NCAA Votes to Allow College Athletes to Profit off Name Image and Likeness

[auror]

Yup, it sounds nice in theory and any reasonable person thinks people should be paid when their likeness is used and others are getting paid for it but we live in a predatory capatalism world. This is going to breed more corruption and create a larger divide between the have and have nots.

Better conference = more TV exposure in prime time = higher chance to profit off of your own likeness

Why would anyone want to go to a smaller school, especially if you’re a top or borderline top recruit? This is just the beginning.

Students with that mindset have already gone to the biggest schools with the most exposure or the deepest wallets. It has taken extraordinary other aspects like paying a father or other shenanigans like that to get 5*s to go to smaller schools, outside of extreme success on the court and coach reputation.

The top 10 recruiting ranks for 2019 class on 247:

1. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, AAU guy at helm)
2. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, large basketball budget)
3. Probable $ payer (Linked to payments in past, large basketball budget)
4. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, shoe school booster)
5. Won 2 national championships in the last 5 years.
6. Probable $ payer (Busted in past)
7. Probable $ payer (Busted in past)
8. Probable $ payer (SEC school)
9. Probable $ payer (Busted in past for non-recruiting allegations, large basketball budget)
10. Probable $ payer (SEC school)

 

[Shine33]

Is the consensus here that UCONN boosters cannot compete with other P5 public school programs? I feel like this could be potentially beneficial for us. I would think a lot of rich UConn boosters in Connecticut plus our tradition and history should keep us near the top. Is that too optimistic??

I feel like us following NCAA rules while other programs were not was what was holding us back...

In other words it seems now bc of the rules, the schools that basically have an exemption from the NCAA and never caught with “cheating” won’t be the only ones that can get away with it anymore bc now all will be allowed to make offers to their recruits...

 

[auror]

The top 10 recruiting ranks for 2018 class on 247:

1. Probable $ payer (Linked to payments in past, large basketball budget)
2. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, large basketball budget)
3. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, shoe school booster)
4. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, SEC school, FBI/NCAA investigation)
5. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, FBI/NCAA investigation)
6. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, AAU rampant)
7. Probable $ payer (Part of FBI investigation, shoe school boster)
8. Probable $ payer (Busted in past, part of FBI investigation)
9. Won 2 NCAA championships in the last 5 years.
10. Blue blood with new coach. Brief mentions in FBI report concerning Romeo Langford and Adidas.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Chin Diesel]

trouble for the NBE before UConn even had a chance to recapture its glory?

maybe i'm just cynical, but with the exception of Duke, Notre Dame, USC, maybe Nova... big public schools are gonna round up all their boosters like never before, putting small private schools at a tremendous disadvantage. my only hope is that with the ability to legally profit from their NIL, recruits will be much more hesitant to take under the table payments and endorsements that would surely violate whatever rules are implemented...but i'm not holding my breath

Just the opposite.

Private schools with large endowments can open up the bank and keep books closed. Public schools are constrained by budget and diaclosure.

Harvard and Yale could bankroll an NBA payroll with rounding errors in their endowments.

 

[Caronimo]

Probably not good for UConn unless it's WBB. Absolutely crushes football recruiting. Probably neutral for MBB.

 

[auror]

Absolutely crushes football recruiting.

Ahhh haha. We haven't had a top 10 class in football since 2013... top 10 among the AAC that is. 247 has us at 117th best class in the nation last year and 109 so far for 2020. You think #118 San Jose State alums are opening up the checkbooks to snag our recruits? Especially worried about #122 Coastal Carolina leaving us in the dust?

 

[superjohn]

Probably not good for UConn unless it's WBB. Absolutely crushes football recruiting. Probably neutral for MBB.

UConn football recruiting? I don't think this changes our recruiting against Stony Brook in any way.

 

[UCDaveD]

Recruiting pitches to the big names are going to be more like NBA free agent pitches to guys like Durant, LBJ, etc. Marketing and brand building will supersede basketball.

 

[superjohn]

Is the consensus here that UCONN boosters cannot compete with other P5 public school programs? I feel like this could be potentially beneficial for us. I would think a lot of rich UConn boosters in Connecticut plus our tradition and history should keep us near the top. Is that too optimistic??

I feel like us following NCAA rules while other programs were not was what was holding us back...

In other words it seems now bc of the rules, the schools that basically have an exemption from the NCAA and never caught with “cheating” won’t be the only ones that can get away with it anymore bc now all will be allowed to make offers to their recruits...

We've never exactly been a big boy in terms of big money boosters/donors.

 

[bendm]

Just the opposite.

Private schools with large endowments can open up the bank and keep books closed. Public schools are constrained by budget and diaclosure.

Harvard and Yale could bankroll an NBA payroll with rounding errors in their endowments.

schools are not going to be signing players to endorsements deals themselves and paying them out of their endowments, it has to come from 3rd parties....that would be an even more blatant violation of the proposed framework than i imagined. plus Gtown is the only NBE school with a large endowment to begin with

 

[Chin Diesel]

We've never exactly been a big boy in terms of big money boosters/donors.

Exactly. CT has plenty of money by looking at per capital income, millionaires and billionaires. They've shown an unwillingness to open their wallets for football. Hopefully basketball can loosen up some of them.

 

[Shine33]

We've never exactly been a big boy in terms of big money boosters/donors.

Well certainly not in football, but is that true with basketball? I mean I’m not saying i know anything, I’m just guessing we have to have some good financial support of our basketball programs with all they’ve accomplished.

 

[lav25]

This benefits us because there is genuine strong fan interest in our team and basketball is king here. Sure, boosters at some schools can use this to get money to players, but they will be doing so at a loss. That's not the case here. It would actually be good marketing for a company like Dunkin Donuts to use our players in advertising. That's not the case for SEC schools, they would use football players. Hurley is already recruiting by touting our brand power, this only helps that.

 

[bendm]

This benefits us because there is genuine strong fan interest in our team and basketball is king here. Sure, boosters at some schools can use this to get money to players, but they will be doing so at a loss. That's not the case here. It would actually be good marketing for a company like Dunkin Donuts to use our players in advertising. That's not the case for SEC schools, they would use football players. Hurley is already recruiting by touting our brand power, this only helps that.

tremendous first post after 6.5 years. what do you mean the boosters will be doing so at a loss? as opposed to what? recruits don't sign IOUs with boosters that become due with interest upon agreeing to professional rookie contracts. and if they did, the only thing this changes is the size of the IOU. kentucky is also in the sec.

 

[superjohn]

Well certainly not in football, but is that true with basketball? I mean I’m not saying i know anything, I’m just guessing we have to have some good financial support of our basketball programs with all they’ve accomplished.

The state has always supported basketball I'm just talking about we've never seemed to have the crazy rich sports donors who drop millions to our program like it's nothing.

I agree with Lav25's post above mine though, UConn basketball is CT's pro team and it should get corporate support if the new ruling plays out like some of us expect it to.

 

[MattMang23]

I would think proximity to NYC is good for us here- not that it’s ever bad. Capital of the Capitalist World. Our conference tournament is there every year again. Half our roster comes from there. Our kids will be marketable in a place that UConn basketball is routinely featured.

 

[Travelman6]

So, what?

Not only will they be getting a free ride, but paid too?

Meanwhile, tuition continues to skyrocket, literally out of control for the average student leaving far too many deep in debt at the end of the four-year stint. What is the student loan bubble now? 1.5 trillion? Bets on how long it takes before it reaches 2 trillion?

I wouldn't even care that much about paying if, at the very least, you also said "Okay, but now you use that money to pay for tuition" and all that.

 

[huskymedic]

>>Ultimately, what the NCAA is going to attempt here is opening up opportunities for college athletes to make money based on their inherent popularity while trying to avoid a free-for-all where recruiting is done by the highest bidder.<<

>>But it’s really not that complicated. The NCAA is basically going to have to allow athletes make money off their name, image and likeness. They just don’t want that to be part of the process before they arrive on campus, where tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars are dictating where recruits decide to play.<<

 

[UConnTrumbull]

so UConn will be the only Have in a conference of Have Nots? what is that worth?

Nova will be fine. Honestly I think this doesn’t affect basketball that much. The top 25 are UK, Duke, KU any way

 

[AllAbout5]

I'm just excited to play NCAA 21

 

[auror]

This will likely (we don't know for sure since the rules haven't been written) favor teams with high fan engagement. Because fan engagement leads to sponsorship dollars and fans willing to shell out money for stuff.

Teams with high fan engagement were already the most relevant teams with the best recruiting classes. They have a limited number of roster spots, so the impact should be ultimately not as game changing as you'd expect. BUT I do think it will help team's compete with the LSU's of the world, who are football schools that just happen to have huge budgets and great apparel relationships but don't actually have great fan engagement.

One good proxy for fan engagement I've seen is KenPom's subscriber popularity numbers, because it is a paid service, so it's noting who has paid money for college basketball-related reasons and self identifies as a fan of certain teams. There is obviously some skew towards parts of the country and demographics more likely to embrace analytics (yes this is a shot at fans from Kentucky) and a recent success bias, but I think the latter actually works for representing fickle fan engagement. So maybe cross reference these numbers with home attendance figures to get another data point.

Take a look (numbers are % of total users):

 

[bmayuc]

"I'd rather maintain and support a plainly exploitative system that allows many lazy old people to exploit and profit off the labor of young athletes rather than compensate the kids fairly like everyone else in a free market system, so that I, and entitled , can preserve my precious entertainment exactly as is."

-everyone on this board, I guess

 

[AntG168]

Will our proximity and presence in NYC benefit us?

 

[The Funster]

College sports is going to change.

Imagine sports that aren't bigtime. Some guy decides he wants to surround his kid with the best lacrosse players he could buy. He lets the word get out, a dozen kids take him up on his offer, make a few local appearances and boom, NCAA champs. Any attempt to control this kind of behavior will get shot down. There is no way to stop it.

Big time sports will stratify. Those schools with the richest boosters will pull away from the others and yeah, you'll have the much expected NCAA breakaway. Even then, why cant some rich person wake up one morning and say, "Damn, why can't my alma mater, Faber College, win a National Championship too!" It will be chaos.

The NCAA could have collectively bargained some kind of trust for their constituent athletes. They eschewed that option and now the genie has been let loose. They can't the plug back into that bottle.