NIL Shenanigans

[isucy86]

Its not necessarily a ruling, but a memo by current admin. Very well could be viewed differently in a few days under a new administration.

That said, just asinine to apply Title IX to this. Drive revenue, get paid. Let the schools determine how that works and should be distributed for their situations. Simple as that.

The article does mention the Trump Administration could take a different stance. But no way do colleges want a system where being Title IX compliant vs. non-compliant could shift based on the Presidential election. I doubt it would ever come to political pickle-ball as the Supreme Court would get involved as my guess is if the Trump Administration takes a different approach, we'll just see lawsuits.

There already is a lawsuit by Oregon Duck women student athletes questioning the legality of the Oregon NIL Collective structure.

 

[Clonehomer]

The article does mention the Trump Administration could take a different stance. But no way do colleges want a system where being Title IX compliant vs. non-compliant could shift based on the Presidential election. I doubt it would ever come to political pickle-ball as the Supreme Court would get involved as my guess is if the Trump Administration takes a different approach, we'll just see lawsuits.

There already is a lawsuit by Oregon Duck women student athletes questioning the legality of the Oregon NIL Collective structure.

Wouldn’t these be civil matters? I could see the administration working to end title IX, but short of that what can they do? You don’t arrest the AD for violation, you take them to court for money.

 

[intrepid27]

Hawkeye fan on twitter today found Blum's salary with WeWill and posted it. Not sure if it's supposed to be a gotcha or what. I don't know why it matters to Hawk fans what kind of money Blum is making.

Well, at least Blum doesn't need surgery before he can get to work.

 

[isucy86]

Wouldn’t these be civil matters? I could see the administration working to end title IX, but short of that what can they do? You don’t arrest the AD for violation, you take them to court for money.

Money matters to schools. I think Oregon's NIL Collective paid its athletes around $10M in 2023/24. So if 90%($9m) went to men and 10%($1M) went to women, then the University could be on the hook for around $4M annually. I have a tough time believing Universities can argue that Collectives are not under some AD oversight/working relationship.

 

[Clonehomer]

Money matters to schools. I think Oregon's NIL Collective paid its athletes around $10M in 2023/24. So if 90%($9m) went to men and 10%($1M) went to women, then the University could be on the hook for around $4M annually. I have a tough time believing Universities can argue that Collectives are not under some AD oversight/working relationship.

Whether or not they can argue that, can you imagine the discovery phase where all communications between the (independent) collectives and the coaches were made public? I think a settlement would happen well before any arguments were made.

 

[jdubs]

Update to the Wisconsin player situation from the first page. Betting every school/collective in the country hates Wisconsin for digging their heels in and establishing this precedent. But realistically it was only a matter of time before it happened.

 

[SCNCY]

Update to the Wisconsin player situation from the first page. Betting every school/collective in the country hates Wisconsin for digging their heels in and establishing this precedent. But realistically it was only a matter of time before it happened.

So you can hire free agents once you get to tournament time to fill in holes or injuries?

 

[jdubs]

So you can hire free agents once you get to tournament time to fill in holes or injuries?

Probably poorly worded but no school to my knowledge is going to allow enrollment in March.

On the one hand I don't like guys breaking contracts. On the other, schools/NCAA keep refusing to consider players employees yet try to treat/control them as employees. Then get embarrassed in court or situations like this. Maybe it'll accelerate some sort of employment agreement.

 

[SCNCY]

Probably poorly worded but no school to my knowledge is going to allow enrollment in March.

On the one hand I don't like guys breaking contracts. On the other, schools/NCAA keep refusing to consider players employees yet try to treat/control them as employees. Then get embarrassed in court or situations like this. Maybe it'll accelerate some sort of employment agreement.

But they probably would for football…

 

[JK4ISU]

Wouldn’t these be civil matters? I could see the administration working to end title IX, but short of that what can they do? You don’t arrest the AD for violation, you take them to court for money.

I believe the penalty that schools try to avoid is disqualification from federal funding.

 

[scottwv]

I believe the penalty that schools try to avoid is disqualification from federal funding.

And athletics money is a rounding error in the world of federal research funding (maybe a bit exaggerated)

 

[scottwv]

So you can hire free agents once you get to tournament time to fill in holes or injuries?

Don’t think you can enroll at a school mid term -

 

[cycloneman003]

Probably poorly worded but no school to my knowledge is going to allow enrollment in March.

On the one hand I don't like guys breaking contracts. On the other, schools/NCAA keep refusing to consider players employees yet try to treat/control them as employees. Then get embarrassed in court or situations like this. Maybe it'll accelerate some sort of employment agreement.

I don’t think it’s up to the ncaa to consider them employees. Schools need to do that

 

[WooBadger18]

Pretty interesting ruling that Title IX rules will apply to the $20M revenue sharing monies. So it doesn't look like schools will be able to pay FB players 80% of that money.

Title IX Applies to Revenue Split

Quick Summary

1. School direct payments of $20.5M in NIL deals would fall under Title IX rules.
2. The Dept of Educ statement was less clear on NIL payments from Collectives. Here is quote from above article: It states that the department does not consider money provided by a third party in an NIL deal as athletic financial assistance like the future revenue sharing payments or scholarship dollars. But if money from private sources ends up creating a disparity in an athletic program, it is possible that NIL agreements could "trigger a school's Title IX obligations."

Not sure what to think of bullet #2. Does it mean Athletic Departments have to make sure they are equal in sport facilities & training/development, but NIL $ from Collectives can be unequal since those are personal monies?

Yeah, that’s the way I’m reading that. But also that you can’t do a run around the regulations by making everything NIL. So right now it isn’t an issue. But if a billionaire came in and gave NIL deals totaling $100 million per year to only the male athletes that would be an issue.

 

[isucy86]

Yeah, that’s the way I’m reading that. But also that you can’t do a run around the regulations by making everything NIL. So right now it isn’t an issue. But if a billionaire came in and gave NIL deals totaling $100 million per year to only the male athletes that would be an issue.

That's where the language is unclear. Because in your $100M NIL example, does that create disparities between programs? If the DOE was referring to disparity of education or athletic training/development aspects, then NIL deals wouldn't create disparity. The disparity would be the men driving around in Lamborghinis and the women Corollas. I would be surprised if that is a Title IX issue.

I struggle with NIL Collectives like We Will/Swarm and their being truly independent from the school/athletic department. Don't coaches/football staff have to provide NIL Collectives input on which players should get paid and some tiering of payment amounts? Same goes with HS recruits, which players are priority and does the collective want to pay $X if a rival school is offering $Y.

IMO if the money being paid to players is really NIL based, then athletes would sign with agents whose agencies have existing sponsorship deals with businesses or seek out local deals (aka Rocco & Northwest Bank).

 

[jdubs]

I don’t think it’s up to the ncaa to consider them employees. Schools need to do that

The NCAA is made up of, and run by the schools. For the purposes of that discussion they are the same.

 

[keepngoal]

Probably poorly worded but no school to my knowledge is going to allow enrollment in March.

On the one hand I don't like guys breaking contracts. On the other, schools/NCAA keep refusing to consider players employees yet try to treat/control them as employees. Then get embarrassed in court or situations like this. Maybe it'll accelerate some sort of employment agreement.

Some universities are on a quarter schedule. And some of those in Q have last day for register for classes as 3/7/25 with classes starting 3/26/25.

Shrug.

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