With the back and forth in Washington and in the front offices of the SEC and B1G, there’s something to be said that there are many who are attempting to put the kibosh on the wild and reckless spending that is coming out of the NIL and Portal era of College Football.
But would cutting spending in half be the end of it all? Long term, maybe yes. Short term, it’s opening up a new world of problems…player strikes.
Think of it this way. Schools at the top level are essentially paying $40 million for their football rosters and $20 million in basketball right now. If that pool of money shrinks by half — and it likely would, by design, if the Protect College Sports Act becomes law — it would be a huge mistake to underestimate the wildfire of discontent that could follow.
“There’s a virality to it,” one source who operates in the space told Yahoo Sports.
Historically, organizing college athletes into a real labor movement has been an impossibly difficult task. Various groups have tried to build underground movements, but they only go so far.
It’s not just a numbers problem — try getting a football locker room of 100 diverse backgrounds to do anything in unison, then multiply that by the amount of teams you need to execute a real national boycott — but an issue of incentives. Pre-NIL, most athletes fell into two camps: They were either making a pit stop before the NBA/NFL, or they had no future in pro sports and just wanted the education. Neither had much reason to rock the boat.
As former Michigan basketball player Duncan Robinson revealed to The Athletic after graduating, he and two teammates started down the road of organizing a player boycott of the open practice on the Friday before the 2018 Final Four. They approached players on the other teams, who also had interest. And then, because of concerns it wouldn’t be a unified front, they backed away.
And that was just for an open practice, not a Final Four game with millions of people watching and massive amounts of money at stake.
I’d imagine that a pay cut would warrant many to reconsider their current line of employment, but given that there would be no other options, save for being a MLB early prospect, what else would they do?
Oh, they might decide to sue. Unionize. Then imagine what would happen next.
I don’t think either side wants to unleash the fury on college sports that would occur from a lockout, strike or boycott.
The powers that be are clearly not afraid of this.
Because they won’t be in their places of power when it happens.
The assumption is that all of college football unionizes collectively as one. I think that is the biggest issue that prevents a workable union.
You can’t have a union without the athletes designated as employees. Given that every athlete is considered a 1099 contractor, there is no “union” that can form without some form of legislation like California’s law forcing gig workers (Uber drivers, for example) into a union.
I say let the players strike or boycott. There are many semi pro teams that would like to show case their talents. It would be good entertainment for the fans.
Yes because those replacement player NFL games were so good.
It would be awful entertainment for the fans. The product will be terrible. It will do damage to the sport.
What college athletes don’t understand is their value to the fan is marginal, the value is in the university’s logo. If minor league/semi-pro football had the potential to be profitable, the NFL would have done it long ago.
The reason the “replacement player” strategy of the NFL owners was so bad was that the fans recognized the downgrade in quality of play.
In college sports’ case, the front of the jersey or side of the helmet is where the value is.
By the way, don’t take that as a “I don’t support NIL compensation” response.
But they’re not proposing to take the money out. The TV revenue will continue to flow. They just want to redirect it from the kids again. Coaches still get outrageous guarantees, facilities built and big donors treated like royalty while regular fans pay more for less. If anyone boycotts it should be the fans but that never works we just have to fade away.
Actually, a strike that is not done as part of the collective bargaining process may not be protected by the federal labor law or laws governing collective bargaining by state and local employees. If it does not fall under one of those laws, it could be, arguably, a violation of one of the Federal or state antitrust laws and would be illegal.
One of the obstacles to a nationwide players union is the possibility that players at state institutions would be governed by the collective bargaining laws for public employees in that particular state rather than Federal labor law. That would mean 50 different sets of rules. In addition, all of the private institutions would probably be subject to Federal labor law. This is why some contend that collective bargaining for all of college sports would require new legislation governing collective bargaining for college athletes.
Wildcat strikes are in fact illegal – if the players think Kirby is tough on the mic at bloody Tuesday, wait til they feel the sting of a Pinkerton’s truncheon!
But seriously, the NFL would be hardest hit – they would have to set up and pay for their development league after the colleges all restock their programs with scabs. To that point, while there is no doubt play would suffer in CFB for a bit, how many times have people on this site (and its predecessor) said there are 10,000 kids in Georgia who would play football at Georgia for free?
Worst offseason in all of sports. Multiple stories every week which are killing my interest in the sport.
I dunno, there was a piece on ESPN dot com this week about moves that could be made at the *NFL* trade deadline….
(Of course I didn’t read it, but I’m sure one of the “deals” was CBS trades Russell Wilson to the Falcons for Matt Ryan….)
I miss college football.