Unintended Consequences - greed, agents, NIL, and transfer portal is destroying the best game ever

Let's make sure we do give credit to the kids that actually care. The scenario right now as we've all commented on is not ideal. It blows, but I appreciate the kids effort. While some are solely opportunists, I get it, the system has created the beast.

As much as I hate what I'm seeing, I love the sport and will continue to watch and will always bleed orange and blue.

I'm hoping DJ will be our next version of Tebow. Not that Tebow is duplicatable, but DJ's own version of an athletic anomaly and team leader.

Maybe the pending RE, Crypto and stock crash will deplete NIL funds and initiate change...

Next year I'll scream just as loud, and get just as excited as usual. And regardless of what logic tells me, I'll still have immeasurable hope and fail to adjust my expectations in the fall when the games begin...

GO GATORS! Happy New Year!

 

Good point. Let’s see where it went “out the door”:
- we pay Napier $7.2M/ year
- our assistant coaches made $7.2M this year, with 3 making over $1m/year. Armstrong is guaranteed a $100k/year raise every year. Not bad for a 30 something guy.
Where do Florida Gators assistant coach salaries stack up across the country?
- Stricklin makes $1.725M/year
- Just buyouts (paid not to work): $6.3 million to Will Muschamp, $7.5 million to Jim McElwain, $12 million to Dan Mullen.

$ did go out the door and we have nothing to show for it! Stricklin is the highest paid AD in the SEC…. For this? Sasse outta clean house in our athletic dept. “The schools” may not be getting rich but a lot of guys running our football program are.

 

Yes but they spend tha 100 mil supporting other students playing other sports. Football in itself is very profitable.

 

Ok, you asked for criticism of the entire system. Here is one shot. I don't imagine that it was ever very pure; but it went to hell when it was determined that a free education with benefits was not enough compensation for playing a game. Although it no doubt started down that road when TV got into the act and threw in so much money that it thoroughly corrupted the system. So coaches make obscene amounts and chase the $$ with no loyalty. Universities spend tens of millions of dollars on support facilities so that athletes can enjoy a state of luxury only imagined by ordinary students. That sets a tone.
Fans? Well. I don't know when it became common for a fan's sense of identity to seemingly be tied to the performance of young people on a playing field. But that seems to be the case. Oddly, that phenomenon seems to affect alums and other adults to a much greater degree than it does students of an institution. Well, the student fan base clearly is virtually meaningless as proven when colleges play in Dublin, Ireland, or other sites far from either campus.
I suspect that the internet has also played its role in morphing the meaning of 'fan'. Back when I attended UF, the typical student or other fan, enjoyed the game day experience in the stands, exulted over wins, and moaned over losses, then move on. Even my Father-in-Law, who was one of the original Bull Gators, kept football in perspective. In that environment, Coaches weren't often fired, nor did they pick up and leave on a routine basis. There was actually some sense of stability; maybe even loyalty.
Oddly, it has now reached the point where the mentality that if not contending for a championship, there is 'nothing left to play for' has become a recognized norm at some institutions. So, we see a plethora of bowl games, often between mediocre teams, many missing key players, that are played simply for the purpose of generating TV revenue, and earning extra practice sessions. Sometimes, but not always, fans actually show up in the stands.
There are still vestiges of other systems. They just don't get much notice. My grand daughter played soccer at a Div 3 school. She played just as hard, and the competition was just as fierce as any Div 1 championship game. The same went for the football, baseball and basketball teams. Her twin brother ran track and XC at a Div2 school. He and his teammates worked their butts off for love of running in competition. Oh, and they were also student athletes pursuing an education. There are thousands of kids playing the same sports as the 'big timers'; and they have their passionate fans, who understand that the game defines neither the players or the fans. experience.
Who knows? Maybe NIL, the transfer portal, musical coaches, obscene amounts of money, and the rest will combine to bring a return to some semblance of sanity to college sports.

 

Fsu has fleeced tax payers enough over the years. I'm good with what happened to them

 

And very few seem to mention that Georgia had just as many opt out of that game as FSU.

 

All true

 

We also have a shitload of other sports, many of which are products of Title 9, that wouldn’t be possible without football revenues. Now that’s “something to show for it “.

Your post rings like a worker bee at a Fortune 500 corporation complaining because the CEO gets paid too much compared to everyone else. Fact is, like that CEO, not a player on the team can deliver what the head coach does. They get the big bucks because the entire operation grinds to a halt without them, and you can’t say that about any single player. And if all the players are now able to portal out whenever they please, the value of the coaching staff is even more critical to sustainability of the program.

That said, I firmly believe that everybody in the business of entertaining the masses is overpaid while the engine in our free market economy sputters. Head coaches included, as well as kids winning the NIL sweepstakes

 

I like watching them meltdown no doubt but all fans are the ones getting the shaft.

 

They may be overpaid but we buy the tickets so I guess that’s exactly what they are worth

 

Very true.

 

If I paid $350 to see a concert and the lead singer didn’t show up because another band gave him a raise the day before I’d be pissed.

 

Great post! The bottom line is that when you reduce every endeavor to money and “being the best or you are nothing”, you get mercenary behavior. There is a place for this, but it is not the only goal for a society or life. Loyalty, amateurism, student athletes, and most importantly keeping a stupid game in perspective (as individuals and a society).

My only point of disagreement is that “it went to hell when it was determined that a free education with benefits was not enough compensation for playing a game.” Schools scheduling games for TV, ignoring player academics (and sometimes crimes), and making coaches the highest paid employees at the university showed their priority. Scholarships being 1 year, no health insurance for players, limit on outside employment, limit on transferring (but coaches could leave any time), and open prioritization of athletics over academics showed players what was important. In my opinion, this thing went to hell decades ago, it just came home to roost when the entire SCOTUS laughed the NCAA amateur BS out of court.

 

So there were no other sports before football money got huge? We certainly would not have a huge, beautiful softball stadium and the players would likely bus to games, but we would have a softball team without football. Just like Div. 2 and 3 schools somehow make title 9 work without the money. Getting back to sports being about students playing, not preparing for pro careers or needing taj majal facilities, is fine with me.

As for the rest of your post, your assumptions about my background/perspective could not be more wrong. As a former executive and board member of multiple companies I know this: many boards set pay for themselves and executives in a very generous fashion. Many act almost as clubs where backs get scratched, bonuses get paid, and golden parachutes allocated. I watched one Fortune 500 CEO use the company plane fly to golf all over the US every weekend while laying off thousands, and another fly to Spain frequently within a year of the company filing bankruptcy (I was a consultant, not on the board). Those companies would not have “come to a halt” without the executives - they both should have been fired.

Great executives (and coaches like Saban) earn every dime. Many poor executives linger or get recycled in companies (like Muschamp). I’ve fired workers who were crap and CEOs who were crap and was not concerned about CEOs b/c they had resources. So, yeah, maybe I cut workers more slack, but at least now you understand why based on my actual experience and not your assumptions.

Finally, I certainly agree that entertainers make more than I’d pay them so I don’t. But that is a cutthroat business and the vast majority who try to make a living in sports/entertainment barely scrap buy while a very few get enormously wealthy. I certainly begrudge their pay much less than a bank CEO who makes idiotic loans and needs to be bailed out or an insurance executive who makes hundreds of millions taking premiums and denying claims (whose companies are not “engines of our free market” but largely leeches) buy out competitors or squash them with regulations they lobby for. Anyway, getting too close to Too Hot so I will stop here and just say happy new year.

 

Now there’s some pontificating. I’ll keep this way shorter to just say I’m not talking about lousy coaches or lousy CEOs. I mean come on man, none of them are worth their money. I think you understand that.

 

You assail my first post as one from “a worker bee” and when shown wrong your personal attack shifts to my post as “self gratifying pontificating?” Not sure why you can’t have reasonable conversations and even disagreements without resorting to personal attacks, but it’s your brand. I should know better.

 

What if he just decided to sit the gig out because he’s going to play for a different record label next year?

 

The worker bee analogy was not anything related to calling you a worker bee. Come on man, it was an analogy referencing worker bee to CEO opposite player to head coach. I assumed you could make that connection without figuring out a way to take it personally.

You took something like 4 long paragraphs to highlight your executive status, board of directors, yada yada which did in fact come across as not only unnecessary but yeah, a bit self-gratifying. Oh well…

EDIT: FWIW I went back and edited out the self-gratifying comment after I posted, but it apparently didn’t register before you got to it

 

Since everyone is pontificating, I can't resist.

What is completely missing in the new college world is any sense of loyalty, character, and perseverance. These three qualities are huge for young men to learn. We hear coaches yap all the time about these qualities, yet the system now throws all of these incredibly important things out the window.

Reflect on how many Florida players over the decades never thought they would have an NFL career, or would be a real star. Yet they worked hard and played for their team, teammates, and University. Their loyalty to their teammates, and University, forged lifelong friendships and camaraderie that not only enriched their lives, it also enriched UF.

Think Noah Brindise and Kyle Trask. Brindise knew he had no NFL future, but he stuck it out and led us to victory in one of our greatest wins; he is a legend in Gator lore. Trask never gave up, and when he got his opportunity, he made the most of it. There are countless others.

What players are learning now is to be a quitter, to abandon their team and teammates, to leave their friends and relationships, all for purely selfish reasons. If you aren't starting, don't work harder and try to be better; quit and run away. If you could help your team win an important bowl game, but might get hurt, quit and run away. Abandon your team, your university. Be a quitter.

These players will never, ever, experience the happiness and lifelong relationships that players--of all ability levels-used to experience being a Florida Gator. That is sad for them, and our University. And having embraced being a quitter and abandoning their relationships, I rather suspect life will not be kind to them.

Those of you who yap about the money, how much the coaches are paid, blah blah blah, ignore all of the above and are so misguided. Most of these players aren't going to play in the NFL. They would benefit so much more by sticking to it in college, their team, and forging relationships that will help carry them through life. Yet the system now teaches them all of the worst things.

People that work hard, and don't quit, will always succeed. Quitters never succeed.