The NCAA has decided to eliminate the National Letter of Intent. What's going to replace it is up in the air but the model being discussed looks vaguely like an employment contract.
Not sure what it means, but if the incompetent NCAA is in control I am sure chaos will prevail.
I'm all for contractual obligations. The NCAA cannot limit transfers directly. The schools still can, at least, they were not ruled upon directly in the court hearings from my skimming of the case. These contracts can include no transfer clauses.
On another note, agreements such as this could prevent a situation like UNLV where a player is promised a sum of money and does not receive it. These kids are not well versed in the "brass tacks" so to put it and moving agreements to in writing leads a paper trail against a university or collective if they do not make good on their deals.
It's a step in the right direction, in regards to better control of the transfer market, though I don't agree with directly paying players.
@valpotx they are already directly paying players.at least is it out in the open
You can be sure the new rules will favor large schools in dominant conferences. When a contract replaces the NLI, the terms will result in more obvious bidding wars for players, who will have figures in black and white for comparison. Also, richer teams will be permitted to offer large signing bonuses to players.
Each change the NCAA has made in recent years has been to the detriment of programs like Valpo and other mid-major schools. This will further create a chasm between the haves and the have nots, leading to additional damage to college sports and fan support for programs below the top tier.
There is also talk of changing the redshirt rules in basketball to be like football, which will allow players to appear in 30% of a team's games and still declare a redshirt at their prerogative then transfer at the end of the season using the extra year of saved eligibility as a bargaining chip with major programs, who benefit by getting mid-major players and four whole years of eligibility.
The coach will have no choice and cannot release the players for their decision not to play. Deion Sanders is facing this issue with two of his starters: "if a guy is redshirting for himself and he don’t plan on being here, why would you want him here and he don’t plan on being here? That’s really not fair to him, it’s not fair to his teammates.” The defection of two starters would be even more damaging to a basketball team, especially if they play in the non-conference games then declare a redshirt heading into conference competition.
You can be sure the new rules will favor large schools in dominant conferences. When a contract replaces the NLI, the terms will result in more obvious bidding wars for players, who will have figures in black and white for comparison. Also, richer teams will be permitted to offer large signing bonuses to players.
Each change the NCAA has made in recent years has been to the detriment of programs like Valpo and other mid-major schools. This will further create a chasm between the haves and the have nots, leading to additional damage to college sports and fan support for programs below the top tier.
There is also talk of changing the redshirt rules in basketball to be like football, which will allow players to appear in 30% of a team's games and still declare a redshirt at their prerogative then transfer at the end of the season using the extra year of saved eligibility as a bargaining chip with major programs, who benefit by getting mid-major players and four whole years of eligibility.
The coach will have no choice and cannot release the players for their decision not to play. Deion Sanders is facing this issue with two of his starters: "if a guy is redshirting for himself and he don’t plan on being here, why would you want him here and he don’t plan on being here? That’s really not fair to him, it’s not fair to his teammates.” The defection of two starters would be even more damaging to a basketball team, especially if they play in the non-conference games then declare a redshirt heading into conference competition.
TO this end we agree. Unfortunately things are largely out of the control of the NCAA so to speak. They dug their own grave on this years ago and now must sit back and watch. I am concerned about the affects of this new "Project Rudy" letting outside investors control a league and "buy players" and "buy teams" has posed disaster for leagues across the pond. The Premier League saw an influx of middle eastern oil barons buying teams and players. Now the league is largely just a league of the same teams winning year after year. To the Europeans, this might be fine, but part of the allure of college sports is the unpredictability. When the same teams win again and again, college sports would likely take a massive hit and all of the MMs and LM schools will die off one by one. The only positive I see from "Project Rudy" is that football may finally cleave itself from the NCAA and the conferences would return to normal, but this is a highly unlikely circumstance.
A few comments here:
1. Given the high costs that major universities will need to cover from NIL, settlements with prior players, etc,, they will be even more motivated to eliminate the smaller players from the market (i.e., a Division all to themselves with all of the major TV contracts)
2. I agree with all of the prior comments regarding the university entering into contracts with athletes. An additional issue, in my opinion, will be challenges associated with 18 year olds entering into binding contracts that will likely have legal recourse for the university if the athlete violates the contract.
I’m in favor having a player sign a contract with a school. It could either be an employment contact or it could be an exclusive NIL contract. Either way, if a larger school wanted a mid-major player, they would be forced to buy out the contract and compensate the mid major.
The NCAA needs to set a NIL “salary cap” that each team can spend on their players.
My opinion is that there will never be a salary cap, since any effort to start it would be successfully challenged in court as a restriction of free trade. The only reason professional sports get away with this is that the caps are so large it has little overall impact (or the league allows going over the cap and paying a penalty, which lessens any impact from a cap).
Not so sure mid-majors have enough bargaining power to get terms in contracts that would foster buy-outs (though I would like to see that).
Professional sports salary caps are because of collective bargaining agrements with player unions.
