Recruiting Football Talk VII

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God has Denmarked your name on his list.
Irish to be as clear as I can be here. I will praise God there, but I will just need to do it from a reasonable distance from the one nail building. I hope that will Finnish this conversation.
 
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Man I've played a guy like that before. Looks like he's hardly trying to run...slow as molasses...but finds a way to score somehow. Those guys are so frustrating to play against.


Edit: That guy shoots 44% from deep 👀
I want him.............




EDIT: I want him.........to play in Knoxville
 
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I'm reading the actual SCOTUS opinion now for the first time. Only read snippets and commentary heretofore. Only four of five pages in atm, and I'm not attorney, but running thoughts in this and upcoming posts for anyone interested...

Looks like the primary point in question for the SCOTUS was: "Should we consider the NCAA as a special institution, immune to anti-trust law?" The court most certainly weighed in on that, as mentioned in earlier posts:

In essence, it seeks immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws and argues, in any event, that the district court should have approved all of its existing restraints. We took this case to consider those objections.

I belabor that point because it seems to be the NCAA's primary defense in this latest Anti-trust suit filed by states TN and VA.
 
Quoting SCOTUS opinion. Having given a brief history of College football and its original state of paying/inducing players, the SCOTUS opinions says this:

At the center of this thicket of associations and rules sitsa massive business. The NCAA’s current broadcast contract for the March Madness basketball tournament isworth $1.1 billion annually. See id., at 1077, n. 20. Its television deal for the FBS conference’s College FootballPlayoff is worth approximately $470 million per year. Seeid., at 1063; Bachman, ESPN Strikes Deal for College Football Playoff, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 21, 2012. Beyond these sums, the Division I conferences earn substantial revenue from regular-season games. For example, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) “made more than $409 million inr evenues from television contracts alone in 2017, with its total conference revenues exceeding $650 million that year.” D. Ct. Op., at 1063. All these amounts have “increased consistently over the years.” Ibid.Those who run this enterprise profit in a different way than the student-athletes whose activities they oversee.The president of the NCAA earns nearly $4 million per 8 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTONOpinion of the Courtyear. Brief for Players Association of the National FootballLeague et al. as Amici Curiae 17. Commissioners of the top conferences take home between $2 to $5 million. Ibid. College athletic directors average more than $1 million annually. Ibid. And annual salaries for top Division I college football coaches approach $11 million, with some of theirassistants making more than $2.5 million. Id., at 17–18.

TLDR:


The NCAA evolved these rules demanding amateurism. It wants to keep this system based on tradition. However, look at the money involved today. This is a business, and people are getting rich on the backs of these athletes.
 
And we boat races them in embarrassing fashion.
Interesting pun. Reading the SCOTUS opinion on NIL, in giving the history of college athletics. The first college athletic match ion history was a boat race.

From the start, American colleges and universities havehad a complicated relationship with sports and money. In1852, students from Harvard and Yale participated in whatmany regard as the Nation’s first intercollegiate competition—a boat race at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.But this was no pickup match. A railroad executive sponsored the event to promote train travel to the picturesquelake. T. Mendenhall, The Harvard-Yale Boat Race 1852–1924, pp. 15–16 (1993). He offered the competitors an allexpenses-paid vacation with lavish prizes—along with unlimited alcohol. See A. Zimbalist, Unpaid Professionals 6–7 (1999) (Zimbalist); Rushin, Inside the Moat, Sports Illustrated, Mar. 3, 1997. The event filled the resort with “lifeand excitement,” N. Y. Herald, Aug. 10, 1852, p. 2, col. 2,and one student-athlete described the “‘junket’” as an experience “‘as unique and irreproducible as the Rhodian colossus,’” Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale Boat Race, at 20.
 
Your faith in both those organizations is quite impressive. 🤣
Not faith. I doubt the SEC office is on the up and up across the board. Would say that about every university too. Any million/billion dollar organization is a good opp for corruption.

Just talking reality of what can be proven. The onus is on you.

You're literally passing on a million dollar book deal here. Just compile your vast evidence and present it. Right?

Take down a billion dollar organization and Sankey in the meantime. Why would you forego millions when you have all the evidence right in front of you?


Fwiw you have many friends in this territory, especially UK fans. They have an entire website dedicated to exposing how SEC basketball refs are against them. Lol.
 
Lol. You need to get off the internet. 😅
You wish. ;)


The SCOTUS opinion found that NCAA is a monopsony (absolute control of the buyer's market), and thus has absolute power to constrain the salary market:

In applying the rule of reason, the district court began by observing that the NCAA enjoys “near complete dominance of, and exercise monopsony power in, the relevant market”—which it defined as the market for “athletic services in men’s and women’s Division I basketball and FBS football, wherein each class member participates in his or her sport-specific market.” D. Ct. Op., at 1097. The “most talented athletes are concentrated” in the “markets for Division I basketball and FBS football.” Id., at 1067. There areno “viable substitutes,” as the “NCAA’s Division I essentially is the relevant market for elite college football andbasketball.” Id., at 1067, 1070. In short, the NCAA and its member schools have the “power to restrain student-athlete compensation in any way and at any time they wish, without any meaningful risk of diminishing their market dominance.” Id., at 1070.


Here's what's interesting. The NCAA is claiming now in district court that the states have not produced a victim of their rules, however, the previous district court defined the victims, and the SCOTUS upheld that logic:

The district court then proceeded to find that the NCAA’scompensation limits “produce significant anticompetitive 10 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTONOpinion of the Courteffects in the relevant market.” Id., at 1067. Though member schools compete fiercely in recruiting student-athletes,the NCAA uses its monopsony power to “cap artificially thecompensation offered to recruits.” Id., at 1097. In a market without the challenged restraints, the district court found,“competition among schools would increase in terms of the compensation they would offer to recruits, and student athlete compensation would be higher as a result.” Id., at1068. “Student-athletes would receive offers that would more closely match the value of their athletic services.”Ibid. And notably, the court observed, the NCAA “did not meaningfully dispute” any of this evidence. Id., at 1067; seealso Tr. of Oral Arg. 31 (“[T]here’s no dispute that the—theno-pay-for-play rule imposes a significant restraint on a relevant antitrust market”).
 
Next, the NCAA in its district defense, basically claimed that their amateur status was for the greater good of America. This makes much more sense of their "tradition" argument. Sherman anti-trust law basically rules whether a market is making the best use of the nation's resources for the nation.

It seems that the NCAA is making the argument that: "The nation wants amateur college sports, which is an option to professional sports (we'll call it the @Ulysees E. McGill argument ;)), so capping the market for college athletes is the greatest use of college athletes, for the nation's best interest.

Think about it. That's a very creative response. "The Sherman egislation is actually about national resources, so we're best using that resource."

SCOTUS says:

Nor did the district court find much evidence to support the NCAA’s contention that its compensation restrictions play a role in consumer demand. As the court put it, the evidence failed “to establish that the challenged compensation rules, in and of themselves, have any direct connection to consumer demand.”

So, it sounds on the face like the NCAA's plan in this round is to better argue that limiting the salary/NIL of college athletes is the better use of these people as national resources. i.e. "Consumers demand amateur athletes, so that's the best use of them under the Sherman Act."

I would think this would be hard, as they are people with Constitutional rights, and not minerals, ores or decomposed dinosaurs. Also, since NIL has been opened up, viewership has increased!
 
I dunno why all the huff and puff by the NCAA about NIL, the NIL era started super strong with kids getting offered Millions. Then the companies/collectives involved realized this wasn’t sustainable and the NIL market essentially fixed itself, where kids aren’t getting anywhere close to a million “unless they are extremely coveted”, yet the NCAA is freaking out because of how badly they have tried to handle the situation.
Exactly the market does eventually stabilize. Bottom line the NCAA doesn’t like something they can’t control or regulate. They are only interested in power and control of their choosing.
 
The federal district court found that price-fixing may actually be a benefit/need to distinguish college athletics from professional so may be needed to fill consumer demand.

The district courtemphasized that the NCAA must have “ample latitude” torun its enterprise and that courts “may not use antitrustlaws to make marginal adjustments to broadly reasonablemarket restraints.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). In light of these standards, the court found thestudent-athletes had met their burden in some respects butnot others. The court rejected the student-athletes’ challenge to NCAA rules that limit athletic scholarships to thefull cost of attendance and that restrict compensation andbenefits unrelated to education. These may be price-fixingagreements, but the court found them to be reasonable inlight of the possibility that “professional-level cash payments . . . could blur the distinction between college sportsand professional sports and thereby negatively affect consumer demand.” Ibid.

Seems like this is the thread of hope the NCAA is clinging to in their current defense. However, the SCOTUS opinion is referencing this (in part, perhaps) on what it did not rule on, because the athletes did not appeal this.

Unsatisfied with this result, the NCAA asks us to reverseto the extent the lower courts sided with the studentathletes. For their part, the student-athletes do not renewtheir across-the-board challenge to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions. Accordingly, we do not pass on the rulesthat remain in place or the district court’s judgment upholding them. Our review is confined to those restrictions nowenjoined.

(This seems to be something that Kavanaugh was alluding to when he opined that the NCAA is not above the law, and further suits are likely to meet this one's end.)

IOW... The NCAA seems to be clinging to this point, where the SCOTUS seems to have removes some hope on this point. And again, the viewership of NCAAF over the previous three years is a study in undermining the argument, imo.
 
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The bluebloods being protected by the SEC (fewest fouls on the season):

Screenshot_20240204_154303.jpg



Fwiw we're the 9th most penalized team, out of 14. They're doing everything in their power, we have no chance to win!!
 
OK... Sorry for the novels. I think I understand the NCAA's brazenness a little better.

The district court decision that SCOTUS ruled on left the door open under Sherman Act, that it may be permissible to limit or refuse athlete salaries. But it opened the floodgates of NIL. The NCAA is arguing in its current response that allowing unlimited NIL and inducements will make it impossible for them to refuse salaries, so NIL needs to be limited.

So, whereas the previous district suit was not about salaries, this one will become about salaries, or it will make a useful distinction between NIL and salaries. It will probably go to SCOTUS, who have signaled that the question of salaries will likely go the way of NIL...i.e. rules being struck down.
 
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