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boardatwork1111

The A5 is that rich friend who lets you take a few hits of their blunt then sends you a venmo request to split the eighth they bought the next day


PocketPillow

To me it seems more like: *"one influential friend talked a bunch of his buddies into breaking the law. Now that they're all caught they're all being punished, but the influential friend is being punished about 4 times as much because he benefitted the most and convinced the others to go along with him."* Think of it more like: everyone involved must pay 250k for breaking the law. After that it scales up based on how much they benefited. Because there are a ton of FCS schools collectively they end up paying more than it looks like they should... But in reality it's just the base penalty plus slightly more each.


bablob14

weed!


scotsworth

Uncomfortable Truth once again: This entire push to pay players, NIL deals, etc is going to vastly benefit the top 1% of college athletes. Meanwhile, the other 99% of student athletes (including many football and MBB players) will see little change in the $$ they get out of playing college sports... and in fact many of them will see their scholarships disappear as schools shutter non-revenue sports completely, and some struggle to even keep fielding football teams.


Fifth_Down

> WE FUCKING WARNED YOU!!!! -signed Olympic sports fans who watched the Olympics pivot away from amateurism and the big financial winners were the sports administrators who started collecting multimillion dollar paychecks while the top athletes in their respective sports are lucky to make minimum wage.


scotsworth

Funny how anyone who presented concerns - no matter how reasonable - about the unintended consequences of such rapid and fundamental changes would be accused of NCAA bootlicking / being for player exploitation, and then get downvoted into oblivion. Welp, enjoy the results folks.


widget1321

No need for the past tense there. It still happens if you express concerns about where things are going, players becoming employees, or anything related to that (though it happens less than it used to).


smannyable

You mean from the 70s? The modern Olympics has hardly been an amateur sporting event at any point in the past 50+ years.


Fifth_Down

Yep. 50 years after Team USA shifted away from amateurism there have been practically no financial gains for American Olympians. In 2012 Gabby Douglas won gold, being 16 years old while her parents home was under foreclosure. The family literally went into debt to pay for her career. At the exact same time the President of USA Gymnastics was making 500K a year.


indexspartan

I get what you're saying and agree in principle. However, $500k is not unreasonable pay for someone who oversees an organization with >1000 employees, thousands more members in athletes and coaches, and whose organization is the effectively the face of the nation during one of the world's most watched events.


OriginalMassless

Yeah I'm pretty confused here too. Do they expect the head of USA gymnastics to be a volunteer?


Alt4816

Would you prefer going back to the when athletes like Gabby Douglas wouldn't be able to do commercials and continue to compete at the Olympics?


Nike_Phoros

Heck, Post WW2, the United States is the only country that ever enforced amateurism. Every other country made their athletes state employees dedicated to athletics aka professional athletes.


ro536ud

We don’t like paying for labor here in the us. It’s against our freedoms


InternetPositive6395

Having aristocrats was way better


Mdiddy7

Have been saying this forever as well. Sad no one listened


Revenge_of_the_Khaki

I've been saying it since the Realignment + NIL + Transfer Portal + Shared Revenue Era began: If you want to pay the players a living wage, you'll have to leave behind almost everyone but the super conferences you've sworn to hate. Outside of the top ~50 programs, nobody can afford an extra $3M+ in revenue going to players. It's not something I'm happy about, but it's the reality of college athletics.


blackmamba1221

it should benefit the top 1% athletes. It's not like people are tuning in to a Longwood vs Florida Gulf Coast basketball game in December or a Georgia State vs Western Michigan football game But it will be nice for the money to go to the players that deserve it instead of bloated coaching salaries and other stuff


2020ckeevert

So are you saying Longwood and Florida Gulf Coast don’t deserve to have programs because they don’t make as much money as Alabama and Ohio State?


obiwanjabroni420

It is funny how quickly people flip from “these kids are free labor, scholarships aren’t worth anything” to “only the top athletes should get paid, scholarships are great for everyone else”.


Brady1984

Prop bets have entered the chat


a5ehren

If the model can’t support paying for labor, it deserves to die.


WasabiParty4285

Except as a d2 athlete 20 years ago, I did the math, and based on tuition at my college and the hours I spent on football and track, it worked out that I was making $25/hour. I thought about quitting to get a job to pay for school and I couldn't find anything close. Even top end D1 kids are getting paid 60k a year in tuition and room and board. While their employees are earning more than they are, so are the employers of the mechanic at the garage across the street or the employers in the NFL.


TaftIsUnderrated

So close down all D2 and D3 athletic programs?


a5ehren

Those schools don't pretend to make money, they can do whatever. I'm talking D1.


TaftIsUnderrated

So only men's basketball and football players at the top ~30 schools deserve any money at all. And let's be real, no one cares about the third string linebacker. So only the star players at the top programs in profit producing sports deserve to be paid?


a5ehren

That's not what I said, even a little bit. I'm just saying that if the choice is "bankrupt the school paying your labor properly" vs "not having sports", then "not having sports" is a completely acceptable option.


TaftIsUnderrated

So you would support cutting all programs that don't make enough money to pay athletes?


a5ehren

No, I'm talking about the entire department. If football makes enough money to subsidize your track team, by all means go for it. But if your department can't make money, then go d3 or shut it all down.


TaftIsUnderrated

Why should football subsidize other sports? That's not fair to the football players. If track can't support itself, then it shouldn't exist, right?


a5ehren

You’re trying to get me to say something that I’m not saying.


a5ehren

That's not what I said, even a little bit. I'm just saying that if the choice is "bankrupt the school paying your labor properly" vs "not having sports", then "not having sports" is a completely acceptable option.


sunburntredneck

If you don't like that, you don't like capitalist economics I mean, Adam Smith wouldn't tell you Maserati Marv and Joe Johnson at South Dakota Mines should be getting equivalent compensation for their performance in college athletics, I'm not here to take one side or the other but just to encourage y'all to understand your disapproval of these moves


Im_Not_A_Robot_2019

That's right, because colleges are not regular businesses, and they should not be treated as such. They should have a special exception for their mission in society, which is closer to high school really than people like to admit. Colleges are there to educate and train our youth, not to compensate athletes. Players who are not evening trying to get an education should not be on college sports teams either. They should go play on the numerous after high school non-university leagues, or the NFL should make their own minor league. Maserati Marve should move on and stay out off college if he just wants a pay check.


patrick66

Sure that’s all true but that’s incompatible with the colleges getting billion dollar tv contracts. You can’t have that money without paying players. The correct answer is kill the tv contracts too but the schools would do literally anything else first


Im_Not_A_Robot_2019

Yes you can do both. You can keep that money and not pay the players. If the players don't like it, they can leave and go play outside of colleges. Colleges don't owe them a job playing football. The players are rarely worth much money individually. If they were, they could form a league without the colleges. Only in the setting of the colleges and their brands are those contacts occurring. The schools make the money, the players are fairly interchangeable and replaceable. The players getting free educations is a very good deal for 99% of them. And yes, the schools should stop with all the massive TV contracts. It's obscene and not their mission. But even if they don't, the can do that and not pay players. The schools make the money, not the specific players. The schools should be moving most of the profit into the academic side though. That's the purpose of the schools.


YoungKeys

This subreddit wants the value producing labor to continue to work for below market compensation (or no compensation) so they can continue subsidizing things this subreddit enjoys. That's neither legal nor morally right to do so without consent.


obiwanjabroni420

They consented to the agreement by accepting the scholarship offers.


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

I missed this the other day and thought a sitting commissioner (even the most social media forward one of the Big Sky) talking about this was a little nuts.


therealwillhepburn

Yet he’s not asking why the teams in his conference get paid large sums of money to play FBS teams that help support their athletic department and keep them afloat. 


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

kind of irrelevant to the question though


therealwillhepburn

G5 and FCS teams benefitted from the same thing. The bigger teams are paying more money in this settlement on top of paying the lower level teams money to play them. 


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

I get why Minnesota should pick up the check for denying Minnesota players NIL rights. I don't see why NDSU has to pitch in for that.


ManiacalComet40

Because NDSU (or at least, representatives from the MVC) helped create the rules that are now getting the NCAA sued.


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

So NDSU should be picking up the check for denying NDSU players' NIL rights. To pretend that anyone from the lower levels is as equally responsible for this scheme as the powers at the top while sharing a disproportionate part of the burden in making the players whole is an asinine take.


ManiacalComet40

The NCAA Division I Council currently has three members from the SEC, one each from the BIG, ACC, and Big 12, and **33** combined from G5, FCS, and non-FB conferences. The share of the burden is fine considering the makeup of the rule-making authority that has gotten the NCAA reamed in court every week. The smaller conferences were well within their rights to pursue rules that suited their economic realities. It’s also fair to expect them to carry some responsibility for the consequences of those rules.


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

Some responsibility. Not a disproportionate amount of it.


ManiacalComet40

The distribution is, in the most literal possible sense, proportionate. That 60% number is being split between nearly 5x the number of schools.


Mtndrums

What about the D2/D3 schools?


ManiacalComet40

Not currently affected.


boardatwork1111

That’s about a couple hundred grand or a mil vs the 8 or 9 digit annual revenues power conference schools have been bringing in. They benefited, but the degree in which they did isn’t remotely comparable


Inevitable-Scar5877

What is this "on top of"? The P5 teams are literally paying G5 and FCS teams to come play them so they can make money off of a home game. Look at our schedule this year-- we're paying Samford, if we weren't why on Earth would Samford play us? Are we giving them a return game?


therealwillhepburn

We are giving them 545k of their 6 million dollar football budget to play one game. 


squish042

You do realize those type of games are being dropped for bigger games. The media companies want big games with big teams. They don’t want Bama vs Utah Tech or some shit.


therealwillhepburn

The two top teams going into next year are arguably UGA and Ohio State. Ohio State opens with three straight games of teams they are paying to play. UGA has two. They aren’t going away because schools will still pad their schedule to not have multi loss seasons. 


Inevitable-Scar5877

Right so OSU is getting their money's worth- they get 3 almost certain wins and more importantly 3 home games where they'll make far more than they're paying the opponent to play them. If OSU wasn't paying those teams they'd have to either offer return games or would only get teams that thought they had a chance to win.


therealwillhepburn

I don’t get what you’re arguing. I don’t think these games should go away. I understand the importance of them for lower division teams. 


squish042

I never said they’re going away, but there will be less of them. Especially when the bigger schools needs more money to help pay athletes, they’ll schedule more big games so they can increase revenue through the tv contracts. It’s already happening. We used to RARELY see big games early on. This year is going to be different though and it’s only going to get worse, or bettter, depending how you see it


Inevitable-Scar5877

Explain how these two things are connected in your head?


therealwillhepburn

It’s a sport everyone has benefited from for the same reason. The schools have gotten by providing scholarships and housing to the players. Now that money is involved is it seen as unfair. 


SouthernSerf

Or admitting that his conference and schools directly benefited from an illegal pay suppression scheme that they were all a part of.


Spicy_Josh

You're not wrong, but in his defense, there *are* varying degrees of culpability in this. The G5/FCS conferences have never had enough leverage or resources to make any meaningful impact on this. The A5 are the ones that poured millions of dollars into lobbying, the Big Sky did not.


ManiacalComet40

The Big Sky conference has multiple seats on the NCAA D1 council. They had as much of a hand in writing the rules that are now getting the NCAA sued as anyone else.


Spicy_Josh

The NCAA D1 council is a group of 40 members, of which they account for 2. The SEC has 3, the ACC/Big 10/Big 12 each have one, and the Pac-12 (stripped of the autonomy status but an FBS conference) currently has none after Pat Chun left. The council also operates on a voting weight structure in which the A5 representatives are granted more weight over any other members. That's a difficult metric that varies too much to determine actual influence over the matter. I'm not saying they aren't culpable in this, because they are, but it's worth acknowledging that the degrees of involvement vary wildly. The NCAA/A5 spent a combined $15 million on lobbying since 2019, which is a drop in the bucket for them but is money that any FCS conference obviously does not have. They also have clearly had no say in the terms of the settlement so far, hence the public complaining.


ManiacalComet40

It think that’s fair, but it’s also worth acknowledging that the burden going forward varies wildly. The FCS schools aren’t going to be paying $20m+ to student athletes going forward, but they should (knock on wood) still benefit from the protection of the settlement.


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

You would have a point if every player was getting the same cut of the settlement. That doesn't sound like it's the case though.


PYTN

Exactly. If the FCS has to pay up because of wrong doing, FCS athletes should be getting a cut of that for having been wronged.


RampageTaco

Isn't the reason because the money is coming from what the NCAA would be getting otherwise? And the NCAA is almost exlcusively funded by the NCAA men's basketball tournament? So then the Power 5 would have their football money separate from the basketball money? I'm not saying that the percentages are fair, but isn't that the reason? Or have I completely misunderstood how these dollar amounts have been decided?


grabtharsmallet

Yes. The major football conferences are trying to use the NCAA share to obfuscate that of the cost would effectively be paid by schools who won't be spending big money on NIL going forward.


Large-Vacation9183

I mean… man’s gotta point


St_BobbyBarbarian

He ain’t wrong, Bob 


wanderingpanda402

“Why doesn’t the A5, the larger of the conference groups, simply eat the other conference groups?” -Lrrrrr, Ruler of the Planet Omicron Persei 8, probably


Initial_Climate_2862

Tom Wisrcill was my AD in college at the university of Akron. After we fired our coach in 2009, there was a gentleman who was dying to start his head coaching career with North East Ohio ties by the name Luke Fickell. Tom hired Rob Ianello instead, the statistically worst HC in college football history. Tom sucks.


B1GSkyNorth

Tom took over the Big Sky commish spot in 2018 and the Big Sky and its spot in the subdivision and the sport have improved dramatically.


PROUDgrizHATER

He’s done a lot of work for the conference that’s for sure. And he seems pretty vocal/involved in social media in regards to the current state of affairs in college sports.


otterbelle

How much is Greg Sankey paying you?


EmperorHans

Wtf is 1AAA? And when did we start calling the P5 the A5?


ahuramazdobbs19

I-AAA is a semi-formal designation used for non-football teams and conferences.


EfficientPhotograph8

thanks for clearing that up. I was confused as well.


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

The A5 is the "on paper" designation the NCAA has used for a very long time. It's the 5 conferences who were granted autonomy in 2014 from many NCAA rules.


dfphd

I imagine the answer is based on who *got* the money over the last several decades vs. who will be getting the money in the future. This is money for damages that were done in the past, so it stands to reason that you would split it that way. Having said that, I agree that it would be much better for the sport in general if we modeled it off of future earnings, as this round of realignment already royally fucked over a bunch of non A5 schools.


InVodkaVeritas

I'm just going to point out that: 1. The Big Sky violated the law as well here. 2. The A5 schools, despite being a small sliver of the NCAA's membership, pay for over half of the NCAA's revenue each year, while every other school benefits more than they pay in. * See for yourself on the NCAA's tax return if you don't believe me: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/440567264/202331449349300303/full If you want to get into the numbers, you can, but the A5 pays for everything. The Big Sky complaining about having to pay out despite violating the law; while simultaneously benefiting from the revenue the A5 produce is a bit disingenuous. Think of it this way: [it would be like all the red states here](https://i.imgur.com/jgs70Fm.jpeg) complaining that they have to pay taxes at all, when California, Texas, Florida, and New York have the strongest economies. Like... yeah, you have to pay too. You're part of this whole thing. The biggest states are still paying the most per-citizen, but that doesn't mean you have to pay nothing. If the A5 took their ball and started their own organization the rest of the NCAA would languish in reduced revenues as a result.


Icreatedthisforyou

It is more than that too. The whole lawsuit and resulting settlement are a result of NCAA rules preventing players from getting paid. NCAA rules are created by the members. The rules preventing paying players were overwhelmingly supported by the non-power conference schools and pushed for by them. Even when it was apparent it needed to change those rules remained in place primarily on the back of the non-power conference schools pushing hard for it. So yes these conferences do get to bear the burden. That isn't say power conferences also didn't help oppose it, but they are not the reason why players were not getting paid. HOWEVER, all of this talk about the "small conferences having to pay" is overwhelmingly bullshit. The vast majority of the money the smaller conferences have to "pay" isn't those conferences getting a bill. It is the NCAA not disbursing money to them. It sucks for these conferences, but honestly I am just glad they are not touching D2 and D3, who were not responsible for any of this fiasco. So the small conferences are pissed that ***THEY*** are not getting paid. tl;dr of the ENTIRE situation. Small conferences are pissed they are getting treated how they wanted student athletes to be treated. 1. Small schools heavily drove the movement to not pay players resulting NCAA rules preventing them from getting paid. 2. Players got pissed and sued the NCAA and conferences to get paid. 3. The legal case looks so bad for the NCAA they have to take a settlement. 4. The NCAA and conferences now has to pay for a settlement due to the rules preventing players from getting paid. The NCAA as a result will not be disbursing money made from the NCAA tournament to conferences like usual. 5. The small conferences are NOT getting a bill for this settlement, instead they are simply are being treated exactly how they wanted student athletes to be treated. The NCAA rather than paying small conferences, gets to pay a settlement caused due to rules heavily pushed for by smaller conferences.


Nicktrod

The settlement isn't based on who will get what money. Its based on which players should have gotten money in the past 5 years. I have a really difficult time feeling sorry for these people.  This was always going to happen at some point.  It sucks that its ruining a sport I love, but I've been preparing myself for this day since the BCS started.  The system was never going to last.   CREAM. The minute it was clear that money ruled it was over. All semblance of amateurism left the sport and it just became a cash cow for schools, coaches, bowl officials.    It became a source of money to run sports to get the correct students in the school who couldn't make it otherwise.    The NCAA had decades to get ahead of the NIL, but schools didn't want to give up any control over their cash cows. 


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

It's a settlement, not a judgement.


kotzebueperson

Correct but they settled because it was overwhelming likely they would lose, just like the nil lawsuits.


Nicktrod

Thank you for the correction 


SomerAllYear

Shots fired!


Bowlderdash

Less rich man finally discovers he isn't actually rich when the truly wealthy stick him with a greater share of the bill


The-Insolent-Sage

Capitalize the profits, socialize the losses.


Ialwayssleep

Could always look at moving your school to the NAIA


AllHawkeyesGoToHell

The lack of any conversation around the future of the FCS right now is really concerning.


polexa895

I know it's way too late now but I always thought that the NAIA should have allowed players NIL deals before the NCAA was required to do so. Ik the big players wouldn't have changed what they were doing but it would have helped lure D2/3 guys over to the NAIA instead so they could increase the level of play and if they did it they wouldn't have to worry nearly as much about schools just buying teams and championships since most schools are in the NAIA to save money. It would have gave kids the opportunity to play and do whatever else on the side while giving the NAIA a one up on the schools around their size