Interesting article from Matt Norlander about coaches saying schools are still going to cheat with revenue sharing

[HooperScooper]

Interesting article from Matt Norlander about coaches saying schools are still going to cheat with revenue sharing. Not exactly surprising. The article is worth a read. It's very long though.

"I'm concerned. I don't believe it yet, because until they start enforcing any rules, no rule is going to matter," a coach with recent Final Four experience told CBS Sports. "I would suggest we should shut down our collective tomorrow if I knew that this new structure was going to work. ... I'm skeptical over it, that things are going to get there."

"Some think we're going to see a complete shift in college basketball, but it's not going to happen," Poneman said. "I don't know how it's not going to happen, but there are too many talented, powerful, motivated basketball coaches who have spent their whole life getting to this position to allow some arbitrary, nonsensical legislation totally impact their career in irreparable ways."

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo told me that, in his view "10 to 15%" of the sport was cheating 15 to 20 years ago. He thinks if strict restrictions are put in and they hold, the number will be closer to 40% because the money's gotten too big to go all the way back.

As college basketball enters its most uncertain era yet, few believe the new rules will stop the flow of money

College basketball's next phase in the revenue-sharing era has many questioning what's real and if cheating will come back in a big way

www.cbssports.com

 

[HooperScooper]

There's a section about the Big East that you should read.

Big East's perceived advantages worries some coaches​

The most common inquiry I got from coaches on the recruiting trail this month was: How much do you think Big East programs have to spend now?

It's gripping the imaginations of many.

"Coaches in the league are worried about the Big East," one SEC coach told me.

As one Big East coach put it to me: "If I'm at $6 million for my team this year and the University of Florida men's basketball program has $3 million, how am I not an advantage? [SEC schools] are not going to cheat up to $3 million. That's a lot of money. In the old days, cheating was like 50 grand. … I understand if an SEC assistant wanted 50 grand and went to some rogue booster. You would never go to a booster now and say, 'Hey, I need $2 million for a player.' That's criminal activity."

As college basketball enters its most uncertain era yet, few believe the new rules will stop the flow of money

College basketball's next phase in the revenue-sharing era has many questioning what's real and if cheating will come back in a big way

www.cbssports.com

 

[champs99and04]

I think that Big East coach is exactly right. There will be a few programs here and there willing to move heaven and earth to sign players, especially if they're ushering in a new coach. We've already seen it recently with schools like Kentucky, Louisville, NC State, and Indiana - places where it really matters.

But it's very hard for me imagine these schools keeping pace with their NIL spending of the last couple years. I just don't think there's much of an appetite nationally to throw hundreds of thousands of your own dollars at college kids, despite what we've seen recently. I think all these boosters who were used to being heroes were caught off guard by the groveling and ended up surrendering to some combination of peer pressure and a lack of impulse control. They had to have felt borderline extorted by the end of it. Now they have an out.

 

[Hurleyman216]

And at the end of the day, if you don’t have an elite coach who can get your players to gel as a team, it’s all irrelevant. Let John Calipari and John Scheyer put together all star teams every year so they can flame out and fall short like usual. There are some excellent coaches, especially in the SEC and Big East and I expect those coaches who can both acquire talent and coach them up will continue to win.

 

[upstater]

The SEC is talking nonsense.

They have more money than they know what to do with.

Spare me, it's ridiculous. They are in a much much better position than UConn.

 

[BuffaloHusky]

The SEC is talking nonsense.

They have more money than they know what to do with.

Spare me, it's ridiculous. They are in a much much better position than UConn.

No entity in sports has benefitted from cheating more than the SEC. It will be very difficult to tell the boosters that built the conference with under the table money that they shouldn’t do it any more because there are “rules” in place.

 

[upstater]

No entity in sports has benefitted from cheating more than the SEC. It will be very difficult to tell the boosters that built the conference with under the table money that they shouldn’t do it any more because there are “rules” in place.

The $100m+ a year in TV revs also will give them a firm cushion from which to cheat.

 

[Drame]

The difference between this era and 10-15 years ago and before is the amount of money. You cant just give money to someone without paying tax. So boosters will be risking more severe criminal law penalties by cheating the tax. And if you pay the tax, you will get caught by the clearing house. Plus how are you going to actually get a million dollars to someone. Bag full of cash, wire transfer. Its not as easy as people think. And for what benefit.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Besides the Dan Hurley advantage, this is probably why we’re a game changer in recruiting battles, we have more to spend, if we want to. I wouldn’t be shocked if we save the big dollars for the portal though, probably pay market price for high school recruits and win them over the old fashioned way.

 

[Lafayette]

The difference between this era and 10-15 years ago and before is the amount of money. You cant just give money to someone without paying tax. So boosters will be risking more severe criminal law penalties by cheating the tax. And if you pay the tax, you will get caught by the clearing house. Plus how are you going to actually get a million dollars to someone. Bag full of cash, wire transfer. Its not as easy as people think. And for what benefit.

This is why ultimately trusts and non-profits work so well.

Non Profits gets the donations tax free and write off from donors (people or corporations).
They keep a trust which pays no taxes at the trust level, only to the beneficiaries of the trust.

Now it falls on the student athlete (yet again) as payouts are taxable to them as beneficiaries the same way NIL payments are too.

 

[shizzle787]

The $100m+ a year in TV revs also will give them a firm cushion from which to cheat.

They can't use school funds over $20.5 million to pay players as it would be easily traceable. The TV money isn't going to help them, but bag men will....

 

[HooperScooper]

Sounds like the NCAA still doesn't know where they're going with this NIL stuff. They keep changing things on the fly.

The College Sports Commission has loosened its blanket prohibition on athletes receiving payments from NIL collectives, according to a memo the new enforcement agency sent to athletic directors Thursday morning.

The collectives, an evolving industry built to funnel money to athletes at a particular school, will still face significantly more scrutiny when trying to sign deals with players than they had in past years.

Commission loosens prohibition on NIL payments

The College Sports Commission has loosened its blanket prohibition on athletes receiving payments from NIL collectives, according to a memo the new enforcement agency sent to athletic directors.

www.espn.com

 

[Drame]

This is why ultimately trusts and non-profits work so well.

Non Profits gets the donations tax free and write off from donors (people or corporations).
They keep a trust which pays no taxes at the trust level, only to the beneficiaries of the trust.

Now it falls on the student athlete (yet again) as payouts are taxable to them as beneficiaries the same way NIL payments are too.

You cant be a non profit that funnels money to student athletes. Non profits have to serve a public good and cant benefit private interests or individuals.

 

[Lafayette]

You cant be a non profit that funnels money to student athletes. Non profits have to serve a public good and cant benefit private interests or individuals.

the trust is the part that makes the athletes the beneiciaries. The non profit is there to serve the general interest if the public which would be the citizens of CT. Should they donate it is a writeoff.

 

[thekollieman]

You cant be a non profit that funnels money to student athletes. Non profits have to serve a public good and cant benefit private interests or individuals.

Yes, they “have to” do this, and “can’t” do that…

I’m not brushing off your point, which is true in principle, but in reality there clearly have been countless cases of non-profits set up precisely to benefit private interests or individuals.

 

[temery]

You cant be a non profit that funnels money to student athletes. Non profits have to serve a public good and cant benefit private interests or individuals.

That's exactly what bleeding blue for good did. It's a shame they had to stop.

 

[auror]

That's exactly what bleeding blue for good did. It's a shame they had to stop.

Once the schools began being able to pay athletes directly in revenue sharing, it became redundant with just donating directly to the school. There's a much cleaner tax exemption to donating directly to the athletic department, so it's generally strictly better for donors to do it that way as long as UConn is at or below the rev share cap.

 

[auror]

You cant be a non profit that funnels money to student athletes. Non profits have to serve a public good and cant benefit private interests or individuals.

Yeah the collective (or other organization paying NIL) can still be a non-profit in structure, but there has to be an intent to make money to benefit their mission from the NIL activity.

So they can be structured as a non-profit, but have to be using the advertisement or signing in an effort to generate more in return than what they pay out for the ad. So you can't intentionally take a loss on the promotion. That's not a "legitimate business purpose".

For example, a non-profit can have a fundraising benefit and pay the athlete to appear. But a collective can't just pay $10k to sign signatures without generating revenue on the signatures. If you do the signatures, you'd have to charge money per signature and then the fair market value guideline kicks in to decide how much you have to charge per signature in order to pay $x dollars to the athlete in NIL.

 

[bendm]

Besides the Dan Hurley advantage, this is probably why we’re a game changer in recruiting battles, we have more to spend, if we want to. I wouldn’t be shocked if we save the big dollars for the portal though, probably pay market price for high school recruits and win them over the old fashioned way.

But unlike the other BE schools we have a D1A football program diverting some share of the revenue away from bball. Don’t we?

It’s a tough balancing act. We obviously want to sustain the best bball program in the country but we also need to continue improving football so we can eventually get into the ACC circa 2030.

 

[Drame]

Yeah the collective (or other organization paying NIL) can still be a non-profit in structure, but there has to be an intent to make money to benefit their mission from the NIL activity.

So they can be structured as a non-profit, but have to be using the advertisement or signing in an effort to generate more in return than what they pay out for the ad. So you can't intentionally take a loss on the promotion. That's not a "legitimate business purpose".

For example, a non-profit can have a fundraising benefit and pay the athlete to appear. But a collective can't just pay $10k to sign signatures without generating revenue on the signatures. If you do the signatures, you'd have to charge money per signature and then the fair market value guideline kicks in to decide how much you have to charge per signature in order to pay $x dollars to the athlete in NIL

This makes sense. Non profits cant just be giving away money to individuals. The money given has to produce a greater good for the non profit. Otherwise that's a freeway to corruption.

 

[temery]

Once the schools began being able to pay athletes directly in revenue sharing, it became redundant with just donating directly to the school. There's a much cleaner tax exemption to donating directly to the athletic department, so it's generally strictly better for donors to do it that way as long as UConn is at or below the rev share cap.

Maybe, but they literally did Good. It was an incredibly great idea.

 

[CL82]

Non Profits gets the donations tax free and write off from donors (people or corporations).
They keep a trust which pays no taxes at the trust level, only to the beneficiaries of the trust.

 

[Drame]

Maybe, but they literally did Good. It was an incredibly great idea.

What was the public good? Was the good worth millions of dollars? The student athletes are getting paid huge sums of money because of their value as athletes, not because they are doing work for a charity / non-profit. The charity work the SAs are doing has some value but not nearly what the collectives said it was worth. Non profits get criticized all the time for over paying their admins or having unjustifiable expenses. This is the same thing except it was done by many NEW groups in a very public and spectacular way. Even without the house settlemt this was going to get scrutinized and shut down by the IRS..

 

[HooperScooper]

Another article on NIL/Revenue Sharing and how it's impacting recruiting. I'm trying to keep up on this but it's still kind of confusing. Glad to hear the coaches don't know what's going on either.

Industry sources estimate 20 programs will have rosters this season that cost eight figures, with some individual players earning upward of $2 million to $3 million. With schools receiving $20.5 million this year to spend across their sports department, that's not much less than the projected budgets for men's college basketball programs in power conferences, according to Opendorse:
ACC: $4,400,000
Big East: $5,333,333
Big Ten: $3,250,000
Big 12: $4,239,000
SEC: $3,091,667

'Some coaches have no idea': The uncertainties of recruiting in the new rev-share era

The uncertainty surrounding how programs will pay players is directly affecting the timeline for high school prospects.

www.espn.com

 

[cellocgg]

There's a section about the Big East that you should read.

Big East's perceived advantages worries some coaches​

The most common inquiry I got from coaches on the recruiting trail this month was: How much do you think Big East programs have to spend now?

It's gripping the imaginations of many.

"Coaches in the league are worried about the Big East," one SEC coach told me.

As one Big East coach put it to me: "If I'm at $6 million for my team this year and the University of Florida men's basketball program has $3 million, how am I not an advantage? [SEC schools] are not going to cheat up to $3 million. That's a lot of money. In the old days, cheating was like 50 grand. … I understand if an SEC assistant wanted 50 grand and went to some rogue booster. You would never go to a booster now and say, 'Hey, I need $2 million for a player.' That's criminal activity."

As college basketball enters its most uncertain era yet, few believe the new rules will stop the flow of money

College basketball's next phase in the revenue-sharing era has many questioning what's real and if cheating will come back in a big way

www.cbssports.com

"The SEC being worried about the Big East" made me laugh out loud. I can't believe this trust fund nepo conference is crying about the poor orphan's lifeline. Are they also gonna voice concern over the privilege of playing in their revered, exclusive conference that is literally the best of the best? Or how their media revenue is 10x more what other schools can get? Those seem like more prevalent points to me /s