I am going to assume you didn't bother to read the linked ESPN story.
Unfortunately, it is going to take Fed intervention to fix college sports, namely CFB, and Campbell is the guy to lead the bi-partisan efforts in doing so. If the he and the Feds are unsuccessful in doing so, ISU faces the real possibility of being financially relegated and destroyed at the end of the decade like Washington St and Oregon St already have. What he is proposing as the "fix" makes total sense and the ones who will fight him the most are ESPN and Fox and their respective puppets, Sankey and Petitti:
Pass a version of the combined SCORE/STAR Acts that would:
-Amend the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act to enable media rights pooling that would at least double media revenues for all of FBS
-Grant a limited anti-trust exemption that would enable codification/enforcement of the House Settlement and provide the NCAA to enable/enforce its own transfer and eligibility rules without getting sued.
Then beyond that, Campbell has rightfully proposed rational geographic realignment that would split up the top brand programs into 7 10-team conferences amongst the existing P4. This would optimize revenue generation from media rights pooling with an NFL-style bidding process. Media revenues are obviously stifled now by ESPN/Fox due to their control of SEC and B10 rights for the foreseeable future and probable plans for additional brand consolidation to those two conferences. Nothing reflects the current idiocy and intentional revenue compression moreso than ESPN being the sole bidder of CFP rights and then sublicensing CFP games that conflict with the NFL in order to make money for their sole benefit.
Campbell has openly admitted he had the financial resources prior to the House Settlement to take advantage of pay for play for TT prior to the House Cap and has also stated multiple times the House Settlement needs to be codified for the long term benefit of college sports.
I didn't need to read the article because I've heard him talk about it before.
IMO the solution is simple but no one wants to take the reigns.
The U.S. Congress needs to act to clean up the mess and here are the things they need to do in order to get it under control (I was brainstorming this ideas while driving around from client to client today):
Governance:
- Congress needs to pass a law allocating the administration of college sports specifically to the NCAA
- As part of this they give the NCAA investigative, audit and enforcement powers to regulate intercollegiate athletics.
- By signing up to play intercollegiate athletics you are agreeing to follow the rules in place and accept the punishment for not adhering to the rules.
- The NCAA incorporates NIL audit ability for student athletes and audit ability of Athletic Departments.
- Penalties will be established and well known for rule breakers.
Revenue Sharing:
- Each member institution is required to provide at least $5M but not to exceed $12M of revenue sharing to the University's student athletes.
- The allocation by sport is at the discretion of the University, but the payments for a specific sport are equal to all participants. Example - University allocates $10M to football that is divided by the total number of football players (scholarship and walkons equally).
NIL:
- NIL is allowed but not under the guise of pay to play.
- NIL opportunities MUST come from IRS and State registered businesses that adhere to the tax laws under the United States Internal Revenue Service Code.
- All NIL will have required tax documents filed (1099's, personal and business tax returns filed timely and in full).
- Athletes will be required to submit required NIL documents to an NCAA Dashboard (Contract for the NIL, Method of Payments, Purpose of NIL, Business information - state registered, EIN, company contact, etc)
- Athletes will be required to submit a copy their filed tax return to their NIL Dashboard - The NCAA audit power will allow them to compare the provided tax return to the tax return filed with the IRS similar to when banks compare a tax return from a bank customer to what the IRS has on file.
- No NIL payments from individuals are allowed.
Eligibility:
- We return to the standard eligibility rules.
- Eligibility clock starts once the student athlete has your first day of college class.
- Signing of any United States based professional contract in your sport ends your eligibility. Ex. College BB player will not be eligible once they sign a NBA contract. But a college football player that has a MLB contract would still be eligible for college football, but not college baseball.
- JUCO starts your eligibility clock.
Transfers:
- Each student athlete is allowed one, no penalty transfer to a different institution. Any transfer above this one free transfer and not outlined as an exception below will result in 1 sit out year.
- In the case of a coaching change, student athlete will be allowed to transfer without it counting towards their one free transfer.
- Grad transfers are allowed even after the student athlete has used their one free transfer.
- Transfer Portal - The transfer portal will be open for 2 periods during the year based on a sport specific schedule (Some lesser sports will have one portal period). Football for example - Period 1 - Jan 2 - January 14 and Period 2 - May 15 - June 15
Scholarships and Team Limits:
- Scholarship limits will revert the to historical limits - ex. FB 85 scholarships
- No cap on team size but see revenue sharing section regarding payments for ALL team members.
Agents:
- Only licensed agents may represent a student athlete with the exception that the student athlete's legal guardian can also represent them without being a licensed agent.
- Only can be represented by ONE person - Must register that representative with the NCAA and the University
I am sure I forgot some things, but I think this a good start.
I am open to comments and suggestions.
