As 2022 comes to a close, SI staff members Jon Wertheim and Chris Almeida will discuss some of the year’s themes in sports. Monday they covered sports wash. Today’s topic is: What has (and hasn’t) changed during a crazy year in college sports.
Jon Wertheim: I have a rant: We’re all obsessed with NIL agreements, right? NIL has been that transformative force and has been paired with the transfer portal. It completely changed college football in particular. Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, before a game of pétanque, announces his transfer and people shrug their shoulders. Deion Sanders can show up on campus and try to convince 19-year-olds to change schools. And that’s completely normal. The fact that college athletes are essentially free agents is now something we essentially take for granted. We’ve removed this injustice that Lincoln Riley can leave Oklahoma or Brian Kelly can leave Notre Dame and players have to sit out if they want to do the same thing. And now we have this transfer portal where recruiting is not just about finding high school juniors and seniors, but also finding the hapless kid from Wisconsin and hoping he comes to Indiana. I mean, Washington’s quarterback played for Indiana. These are the new rules of engagement.
And it’s great that a select few athletes can make money from these NIL deals and as expected, they really aren’t NIL deals, they’re just payments. We thought, before NIL, that these athletes would advertise at a discounted price. local car dealership. But barring some social media work, it’s not like these NIL money recipients spend a huge amount of time doing commercial shoots and sitting on billboards. What we miss in all this talk, however, is that it still ignores the fact that all of this thrives on unpaid labor.
These athletic departments will generate a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue. And that Big 10 football deal will be worth more than the NBA contract was worth at the turn of the century. There’s still all this money flowing through college athletic departments. And the athletes don’t benefit from it. It’s like Sports Illustrated saying “We’re not going to pay you to write stories, but you can get a book deal and we’re not going to stop you.” So it’s great because these athletes now have a way to generate income. It’s great for these athletes to now be able to go to the market so their parents no longer have to worry about paying the bus fare to go see them play. But all of this still doesn’t solve the problem that the company is generating more money than ever. These television contracts are more lucrative than ever. I mean, the Big 10 now stretches from Southern California to New Jersey and has never been in better financial shape, and labor is still free. Yeah, we kind of take our eyes off the ball. These athletes do not earn a salary from the income they generate. They have the right to access these third parties. Great. It’s a beginning. But the market remains deeply distorted.
Chris Almeida: So you think we’ve taken our attention away from the media? Or as fans?
JW: Both. I mean, I think schools are breathing a sigh of relief. If you’re the Indiana athletic department, things are perfect. You can farm the boosters, you can make these guys pay. If you’re a Kentucky basketball player, that’s awesome.
CA: So I’m going to back up a bit. When I saw the news of Charlie Baker being named NCAA president in March. I thought: Why would he do that? Here’s this guy who just finished a relatively uncontroversial term as governor of Massachusetts. He is in his sixties. Presumably he is doing quite well financially. And so I saw this news and wondered why the hell he would take this job. Because yes, the NCAA has a lot of power and influence right now. College football is huge, but even though it feels like NIL bought them some time, it feels like it’s only win time. The number of so-called principles that the NCAA has abandoned in recent years makes it seem like change is inevitable and coming quickly. So there’s no reason, I don’t think, to believe that the change is over. So if I’m in the NCAA, I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable. I think I’m counting down the days until the whole house of cards collapses. And why would you want to be the captain of this ship?
JW: But what does collapse look like? I think if you’re Charlie Baker, you obviously don’t want to be the CEO of a coal mining company. But university sport is booming more than ever. Perhaps the NCAA’s role in this area is diminishing. But there is still an entity there. Business is booming and someone needs to synthesize it. I mean, I feel like as long as college sports is in the place that it is – and there’s no indication that it’s going to go down anytime soon – why don’t you try to play the hero and say : Yes, it’s me who will finally ensure that there is cohesion. Why wouldn’t you want to be the one to finally start paying athletes? Someone needs to connect all of this.
CA: That’s right. And maybe I’m thinking about it too modestly. But I think of Mark Emmert or Charlie Baker’s role as essentially selling the outdated college sports product and not modernizing that product. And maybe the change in direction is a sign that they’re going to go in a different direction and they’re going to look to the NCAA as a business and a major league. Maybe it will work. But! I haven’t seen any strong indication that they’re going to move in that direction, where they’ll fully admit that what they’re selling is conceptually very different from the old idea of students simply engaging in their hobby in front of a band. of supporters. I’m not sure the NCAA is ready to completely remove the mask yet.
But I think it will eventually become a necessity. College football…it’s basically going to be professional football. You are going to have two conferences with 16 teams…
JW: On the one hand, we’re talking about the Fox Conference versus the ESPN Conference and Kevin Warren and the billions of dollars and why UCLA would move from the PAC 12 to the BIG 10. Well, it’s because of all income and athletes are still not paid by this income. And as long as that is the case, there will still be a long way to go. Yes, it’s awesome that Caleb Williams doesn’t have to worry about flying his parents out to see him perform and it’s awesome that there are gymnasts who can become internet stars and monetize that. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s fool’s gold, because it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that the people who generate value aren’t getting paid.
Either way, I feel like we’re all caught up in the portal. But we still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room.
