NIL Portal rule idea

[Goo]

I think the team losing a player to portal should be compensated.

If Indiana wants to pay Hoover to leave TCU, TCU should be compensated.

TCU took the risk of using a scholarship on an untested high school kid. They developed this intangible asset into something worth $5 million a year, TCU spent considerable capex on this asset with coaching, facilities, tuition, room/board, game experience, etc.

The losing team in transfer should receive compensation for the transaction. Consider it the losing team selling to team acquiring the asset.

If Nebraska wants to buy our only all conference player (Mathis). That’s great but TCU (the seller) must be compensated for losing this asset that they acquired and developed.

I propose 20% of NIL deal goes to previous team. This would reward teams for finding high school talent and developing talent.

Plus I think it would slow down the frequency of transfer portal, like a mild governor.

Lastly, the current setup is like the have-nots playing poker but we must give our Ace to the haves before every hand. Why should Auburn have to give its best player (Coleman = Ace) to Texas and revive a (3 of cubs) before they play next year.

 

[Goo]

I think they’ll be a lawsuit in the future when a team steals another team’s prized asset with no compensation

 

[4 Oaks Frog]

Coaches have buy-outs, why not players?
Particularly when the coach takes top players of from the team with him to the new school.
Ex: NTSU to Okie Lite…

 

[NovaScotiaFrog]

Coaches have buy-outs, why not players?

Coaches are employees. Players are not, at least that's always been the schools' position.

 

[4 Oaks Frog]

Coaches are employees. Players are not, at least that's always been the schools' position.

Yeah…follow the money…

 

[helcap]

When the current University of Miami QB Darian Mensah transferred initially after 2024 from Tulane to Duke he signed a two year NIL contract for a total of $8 million, or $4 million per year which Duke paid the first installment 2025. When Mensah chose to enter the portal and transfer to the U for a $6.5 million NIL deal Duke said "not so fast my friend", and filed a lawsuit. They contended that as long as they performed under the contract they owned Mensah's NIL rights and he could not sell them to Miami and represent that school. It was ultimately settled by Miami agreeing to pay Duke a rumored $4+ million. Contract language still applies in the Wild West of college football.

 

[Goo]

Coaches are employees. Players are not, at least that's always been the schools' position.

That changed with NIL and $5 million contracts. Anyone who thinks these guys are unpaid student athletes is living in 1960

 

[ShadowFrog]

Eisenhower daze

 

[Goo]

When the current University of Miami QB Darian Mensah transferred initially after 2024 from Tulane to Duke he signed a two year NIL contract for a total of $8 million, or $4 million per year which Duke paid the first installment 2025. When Mensah chose to enter the portal and transfer to the U for a $6.5 million NIL deal Duke said "not so fast my friend", and filed a lawsuit. They contended that as long as they performed under the contract they owned Mensah's NIL rights and he could sell them to Miami and represent that school. It was ultimately settled by Miami agreeing to pay Duke a rumored $4+ million. Contract language still applies in the Wild West of college football.

I’m glad to hear this. It makes sense that the athlete is an asset to the school. They should be compensated if someone wants to buy it.

I think the easiest way to set this up is for schools to put a buyout clause in the NIL deals.

Buying a guy like Hoover as a junior at Rockwall Heath… It’s like investing in a startup company with no revenues and just an idea.

Four years later, TCU developed Hoover into a proven top 10 national quarterback. This is equivalent to our risky bet on startup company. Company had IPO, player gets playing time. Company hits $1 billion in sales, player becomes starter. Company joins S&P 500, player is all conference. The risk of taking a junior from Rockwall Heath over a proven starter in the portal like Mensah/Morrison is huge and school should be compensated like a venture capital investment turning into large cap stock.

 

[NovaScotiaFrog]

That changed with NIL and $5 million contracts. Anyone who thinks these guys are unpaid student athletes is living in 1960

Oh I agree, but that has not been the argument that the universities and the NCAA have made because they are uncomfortable with some of the other implications of making them employees.

If you want to sign them to actual contracts and get compensated when they leave, you'd have to treat them like employees, but the schools don't want to do that so here we are.

 

[Goo]

Duke University Settles Groundbreaking NIL Lawsuit Against Quarterback | Loeb & Loeb LLP

www.loeb.com

 

[froginmn]

I don't care what rules they land on, so long as they land on SOME type of rules.

This started out as a desire to get athletes a share of the profits via NIL contracts; instead out has turned into soliciting us for money to pay athletes (while the people who were making money continue to do so).

Salary cap would be great; just a requirement that payments are reported would be a big help so we're not stuck guessing (and being gaslighted) as to who is getting what.

They can just make reporting their payments the cost of being eligible to compete in the postseason.

 

[gofor2]

There are some good ideas in this thread.

I doubt that the rich conferences will ever agree to be taxed like this (a penalty for poaching), but it would be better for the sport overall.

The way to combat that, as already mentioned, is to put compensation language in those NIL contracts and write them in a way thats enforceable. We may be a ways out from that, though. From what I have read, most people that write these nil deals feel since they are not employment contracts, a player cannot bee forced to stay or be penalized. . There have been at least 2-3 articles I've read on the matter, from reputable sources of which I am too lazy to look up and cite here.

I'm really hoping that the Miami rumor of paying that compensation is true. But I'm not holding my breath that all situations like that will get handled favorably for the program losing the player. At least not in the short term.

 

[Sangria Wine]

The sooner we have a CBA for college athletes the better. That would allow for uniform rules, penalties, etc. This wild wild west situation isn’t good for college sports.

I kind of thought the schools might decide to use the $20+ million in revenue sharing money to buy exclusive agency of their roster so they could own 100% of the players NIL value…a true university owned collective that would completely reinvent the wheel of NIL. The same kind of situation the universities have done with regards to local radio deals, game programs, etc…they sell those rights to Learfield and then Learfield has to figure out to make it a profitable bet, but the school gets it’s money no matter what. This scenario would allow the school to potentially sell those NIL rights to sponsors in an aggregate manner versus individual players using their individual agent to garner individual NIL deals. In theory the schools could likely do a better job selling rights of the whole roster and then share some part of that money as bonus payments to the players if they make over a certain return on their initial investment.

 

[Big Frog II]

I like this idea.

 

[SW toad]

The sooner we have a CBA for college athletes the better. That would allow for uniform rules, penalties, etc. This wild wild west situation isn’t good for college sports.

I kind of thought the schools might decide to use the $20+ million in revenue sharing money to buy exclusive agency of their roster so they could own 100% of the players NIL value…a true university owned collective that would completely reinvent the wheel of NIL. The same kind of situation the universities have done with regards to local radio deals, game programs, etc…they sell those rights to Learfield and then Learfield has to figure out to make it a profitable bet, but the school gets it’s money no matter what. This scenario would allow the school to potentially sell those NIL rights to sponsors in an aggregate manner versus individual players using their individual agent to garner individual NIL deals. In theory the schools could likely do a better job selling rights of the whole roster and then share some part of that money as bonus payments to the players if they make over a certain return on their initial investment.

You and Goo (thanks for this along with Helcap) are making strident points that the Post Hole Diggers (PHDs) in Academia are not capable of doing. It is simply astonishing that the people making these NIL decisions do not have an elementary understanding of the History of Collective Bargaining or let alone Labor Economics.

Football programs like Iowa State, North Texas, James Madison and even TCU are having their Football programs damaged by this flavor and need to be compensated.

The largest problem with a reasonable remedy to the problem is that we will all have to rely on judges in the judicial system who are doing the asinine things they have been doing for the last 6 years.

 

[4 Oaks Frog]

When the current University of Miami QB Darian Mensah transferred initially after 2024 from Tulane to Duke he signed a two year NIL contract for a total of $8 million, or $4 million per year which Duke paid the first installment 2025. When Mensah chose to enter the portal and transfer to the U for a $6.5 million NIL deal Duke said "not so fast my friend", and filed a lawsuit. They contended that as long as they performed under the contract they owned Mensah's NIL rights and he could not sell them to Miami and represent that school. It was ultimately settled by Miami agreeing to pay Duke a rumored $4+ million. Contract language still applies in the Wild West of college football.

This needs to serve as an example and happen more often…

 

[gofor2]

It is simply astonishing that the people making these NIL decisions do not have an elementary understanding of the History of Collective Bargaining or let alone Labor Economics.

It is astonishing for sure. I've worked in academia as a consultant and I am friends with a few deans scattered around the country. Something to think about is how our colleges are set up. They are not a traditional business and aren't run like one. With few exceptions, the people running schools are not businessmen. When federal government money flooded in via loans and grants for students decades ago, colleges decided to spend. Instead of being conservative and fiscally responsible, most colleges focus on "prestige" and a large part of that comes with building projects that do little to improve actual education. They don't have to show a profit like a regular business, so there was no check on spending. They knew the students could get grants and loans, so the mindset was spend spend spend. There were facility arms races to attract students and to earn prestige. It's the core reason why tuition has sky rocketed the last 20 years. That' not even touching on sports yet.

Now take that mindset and apply it to sports as we push into the 2000s when money started flooding into CFB via massive TV deals. Sports facility arms races and ridiculous spending. Today we have a form of shared revenue with players and NIL deals, yet we must remember, the old guard running schools are still in place. Remember, these people have no idea how to actually run a business that must show a profit. So anything related to sports in the beginning of this new era is going to see a lot of upheaval and poor decisions. Case in point - paying coaches millions of guaranteed dollars. The school administrators who have greenlit these deals do so because they don't know what they are doing. They are not businessmen.

We are seeing some improvement and changes in the sports side, such as schools hiring people to be GM's of athletic teams and programs - so there is a slow shift. But make no mistake, the people at the top still have no idea how to run a business and it's going to continue to be a huge cluster scheiss for a while. And even if we see some leveling and positive change on the sports side, tuition will continue to rise because they don't have to answer to a bottom line. The people in upper echelons of academia are detached from business reality. That's a fact.

 

[Goo]

It is astonishing for sure. I've worked in academia as a consultant and I am friends with a few deans scattered around the country. Something to think about is how our colleges are set up. They are not a traditional business and aren't run like one. With few exceptions, the people running schools are not businessmen. When federal government money flooded in via loans and grants for students decades ago, colleges decided to spend. Instead of being conservative and fiscally responsible, most colleges focus on "prestige" and a large part of that comes with building projects that do little to improve actual education. They don't have to show a profit like a regular business, so there was no check on spending. They knew the students could get grants and loans, so the mindset was spend spend spend. There were facility arms races to attract students and to earn prestige. It's the core reason why tuition has sky rocketed the last 20 years. That' not even touching on sports yet.

Now take that mindset and apply it to sports as we push into the 2000s when money started flooding into CFB via massive TV deals. Sports facility arms races and ridiculous spending. Today we have a form of shared revenue with players and NIL deals, yet we must remember, the old guard running schools are still in place. Remember, these people have no idea how to actually run a business that must show a profit. So anything related to sports in the beginning of this new era is going to see a lot of upheaval and poor decisions. Case in point - paying coaches millions of guaranteed dollars. The school administrators who have greenlit these deals do so because they don't know what they are doing. They are not businessmen.

We are seeing some improvement and changes in the sports side, such as schools hiring people to be GM's of athletic teams and programs - so there is a slow shift. But make no mistake, the people at the top still have no idea how to run a business and it's going to continue to be a huge cluster scheiss for a while. And even if we see some leveling and positive change on the sports side, tuition will continue to rise because they don't have to answer to a bottom line. The people in upper echelons of academia are detached from business reality. That's a fact.

Good point.
I’m a businessman and this was my first thought. We are selling an asset with no compensation.
Great point that an academic institution does think about profit/loss.
Don’t get me started on some the investments our endowment has made.

 

[SW toad]

Good point.
I’m a businessman and this was my first thought. We are selling an asset with no compensation.
Great point that an academic institution does think about profit/loss.
Don’t get me started on some the investments our endowment has made.

One exception in CFB is the President of Indiana U. Pamela Whitten. She entered her tenure in 2021 saying if Football is providing 80% of revenue, we need not treat it like an intramural sport. The bowtie and Hippie faculty at IU unapproved of her "performance" 827 to 28 or something in 2024. This was primarily because she took steps to eliminate Palestinian protests at Bloomington Campus.

CFB needs more Pamela Whitten types.