In his Mailbag today in response to a question about how Kirby can keep the underclassmen who aren’t first or second round draft pick quality from leaving the farm early, Seth Emerson takes a couple of swings at a horse I’ve beaten to death ($$):
… Still, in (almost) every case you also have to consider whether that player was going to improve his draft stock by staying that extra year in college, a year they weren’t going to be paid.
That’s why allowing players to receive name-image-likeness money will be another win-win for players and colleges.
I mean, it really isn’t that hard. If you care about these players staying home for the betterment of the program, I don’t see why you would not favor giving them an obvious incentive to do so.
Get The Picture 
You have saved me, Senator. I really needed some Brains this morning…
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Ahhh, Tom Gray. I was briefly “employed” by the man during my first year of college in ATL in 1985-6ish. Was referred to him from an internship I was doing. Thought it was to go to work in his studio that was being built in Little Five Points. Turned out to be a construction job building his studio. I signed on for a few weeks of doing that but, moved on to something else. Turned out to be quite disappointing. Great song, though!
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Long live the Six-eight-eight. Pretty sure I saw The Brains there, but can’t remember much of anything. Must’ve been “the water”… 😉
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I think there is a typo in your last sentence Senator. I think you are saying “…I don’t see why you would NOT favor giving them an obvious incentive to do so.”
Or is my old-school grammar capabilities deteriorating with age? 🙂
Or did I completely miss your point?
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No, you’re right. Thanks for catching.
One day, when I’m making the really big blogging bucks, I’ll hire an editor. 😉
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OH!….you can make money doing this sorta thing?
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Put it this way — I haven’t quit my day job. 😉
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Bluto, if your blogging causes you to wind up with a newer “red go fast”…please honk at us when you go by…
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Not gonna happen. 😉
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Any endorsement contract for a player will have an incentive for that player to (1) stay in college for another year where their name is way more valuable to an advertiser than it is as a non-first round NFL rookie, and (2) to play in bowl games before declaring.
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Maybe it could be tied to bowl game performance? Or some sort of bonus there. Could kill two birds with one stone
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I just mean that if Nike’s paying those Florida receivers under an endorsement deal, there’s going to be language that costs them money if they sit out a bowl (when they’re star players in the only game on TV at that time). If they’re paying D’Eri
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Don’t know what happened, it just posted… anyways.. to continue….
If they’re paying D’Eriq King for an endorsement when he’s at Houston, he ain’t sitting out the rest of the year and collecting that money.
They’re paying for you to be their guy, and part of that is actually playing the sport that makes you valuable to them.
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And if it’s a local car dealership, etc., you can be damn sure it’s tied to performance and they’re not going to be too concerned at all about the value of your NIL at any point outside of when you’re on the field scoring points or tackling people. It’s going to be “you play every god dang snap you ain’t injured or you best hope you get picked high cause you’re going to owe us money”
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Sorry coach, I can’t make practice this afternoon, I have to shoot a commercial with the local sporting goods store.
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Because endorsement deals totally keep professional players from practicing and fulfilling their contractual obligations to the team.
I’m sorry you’re mad that a teenage ball player could potentially make more than you as a 40+ year old but the market values various skill sets, get over it.
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“Sorry player you’re no longer starting because you’re not prepared. Spend less time doing commercials and more time in film study and maybe you’ll win your job back. Better yet, go see our guy who we pay to help our players manage this crap so this doesn’t happen again.”
They’ll figure it out.
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Why not no work jobs? You know, for the kids.
“Here’s 10k kid, now go watch my oil rig go up and down…or not.
Good game btw.”
They could do it on video and make it part of the recruiting pitch.
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Why would I care if some booster wanted to waste his money doing that as opposed to wasting to fund a $25 million buyout? Does the kid get a W-2? Sounds good to me!
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Maybe we could open a market where parents offer their children to wealthy boosters when they are 13-15 years old and then the boosters could nurture that talent and place it with their school when the time comes?
I mean its a free country right?
Some people have money and the need for talent and some people need money and have talent to offer.
Why should you care? Its just an economic exchange.
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Not trying to be snarky here, but You mean like what they’ve been doing with tennis and golf for the last 20 years? and isn’t that kinda what IMG academy is doing?
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Not to mention youth soccer academies all around the world.
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How much does IMG pay the parents for the use of their children?
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I don’t know, do they offer scholarships?
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I knew your comparison would fall apart quickly.
Not that quickly. But quickly.
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Kids attending soccer academies do get paid. It’s not huge deals until they are eligible to sign a professional contract at 17, but they do get a stipend prior.
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No opposition to stipends from me.
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Yes, they do. And stipends for R&B.
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Sorry, meaning IMG does offer athletic scholarships for tuition . . . and stipends for R&B.
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I’m going to ignore your fear mongering hypothetical. 18 year olds are adults right? Unless they are in college then? One way to help them avoid being exploited is to actually let them have counsel. Unfortunately the NCAA doesn’t allow that
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It wasn’t fear mongering. It was illustrating that economic exchanges can have moral considerations despite your suggestion otherwise above. The fact is that some did what I suggested in the 1980’s. It was called “cheating” then. No one seemed to complain about that moniker. I still don’t.
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“Cheating” is defined based on the NCAA rulebook. That is not the same thing as being unethical in the greater sphere of capitalism or society in general. Is it “cheating” if the boss’ 17 year old jack-off kid gets a mail room job that he doesn’t show up for?
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Shareholders might.
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Why should we care? If a booster wants to blow a bunch of money on 15 year old or a college football player, the market will determine pretty quickly if that was or was not a stupid investment.
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The 13th-15th amendments be damned.
Child labor laws too.
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Lol, How does a booster paying money to an athlete equate to slavery (13th) or denying someone the right to vote (15th)? The athlete can say no thanks or go shop the offer for something better, that’s by definition voluntary exchange and not slavery, by your argument ALL employment would violate the 13th and 15th amendments.
As far as child labor laws, 18 year olds are adults and can legally work, and 15 year olds can work outside school hours in non mining, non manufacturing, non hazardous jobs, how would this be any different?
Nice try, you’ve still failed to articulate any “moral considerations” you mentioned above.
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You mean like when immigrants would contract for 7 years of indentured servitude for a trip on a boat?
Who were the commies that banned that?
If we returned to a free country, I bet I could buy the labor of a Mexican, a Honduran and a North Korean for real cheap!
But Jesus based gubmit regulations would prohibit it.
Sad!
Today they call it “human trafficking.” Whatever!
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I honestly have no idea what point you’re even trying to make…. I’d speculate neither do you
As best I can follow from just your comments: allowing players and recruits to be paid is bad because boosters could offer fake jobs with no work -> because boosters could pay kids who are younger than 18 -> that would be bad because it’s slavery – > or indentured servitude like if we could hire immigrants on the cheap but the only reason we can’t is because of regulations.
That’s literally all of your comments.
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My point is simple:
Be careful about marketing children.
These kids start getting contacted by recruiters at 13.
It doesn’t need to be about the money. It needs to be about education, period.
You start flashing money in front of them and their parents and others who have the capacity to influence them and its ugly.
The idea that NIL is Trevor signing with Nike at 20 like Tiger did is bullshit. And naive.
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Equating 18-22 year olds to 14-15 year olds is specious.
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Are we discussing recruits or not?
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Pay them. Then go back and pay the guys who were here before.
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See, there’s the problem: What happened before. At some point you just have to cut the past loose with an “I’m sorry it was that way for you, but we’re doing it this way moving forward.”
That’s an issue with legalizing Cannibus, too. How is it fair for all those people that did time and paid fines if you’re just gonna say “Um..well, we’ve decided that it really isn’t that harmful and we can probably fund public education and healthcare with the tax revenue so we’ve decided it’s OK. We cool, right? No hard feelings?”
Legalize it. For the children…
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Legalize it and let those in jail now out.
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Itll be misused just like all taxes. plenty of states have the lotto and still have crappy roads and crappy schools.
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All I can say is be careful what you wish for….. Pandora’s box is bursting at the seams.
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Lack of foresight can bite one in the ass. We recently found that out.
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It’s been open for a solid 15 years. NIL rights is an attempt to hedge against the consequences. Those consequences being the drastic degradation of the quality of football we’ve been seeing. Opt outs, bowl games and even entire seasons being viewed as meaningless, etc.
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I don’t for a minute think this will stop opt-outs. Players will still have an agent who will tell them they can make big dollars in the NFL.
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It’s been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere in these comments, but it’ll be a rare endorsement that doesn’t cost a player dearly for sitting out bowl games. Outside of maybe one or two players a year, your image ain’t worth shit pumping iron and running sprints prepping for the combine. Also, agents want money NOW. And they’re probably already making money off that endorsement in the first place if NIL becomes a thing.
Today the only reason they advise kids to skip bowl games is to preserve their health so they don’t lose value TO THE AGENT before the draft. If the agent is already making money off the kid, the math on how to give that advice will surely change dramatically, especially for anyone outside of a sure fire first round pick. Even then they’re more likely to just renegotiate for just that bowl game in order to get the kid to play. “My client’s not in the playoff and he’s got late first round potential. We’ll have to refund $50k if he opts out but he won’t be risking injury. Pay us another $25k and pay for a one game insurance policy of $1m, and he’ll play.”
Right now, money is the reason kids opt out. Allow NIL rights, and the financial incentive reverses.
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This is not bad reasoning, but in truth, we dont know what will happen.
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Question for you now Senator. In your opinion is college football (as a fan, the total experience) better now than it was 5, 10 and 20 years ago?
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I’m not the Senator. I’m only representing myself. I’ll say that I enjoyed the sport more in the past, but that was probably due to less insight into how the sausage is made. I enjoy watching all the games on TV, but I don’t enjoy the “Playoffs above all” thrust that we’re on now.
But I’m sure my dad enjoyed the game more from the 40’s-50’s than he did when I was in school in the 70-80’s.
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You ain’t from around these parts are ya?
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The sport itself? It’s not better. The money chase has corroded it.
In terms of my enjoyment? About the same. But then, I have a high tolerance for watching sausage making.
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Its all relative. Elite programs that regularly compete for natties, lose players early to NFL as well, so, if NIL provides incentives for our kids to stay for senior year, then so, too, will those players remain at bama, clemson, osu and everywhere else regardless. We just need to focus on recruiting, development & coaching. When these are done at an excellent & consistent level on the field, then the stars will make plays, and the NIL chips will fall in place. Its time to ho grab that brass ring Kirby. GATA.
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