This is the only clip I can come up with that demonstrates what is happening in college sports with litigation.
You probably saw this over the weekend.
https://www.on3.com/nil/news/vanderbilt-quarterback-diego-pavia-sues-ncaa-over-nil/
Diego Pavia has sued the NCAA under antitrust law (similar to all of the NIL lawsuits) to get additional college eligibility to make up for his 2 JUCO years. This has nothing to do with playing the sport or academic opportunity … it’s all about NIL.
Between the Mars lawsuit that removed all NCAA governance of transferring and this lawsuit that pretty much challenges the NCAA’s authority around eligibility, the stage could be set for what could be the ultimate lawsuit allowing anyone to play college football for an unlimited amount of time regardless of academic standing.
We have plenty of attorneys in our merry community of refugees. Please tell me if I’m reading this right or wrong.
More generally, what do you think about this?
I would think there is a compelling argument that enrollment ought to equal eligibility in a pay for play world.
I concur. I also think it is a short distance between “why does someone have to be enrolled to have eligibility?”.
That’s the death of college sports.
From a policy standpoint perhaps.
I don’t think antitrust law would require it.
I fucking hate what this has become.
You have two paths to minor league football that are going on in parallel. You have the path of players being treated as employees. Then you have the path of players being given opportunities to do that work. This lawsuit falls into the latter and will increase eligibility of players beyond “4 years” of work.
It would more likely lead to a mandatory 4 years of eligibility and that’s it. No more redshirts, medical exclusions, etc.
That’s only with an employer/employee relationship with a collective bargaining agreement and a completely different set of unintended consequences. The law of unintended consequences is undefeated.
For years I’ve never gotten an answer as to why the NCAA or at least the conferences don’t have absolute authority over eligibility (among other things). Little League baseball does. Same for HS sports. Hilarious YouTube vid out there of a guy who “identifies” as a 9 year old boy and plays tee-ball. Every hit is a home run with celebration trot.
The decision by the NCAA not to fight the injunction on the one-time transfer breached that wall. Anything that can be tied to the Alston decision can be used to render the NCAA’s rules as meaningless.
The O’Bannon decision and subsequent decisions have authorized conferences to make rules that affect commerce because the conferences are a market. The conferences have not made their own unique rules because the ESPN Invitation needs competitors playing by the same rules.
CFB was trending that way since the 1990s but it’s now nothing but blocks of content for TV networks. Geography doesn’t matter, rivalries don’t matter, traditions don’t matter – even the programs themselves ultimately don’t matter as long as there’s content for Mickey.
I don’t begrudge players wanting a piece of this massive pie and I don’t begrudge them being subject to the same (lack of) constraints as administrators and coaches. But I do begrudge the fact that everything’s a money grab for participants and the fans are nothing but wallets to be emptied. And I don’t welcome the NFL-lite new order.
Let them have their NFL light football. I just don’t want the team called the “University of Georgia Bulldogs”. College football would then go back to a model like division three. No scholarships. Just students who are enrolled at the university of Georgia playing football for the love of the sport. Of course, Sanford Stadium would probably not be able to be maintained and would fall into disrepair.
Gurkha, I’m afraid that horse is already out of the barn.