Some thoughts on the long Morning Pitt from this week regarding NIL and paying players:
- Chris talked about how to chaos will continue probably until universities start paying players. BUT from my understanding, NIL and players being paid by the universities are two separate things. Colleges can pay players, but NIL will still be allowed. It's still the right to make money off name, image, and likeness.
- For the system to change means congress has to step in and stabilize the rules around NIL, but also make sure players are only being paid for NIL and not as a secret pay system for colleges.
- If I'm right, this de-incentives universities from wanting to pay players. The present system might be a pain, but if they pay players they have to come up with the money themselves, which means astronomically added cost to the university athletics programs. Why would they want to do that when NIL alliances can raise their own funds? This is especially true when we consider that football and basketball basically pay for the other sports, and many/most athletic programs run a deficit.
- When we talk about players not being paid, that's not true. They are compensated through education, room, board, cost-of-living stipends, and more. The issue is that they aren't compensated enough, but whatever they would get paid by programs, the education compensation would have to be factored in.
- If universities do start paying athletes, the athletes have to be allowed to create unions to bargain, which could easily equalize pay across schools.
- When we talk about college athletes being paid, the big $$ are really to basketball and football. The other D1 sports don't attract enough $$ to make it as big a deal.
- As many on this board have mentioned, the incentive for many schools may be to just focus on basketball. Easier to raise $$ for 12-13 rather than 85.
