Week 5 News & Games
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
Lol...me too, but this isn't about a coaches integrity, this is about a player and his family seriously f'ing up his NIL present...and future IMHO.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Agreed- with a note that this has been a net positive for Illini basketball and even football. At least from a performance standpoint.
FIFY. Careers in the military, mining, truck driving, steel mills, construction, . . . all involve accepting money (as well as degrees of job satisfaction and sense of accomplishment) in exchange for traumatic physical risks as well as wear and tear on the body. Many leadership jobs exchange long hours away from family for money. Football is no different in that respect, no more one-sided.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
thought processes like this is why i've (sadly) cooled in my fandom of college sports. it's now officially a purely capitalistic structure...the attachment with the university is in name only, no longer in anythign beyond that. in my (largely useless) opinion, fanbases will slowly see that as well and lose attachment to college sports.
I don't think in season NIL needs to be connected to play or even should be connected to play in most cases. For example, here we might be talking about a player playing at a representative value higher than he signed for. Now it does make sense he may want or ask for more and to many it may seem like he should get more. But what about a player who underperformed per his original representative value? Should that similarly mean a school or collective be able to take money back from what was originally offered?
I think formal contracts ahead of the season clearly are the way to go. You meet the expectations set in the contract that you agree to, and you get the payment the school or collective agrees to. The real question is how do you get some semblance of continuity from season to season without everyone looking for the next best deal. And I've talked about this before but I think it's used the idea of longer term contracts with "vested" income that is higher than single year income that also offers things like insurance, health care, and financial advisors.
For example:
Program A has an intermediary offer you $250,000 for 1 year cash.
Program B offers you a formal legal contract of $450,000 over 2 years with $150,000 and benefits guaranteed and the full $450,000 and bennies if the player stays for the full 2 years.
Basically it makes the player choose whether they want to go the riskier route of year to year shopping that Program A offers but could potentially provide a higher overall payday if everything goes right, or to go with the more conservative but stable approach of Program B that insures against possible loss of income while not having the same profitability ceiling.
And while there's obvious risk for longer term contracts for schools as well, setting up long-term contracts like this may insulate you from bad years with appropriate money management
I’m gonna finally put my thoughts on this in writing:
1. As it pertains to this situation with Skilka - we don’t know the whole story. Either side could be spinning to put themselves in a better light. Nobody should have the opinion of “you shouldn’t complain, it’s football, etc. etc.” Like it or not, this is a job for these people now. They’re getting as much money as they can up front because they aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. They shouldn’t have to wait out the season for it to happen to them again.
2. Regarding NIL in general, it shouldn’t be a pay-to-play. There should be a registry of contracts with the price and the service/right exchanges for those payments. E.g.: Serra Champaign wants Hugh Robertson to sit in a car and take pictures, and they will pay him 25,000 for that; 217 Mortgage wants to pay Barry Wallace 100,000 dollars for the 2024-2025 season in exchange for at least 15 commercial spots, with an added “visibility escalator” of 1,000 dollars for every game with a double double or something. That way we don’t have this bullcrap with promises in exchange for enrolling. BUT … alas … that won’t work. *because* if we did that then people will cheat just like they did before. This was an effort to say “f it, we can’t keep up on policing it so just pay people.” And this is what we’re gonna get. It’s good for some students, it’s not great for others, and it is what it is.
1. As it pertains to this situation with Skilka - we don’t know the whole story. Either side could be spinning to put themselves in a better light. Nobody should have the opinion of “you shouldn’t complain, it’s football, etc. etc.” Like it or not, this is a job for these people now. They’re getting as much money as they can up front because they aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. They shouldn’t have to wait out the season for it to happen to them again.
2. Regarding NIL in general, it shouldn’t be a pay-to-play. There should be a registry of contracts with the price and the service/right exchanges for those payments. E.g.: Serra Champaign wants Hugh Robertson to sit in a car and take pictures, and they will pay him 25,000 for that; 217 Mortgage wants to pay Barry Wallace 100,000 dollars for the 2024-2025 season in exchange for at least 15 commercial spots, with an added “visibility escalator” of 1,000 dollars for every game with a double double or something. That way we don’t have this bullcrap with promises in exchange for enrolling. BUT … alas … that won’t work. *because* if we did that then people will cheat just like they did before. This was an effort to say “f it, we can’t keep up on policing it so just pay people.” And this is what we’re gonna get. It’s good for some students, it’s not great for others, and it is what it is.
illinidarrin
- from parts unknown
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
You can believe the myth of the student-athlete was the special sauce that made college athletics great, but the issue is that it was a charade on multiple levels. We know this. The courts have ruled against it. Athletes deserve to get paid. Rather than creating an even shadier system with few enforceable rules, pay the employees directly like every other business on earth. Adapt or die.
I am in favor of paying athletes.
But this isn't every other business on earth. My colleagues and I don't link arms and sing a song at the end of a good day. Former employees don't come back for homecoming. I don't donate to my previous employers.
Again, I agree with your premise and what you've said before that there is no exact analogy. But if this turns into every other business on earth, it does lose what makes it special.
That certainly sounds like a collective not paying NIL and not a QB asking for more money after overperforming. Unless one would argue $0 was the NIL agreement. This pretty much entirely puts me on team Sluka. I find it much harder to believe he decided to go there knowing he was going to get no NIL over an assistant possibly implying he'd get $100,000 if he commits.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Yeah, man, it's complicated and I freely admit I definitely don't have all the answers. Two things are certain, though. One, there's no going back. That cat is so far out of the bag. Two, this intermediate step is insane and creates a ton of problems. Though, as an Illini fan I can see how we benefit from it, and I'm going to enjoy that aspect of it while it lasts, this pretty clearly isn't the answer, either. The sooner we move on to the next step in this process, the better.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
So it's ok to not honor your contract? I don't agree here. In the pros, there are many instances when a player agrees to a deal - blows up in a good way and becomes worth more money - BUT he has to honor his contract. I don't understand your logic here if UNLV's position is true.
And I'll further say that since players are now being paid NIL - they cannot sit out bowl games or redshirt etc. If you get the pay, then you must play.
Reading btw the lines, the collective did not have in their words "formal agreement", the assistant coach made commitment he could not deliver. The kid/family screwed up and did not get it in writing, so he moves on. So there was never any enforceable contract, but IANAL.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I'm just saying that, with the DIA considering cutting non-rev sports to fund player salaries, the little alignment there was between P4 (3? 2?, whatever) revenue sports and their respective university predominantly non-profit mission is all but dead.
With that, the players are now simply employees of the university that i associate to the likes of professors and administration vs. students that I (albeit loosely) associate with peer students. The students are who drive the culture of the school, not the professors. And i think students themselves will, over time, start seeing that as well when this UNLV situation become more commonplace.
To be clear, i'm fully supportive of NIL and allowing players to profit of their fame. I'm not supportive of a model where the economics of the athletic department stay within revenue sports and no longer go to the non-rev sports (let alone not to the broader university).
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
You understand this has been an ongoing story, right? The information at 10:11 am when I posted that is different than the information at 3:30 pm. At that time, all we had was the player's statement that the s̶c̶h̶o̶o̶l̶ *NIL Collective* (thanks, I hate it) didn't uphold their end of the bargain. And, heck yeah, I think every single player has a right to sit out if the s̶c̶h̶o̶o̶l̶ *NIL Collective* doesn't honor their side of the agreement.
Now, the situation is a bit more complicated. We are dealing in verbal agreements and a he said, they said situation. It's a mess. Even still, yes, honestly, I'm much more likely to err on the side of the player, but there's still apparently more we are going to find out about this story and we'll see how it shakes out.
Again, as I said previously, we need a system of enforcement, regulation, and actual contracts between schools and players. If we have that and the school upholds its side of the contract, then yes, the player should play.
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chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
Yeah, there were "no formal NIL offers." Those sound like weasel words to me.
Not so fast, with the group of coaches and AD Illinois has right now, chaos can be our friend.
Those players that are looking at nothing but money probably won't look that hard at Illinois. Those players that are wanting to play games probably won't look hard at Illinois. Those players that want to be treated like an adult, get what they are promised and are willing to work hard and/or improve their professional status will not be turned off by Illinois because Illinois delivers.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
I've said multiple times in this thread, from our perspective, this insane system benefits us. Yes, chaos is a ladder and we have the right administration, coaches, and NIL collective to climb it. In a perfect world, we reach the top right before this whole thing changes again. Goodness knows I want that Natty in basketball more than anything. However, in terms of the long-term health of the sport, this system appears to be a time bomb and needs to be defused sooner rather than later. Both of these things can be true.
The problem here is, that given the current structure, there are no contracts, so to speak. There are promises and “guarantees,” but unless it’s in writing with the parameters detailed, there’s no contract to uphold.
The whole issue here - which seems to be asst. coach making a promise that was outside his ability to keep, an NIL group not following through on the coach’s promise, and a player coming to the realization that he wasn’t going to get the money he thought he was promised - comes from a convoluted system where the NCAA refuses to allow student-athletes to be treated as employees of the schools. They insist that these student-athletes be treated like any other students, but then create rules where these student-athletes are treated differently from other students.
To whit, if I decide to go study physics at School A partially because they have a theater club that I’m interested in and because a friend’s uncle says I can work part time at his office for a little extra money, but then the theater club dissolves for lack of funding, the friend’s uncle tells me that he can’t afford to pay me but would be happy to let me keep working at his office as an unpaid intern, and I miss my high school girlfriend, I can transfer to School B, no questions asked, enroll in classes as soon as the school lets me, take the lead roll in Death of a Salesman, and go work the cash register at the school bookstore, with no penalties, impediments, or obligations to my prior school.
The courts have repeatedly ruled against the NCAA for the rules they’ve tried to erect on preventing student-athletes from being treated like other students, in preventing them from moving from school to school and engaging in any of the other activities other students are allowed to engage in, and instead of just just hiring kids to play on the school football team the same way they might hire them ti work at the bookstore, work for the radio station, work at a lab, etc, they create this Byzantine NIL system and then complain about how “greedy” the kids are.
To whit, if I decide to go study physics at School A partially because they have a theater club that I’m interested in and because a friend’s uncle says I can work part time at his office for a little extra money, but then the theater club dissolves for lack of funding, the friend’s uncle tells me that he can’t afford to pay me but would be happy to let me keep working at his office as an unpaid intern, and I miss my high school girlfriend, I can transfer to School B, no questions asked, enroll in classes as soon as the school lets me, take the lead roll in Death of a Salesman, and go work the cash register at the school bookstore, with no penalties, impediments, or obligations to my prior school.
The courts have repeatedly ruled against the NCAA for the rules they’ve tried to erect on preventing student-athletes from being treated like other students, in preventing them from moving from school to school and engaging in any of the other activities other students are allowed to engage in, and instead of just just hiring kids to play on the school football team the same way they might hire them ti work at the bookstore, work for the radio station, work at a lab, etc, they create this Byzantine NIL system and then complain about how “greedy” the kids are.
More player chaos at UNLV, but this one not NIL related ... RB who is 4th highest on the team in rushing yards is redshirting and transferring
Sounds more like a coach getting out over his skis to me, rather than out-and-out malfeasance from a collective. The collective cannot be responsible for every (alleged) promise a coach makes.