NCAA will permit athletes to be compensated
- Thread starter FBallFan123
- Start date
CountryFrog
Active Member
Actually, the vast majority of college football games are absolutely bad football. Do you see what the elite teams (Clemson, Alabama, Ohio St, etc) typically do against their allegedly equal conference brethren? Well, the majority of games are between those lesser teams. We often mistake it for good football because the teams are evenly matched, we care about the outcome, and we just love college football.
The thing is, though, 99% of the people watching these games are not nearly educated enough on who the "top talent" is to be able to distinguish between those top 1400 players and the next batch of 1400 players.
This is my fear in regards to the slippery slope I mentioned earlier. I don't think name and likeness by itself is a huge deal but can't imagine that once that ball gets rolling towards paying players that it'll stop anytime soon. Thisis just step 1 towards true pay for play and then we all may find out exactly how much the public cares about watching the truly elite 18-22 year olds and how much they just want an excuse to get drunk, socialize, and watch football.
Very true. The talent of the players isn't what draws the crowds, the draw is the tradition of college football that has been established over years and years and everything that goes along with it. "Good football" is almost irrelevant, all that matters is who wins the game. Every team in college football would get boat raced by the worst NFL team (yes, even the Dolphins). Yet, the cheapest ticket in the LSU-Alabama game right now is $289 and you can go see the Jets-Dolphins game this weekend for $25.
The top 50 players in college football could suffer season-ending injuries tomorrow and the economic impact on college football would be negligible. In fact, there might even be increased interest since more teams and their fans across the country would think they have a chance at winning something. The idea that players and their elite talent is what drives college football is asinine.
Zubaz
Member
This is where I disagree. While it's not an apples to apples comparison and the league had other issues, you could just tell the talent level of the AAF was a step down from the NFL, because the top 1,500 or so players were already in the NFL. There was a SIGNIFICANT drop off in talent between the leagues, and even when watching AAF teams play each other, it could be pretty rough to watch (Luis Perez vs Mike Bercovici? Woof).
There's a reason why ECU vs Southern Miss doesn't draw a lot of interest, and while part of that is the brand, a lot of that is the talent too.
The reason the AAF failed was because people quickly realized they have little to no interest in watching what was in effect a minor league professional sport. That's kind of the whole point. I love football but I didn't watch one minute of the AAF, simply had no interest in it no matter what the quality of play was. It could have been a nonstop montage of beautiful passes, amazing catches, and a clinic in fundamental defense for all I know, but I still wouldn't have cared to watch.
If college athletes become "professionals" in a sense, the attraction to watching them play is slowly going to go away. Maybe faster than people realize.
Eight
Member
have a feeling it has been ticking for some time
CountryFrog
Active Member
Pro football is a different animal. You have stars in that league that people care about watching plus the whole fantasy football angle and gambling in general. Lesser pro leagues don't make it because people KNOW who the really good players are by name and aren't going to be fooled by fill ins. Bad football games happen in the NFL all the time. The Super Bowl last year was not highly entertaining football. The idea that the general public doesn't watch these lesser football leagues because it's "bad football" is flawed imo. They don't watch the lesser leagues because there are none of the connection points that I mentioned above with the NFL.
The connection point for MOST people who watch college football is because they either have a personal connection to the school or they simply want to see Notre Dame play USC because it sounds good. Jets fans watch the Jets for the same reason that Tennessee Vols fans watch the Vols. Good football has nothing to do with it.
As far as teams like ECU, good football games take place all the time in the AAC. The actual game itself between SMU and Memphis this week will almost certainly be better football than whichever Big 10 team Ohio St will beat by 40 points this week but the Ohio St game will get far more viewers because people like watching Ohio St. Texas games still got on prime time when they sucked because people like watching Texas. The good football part of it is not super important for most people.
I certainly understand that SOME people are only looking for truly good football and nothing else, but the vast majority of people watching can't identify good football to begin with much less make their viewing decisions on it. Without the name recognition in the NFL, then you could replace all of the players in the Cowboys-Eagles game with the rosters of TCU-SMU and almost no one watching would actually be able to see the difference. Just give them some over priced beer and wings and they're happy.
Zubaz
Member
I agree, as I said it's not an apples to apples comparison, just disagreeing with the notion that the difference between the top 1,400 college athletes and the next 1,400 would be negligible. I think it would be pretty significant and impact people's enjoyment of the game more than you are suggesting.
CountryFrog
Active Member
Maybe I just have a really low opinion of the football IQ of most of the people watching these games. To a trained eye, it would absolutely look different. It's just my belief that the overwhelming majority of people watching these games would have no idea whether they're watching top talent or not. Nebraska fans seem to think they have top talent on their team every year after the first 2 or 3 games of the season.
Imo the better argument for paying ALL the players is simply that they are the ones putting their bodies on the line and risking potential long term health issues for the entertainment of the paying customer so it would make sense that more of that money actually end up in their hands. I'd love to see it for the players sake, but I also fear what it could end up resulting in for the sport and for all of collegiate athletics if it goes too far.
Frog-in-law1995
Active Member
I’ll weigh in and suggest this all will be much ado about nothing. When the dust settles, very little will change, at least from the fans’ perspective.
Last edited:
CountryFrog
Active Member
This is actually probably the most likely outcome in regards to only the name and likeness stuff going into effect. I just believe it's somewhat naive to think that once we start down this road of players earning income that it won't lead to much bigger and much more impactful things with a true pay for play system.
Frog-in-law1995
Active Member
Don’t think that’ll happen, at least not in a way that changes the game.
CountryFrog
Active Member
The other element is that, to my knowledge there are no political parties in favor of people earning an income and paying zero in taxes. Where it becomes a political issue is HOW MUCH in taxes should be paid by certain people. But in this case the increase in taxes is simply from nothing at all being paid to something being paid.
So are players going to be ruled ineligible if they don’t pay taxes on their income from their likeness?
Good god, the rule book that governs all this stuff and covers all the what-ifs is going to make the IRS tax code look simple by comparison.
netty2424
Full Member
Not according to his recent clap back tweet to Tom Herman about retiring.
netty2424
Full Member
Guess they could play for their prison teams.
Showtime Joe 2.0
Active Member
Since athletes are going to be taxed on their "outside" income under this new system, wouldn't schools in states like Texas and Florida that don't have a state income tax become at least slightly more attractive to megastar players who stand to make the most from their endorsements?
CountryFrog
Active Member
I wouldn't think so. You just have to deal with the IRS. No other sports league takes players out of competition because they're not paying taxes so I don't know why the NCAA would do that. I'm certain that the NCAA isn't monitoring whether or not coaches pay taxes.
Eight
Member
this does raise an interesting question about getting taxed at the federal, state, and city level.
consider a kid going to northwestern who might have to deal with three layers of income tax
Any negative reaction to this is just another example of the athletes getting screwed by the schools and others with money/power. Which is a time-honored tradition. The term "student/athlete" was actually coined by the schools back when the kids were trying to get workers' compensation for their injuries. The schools said, oh no they are STUDENT/athletes, so no WC. Which is horse crap.
