For millions of Americans, September not only marks the beginning of fall, it marks the beginning of college football season. The fans pack enormous stadiums, watch on TV by the tens of millions, cheer for their favorite teams and boo their traditional rivals. There are very few fans supporting both Ohio State and Michigan, and neither is supporting Notre Dame. It’s the great American sport.
And it is in deep trouble.
The problem stems from the usual suspects: a few far-reaching court decisions affecting the players, the comatose response of the sport’s ruling body, the NCAA, and the looming threat of government action if private actors can’t solve the problem themselves. So far, those private actors have failed. You know you’re in trouble if you’re counting on Congress to be the adults in the room.
The court decisions revolve around money – specifically the serious money players can now earn by marketing their Name, Image and Likeness, known as NIL. The NIL cornucopia did not suddenly bring big money into college football. For years, money has poured in from tickets, TV and merchandise, funneled to universities and coaches at major programs. It was the players who were left out.
So, what changed financially? It was the combination of NIL money and recent court decisions, which meant the players themselves could now grab that pot of gold, or at least grab it if they were prominent players in lucrative media markets. In fact, teams can recruit players by guaranteeing them NIL money.
The advent of NIL upended college football because it came in tandem with another development: players can change teams as often as they wish. Why not? Other students can transfer colleges, so why not “student-athletes?” No one stops other students from switching between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. So why not the same privilege for the starting left tackle? And no one prevents them from enrolling for a seventh year as an undergraduate. Why can’t a cornerback do the same thing?
Transfers are currently the Wild West since the NCAA doesn’t have any rules limiting them, at least not yet. The best players are tempted to switch schools at the end of each season if another team makes them a better offer. That offer is usually a combination of NIL money and a chance to start, which means being seen (and potentially drafted) by professional teams. Predictably, this “college transfer portal” means coaches now actively recruit players from other college programs. There are currently rules that limit this poaching during the playing season, but you will be shocked, shocked to learn that some teams don’t follow the rules.
This game of revolving chairs has become a first-class mess that is damaging one of America’s favorite sports. Teams are filled with players suiting up at new universities after playing for different teams each of the past two years. Some of the most promising players start their careers at smaller colleges, prove their mettle and then transfer to the bigger stages of the SEC or Big Ten. Others start for one major college and then switch to another, before doing it again the next year.
The process resembles the path taken by promising minor league baseball players. If they are batting .350 for an AAA team, they will soon be called up to the Yankees or Red Sox. The players they replace are sent down to the minors.
Amazingly, a few professional football players are testing this downwardly-mobile system for the college sport, tempted to return to ole Faber U. and make some serious NIL money while studying molecular biology and preparing for careers as brain surgeons.
Just kidding about that major. It’s not the college players are too dumb for difficult academic programs. Some are, some aren’t, just like other college students. It’s just that playing big-time sports is a full-time job. It doesn’t leave much time for arduous academics, even with the help of dedicated tutors provided for players in every top athletic program.
Is there any way to clean up this mess?
There might be, but it doesn’t look like the NCAA will do it before Congress acts.
The best starting point would be congressional hearings based on the core ideas of former Alabama coach, Nick Saban, the best coach of his generation and the best at training the next generation of coaches and players. Besides Saban’s ideas, I have included a few of my own.
First, there needs to be national legislation regulating what has become a national industry. These new laws should supersede the patchwork of state regulations governing NIL money, removing any advantages that some schools might have from looser laws locally.
Second, that legislation should give universities the ability to coordinate and regulate the sport without violating antitrust laws.
Third, the years of player eligibility need clear limits. A reasonable number would be five years, or perhaps six. An “injury year” wouldn’t count, if formal rules were established to cover it.
Fourth, there should be firm limits on how many times a player can transfer between Division 1 programs. One transfer is probably the right limit; perhaps two if a player sits out for a year. Athletes could still transfer from smaller schools or community colleges without touching that transfer number, which applies only to Division 1 universities.
Fifth, turning pro should be a one-way door. You can go back to college to study, not to suit up for football.
Sixth, payments to players should be transparent, and the overall number should be capped. That cap should include the secret pots of cash assembled by alumni to recruit and pay players.
Those “donor pots” have grown massive, especially for big programs in the SEC and Big Ten, which often disguise them as “marketing payments.” The advantage they give those schools may be one reason why those two conferences are opposed to congressional legislation.
The issue here is the same one that prompted professional sports to set overall caps on team salaries. Without them, teams in small media markets like Milwaukee and Kansas City could never compete with those in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, where lucrative broadcast rights would allow them to recruit all the best players.
Seventh, for the players’ own sake, some of the big money they earn for their teams should be sheltered for them later in life, well after their peak earning years as athletes.
A simple default would be to set aside a portion of the team’s NIL money, to be apportioned among all eligible players in that sport each year. The money would be set aside for each player in the equivalent of a 401(k). Call it a 4th&1.
If that retirement money were invested in a passive basket of high-quality stocks and bonds – the default option – the annual administrative cost would be well under 0.5 percent. The value would grow as dividends were reinvested, again by default. (In managing these investment vehicles, don’t let universities do what corrupt states do with their pension funds. They turn over the management to friends of the governor for high fees and surreptitious kickbacks. Far better to let Vanguard, Fidelity or another major financial firm bid to manage the players’ accounts at each university, just as they do for faculty retirement accounts at most schools.)
The cumulated income and principal in this retirement fund would be available to each player after age 50, 60 or 70, and would be part of the player’s estate. Players could supplement that nest egg, if they wished, with their own funds.
Each team would be required to provide a course in lifetime financial management for all scholarship players and a dedicated financial advisor for each one. Those advisors would be responsible solely to the player, not to the team or the university.
These ideas should be considered first-down markers, not the goal line. They will surely need debate and modification. The goal line itself should be clear, though. It is to protect the players’ financial interests and to ensure a broad competitive landscape for big-time college football, not one that has been reduced to a few teams with deep pockets. Don’t keep fans in the dark. Shine a bright light on the funding for players. And don’t let a few universities or conferences write the new rules to enrich – and entrench – themselves at the at the expense of their competitors or their athletes.
This kind of sensible reform should win bipartisan support. In fact, it’s already starting to do so. Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell are co-sponsoring the “Protect College Sports Act.” If this keeps up – who knows – fans of Michigan and Ohio State might have something they could cheer about together.
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