I donât know. Itâs going to be so complicated it sounds like it will require a lot more staff in top level athletic departments. For the power conferences itâs going to require front offices like professional sports teams have but probably larger to keep up with all of the different sports.
With Private Equity sniffing around I could easily see schools spinning it off and selling 49% to PE then PE selling parts as the brands and income grows. Would remove title IX needs, academic requirements and all the other things the top brands hate. Legit pro franchises.
Will eligibility become unlimited? Could you see guys playing for the Buckeyes for 10 or 15 years? That would hurt high school recruiting and player development.
As long as things are tied directly to higher ed, it will be 4 years.
I donât think they will stand mush longer. We are already seeing kids play 5/6 years even before Covid. The argument this entire time has been regular students can do X so athletes should be able to too. Regular students can be in school as long as they want and work on campus. Eligibility rules are just another arbitrary rule. Absolutely no reason for it to stay in the current environment where education has absolutely become minimized.
Yep, no secret that overall most undergrads now take 6+ years to finish college. Anyway, this upcoming season is the final one for athletes to take advantage of the extra so-called Super Senior year. Would think there will always be some athletes who are going to be granted another year or so, most due to an injury. But they are the exception when compared to the hundreds of thousands who compete in any given year. And as we learned this week, two basketball players at St. Johnâs who sued the NCAA for a fifth year lost in their day in court, so a small victory for the current rules. Of course, things could change in the future.
Thatâs going to kill opportunities for so many high school kids. Veterans will be at such a premium. We may go almost a decade with barely any HS kids getting offers to play D1
If there werenât any limits on eligibility, would college sports be any different than from the pros where the average NFL career is 3.5 years and 4.5 in the NBA?
As athletics keeps decoupling from the academic side itâs bound to happen. Itâs just the next natural step in all of this.
When college athletics was about education on both the player side and the school side you can make the argument for the 4/5 year but now they both sides have basically admitted education is no longer important itâs just a matter of time.
Hard to believe there was a time when freshman could not play or transfers had to sit out to adjust to college life.
I think the limitation on eligibility will stay.
If not you would end up with college sports full of 28 year olds and freshmen would get killed out there.
They can barely compete now unless they are freaks. Imagine what it would be with unlimited eligibility and fully grown men out there.
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And I repeat. Get us out of this madness.
Letâs join the âwe are going to play traditional college sports divisionâ.
Please!
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Yep, I think there will still be eligibility limits. Whatâs going to be interesting is when the athletes and ADs finally get around to the inevitable engagement in collective bargaining is if issues like unlimited transfers, sitting out a year, NIL with conditions for receipt, etc, are addressed.
I agree that a union could impose all those things.
I also find it hard to believe that the NCAA athletes will be able to organize themselves.
Even if they do unionize itâs still going to be the Wild West because of NIL and the fact the ADs are non profits.
The basic underpinnings of college sports simply donât lend themselves to control.
They are non profits owned and controlled by non profits with thousands of wealthy benefactors who just doll out millions because they love the institution.
Many of them are private institutions who can basically do what they want unless they run afoul of the feds.
That is not emulated in any pro league.
The only way stability is going to be found is if the schools band together to create stability and they are too busy knifing each other behind closed doors for that to happen.
Well, we already have the examples of UAB football and Dartmouth MBB organizing. I believe once things start getting sorted out with House - as well as the forthcoming Fontenot case - the majority of athletes are going to see things in a different light. Collective organizers and lawyers are going to see to that. Of course, instead of a association that covers everything, perhaps weâll see them divided by specific sport - football, hoops, baseball, etc.
None of these decisions are based on this kind of logic. They are all based on what limits the courts determine the NCAA can put on athletes. I donât see how eligibility limits would ever hold up in court with the way recent rulings have been made. It can be argued that they limit an athletes ability to earn a living and to provide for their families. Play that card in court and you are probably going to win.
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I would think eligibility limits would hold up in court as long as athletics are still tied directly to academic institutions. As I noted earlier, already had a court case decided this week that denied two St. Johnâs hoopsters an additional year with Pitino & Co.
This sorta explains things about international players though not completely.
BTW, not sure why âoverseasâ used since Canada not âacross the pondâ and Edey made it a point during the NCAAT to voice his dissatisfaction about being left out of NIL due to his foreign student status. But definitely correct that some players from Africa are cashing in now.