Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. House settlement Friday evening. NCAA, ending three federal lawsuits alleging the NCAA illegally limited the earning capacity of college student-athletes. John Talty of CBS Sports has a nice article on this. My favorite line is his last one.
“There has never been a better time to become a lawyer and pursue an interest in college sports.”
Yeah, that’s where it’s headed.
What happened Friday in California is undoubtedly significant. But anyone portraying it as a solution to the problems plaguing college athletics simply lacks an understanding of the history of NCAA sports and what will and will not be allowed moving forward.
The end of chaos?
No.
It will just be another type of chaos that will result in more legal threats and billable hours than you can imagine. Additionally, high-level cheating will return. Oh, we’re back baby! Illegal cash transactions are commonplace.
The biggest winners and losers of the House vs. NCAA rules: Amateurism is dead and the class divide is widening
John Talty
Before we explain why, let’s go over the basics.
The deal will allow schools to begin paying athletes directly — for the first time ever — next month, with an expected salary cap of around $20.5 million. This represents $20.5 million for all sports will be distributed as each school sees fit. Additionally, all future NIL agreements between boosters/collectives and athletes will be reviewed by a new entity designed to ensure they meet valid business objectives and not just the type of recruiting incentives that have circulated around the country in recent years.
This paragraph is riddled with problems.
Let’s start with the salary cap. In other words, it won’t work as expected.
As Matt Norlander and I have discussed many times on the A Look at the College Basketball PodcastThe most obvious problem with a salary cap for entire athletic departments is that not all athletic departments have football rosters to buy. In other words, in a place like Alabama, the school would have to spend the majority of that $20.5 million on football, leaving relatively little money for other sports, notably men’s basketball. Meanwhile, in a place like St. John’s, where there is no football, most of that $20.5 million could be spent as Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino sees fit.
Now let’s be real.
Do you really think an SEC school with millions tied up in football is going to concede a basketball recruiting battle to a Big East program without football because, you know, the money just isn’t in the budget, according to the rules? LOL. Speaking of which, not all basketball staffs, but certainly many, will simply do what they’ve always done, which is find a way to get the player even if it requires bending the rules.
Once again, this weekend, cheating returned to college sports.
It’s inevitable.
Every Power Four conference features a coach who has broken one recruiting rule or another. If you think they won’t do it again, if necessary, you’re an idiot. And now, every time a player chooses a school with little money in the budget over a school that would offer a lot more, fans on the wrong side of the commitment will assume something happened in violation of the rules and scream for an investigation.
We lived this life for decades. Who really wanted that again?
And don’t even get me started on the document the Power Four conferences are circulating that aims to force schools to follow the rules or face serious consequences. Among other things, schools are being asked to waive their right to legally challenge any decisions of the new law enforcement entity. Reportedly, schools that refuse to sign the document could be kicked out of their conferences.
Please.
All it will take for this wacky idea to fail is for one powerful school — like, say, Texas or Ohio State — to refuse to sign it, in which case other schools will say, “If they don’t sign it, we don’t sign it.” »
So what?
Do you Really Do you think the SEC is going to kick Texas out? Do you Really do you think the Big Ten will kick out Ohio State? Do you Really Do you think the television networks that spend billions on these conferences would allow it?
Please.
Now to NIL.
According to the regulations, a new thing called the NIL Go Clearinghouse will be responsible for approving future NIL transactions to ensure they fall within a “reasonable range of clearing based on multiple factors.”
I can’t wait for the word “reasonable” to appear in court.
Never forget how we got here – especially when the NCAA was repeatedly sued for illegally limiting the earning power of student-athletes. So what do you think will happen when a school with serious softball ambitions like Texas Tech offers a NIL contract worth over a million dollars to the next NiJaree Canaday? Let me tell you. NIL Go will likely deem the deal “unreasonable” for obvious reasons and cancel it. Then everyone will return to court based on the idea that once again, a student-athlete’s earning capacity is illegally limited.
Rinse and repeat.
Last month, NIL Go officials told ACC administrators that more than 70 percent of current NIL deals with booster collectives would have been denied under the new rules. This suggests that NIL Go will often be in the business of telling student-athletes that they cannot take what someone is willing to give them, and not all student-athletes will accept this decision without taking legal action.
The end of chaos?
Hahaha. Certainly not!
Believe me when I tell you, this is just the beginning. Because when a solution to a problem simply creates more problems, you’re not really solving anything, but you’re just trading one set of problems for a new set of problems that will have to be solved again, sooner or later. As Talty wrote, kudos to the lawyers. They are the real winners here, as always.
