If that's your measuring stick, I guess you could look at it that way.
If it's not good for the game, it won't be good for UConn (or anyone else) long term.
But it's been great for the game and UConn short term. What's your point? All I can decipher from the above is when it stops being good it will be bad. If that's what you mean, I agree.
I heard AD Dave the other day asked about transfers and the portal and whether the admissions department was overwhelmed. He just laughed and said something like academics isn’t one of our worries when it comes to athletes transferring in.
I agree with most of this, especially as concerns UConn and other teams at the top of the ratings sites
This
Unless colleges are willing to sign collective bargaining agreement which would then have rules in place about transferring and salary caps. But do not see it happening since colleges and the NCAA tried for years to act like big time college athletics was “students” playing sports. Of course it was okay for the schools and the coaches to reap all the benefits off of the college football and basketball athletes backs. While athletes were not even getting their medical bills payed if they suffered a permanent injury. College football and basketball was a sharecropper system.
I think it's more accurate to say that UConn has managed the evolving NIL dynamic better than the vast majority of colleges. I give everyone, but particularly Dave Benedict props for getting out ahead of the NIL environment from the get go.
Very accurate - it's great to be a UConn fan right now, we are at the peak. Best program(s), coach in the game. We pretty much get who we target in recruiting. The schedule is at it's peak. The entertainment value is at it's highest. Have to hope we hold position so a real conference sees the value in the next reshuffle.
Now there are schools finding loopholes in scheduling to host their own Amazon series. If ever the sign that it's no longer a student based sport.
It's horrible for the game, as Hurley said nobody is looking out for and protecting the actual sport.
Interesting side impact it may/will have on youth sports prior to college. There is an opportunity to make sizable amount of money for larger group of athletes then those who will make it to pros. Realistically an average hoops/football player may not only get a free education, but also set themselves for mortgage free life or have sizable investment opportunity early in life. So now many kids and their parents have an additional incentive. Interesting to see how it impacts all those premier clubs and circuits and their enrollment.
Schools will drop programs, no sense flying teams around the country that make no money and football and men's basketball are the only revenue generators outside of a handful or random sports teams at a handful of schools. Some schools will drop academic programs, others will drop football and or basketball because they will be far less competitive and can no longer justify the spend.
@navery12 what do you disagree with?
The idea of unlimited transfers being bad. Not forcing the kids to be stuck at a school that doesn't want them has been a positive change
But that doesnt negate the fact that many of us dont like the result. They can both be true. Giving them unlimited transfers can be good for them and also tarnish the product. As fans, we cant be forced to like it.
I think it would be better if it was revenue sharing instead of NIL. Athletes who play on a team share in the proceeds rather than being paid
That is every sport in America right now. Why should CBB be different?
I’m not sure what your point is? My point was that cbb thrives on fan connection. I suggested fan connection is lessened through players transfering multiple times chasing $$, or when rosters lack continuity and development within a program. Fan connection for lower tiers could wane as they get stripped of their stars and become feeder programs to the rich.
You're entitled to that opinion, I would suggest those fans stop watching if they don't like the product. I think it has been a massive benefit so I'll be watching as much as ever
I think 3 or 4 schools in as many years isn’t “forcing kids to stay at schools they don’t like” so much as it is them taking advantage of the Wild West we are in.
I'm all for what NIL was intended for, but what we have is free agency without guardrails. To my knowledge, there are no other team sport that doesn't have contracts, some sort of attempt at competitive balance in the form of salary caps, taxes or some sort of deterrent that sometimes still falls short.
Your connection as a fan may be lessened but the paradigm has shifted. Michigan is the poster child for lack of continuity and their fan connection has never been higher. Same with St John's. You underestimate how fans adjust. Lower tier fans know they are never going to win the title. They want to win the league and maybe claim a scalp in the dance. That's the way I felt before UConn was in the Big East. This system gives them hope if they can get a good coach. Cycle of life.
It's called the free market. This is probably a good thing. It will expose the universities that shouldn't be in business due to poor financial practices and will also expose smaller schools using athletics to keep the doors open.
I don't think education should be strictly a free market endeavor. If it was we would have schools at every level closing up shop. All our HBCU's would be gone. Our research would suffer. Our inner city schools would fall further behind and many would close.
I do think the government can be used to fund research in public (and private) universities effectively. I don't think it should be strictly free market either when it comes to public universities. However, with regards to private schools, they are just that: private. If they cannot remain solvent financially, they should not be in business. I am anti- for-profit schools as I don't think education should be a for-profit enterprise but non-profits should balance the books.
Some structure is needed.
