I understand players being able to profit off their NIL, but it’s still illegal for boosters to outright pay kids to attend their alma mater, right? Even with NIL, this would still be considered an improper inducement or an illegal “pay for play”. The NIL agreement is supposed to be commensurate with fair market value. Now I’m sure that some schools or boosters are flirting with skirting the rules, but we aren’t suggesting that Syracuse do that and run the risk of facing sanctions while the involved players are declared ineligible, are we? If other schools are doing it, let them face the eventual crackdown. Am I being naive? Or is the NCAA totally turning a blind eye? I know their power seems to be getting reduced by the powerful conferences, but this will certainly ruin college basketball if the inmates are allowed to run the asylum.
I understand players being able to profit off their NIL, but it’s still illegal for boosters to outright pay kids to attend their alma mater, right? Even with NIL, this would still be considered an improper inducement or an illegal “pay for play”. The NIL agreement is supposed to be commensurate with fair market value. Now I’m sure that some schools or boosters are flirting with skirting the rules, but we aren’t suggesting that Syracuse do that and run the risk of facing sanctions while the involved players are declared ineligible, are we? If other schools are doing it, let them face the eventual crackdown. Am I being naive? Or is the NCAA totally turning a blind eye? I know their power seems to be getting reduced by the powerful conferences, but this will certainly ruin college basketball if the inmates are allowed to run the asylum.
It is Illegal by NCAA rules. The problem is after the Supreme Court took the case on capping educational expenses for college athletes they likened the NCAA to a business and held them to business laws in the United States. Every court room in the country now is gonna go off of the Supreme Courts precedent. The American anti trust act says that businesses cannot artificially cap a market. So you can’t have every restaurant owner in Syracuse getting together and saying “we will all only pay $10 to cooks and not any more”. That is illegal for businesses to do in the United States. If the ncaa is considered a business in the court room they can’t do it either. So getting all the universitys together about capping NIL as a pay for play are illegal as long as they are considered a business. They know it is. They know they would lose in court. That’s why it’s not being policed. Because if they come down on it and it gets appealed they will lose.
The NCAA is playing a game right now. They don’t want to pay players out of their own bottom line. They don’t want to provide insurance. So they are staying away from the court room at all costs. This is being pushed by presidents and ADs. So they catch something and throw a “probation” penalty at it. So basically nothing. So that the court room can’t test the legality of their rules. Which are illegal. Lots of schools understand this. Syracuse does not.
The Supreme Court explicitly told the NCAA to either get Congress to pass a law to make their practices legal or collectively bargain with the players. They have done neither. So are they gonna go back to the Supreme Court and say “yeah you know that stuff you told us to do? We just ignored it.” They want to stay out of the court room.
The pay for play rules quite frankly do not matter. That’s why it’s openly being ignored by every SEC school, Louisville, Notre Dame, Duke, and even Rutgers. Everyone is doing it except us.
It feels like not participating in the college football arms race all over again.