The Portal. NIL. Paying players directly. Potential collective bargaining for players. Increasing ticket and donation requirements for season ticket holders. The list goes on and on with the many changes we’ve seen in our beloved sport. Most recently, it’s the sudden expansion next year to a 24-team playoff.
Some of us have commented how these changes have changed how we feel about spending our time and energy on something that is becoming unrecognizable (or perhaps, recognizable as it morphs into NFL-Lite).
The schools and athletic programs seem to give lip service to the quaint idea that these players we enjoy watching are still Student Athletes, while acquiescing to the changes that may very well destroy what makes college football special. They argue that the regular season won’t be diminished as more teams and fanbases have something to pull for deeper into the season. Perhaps.
For our thoughtful discussion:
As supporters of a program that fortunately, for now, sits in the rarefied air during this major transition, how does all of this affect your willingness to pony up more and more of your hard-earned money, or your time spent watching games in person or on the TV, or your willingness to read and comment on the punditry here at GTPR?
Since I shared my dialogue with our Athletic Association and our AD with you it seems appropriate that I comment first. The naivety that our AD holds for us has enraged my wife and I. He thinks that, like our government, we can’t make our own decisions and we must blindly accept theirs. I’m not ready to quit a sport I love, but I am ready to step it back and see how the next 2 years unfold. Kirby’s recent comments only illustrate what greed has done. Screw the administrations and their condescending manners. WTF ! We The Fans have had enough money grab. Restore our sport.
Well said & the Protect College Sports Act is just another example of their condescending & monopoly behavior
Thanks, Elberta. The question is “What does Restore Our Sport mean?”
There are 2 things to me that would restore college sports to what I believe it should be in the world of NIL/employment and the House settlement … one requires some type of limited antitrust exemption and one doesn’t.
1) Allow the university and athlete to negotiate individual terms including money, length, and transfer and bond the NIL and the scholarship together. The NCAA or CSC just needs to say yes. This can be done today with no action needed (and no collective bargaining arrangement). If done correctly, #2 may not be necessary.
2) Implement “5 for 5” (happening) and the one-time transfer rule plus one graduate transfer with no exceptions … given the actions of state court judges in places like Lubbock and Oxford, this does require some type of federal legislation with antitrust protection.
I don’t think many people have a problem with these guys being paid (I don’t even mind if places like Miami and Texas can spend more than Georgia). I do think people hate how the transfer portal has been abused to turn it into free agency (the Darian Mensah story makes me want to puke). I also don’t think it’s been good for anything but the financial welfare of the student-athlete. I also believe the pursuit of a real degree should mean something. One of the reasons to pull for a guy like Nakobe Dean was his desire to be great in the classroom … that greatness also showed on the field with his ability to diagnose plays.
On the money angle, I’ve made my point clear. There will be a day when I decide not to renew and that will be the day I walk away.
Why can’t we pay them all the same salary and let them go play wherever they want?
Because you need an antitrust exemption to do that … no way would a CBA be able to be hammered out with that provision.
True, but why isn’t anyone advocating for that specific antitrust exemption? It seems to me the easiest path to returning the sport to what it was. Each conference sets a salary, no collusion between conferences, across every sport in the athletic department. If your coach gets fired/quits or won’t play you, then go across the street.
Seems pretty damn simple and easy to me.
Takes all the prostitution of kids out of the equation. No more offering your child to the highest bidder. It also reduces the influence and power of certain oily boosters.
Isn’t #1 what we have now?
We also need to control the conferences. They are absurd now. At least the SEC is contiguous, though it’s still too large IMO. The Big Televenteen and ACC are ridiculous with coast to coast travel.
And the sport had already been irrevocably changed with the playoff and expansion. Just think about the Auburn game. That loss would have meant everything 20 years ago. Now it’s just a stain on the schedule on the way to the tournament.
I still love watching it, but they are ruining the regular season with the expansion. I liked it at 4 and being hard to make the CFP. 8 was the most I would have ever let it expand to and 12 already let’s teams on that have zero shot at winning.
24 teams is just plain stupid and destroys what was the best regular season in sports. Even this year I am less worried about this Ole Miss game. A loss doesn’t impact Georgia all that much and may even be better because depending on how all these tie breaker scenarios work out the. Bulldogs could finish with 2 losses l, miss the SECCG, and get to host a playoff game. That is likely a better path for playoff success. Of course, next it appears there won’t be conference championship games so that won’t matter. That being the case, I hope we win out and win the last SECCG ever.
I’ll still watch and love the Bulldogs, but the other games across the country won’t interest me nearly as much going forward. It is going to end upike college basketball. I’ll follow my team then pay attention once the post season starts.
I tell ya, and maybe some of this is age and/or recent natty’s as well – but I’ve been more ‘meh’ about that barner loss than I EVER remember being. And also, I’m more apathetic to this ole miss game too. That’s weird to me.
How many of you have noticed how empty “sold out” stadiums look these days? I was at The Benz and I marvelled at all the empty seats. And that was BEFORE the Mass Gator Exodus. It’s been that way in Athens too. Symptomatic of this whole NIL/Transfer mess.
It did look “empty” – it always seems to, for some reason, and there was absolutely no “juice” in the building, felt very sterile….
You mean it felt corporate. I’m sure the “boosters” in the suites enjoyed the game insulated from the riff raff.
In other words, just like an NFL game.
So it was great watching when coaches got obscenely paid, and jumped from team to team. A bean counter who could barely perform perfunctory tasks, Greg Mediocrity, got $500+ per year. But now that players get a piece of the action, it’s no longer enjoyable? We haven’t even seen 1 expanded playoff game, but let’s complain incessantly. Don’t get me started on playing a championship game on a Monday night.
There’s always been a lot to like and even more to bitch about. I say just roll with it.
My question is..You used to hear of players being suspended for not going to class or bad grades..Why don’t we hear about that anymore? Does actual School matter any more?
I said it a few years ago:
We are all Auburn now.
The silver lining is that Auburn has gone the way of bathtub gin after the repeal of the Volstead Act.
I remember at the start of the game when they would call out the lineup, they’d flash the player picture up and it would list their major. now theydo everything “online”.
I think they just cut their NIL now instead, and we aren’t privy to that. Also, most coaches don’t feel it necessary to discuss these things publicly. Why didn’t Kyron Jones play? Kirby: he’s still working his way through things.
I hate nearly all of it. But there’s nothing that can be done to make me stop me watching my dawgs play and live and in person whenever I get the chance. I’ll live and die with them while there’s breath left in my body. In good times and bad. Ride or die.
And the bastards in tv/administration have every reason to believe, I think rightly, that the money train will continue no matter what they do to fuck it all up. I’ve heard people bitch and moan about the NFL for decades. Meanwhile, revenues do nothing but go up. The same will happen with college football. Truth is that football is the greatest team sport God ever invented. They couldn’t kill it if they tried.
Moreover, the effect that NIL and portal has is to spread talent more evenly creating more opportunities for more teams. A few years ago there were 3-4 teams that had legitimate shots to win natties. That’s at least doubled in reality and doubled again in perception.
Indiana winning it. Kentucky being a contender in November. USCe coming from way back to make noise. All of those things will drive interest and any one of us bailing and doing something else will not slow it down one bit. Frankly, I wish interest would wane enough so that the damn tickets prices would drop to reasonable levels. But as long as Kirby is in Athens, I don’t expect that to happen.
I made a decision that I’m going to try and enjoy it the best I can and pull for the Dawgs. I’m a big fan of the Shutdown Fullcast, and love to laugh at the absurdities of college football. I hope that continues in some fashion.
There’s something to the Jerry Seinfeld bit he does about fandom: we’re all just pulling for laundry.
If it’s red and black with a “G” on the helmet, I’m pulling for it.
College Football still has a leg up on the NFL, in that you can run odd offenses/defenses (LOOKING AT YOU, SERVICE ACADEMIES) and be successful. ERRYBODY in the NFL is running roughly the same offensive and defensive sets.
With regard to NIL, I’m glad the kids are getting paid, legally, FINALLY. I’m nowhere near the tax bracket to be a booster that’s contributing to getting some 18 year old kid to commit, but blessed be those that have the means and the money to waste.
For all of the NIL ‘success stories’, how many of these kids have flamed out by jumping from school to school? Dylan Raiola and Bear Alexander come to mind offhand.
Vikings blitz rate: 72.8%
Second highest blitz rate in the NFL: 43.6%
There is creativity and variation in the league, its just a bit more subtle.
To me the biggest problem in the nfl is they have 32 teams and about 12 competent QBs in any given year. The job is just too damn hard at that level. That inadequacy makes a whole lot of teams hard to watch.
In the sec, there just aren’t that many teams you can point to and say:
With that qb, they got no shot at winning.
From kickoff til the horn sounds is an entertaining product. There could be another post about how the game is much different than when Coach Dooley was in the sidelines. I’ll stick to the question above vs the pussification of football by rule changes.
Anyone that thinks giving 18-22 year olds 6-7 figure annual salaries with the ability to shop their “talents” if they are not happy is an agent, politician or an attorney. I’m getting closer and closer to staying home. I’d still get my tickets annually and sell them to friends (I’ve done this with the same group for years). 2 things keep me interested 1) tailgating with friends 2) I still enjoy Georgia beating rivals. The pain inflicted by the nerds, fu, bama, awburn, tenn, etc is burned into by soul so last Saturday still is enjoyable. I’ve said for years if all the schools would go back to the conference alignment/ traditional rival scheduling of 1985 the playoff system would be much better. Add a limit of 1 transfer without sitting out a year, direct enforceable contracts with players and we would have a tolerable system.
I too have lost some interest. I still get excited watching the Dawgs play, but a loss doesn’t stick with me for days anymore. I’m sure age plays a part in it. I will always love’em, but l really don’t care to spend that much or make that trip. Used to be the only jerks in the stands were fans of our opponents, but now a lot of our fans act up! I just don’t see it getting better. If we don’t renew our tickets, the powers that be don’t give a crap. Somebody with more wine and cheese will snap them up and it will be a talking point for them, not a bleed red and black thing. I ramble on, so Get Me Outa Here Percy!! Go Dawgs!
Bulldog Born and Bulldog Bred and when I die I’ll be Bulldog dead…
as long as they are called the Bulldogs I’ll be here…
As soon as the players are not students, I’m no interested any more.
The 2017 season began the change for me it was glorious until it wasn’t. The B2B national championships seemed to remove an invisible weight. After 40 years of why can’t we have nice things we now have the very best thing.
Yeah I got older I don’t go to many away games now. Then I moved to Florida now I only attend some home games. Saturdays in the fall are still special. There are other things now more important. Fall wedding no longer cause me to get upset. I can always watch later.
I was very disappointed in the Auburn loss. I wasn’t surprised or angry like I’m sure I would have been just 10 years ago.
Honestly it just doesn’t matter to me as much as it did. The level of greed and arrogance by those controlling the sport is repellent. It’s not just college football sports have become this massive cash machine. Maybe that’s why I’ve continued enjoying the gymnastics team. It’s pure fun competition. It’s affordable it’s easy to enjoy.
Once I watched the NFL on Sunday and then Monday night. Next they became more than a sport and lost me. Baseball I listened the Braves every summer night on the radio. Then bought tickets to watch Bobby Cox get the least out of the most almost every year. Then they got rich and lost me. NASCAR the sport with the now endless season and who knows where and when it’s broadcast yeah lost interest there too.
Now college football is awash in money the common thread. Coaches salaries started it. That convinced me players deserved to be paid well too. Not annual free agency. Not open bidding, not who can buy the alleged best players chest thumping alumni. Millions of dollars right out of high school for some. What lessons are colleges teaching with that.
I’m sick of the endless begging for money too. Yesterday I get a card asking for more money to show my support for the Ole Miss game to help the students. Everything is an excuse to ask for more money. I don’t think that is sustainable long term. Now I can see a point where I say No Mass. Ten years ago I didn’t think that possible.
Saturday I’ll be watching all day with the thoughts of enjoying it while it’s still matters to me.
To me, each incremental change hasn’t bothered me enough to change my habits around the sport. There were always things I didn’t like before too, but they weren’t impactful enough to turn me off. Changing the playoff to 24 teams might be that catalyst though. I always loved the regular season and the stakes every game against P4/5 competition brought. I’m already “pre-feeling” what a huge playoff field will do to my love for the game. I will probably stop my annual trips to a road destination unless it’s somewhere I’ve never been. I’ll probably stop going to a home game every year too. I’ll wait and see if I have time for a playoff game instead. So just like college basketball and pro sports.