You might want to think of it this way: if you were watching, money was flowing to someone. Was it really more “pure” when the money flowed to everyone involved except the athletes?
If the concern is that the money interferes with love of the sport, it doesn’t.
I look at it like this - when a championship ends and the reporter’s first question is - are you entering the portal or are you turning pro - it just saps the joy.
I used to work in sports television…even when i worked in it, it became a job, a business - and the innocence was gone. Of course, I was working 3P-4A, 6 days a week, getting paid 40 hours - but that was a long time ago and another issue.
But the reality is it is a business - and the law has allowed the students to step up and I totally get it. I don’t have to like it though.
But, the money has to come from somewhere and most D1 programs aren’t flush with extra cash. That means that other parts of the athletic budget will get gutted in many places and fewer kids will get to play their sports because of schools eliminating teams to fund paying football and basketball players. This is of huge concern to the US national teams the most elite training for Olympic sports is our college athletics system.
Only 10% of D1 athletic programs break even (and that is accounting for the generous revenues from football/basketball) so I can’t imagine there is lots of room in the budget for compensating athletes. However, I was under the impression that a lot of the NIL money is coming from outside groups that are affiliated with the universities (i.e. alumni groups) and NOT from university budgets.
Doesn’t matter if they make money, because revenue sharing (which starts 2025-26) is based on revenues, not profits. Hence why many expect wide ranging athletic cuts in the D1 programs that opt-in to revenue sharing. NIL payments do not count towards the 22% of revenues that will be distributed to athletes, nor do the traditional type athletic scholarship dollars.
The revenue sharing/lawsuit settlement deal is not yet complete, but getting close. Next step is athletes being considered employees and potential unionization.
This, in addition to the imposed roster limits. Sports like swimming and track & field will face significant cuts. Diving is expected to all but cease to exist under the new rules.
I wonder what has happened or will happen here - any thoughts?
UAB becomes 1st Division I football team to join players association - ESPN
Thanks for sharing that article, I hadn’t heard of that players’ organization. It makes sense that some might want to see an org like that vs. seeing player unionization happen. Regardless the vehicle, it is also widely expected (from what I’ve read, and I’m far from an expert) athletes will move towards collectively bargaining the revenue share and future increases. Time will tell how it all plays out.
Princton’s AD stated that “the lifetime value of a Princeton education (interesting that he used the word “education” rather than “degree”) will trump any NIL deal that student-athletes are going to be offered.” This is backward thinking that fails to realize that there are superb academic institutions which play D-1 sports outside of the Ivy League.
For example: For a student-athlete being recruited by several or all Ivy League schools while also offered an NIL deal at Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkeley, Rice, Notre Dame, Georgetown, UCLA, Virginia, USC, Georgia Tech, and several others where a student would receive an elite education as well as immediate compensation, what would be your thoughts ? If your son/daughter was recruited by every Ivy League school while also being offered a full ride scholarship plus $100,000 per year to any of the above non-Ivy League schools, what would be the ultimate choice ? And, if your student-athlete planned to pursue a degree in engineering or in another tech area, then the list of superior educational options greatly increases.
Arguably, the only true Division 1 student-athletes are at America’s service academies.
The hubris of this makes me wretch. Hopefully someone asks him to ‘show me the data’ (in keeping with our sports theme lol).
IMO it will be up to each prospective athlete to assess which institution is best for them and their unique goals.
I still feel like this is a nothing burger for the Ivies. IMO, they aren’t going to lessen their standards just to get athletes. They’ve never done that. I could see them going to just having club sports before I could see them dropping their standards.
The kids we know that chose the Ivies or equivalent to play are doing it because of the school and education, not the sport. And all were exceptionally bright and qualified students. The athletes with the skills and pro dreams are being recruited at much different schools.
IMO, I think the Princeton AD knows and understands his audience.
OTOH, a not insignificant proportion of Ivy athletes have gone on to pro careers in the US and elsewhere. Also, don’t underestimate how important some of the Ivies have been for athletic development in certain Olympic sports…crew, wrestling, squash (coming 2028), fencing, etc. It will be interesting to see how the Ivies adjust.
Agreed - great point.
Interesting - they are NIL sponsors of other team’s athletes.
How common is the scenario you describe? First off, outside of football and basketball there aren’t all that many free rides. I believe that the average D1 scholarship is around $15k - that is a far cry from a full ride. In terms of compensation are players outside football/basketball getting $100k per year? Is someone paying a squash player $100k or a tennis player?
You are correct. My thoughts were focused just on the revenue sports of football and basketball–although I do wonder whether D-1 ice hockey will be also be a player in this area.
But, yes, there will not be any big money for squash or pickleball players to the best of my knowledge and imagination.
Right. And the best football and basketball players aren’t going to the Ivy League. They are at Michigan, OSU, Alabama, Georgia etc. Occasionally, an Ivy League player will go pro but it isn’t many (and for perspective, only 2% of college athletes go pro which means that even at athletic powerhouses, few kids will make it to the highest level).
If I was the Ivy League czar, I’d drop D1. (And tell teh Dartmouth b’ball players, ‘here’s the portal’)
There are only two possible solutions to this athletic free-for-all: 1) Congressional anti-trust action; and/or 2) collective bargaining, i.e., unionization. I just don’t’ see either fitting fit the Ivy mission.
Ivys should drop down to Division 3 if they’re not going to provide athletic scholarships, NIL money, and not adapt to the changing landscape for college athletics
Instead maybe the right answer is that certain D1 football and basketball programs should be redesignated as CP1’s (College Pro) and play in a separate conference(s) where we can drop any pretense that this is anything but a farm system for the NFL and the NBA, pay them directly with subsidies from the NFL and NBA and be more realistic/practical on academic standards/curriculum. We are headed/already there anyways, but in an opaque and tortured manner. This also frees the non revenue sports teams of the “CP1’s” to be part of geographically sensible conferences with traditional rivalries, less travel stress and lower expense.
Matt Levine (Bloomberg):
"NIL
Traditionally there were two main ways to monetize a career as a college athlete:
Be really, really good at a big-money sport (basketball, football, etc.), graduate, and play your sport professionally for millions of dollars a year; or
Play a sport at an Ivy League college, graduate, and work in investment banking and then private equity, industries that really like Ivy League athletes.
If you were a high school senior and really, really good at basketball, the financially savvy move was probably to go to a college with a big-time basketball program, to maximize your chances of making the NBA. If you were a high school senior and pretty good at basketball, the financially savvy move was probably to go to Harvard, to maximize your chances of making KKR. There was some blurring at the boundaries — you can make the NBA from Harvard, and Duke is good at both basketball and investment banking — but the point was that the Ivy League could provide some financial advantages that Kentucky couldn’t, though Kentucky could provide some financial advantages that the Ivy League couldn’t.
But then the rules changed to allow college athletes to profit from their “name, image and likeness,” so now if you are at a big-time sports school you can get paid a lot of money in college, whether or not you graduate into professional sports. And so the calculation is not, like, “5% chance of the NBA and 50% chance of private equity at Harvard versus 20% chance of the NBA and 20% chance of private equity at UConn,” but rather “5%/50% at Harvard versus 20%/20% plus a million dollars upfront at UConn.” And so at the margin Harvard will be losing some recruits to better sports schools:
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(quotes WSJ article)
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But I guess it depends on your discount rate? Anyway the article is mostly about basketball and I assume that the math for lacrosse is different."