What is the Future of College Football?

The primary change I see happening is the SEC and Big-10 orchestrating a complete restructuring of college football as we know it. I believe those 2 conferences, along with some of the other top major historical state land grant universities from the Pac-12, ACC and maybe a couple from the Big-12 (roughly maybe around 50 total schools) that are chosen by the SEC and Big-10, will leave the NCAA (at least for football) and start a new elite level of college football that is not controlled by the NCAA.

These are the schools that established and developed college football over generations, into what it is today and have the huge statewide fan and alumni bases. These are the moneymakers in college football that probably generate over 90% of all college football revenues and they don't like sharing the spotlight with upstart schools like Cincy and UCF. They don't want to give a seat at the table or share their revenues with these new schools.

The remaining schools will still have their TV deals and generate fan interest, but there will be a very clear differentiation of the new elite level of college football and everything else. That's the biggest change I see in the near future.

 

I think Napier's general approach of treating this like a talent acquisition business is a good approach that will help UF compete in the NIL + transfer portal era. Some things must be in place no matter what era we are talking about: good coaching, good facilities, winning seasons, winning championships. Outside of those factors it is the wild west: How much pay-for-play can everyone get away with? It starts with car dealers giving free cars to a QB and eventually leads to legalizing bagmen dropping off cash at an athlete's house over dinner...and worse. It will not take long for college football stadiums to be sponsored by corporations. Jerseys may get sponsorships. It will not end.

 

Dumbo didn’t spend shit and there’s plenty more where that came from. 30 mil to that group is like asking me for a twenty.

 

I walked by Exactech Arena thinking the same thing

 

Great example. The only good thing is that Exactech is a Gainesville company and they are big supporters of the UF Health System. They get naming rights for “Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center” for the next ten years, which is fine because they chipped in $10M or so into the O’dome renovations. Maybe that is fine for stadiums, at least until there are dozens of college football stadiums named “AT&T Stadium at {insert school here}”. Imagine football jerseys looking like NASCAR uniforms. That is where I get all curmudgeonly.

 

They can call it what they like and take in all the cash they can get for it. I guess there's no real harm in that. But, to me, it will always be the O'Dome. I've never once said to a friend, "Hey, let's stop by the Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center."

 

On the idea that the NIL thing will correct itself. Sure, the money amount may drop. But the team spending the most money will still get the best players. Look at coaching salaries. After all the lost money on failed coaches, has coaching salaries gone down?

 

To me, tge schools are just trying to isolate themselves to keep a free roster. Put it all on the boosters and continue raking in the cash. Boosters could contribute to a payroll administered by the schools . Players under contracts with schools would be much more manageable.

 

Exactly correct… does UF slide towards Vanderbilt, or do the boosters ( mostly big monied ) step up and insure we can compete with the upper echelon SEC teams.
I’m convinced it’s 50/50 right now. I have some hope that NIL will reach a settling point (it certainly should), because as organized as Coach Napier is, I don’t think he anticipated , nor for that matter could have anticipated how quickly the dynamics of recruiting would change.

 

Being I saw this from a mile away, I’d bet none of this surprised Napes

 

That very well could be… Coach Napier might have, and it’s possible he had the assurances he needed in place before he signed on, certainly if we have the financial wherewithal to be competitive, his attention to the finer details should put us in a favorable position.
That hasn’t been demonstrated yet, but the old rules that applied to recruiting have been thrown out the proverbial door with the bath water… ( some believe with the baby along for the ride) I suspect early signing day will bring many last minute surprises.

 

The schools didn’t make these rules. The government did. In FL, state law doesn’t allow the schools to pay the athletes directly, so no, they can’t just administer a payroll. The school can’t lock them into a contract because of an nil deal either. The system to circumvent any type of salary cap is already in place anyway, and the government has also already said that you can’t limit their earning potential. Even if you change laws to implement a salary paid by the school, you can’t limit their NIL deals outside of that, so a salary and salary cap implemented by the schools accomplishes nothing.

 

If the schools were allowed to pay, they could have binding contracts. Nil can’t be limited but schools could keep kids from jumping to other programs. The nil money is coming from the same boosters who would support a payroll so we are talking about the same money. Nil money can’t tie a kid to a school but a contract would. This is probably where they split from the ncaa and only teams that actually compete for titles form their own league.

 

My thoughts exactly. NIL with binding contracts is one thing that we need right now. The NCAA board could protect itself from legal liability by making a rule that membership in the NCAA across all sports is contingent upon members establishing programs for complying with state laws instead of complying with NCAA bylaws that have no legal standing—starting with legally binding contracts. Replace the signed letter of intent with a notarized letter accepting terms of a contract or something like that. This does not solve everything, but it distances NCAA board members from lawsuits and shifts responsibilities to the athletics directors and a growing team of lawyers and contracts specialists. Under this construct some states may allow direct payments to players under NIL and some will not. If a school wants to be competitive they will have to lobby the state legislature. This would be a good time to get into business law with an emphasis in college sports.

 

And after they work through all the legal mumbo jumbo and get it all worked out, we can quit calling their paycheck that silly nil word. Gimme a break, nil? Really?

 

Because of the way this was done, you already have a system in place to circumvent any type of cap. The fan bases have already assembled and set up their collectives and other third party means of funneling money. Those won’t go away because the schools pay the kids directly, and those third party deals cannot be limited.

I don’t see how breaking from the ncaa accomplishes much. They’d have to separate from the schools themselves and form another professional league to get around these laws.

You aren’t gonna tie any of these kids to a school for four years. They should have kept the one year sit out rule in place to limit movement, but they didn’t enforce that rule even when it was in place, and they’re gonna have a tough time trying to re-implement it.

 

Do you think having a letter notarized makes it more binding? Lol. All a notary is doing is guaranteeing that the person signing is who they say they are. The loi itself is binding, without being notarized, but we don’t hold the kids accountable for that now. We released multiple kids from their loi just this year, just at uf, just because they asked.

 

There’s always ways around caps but the nfl has a pretty good model. Brady and others stars in major sports often take half a paycheck to stack more players on a team. When they are compensated by other endorsements, it really doesn’t hurt their bank account to do so. I’m not sure how they will do it, but they will make some strides over the next few years.they have tons of cash and will get laws changed or whatever they have to do to make it profitable. I believe they will somehow become professionals under contracts in the future. They won’t let the inmates run the asylum forever.they’ve got hundreds if not thousands of good lawyers working on a solution as we speak and they have billion$ to fight with.

 

The nfl worked with its athletes to set up their system. The colleges fought their athletes and chose not to work with them. The NFL never had to deal with systems designed to circumvent their caps because they got out in front of it. The colleges will continue to have to deal with those systems, because they are already in place.

 

Nfl has went round and round with player association for decades. The owners use to take almost all the money like colleges do. Through the courts, the players pretty much got half, medical, retirement, etc. owners didn’t offer it up, players took it to court , sat out, all kinds of turmoil.if the nfl had gotten out front and offers up the cash, there would have never been scabs in the first place.
Right now, it’s not really nil. These kids aren’t worth much on the average but as a team, they are bringing in tons of cash.