Bama now has 20 ESPN 300 commits

[gambler]

College football has become way too much football and money and not nearly enough college. The ridiculous players union rule in the NFL that requires college players to stay in college at least 3 years before declaring for the draft very much helps the Haves and hurts the Have Nots in CFB even more. That needs to be changed to “one-and-done” just like it is in basketball. You’d see a lot more parity because the really good players would go to schools where they could get playing time earlier.
I’m almost to the point I’d support a break away from the colleges with real student athletes like Georgia Tech from the ones like Bama, Clemson and Georgia who primary existence is to support an NFL farm program like Minor League Baseball does for MLB. Let the players who have zero interest in learning and the college degree go play for at places with virtually no academic burdens and pay them.

I still wonder why pros are making the money they do anyhow. If the NFL owners were intelligent at all, they would put down 200k a year per player as a salary cap and tell these 20 yr old kids if they can make more money in another career have at it.

You're right about the athlete's perspective, but ultimately societal perspective is what really needs to change. I think we all know that's not happening anytime soon.

 

[GTCrew]

I still wonder why pros are making the money they do anyhow. If the NFL owners were intelligent at all, they would put down 200k a year per player as a salary cap and tell these 20 yr old kids if they can make more money in another career have at it.

You're right about the athlete's perspective, but ultimately societal perspective is what really needs to change. I think we all know that's not happening anytime soon.

What the NBA owners need to do is agree to implement a 90% tax on all NBA salaries to fund programs for underprivileged black youth.

 

[andrew]

I still wonder why pros are making the money they do anyhow. If the NFL owners were intelligent at all, they would put down 200k a year per player as a salary cap and tell these 20 yr old kids if they can make more money in another career have at it.

The NFL owners are plenty smart and you can bet they are getting every dollar that it's possible for them to get.

NFL's antitrust exemption is contingent upon the collective bargaining agreement with the players union, and while the NFLPA is weak, it's hard for me to imagine them agreeing to such unfavorable terms for players.

If there is no collective bargaining agreement then there is no antitrust exemption and there can be no salary cap.

 

[andrew]

Preseason rankings don’t work. They should be trashed and it should be against any media agreement of those who show CFB games to promote or talk about them.

ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC shouldn’t be allowed to reference directly or indirectly on any of their media platforms (no analysts, hosts, talking heads, pundits, reporters, or announcers). For example, ESPN can’t formulate their own Top 25 or even talk about someone else’s.

This SEC/OSU quality loss non sense is CFP poison. The committee is biased and poisoned before they even rank anyone at Week 8.

The problem (and I'm sure you realize this) is that the preseason rankings work extremely effectively for one purpose: revenue generation.

For that reason alone there is no chance of them going away, even though I agree with you that it would be better for the selection process.

 

[midatlantech]

Cut the number of recruits to 15 or 20 a year and it would change everything, and max at 70 or something.

 

[1982Jacket]

College football has become way too much football and money and not nearly enough college. The ridiculous players union rule in the NFL that requires college players to stay in college at least 3 years before declaring for the draft very much helps the Haves and hurts the Have Nots in CFB even more. That needs to be changed to “one-and-done” just like it is in basketball. You’d see a lot more parity in CFB because the 4-str players would go to schools where they could get playing time earlier rather than wait their turn on rosters like Bama for 3-4 years.
I’m almost to the point I’d support a break away from the colleges with real student athletes like Georgia Tech from the ones like Bama, Clemson and Georgia who primary existence is to support an NFL farm program like Minor League Baseball does for MLB. Let the players who have zero interest in learning and the college degree go play for at places with virtually no academic burdens and pay them.

Yes!

Never happen. :(

 

[gambler]

The NFL owners are plenty smart and you can bet they are getting every dollar that it's possible for them to get.

NFL's antitrust exemption is contingent upon the collective bargaining agreement with the players union, and while the NFLPA is weak, it's hard for me to imagine them agreeing to such unfavorable terms for players.

If there is no collective bargaining agreement then there is no antitrust exemption and there can be no salary cap.

I'm not so sure they are. According to a quick search, television contracts are worth ~5 billion to the league which pays out 255 million/yr to each team. Even if the league loses antitrust exemptions, there will still be some value in the tv contacts which I can't guess would be less than 2.5 billion.

If the teams cap salaries at 200k for all 48 players then you're looking at 10 million a year which saves each team 188 million if they are pushing against the current 2020 team salary caps.

Nothing else changes, merchandise, ticketing, etc. So given the contracts change to roughly 125mil / team income and tack on 180mil in salary savings, that pushes it to ~305 mil / yr income.

Yes the nflpa has a CBA, but I Highly doubt they are dumping enough money into a PAC to make any lobby difference in D.C. Im almost positive the lawmakers and in turn, the FLRA would laugh off any attempt by the players to triumph over the owners in serious litigation.

Worst case for the owners is they payoff what's due, scrap the league and start over to pocket an extra 50mil/yr.

 

[knoxjacket]

The free transfer will change the game. Blue chippers who get beat out will be transferring.

 

[andrew]

I'm not so sure they are. According to a quick search, television contracts are worth ~5 billion to the league which pays out 255 million/yr to each team. Even if the league loses antitrust exemptions, there will still be some value in the tv contacts which I can't guess would be less than 2.5 billion.

If the teams cap salaries at 200k for all 48 players then you're looking at 10 million a year which saves each team 188 million if they are pushing against the current 2020 team salary caps.

Nothing else changes, merchandise, ticketing, etc. So given the contracts change to roughly 125mil / team income and tack on 180mil in salary savings, that pushes it to ~305 mil / yr income.

Yes the nflpa has a CBA, but I Highly doubt they are dumping enough money into a PAC to make any lobby difference in D.C. Im almost positive the lawmakers and in turn, the FLRA would laugh off any attempt by the players to triumph over the owners in serious litigation.

Worst case for the owners is they payoff what's due, scrap the league and start over to pocket an extra 50mil/yr.

If the team capped salaries without an antitrust exemption it would be a very clear violation of antitrust law. All parties involved, including the government, have already agreed that it would be a violation of antitrust law, hence the antitrust exemption. So if there was no CBA and the owners continued to operate with a salary cap, they would be fined and ordered to stop. If they continued to operate after being fined and ordered to stop, the worst case scenario would be jail time.

If your argument is that the government would simply ignore the law, and judges would laugh off any lawsuit from the players (who themselves can afford to hire very good attorneys), then I suppose we're just in disagreement on that point.

 

[gambler]

If the team capped salaries without an antitrust exemption it would be a very clear violation of antitrust law. All parties involved, including the government, have already agreed that it would be a violation of antitrust law, hence the antitrust exemption. So if there was no CBA and the owners continued to operate with a salary cap, they would be fined and ordered to stop. If they continued to operate after being fined and ordered to stop, the worst case scenario would be jail time.

If your argument is that the government would simply ignore the law, and judges would laugh off any lawsuit from the players (who themselves can afford to hire very good attorneys), then I suppose we're just in disagreement on that point.

They don't have to cap salaries officially, they just simply don't pay more than x amount in an under the table agreement, in my example it was 200k. Like I said, if the players can do better elsewhere then send them on their way. There are way too many loopholes in law and any business with an experienced lawyer will exploit those.

Yeah we'll just be in disagreement about laughing off the law. To me, it's hard for you to defend your position seeing as all law is political. It surrounds us every day.

Since the FLRA is appointed by the politicians, and political victories are influenced by money, in turn law (especially labor law) is influenced by money. If it wasn't, nobody would be talking about court packing at the highest level. Much less, the no name county or district judges or members of the FLRA.

 

[andrew]

They don't have to cap salaries officially, they just simply don't pay more than x amount in an under the table agreement, in my example it was 200k. Like I said, if the players can do better elsewhere then send them on their way. There are way too many loopholes in law and any business with an experienced lawyer will exploit those.

Yeah we'll just be in disagreement about laughing off the law. To me, it's hard for you to defend your position seeing as all law is political. It surrounds us every day.

Since the FLRA is appointed by the politicians, and political victories are influenced by money, in turn law (especially labor law) is influenced by money. If it wasn't, nobody would be talking about court packing at the highest level. Much less, the no name county or district judges or members of the FLRA.

Every time the CBA is negotiated, the owners, players, and their lawyers spend a lot of time and money haggling over the salary cap, fighting for every last tenth of a percentage in revenue. These are hard nosed negotiations with many experienced people involved on both sides, and tons of media coverage speculating about all possible outcomes.

You're saying that the owners could simply do away with those negotiations, have no salary cap, and keep an under-the-table agreement which would save them billions of dollars. There would be little to no risk because any experienced lawyer would be able to exploit loopholes in antitrust law when defending the inevitable lawsuits. And the reason they haven't done this yet is that neither the owners nor their lawyers (who are very experienced) are intelligent enough to have thought of it yet.

To me, that is the difficult position to defend. But I don't think either of us is going to convince the other so I'll just leave it at that and let you have the last word if you want it.

 

[Yukonwreck]

I posted this before

O. J. Howard