Similarly, what about when a player that's collecting (forced) NIL decides to not play in the post season?  I suppose it could be argued that he is past the "season ticket" purchase, but there is always more charges to the season ticket package purchase than just the individual games, so it could be argued that your "season" purchase literally means for the entire season.

As usual, the big winners are going to be lawyers, both in lawsuits and in writing the 5000 page Terms Of Service 3pt font that's going to accompany every ticket.  It'll be interesting to see how they squeeze all of that text onto the bottom of the Hot Dog and Coke menu board at the concession stand.

[NT80]

2 hours ago, Tom McKrackin said:

We actually could benefit from this as it could

allow us to divert student fees and other revenue sources to paying players.  This can’t happen soon enough.

I'm not for paying any player until binding contracts happen which ensures they stay a set amount of time (including Bowls) unless contractually agreed to terminate.  

A paid education should also be considered a part of the "salary"!

[meaniegreenie]

2 hours ago, Tom McKrackin said:

We actually could benefit from this as it could

allow us to divert student fees and other revenue sources to paying players.  This can’t happen soon enough.

Yeah, while 10k students may be okay with this, the other 36k may not be happy about it at all, especially when all 46k are complaining about how expensive college has become. 

Having 15-20k students picketing to drop football doesn't help recruiting or TP enticements.

[Udomann]

6 hours ago, Tom McKrackin said:

We actually could benefit from this as it could

allow us to divert student fees and other revenue sources to paying players.  This can’t happen soon enough.

Going to be pretty blunt here... thats a horrible horrible idea. We already struggle with attendance.  Raising prices AND diverting more student fees to the program only makes that worse.

We need that one or two years with a donor windfall to get us into Boise (or maybe a lesser g5) territory. This is a clear example of building up not working,  but being pulled up. Just enough to light a fire. 

[El Paso Eagle]

9 hours ago, Tom McKrackin said:

Clemson is going to start adding an athletic surcharge to tuition bills.
 

I absolutely hate this. Sorry but if you're going to have revenue sharing you should not be able to force any athletic fees on students.

[NT93]

15 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

I absolutely hate this. Sorry but if you're going to have revenue sharing you should not be able to force any athletic fees on students.

Not exactly “sharing revenue” is it?  It’s making extra revenue above and beyond what is earned to help pay the bills.  

[meaniegreenie]

28 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

I absolutely hate this. Sorry but if you're going to have revenue sharing you should not be able to force any athletic fees on students.

Given that on-average, Division 1 FB teams are LOSING money, when do we start CHARGING the players to play?
Or do we go with the "Robin Hood" tax plan and take OhioState and UT money and distribute it to the rest? 

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/Finances/2023RES_DI-RevExpReport_FINAL.pdf

[Wag Tag]

It comes down to BAMA has to figure out to compete against Texas and A&M for $$$! They can’t! 

[meangreen11]

4 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

It comes down to BAMA has to figure out to compete against Texas and A&M for $$$! They can’t! 

Totally and they also can’t compete academically either.

[meaniegreenie]

2 hours ago, Wag Tag said:

It comes down to BAMA has to figure out to compete against Texas and A&M for $$$! They can’t! 

Or how to compete w/o Nick Saban.

[Aquila_Viridis]

3 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

I absolutely hate this. Sorry but if you're going to have revenue sharing you should not be able to force any athletic fees on students.

I don’t know how much they care. It’s like monopoly money. Many of them are just borrowing from Uncle Sam and hoping they don’t have to pay it back.

[MeanGreenZen]

In traditional professional football, when teams pay players and have a losing season, the teams still make $$$ and turn a profit. Thus they can afford to continue to pay players.

In today’s college football, when boosters pay players NIL and the team has a losing season, the boosters lose money AND they don’t get to experience the joy of being associated with a winner. Will those boosters keep donating NIL? Do you have to find new boosters? Don’t you eventually run out of boosters? 

Just don’t see how this NIL model is sustainable. Rich people didn’t get rich by losing money and I don’t see how you can keep asking them to do that via NIL. 

The revenue sharing model WILL work and it will be interesting to see what percentage of revenue is ultimately allocated to labor. The NBA gives 51% of gross revenue to players. The other major professional leagues give less. 

But why would colleges give players anything close to that? College players are infinitely replaceable. People root for their school and as a consequence of that, root for the players competing for that school. But if the Top 100 players in college football disappeared overnight, would the popularity of the sport suffer at all? I don’t think it would. 

Offer the players minimum wage, make them sign binding contracts with buyouts and non-competes (assuming you can still enforce those: that is another rabbit hole). NIL will still exist but won’t be as big of a deal because of the contracts and buyouts.

If a players thinks he is too good for this system, they can start their own football league or wait until they are eligible for the NFL. 
 
Why wouldn’t this work?

[NT80]

38 minutes ago, MeanGreenZen said:

In today’s college football, when boosters pay players NIL and the team has a losing season, the boosters lose money AND they don’t get to experience the joy of being associated with a winner. Will those boosters keep donating NIL? Do you have to find new boosters? Don’t you eventually run out of boosters? 

Just don’t see how this NIL model is sustainable. Rich people didn’t get rich by losing money and I don’t see how you can keep asking them to do that via NIL. 

There are probably 10 levels of donors and fans for a college athletic program.   Anyone from a 70-year-alum always a supporter, to businessman only for advertising, to mom & dad only while son is going there, to corporate CEO wanting a name on a building, to t-shirt fans who just like the Flying Worm, etc.  

At P4 schools when the AD says they need cash, usually someone Big or a lot of smaller someones steps up.   

At our level I think it's more difficult to predict the donors and level of donations.   I think it's also more difficult to find donors willing to give blindly to a non-specific NIL fund than to a specific building fund.  

[Jonnyeagle]

7 hours ago, NT80 said:

think it's also more difficult to find donors willing to give blindly to a non-specific NIL fund than to a specific building fund.  

I mean are you saying you want to know exactly what every player is paid? My worry is you would have each of them know that number is so they can be jealous and fight about it.  I think the coaches have to determine the amounts and allocations unless you are an SMU or someone who can afford to pay every player on the roster 100k a piece.  If you don’t have mountains of cash you have to allocate per the coaches wish I would think.  Agents come into play sadly as well I suppose.

 

[El Paso Eagle]

13 hours ago, meaniegreenie said:

Given that on-average, Division 1 FB teams are LOSING money, when do we start CHARGING the players to play?
Or do we go with the "Robin Hood" tax plan and take OhioState and UT money and distribute it to the rest? 

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/Finances/2023RES_DI-RevExpReport_FINAL.pdf

So very true. I guess they use the same financial model as the WNBA. At least in "professional" sports they are salary control and caps. I am not faulting the players, but at some point, all sides are going to have to try and find a solution, or I don't see how many programs continue with football.