College Sports (Basketball)

#326      
Calvin
Det_Illini_fan said:
And then the pro thing completely overvalues the term “pro” with regards to European and other International leagues. They don’t have high school and collegiate sports the way we do here. It’s not like some 16 year old kid is squaring up in a league with the level of play similar to the NBA’s elite while making 8-figures.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That said, these are senators, so I'm dubious on the intentions.

So many parts of this seem unworkable, or at least have serious issues. When you interfere with markets, they always push back. E.g. coaches have back-channels where they can find out their market value off-cycle, even if they can't technically leave for a new team. If the issue is coaches checking out, this won't solve it. Is a player that has sports related income a professional? There are many ways to earn money in the information economy. And what's the basis for the international treatment? That's the tip of the iceberg, and you can bet issues would get litigated over many years as they do now. If a commission's decisions holds up in court, then I think it could work, even if many issues remain. But that's going to take a while, and people will try to go around the rules.

It seems to me, admittedly uninformed on the subject, that much has been tried and failed because they have no legal basis to restrict compensation, and because of that every body they've put in place can't issue binding decisions that chip away at it. IANAL, but it seems like they would need to address that. And once you target these kids to keep costs down, I would expect a lot in congress would take the other side on the legislation since that has to come out of what the athletes could have made. If you take baseball as an example of having an anti-trust exemption, they have a players union that negotiates the other side of the agreement. I don't see anything here that addresses the athletes side, and for that reason, I wonder how it could possibly work. Just ignore them?
 
#327      
WyattEarp
Not sure if this is the appropriate spot for this but…wow.

I dare you to try and watch this without throwing up or laughing uncontrollably.

 
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#331      
Calvin
WyattEarp said:
Not sure if this is the appropriate spot for this but…wow.

I dare you to try and watch this without throwing up or laughing uncontrollably.

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I expect propaganda like this to try and get people behind congress passing a law for an anti-trust exemption that A) gives control to the financial interests of the Universities and media companies, and B) puts more constraints on the athletes (without input or representation). It would be done, ostensibly, in their best interests.

The framing of these discussions gets to a view that the Universities are entitled to the revenue and control of the sport rather than the players. Pro leagues understand it's a business and have figured out how to put rules in place so they don't overspend, give players a say, and have enough parity to make their product interesting. The Universities have a more complex competitive landscape, struggle with spending discipline, and wouldn't agree on how to split the pot even if they did figure out basic rules. I think any power given to the SCS would be used aggressively to try and tap down some of the current market forces. I don't think it would be entirely successful because markets tend to find ways around legislation, but who knows.

I find the whole thing fascinating, and it somehow reminds me of the quote from Eric Hoffer, "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
 
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