NCAA Football Is Now Openly Pro Football

Other Leagues and Sports
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I agree because that’s the natural progression anyway, and it was dominant reality before NIL et cetera.

As we’ve seen done with the new Big Ten contract already, I also want Disney and ESPN OUT of the equation for the college football playoff or post-season as much as possible.

Akin to March Madness and the NFL Playoffs, most of the major networks, if not all, will be partners for a Super League.

And I have to wonder right now also, given past comments by Gerry Cardinale, if RedBird Capital would be the lead horse involved with such a Super League.

There will be a ton of interested money available to make it happen when it is the time, but first there are a host of legal issues that have to be resolved, for no investor wants to inherit lawsuits still with much uncertainty on the potential damages.

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Homer Laws:
And Now It’s Time For State Regulation of Public Universities for Scheduled Opponents!

Well here we are ahead of schedule, and many like me had figured we are going here at some point as well via some unit of government that is not the US Congress.

Stayed tuned for the Internal Revenue Service, the US Department of Labor, and the US Department of Education, amongst others.

Of course even though this is pro football, it’s important to the schools and to the conferences to preserve traditional match-ups, much as it is also to the sports media.

But it’s also critical for state government, given all their funding of public universities, to keep their fair share and then some within the state.

So here’s North Carolina jumping the gun to attempt an early law to ensure that teams of state universities play a minimum of a certain number of other teams of state universities each season, no matter what reforms are to take place within conferences.

North Carolina legislation that would require UNC and NC State to regularly play the state’s Group of Five schools in football took a step toward becoming law on Tuesday, as House Bill 965, entitled “UNC Intrastate Athletic Competition,” passed through the house’s Appropriations committee.

The bill would require both UNC and NC State to play either Appalachian State, Charlotte or East Carolina every season in football – and not just at home. Under the proposal, the Tar Heels and Wolfpack would be required to complete a home-and-away series with all three over a six-year span.

Expect many copycats across the country since this is an uncommon easy money, easy votes idea.

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2024 College Football Playoff Schedule

It’s interesting that they are allowing about 10 days between games, which is beneficial for certain beaten up or injured players for healing.

I’ve never been a fan of “college” football past the first week of January though, and I won’t be now because it’s NFL time with enough games already in January.

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To your recommendation, a great article about Jeffrey Kessler, with quite the career in wins as an elite sports lawyer, is linked below.

Fans of “Better Call Saul” would see him as vastly bigger than Chuck McGill for sake of his wins and the US $20M+ Sandpiper Crossing case, for the damages agreed upon, pending finalization of settlement, amount to US $2.8 BILLION.

This is now only three years after his work on the Alston versus NCAA case with his law partner, which after combination with another case before the US Supreme Court was the definitive case for NIL rights for athletes on college campuses.

Note as explained that it was the hubris of the NCAA to take that case to the US Supreme Court and continue to throw such excessive weight around.

No tears for the NCAA or their lapdogs in some of the sports media like ABC / ESPN over the years, I say. Eat it for years NCAA, and you too ESPN.

The effort took decades, thousands of billable hours and resulted in a nice nine-figure fee for Kessler and his partner in House , Steve Berman. Kessler brushes off his individual impact in representing scores of athletes but the lingering perception is he won the big one – because he usually doesn’t lose.

Any history of college sports written right now might as well be ghostwritten by Kessler. The entire enterprise is being rewritten before our eyes pretty much because of Kessler.

“It revolutionized college sports,” Kessler said, when asked of the legacy of his antitrust court victories. “I know some people think in the wrong way [but] whether it’s good or bad, it’s a revolution.”

Yes, now would be a good time for Kessler to call it quits but he’s not close. For starters, the co-executive chairman at power law firm Winston & Strawn would like to see that settlement agreement through.

“My life is fine,” Kessler said. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

There’s too much to do. Kessler came of age in Brooklyn in the 1960s, the son of a real estate developer (dad) and homemaker (mom). As a teenager he was inspired in the 1960s by political activism, the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests. His heroes were Muhammad Ali, Olympian John Carlos and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

With his dogged style, Kessler has done just about everything that can be done in sports law. If you don’t know about him as a sports fan, you at least have experienced his work. He helped create the NBA, NFL and NHL players associations. Kessler has also cost those leagues millions of dollars in litigation.

Those leagues are also better for it today. Because of Kessler and his peers, the success of any league is defined by revenue and labor peace. The landmark Freeman McNeil case against the NFL led by Kessler established free agency in that league in 1991.

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Yes, because it is pro football, but hey all that money generated by those stupid corporate-sponsored bowl games in all these years sure didn’t go to the players and not as much as sounded off to the actual “schools” instead of first to booster and VIP events, tour packages and promotions, political homers at the venue or as guests, and the “athletic department” blah blah blah…

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We are heading towards at Superleague - and they are the competitors to the Godfather NFL. All the pieces are being put into place.

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Can we put you on the committee to supervise both the College Super League as well as the UFL for improvements?

Maybe you should have veto power too with also sanction capabilities, but maybe take it easy on them for their early improper suggestions and ideas of course?

Anyway, my point is I think there are some very smart people in those rooms, but in some of the conferences and in the UFL, maybe they don’t have enough new ideas from new faces, not simply the average fan at or just slightly above bojack status of course, but too many of the old guard stuck in the cable television era in their mindset.

This is a problem in so many places beyond these examples.

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Oh to have the commissioners of all other pro sports leagues answer a similar question on prop bets including especially live prop bets, now that more players are being busted for betting, including on prop bets and on their own games or team.

But if you really want to trigger Baker, raise the gambling issue. He’s against those prop bets that are essentially micro-wagers. They can be placed on everything from how long it takes to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to the over/under on points scored in the first quarter.

Baker believes prop bets add more pressure on athletes and officials if they don’t perform as prescribed in the wager itself. Of the 38 states with legalized sports betting, 18 don’t allow prop bets. Maryland, Ohio and Vermont banned college prop bets this year.

Baker released a statement in late March calling for a ban on prop bets.

“I think prop betting, in some respects, is one of the parts I worry about the most,” Baker told CBS News in November.

He was so concerned about the blowback from the betting public on athletes and officials that he hired a company to track and report to the platforms the negative social media.

“Some of the stuff that is being said is horrifying,” Baker said Monday. “I don’t think people appreciate yet how big a deal this is going to be.”

The irony, of course, drips from the ceiling. Baker reiterated his stance here in Sin City, the gambling capital of the world the NCAA has deemed worthy of hosting the 2028 Final Four.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I can’t believe I’m saying this here,” Baker told the convention. “I kind of wish sports betting would stay in Vegas.”

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Private Equity Makes Its First Stop, Other Than for NIL, in NCAA Pro Football

Big 12 members are considering a first-of-its kind private equity investment to ensure the league’s long-term financial and competitive security, multiple sources tell CBS Sports.

On the table is a possible cash infusion of $800 million to $1 billion from Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners in exchange for a 15% to 20% stake in the league, those sources said. A portion of the money would go directly to the 16 conference members, and the partnership would give the conference access to CVC’s investment services and clients.

The deal would be the first of its kind in collegiate athletics, sparked by the growing need for new revenue streams as the industry prepares to share with players as part of the multi-billion House v. NCAA settlement. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark presented the naming rights proposal to conference administrators during a meeting in Dallas in late May.

First reported by Yahoo! Sports, the idea is to drop the “Big” from the conference name and replace it with the corporate sponsor, though the “12” would likely be retained, according to a source familiar with the proposal.

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As is doing the Big 12, I bet Miami and Clemson are watching developments with Florida State as well so as to join them in departure as well as to court ready private equity to support their higher valuations without that awful contract the ACC struck with ESPN through 2036.

In the end I’m all too happy whenever ESPN’s onerous clout is diminished in college football, for basically it’s the SEC Network now that CBS is going out of the picture with the SEC, which ESPN has owned for years as well.

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It’s worth cross-posting this feedback here that arose in the UFL thread, for even the recent past until about 2010 in the history of NCAA football and other sports is awful in these regards.

Down this road is why the likes of Nick Saban and other coaches have left, and also why certain media blowhards like SEC homer at ESPN, Paul Feinbaum, were suddenly on the case of Deion Sanders, a modern coach who lived well the realities as a player at Florida State and as a pro and definitely can relate much better to modern players than those old throwbacks to those belatedly bygone days as described.

Deion Sanders finished his college degree in 2020 at Talladega College, Alabama, years after pro football and his media career. To this day when people try to associate him with Florida State as his alma mater, he pushes back to remind them that it’s not even though he was a star there who left school early for the NFL. There are reasons for that reality as well that go back to bad times in NCAA shamateurism as it was at the core.

I point this shameful history of how things were done via the NCAA and in big-time college athletics out whenever somebody, usually not on this forum, wants to reconsider or brings up an idea and go back down any of these old roads, for how soon some forget or simply overlook what perhaps they never cared to know like much of even recent history.

Some of the more egregious examples were around with coaches like Joe Paterno, Barry Switzer, Paul “Bear” Bryant, and many others who basically corralled players on a heavily territorial basis, even to keep those players from other schools, through a vast network of measures and also various “gentlemen’s agreements” between coaches for the sake of recruiting practices and boundaries.

The entire history has yet to unfold, but we have long moved on from this sort of nonsense involving any informal or traditional territorial restrictions on where any given young athlete is to receive a scholarship and play a sport.

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Title IX Means the US Department of Education Will Offer Federal Guidance, Not the NCAA or Each School

Well another can of worms has been re-opened here after the House antitrust settlement.

How do schools comply with Title IX, which in briefer terms, is federal law for equity between the two sexes at schools?

Here it is right from the government website along with comments from the article. I have highlighted some relevant text to this discussion.

What all this means is that there WILL in effect be US government regulation of matters associated with college athletics, which will reach to some degree beyond Title IX, given the modern reality of all these additional streams of revenue now available to young athletes and whether they are current or past students as provided by various legal settlements.

Equal opportunity to play and participate means equal opportunity to earn streams of revenue.

Background on Title IX
What is Title IX?
Title IX is a Federal civil rights law. It prohibits schools that receive Federal funding from discriminating
based on sex in their programs or activities. The Department’s Title IX regulations include requirements
for how schools must comply with Title IX, including in their athletic programs.
How does Title IX cover athletic programs at colleges and universities?
All of your school’s programs and activities, including its athletic program, are covered by Title IX if your school receives Federal funding. Schools that participate in Federal Student Aid programs receive
Federal funding, which allows colleges and universities to provide Federal financial aid to their students
through grants, loans, and work-study funds. So, if your school provides Federal financial aid to
students, it is covered by Title IX. Schools that receive Federal funding for research or other purposes
are also covered by Title IX.
What does Title IX require for schools’ athletic programs?
The Title IX regulations require schools to provide equal opportunity based on sex. This requirement applies to schools’ athletic programs, including club, intramural, and intercollegiate teams.
Equal opportunity in college and university athletic programs is measured by:

  1. The benefits, opportunities, and treatment given to men’s and women’s teams;3
  2. How a school is awarding athletic scholarships and financial assistance;4
    and
  3. How a school is meeting students’ athletic interests and abilities.5

ATLANTA – NCAA president Charlie Baker is looking to the federal government for help in solving one of the most pressing questions surrounding the landmark $2.8 billion House antitrust settlement.

How Title IX fits into the House settlement, which will pave the way for a new collegiate revenue-share model if approved, has loomed over college athletics since agreed to in May. Title IX requires universities to provide equal opportunities for male and female athletes, which has typically been reflected in the number of scholarships offered to each.

“What we really need on this one, in particular,” Baker continued, “is the feds to give us guidance that says this is what a national standard with respect to Title IX and rev share should look like.”

To this point, the Department of Education has yet to weigh in on the Title IX implications of the deal. Without federal guidance, it could mirror how schools approached name, image and likeness, ultimately coming down to risk tolerance on what is permissible – or, at least, legally defensible. In the early stages of figuring out what that’ll look like (should it go into effect for the 2025-26 season), schools are already taking different paths.

“Some schools have already said they’re going to assume the Title IX mandates they give are 50 (percent) to female, 50 (percent) to male based on their student body makeup,” said Mit Winter, an NIL expert and sports lawyer at Kennyhertz Perry. “Other schools are not going to make that assumption and will probably decide football is generating most of this broadcast revenue, and they have a higher NIL value based on that, so we are going to give more to football players and basketball players and some other amount to men’s sports and women’s sports. It’s really going to be up to each school based on legal advice from their general counsel and outside counsel on how they are going to approach Title IX.”

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As Rich Eisen first brought up on his show in the summer of 2022, it was not that long ago right!?, here’s another early signpost on the road to the “College Football Super League.”

And the author Brandon Marcello is very likely to be correct that the College Football Playoff games will the ratings loser going head-to-head against the NFL on over-the-air channels.

One reason lower ratings for the CFP game would be the case is because in an expanded playoff, one of the teams is likely be a charity and participation case with three losses so as to even be in some playoff in college football.

Of course we live in a time of multiple screens within easier reach than ever, so competition by the two games in any given residence or place might not matter as much, except that how ratings are calculated never has caught up with modern technology, and views on regular TV are far more valuable to advertisers than are streams.

The long-awaited expansion of the College Football Playoff this fall sets the stage for the first-of-its-kind battle on a Saturday afternoon in late December, with games of consequence in both the college and professional leagues scheduled for head-to-head competition on major national television networks: two first-round CFP games on TNT against two NFL matchups on Fox and NBC.

Such a battle has mostly been avoided by the NFL and college football thanks to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which dictates the NFL avoid televising games from Fridays at 6 p.m. through midnight Sunday starting on the second Friday in September through the second Saturday in December. Outside that window, lower and mid-tier bowl games have pushed against the NFL with little success. The CFP’s foray into the NFL schedule provides the stiffest competition yet for the league – and network executives are anxious to see how it unfolds Dec. 21.

It’s also plausible – and expected – viewership will not be nearly as high had the two organizations scheduled their games on separate dates. History shows the biggest loser will be college football. The NFL has dwarfed the NBA and MLB on head-to-head dates. NFL viewership was 10 times higher than the NBA on Christmas Day last year. The World Series purposefully avoided the NFL’s highest-rated television window on Sunday night in 2022 for the first time.

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By analogy to the NCAA that is of yore since 2023, as I just learned in reading this article by Justin Dunk, at the Canadian junior football level of play in the CJFL, rules were put in place in 2018 to allow teams to retain players on a team for 18 months on contract.

Such rules are akin to what the NCAA had done with previous transfer restrictions, which required players for years to sit out one season and lose one year of eligibility for transfers but for rare exceptions granted.

Thoughts amongst those of you more informed?

In this situation, running back L.J. Dyer simply wants to switch to the BC Football Conference of the league from his Ontario team.

https://3downnation.com/2024/07/02/cjfl-all-canadian-rb-lj-dyer-being-held-hostage-by-london-beefeaters-team-denying/

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745

Playing College Football Since …2018?

For the four allowed years of eligibility afforded college athletes in the NCAA, there’s some interesting new math.

I did not know that on a comprehensive basis, the entire 2020 season did not count as a year of eligibility whether or not teams played games.

Though University of Utah quarterback Cam Rising via the new math still has TWO seasons of eligibility, it appears he’s going to look to the NFL after this season.

Apparently there are other players from this timeframe since about 2020 who are in similar shoes.

Good riddance to the old stupid and onerous rule, restricting the free movement of labour as is too much of our history in the US, that required players to sit out a season just because in many cases:

  1. The player was recruited to staff up a position that was overstaffed, sometimes also to keep the player away from a competitor, and/or
  2. The coach is an :peach:hat and like for any job, if you don’t get along with the boss you should be simply free to move on, without anything new taken from you, because life must go on and does anyway.

Rising is among a handful of players in line to benefit from a proposed consent decree by the United States Department of Justice that would prohibit the enforcement of NCAA transfer rules. One of the provisions states that Division I student-athletes deemed ineligible for any portion of a season during or since the 2019-20 academic year will be granted an extra season of eligibility by the NCAA. Rising began his college career at Texas as a redshirt in 2018 before transferring to Utah in 2019 and sitting out a year as was required by NCAA rules at the time.

The 2020 season also didn’t count against Rising’s eligibility because of the relief provided by the NCAA amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If Rising wanted to capitalize on the DOJ’s proposed consent decree, none of his first three seasons of college football would count against his eligibility.

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If The Athlete Has To Work Like An Employee When Not Practicing or Playing In A Game, The Athlete IS An Employee

Look how long in US history it took to arrive to this point, but it did happen dominantly only through efforts in this millennium.

EAT IT again, NCAA.

https://www.reuters.com/sports/us-college-athletes-may-be-employees-under-new-test-court-rules-2024-07-11/

In the first ruling of its kind, a panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said athletes may be regarded as employees under federal wage laws if they primarily perform services for their schools’ benefit “in return for express or implied compensation or in-kind benefits.”

This means for example, though I am not an attorney to know if yet applicable, that athletes should be paid for their time off the field as associated with those stupid non-playoff bowl games, those neutral site games that have corporate sponsors, or for various promotional events associated with a big away game, for example.

As if the schools and those sponsors and conferences with media contracts have not had the money to pay even minimum wages!?

The ruling allows a group of former college athletes to pursue a proposed class action against the National Collegiate Athletic Association and their former schools.

It follows a landmark $2.8 million settlement, opens new tab by the NCAA in May to resolve class-action lawsuits claiming it had violated antitrust law by restricting the compensation and benefits to students for their athletic service.

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