with NFL teams?
I can think of two players ready for the NFL after one year in college - Bo and Hershel. Were there more? Undoubtedly. I just think the nature of the NFL - the physicality, the commitment, the maturity - lends itself to the three year rule. Trevor Lawrence and Ross are best served staying in school imo.
Reminds me of the justifications for slavery "This population had to be enslaved for their own good."
And I hate the comparison of the NCAA to slavery, but this "it's for their own good" bullshit has got to stop.
We have rules as a society because we make generalized judgments about what is good for people and what is not. Some of those rules prevent people from doing things that they might enjoy, but that take place in situations the lend themselves to exploitation. Cf., e.g., statutory rape laws.
"Paternalism" is an easy slur to throw around, but it's not some kind of magic bullet. Well-functioning societies (which, in general, the NCAA is not, but that's another matter) have "paternalistic" rules. It's what keeps them well-functioning, as opposed to being Hobbesian libertarian dystopias.
we don't tell adults that earning a bunch of money is bad for them.
About the only time we do this purportedly for their own protection is prostitution. I can't really think of another example outside of children.
We have plenty of laws telling people they can't do things we think are harmful to others. And we have some laws telling people they can't do things that are harmful to themselves.
But telling adults that they can do an activity, just not earn money for it, is a pretty rare restriction.
Which, along with prostitution, is along the lines of how professional football has become to be demonized in the past few years.
Is akin to slavery
I hate the comparison to slavery. I'm not making a direct comparison of slavery.
I'm comparing your paternalistic mindset that you know better than these adults about what's in their best interests, and therefore think it's appropriate to restrict their ability to freely perform labor because you've made the determination that they're not ready for it yet.
That's some real hubris there.
If the scholarships offered by schools are such good values, then they shouldn't have anything to fear from other groups offering to pay the players money directly. And why shouldn't the players be the ones that get to make that choice? Because you don't think they're capable of doing so.
I think your viewpoint is a common one. In fact, I'd say it is the majority stance.
I'm quite staunchly with Charles on this topic so I disagree with you. But I admire your general attitude in this thread of engaging and accepting alternative takes.
That's all. Enjoy your day.
Was that a good impression? I've been working on it in front of my mirror.
Yes.
and the overwhelming majority of high school b-ball players still choose college over the pros abroad. They’re not dumb. The college game holds immense value to the athletes who go that route. College football is much different because there are no alternatives but currently, the Zion Williamson’s of the world have determined that playing college sports nets them more value per year than a multi million dollar contract overseas.
with that said, I think that you might have stumbled onto something:
by allowing the kids more freedom they come to the rationalization that it is in their best interests (the majority of them anyway) to go to college and stay in school.
Funny how that works. I would argue that the same would be true if you kept the rules the same for football (no pay for play, no extra money for the school) but allowed the kids to profit off of image and likeness. The vast majority wouldn't profit much at all because demand would be low and the vast majority would realize that the real value they're getting is in the education provided and the spotlight they get from being able to compete at the highest stage.
or is ND paying substantially less than that in their own cost?
An argument could be made that certain players are responsible for generating that type of revenue for the school, but I don't think any reasonable person would argue that ND is actually paying anywhere near that amount per student.
Furthermore, ND is on the higher end of all in costs compared to other schools.
The cost to the player is the operative one. ND's marginal cost isn't particularly relevant.
game. The intangible market value created from college sports is as much if not more than that provided by tuition. Other than baseball nerds, who really knows about anyone playing AAA, AA, A? Compare that to let’s say Trevor Lawrence who is in the NFLs minor league and look at how much value his brand has increased nationally after Monday night. The kid is already a household name. Ditto for Kyler Murray and Tua Tagavailoa.
if a player could argue that he would receive more money were he allowed to operate on the open market and then turn around and pay his own tuition. Such a player certainly would generate a windfall of cash for his school in a variety of ways (butts in the seats at home games, merchandise sold at the bookstore, better bowl games with higher payouts, etc.).
In other words, if you start getting in a quid pro quo argument the star players can argue that they're not allowed to maximize their revenue.
How does that make ND's marginal cost relevant?
as the chargemaster cost of health care.
it is the true cost of the product. That seemed to be the idea I was responding to.
you would have to be making even more than that to pay full freight.
And I assume that the 200k would go on a schedule C and there would be related deductions for that income that would actually bring it down substantially.
And most importantly, I would imagine that the VAST majority of kids would fall well below that 200k of income.
which is misleading in a variety of ways, as really only the wealthiest pay full sticker cost.
The argument was made that these kids should basically just shut up and appreciate the value of what they're getting, and the 350k number is often thrown about as the "value" of what they're getting. I'm saying that the schools benefit an awful lot more than the players in these scenarios and that the cost isn't really 350k to ND nor would it be 350k to the player, though I agree that many/most of these players wouldn't gain acceptance to ND based on their high school transcripts/test scores/etc. (though would also argue that ND's demand would be lower without it's historical draw in football).
and then went back to get a degree--unless I'm misreading your statement about first going on the open market and then turning around and paying his tuition (Maybe it just means getting some likeness licensing money). In that example, unless he is financially irresponsible, he is likely to pay full freight. I wasn't following what you were getting at.
If you would rather cite figures of average real costs to the average student in the high school applicant's shoes, there is some merit to that. Of course, those that are below a certain threshold will have virtually identical costs to any school meeting 100 percent of need. Maybe the market cost is actually nothing or is like $15-20k a year, which it was for me. But in that example, the value of the ND degree in particular will certainly be more valuable than that of many other schools recruiting him. Thus, the sticker cost is likely a better capture of ability to gain return on investment from ND (the broader value that is being gained for future earning purposes).
But in any situation, the marginal cost to ND is of absolutely no value whatsoever in assessing the value to the player.
a working lifetime.
depends on how you determine the "worth."
To a football player, perhaps not. To a future attorney, perhaps it is.
maybe indirectly it does but it basically protects lots of other people directly, namely the current NFL players that would be concerned about job security, the various schools and Athletic Directors that depend on this labor for their product, etc.
But, yes, I think the rule protects the long-term interest of the college football players.
and play for virtually free while risking injury. His other option is to sit and endure public ridicule.
It will be this way until the rule is changed.
It protects the short term and long term profit interests of college football. And that is it. Don't believe me? Watch people lose their shit if you suggest cutting college football back to 9 game seasons...for the long-term interest of the college football players.
Guys get hurt to varying degrees in the NFL regardless of age. This notion that sweet, sweet 19 year old children must be protected from 22 year old savages needs to expelled.
You are not alone, but anyone arguing that the 3 year rule is for the players is not be honest with themselves.
is simply not true - as I will be on the hook for about 80K per year shortly when my son attends ND. But beyond that I don't think these players are ready for the NFL physically. How many NFL players start under the age of 23? I don't feel like checking but the answer is not many. Would that change if the rule were different? Perhaps, but I envision too many of these players getting overwhelmed and washing out when their prospects for success would be greatly increased with more development.
Does that benefit schools and AD's and profit and the whole business of college football? - no doubt. I'm not stupid. But I think the notion that these players would help their careers by going to the NFL at an earlier age is wrong.
In that way I think the rule benefits football players.
if NCAA football were to cease to exist as we know it, I would guess that the NFL would move quickly to fill that void and have a developmental league similar to baseball. One would imagine that these players would then receive compensation for these efforts.
therefore, the idea that they're not physically ready for the NFL, while true in many situations, doesn't really serve the notion that they should come play for a relative pittance compared to what the schools are making off of their work.
For the record, I also have three kids that will be attending college within a few years and so I am pretty familiar with the costs as well. I can tell you that the majority of these big time schools are making out like bandits relative to the kid getting the "free" education.
The NFL wouldn't have 130 minor league teams with 85 players each. I suspect they may not even have 32, so if CFB went away, I'm guessing well more than 80% of the kids on scholarships would lose their scholarships. It's hard to argue that those kids aren't being fairly compensated.
The NFL get's a ton free scouting and development done by colleges. I would suspect that they would have the equivalent of a AAA team where they hold their reserves, top prospects, and injury recovering players, where they learn the system/playbook and are ready to move up to the show at any time.
After that, they would need to have a few developmental levels. They could even keep the current 3 year "rule" by having regional leagues that take the high school talent and work them in to the various systems for the teams, where the new coaches stretch their legs and probably where the PED's flow.
The issue is the variously 60-85 players and all the additional coaches and support staff each team needs is an order of magnitude bigger than what any baseball or even soccer team needs. That doesn't even touch upon facilities. I'm sure that there are quite a few cities that might be interested in hosting some minor league football teams, particularly if there was a void of college athletics, but I don't believe they would foot as big of a bill as they do for baseball.
All of that being said, I think the NFL would benefit from having either a Minor League (AAA) like baseball, or a junior league like the British Premier League (complete with relegation and elevation) as it would allow them to expand the product without watering down the top level of competition.
Is generally less than the cost of out of state tuition at most FBS universities and players go without a paycheck during their off-seasons.
Even if a three tiered Minor League system of Football developed, I'd expect greater than 50% of top prospects would still opt for college especially after the first few classes began offer the feedback of being the initial guinea pigs for such a system.
my guess is that there would still be a market for college football, but it would be different than the current model.
Look, in my opinion the best solution is to let the players profit from their image and likeness. I do not think that they should be paid by the schools and I am not in favor of them going pro right out of high school. That said, these pigs at the trough don't deserve to make all of this money without the kids being able to at least sign autographs or get sponsorship the way an Olympic athlete can.
The NFL reaps the benefit of better ability to assess talent without the risk of signing an 18 year old kid who will turn out to be a bust.
how any of these kids are physically ready to play in the NFL at 18, 19, and 20 years old? If the NFL wants to start a developmental league for players, I'm all for it. Forego the education and go play. I would bet that most in that developmental league would not be "called up" for quite some time.
Should kids get some form of compensation? Sure.
Incidentally, this makes my fourth, and final, college bound student. Hopefully they get some compensation.
at that age?
Not many. That said, when the NBA opened up their draft to high school seniors back in the day, there were still teams spending high picks on the seniors, even ones that needed time to develop.
By allowing players to profit off of their image and likeness and maintain a 3 year commitment to a University prior to entering a draft you can avoid most of these issues.
Is it relatively easy to ensure that these athletes receive only fair market value of their image, or is it almost guaranteed that the big program kids will receive inflated compensations for committing to a specific school over a competitor (eg. $10,000 from rich booster for an 8x10 photo)?
I don't have a better answer, but it is insane that schools benefit exclusively from the likeness/image of these athletes, and also indirectly at the box office, via TV rights fees, and donations. Meanwhile coach and staff salaries and facility investments continue to skyrocket.
I would prefer that a significant percentage of all profits from the revenue sports go into a fund for longterm health support, hardship support (both during and after their college tenure), and other benefits that would help those with the greatest need, but not sure that would be very popular and it would not fairly compensate the elite athletes.
and other people whose income we need to control.
In other words, you don't regulate it. People earn what they deserve; most people will end up with nothing for their image and likeness because it won't be worth anything.
Do you know what Marvin Miller's greatest fear was when he was negotiating for free agency (among other things) for the major league baseball players in the 1970's? His biggest fear was that the owners would just make every single MLB player a free agent after every year. And why is that? Because he knew that if every player was a free agent annually, only the very top players would get paid a lot and the bottom 2/3 of the players would be fighting for table scraps.
So by allowing the owners to "regulate" when players hit free agency, binding arbitration, etc. he was able to help drive up the salaries for all players.
Enhanced regulation is not the answer to any sort of problem you can come up with here, Pat.
There is no excuse for pretending this is true amateur athletics. Let Lawrence and Tua make their market value from Nike and other brands.
but if you were their agent/adviser would you have them declare now (if allowed) or continue their development in college? What would ensure a greater possibility of long-term success?
become a pop star and they give them to you free
Lawrence went 12 for 24 for 155 yards against Pitt. Ross also bailed him out on a couple of throws in that game and any QB can hit a guy when the DB falls down. Don't get me wrong he is a good Qb but you know who also won the championship Cardale Jones. Where is he right now?
And I note that the two most recent guys that challenged the NFL/NFLPA on this issue Clarret and Williams don't exactly support the conclusion that a guy 1 or 2 year out of HS is ready to play in the NFL.
One of the single biggest silent factors in the success of an NFL QB is number of starts (and wins) in college.
Patrick Mahomes record his only two seasons as the full-time starter at Texas Tech.
Lawrence and Tua are the two best quarterbacks in college football. Are either of them ready to run a professional offense next year? I have no idea - but neither of them would do any worse than Eli Manning.
I'm not saying that it's right, I'm not saying that it's rational.
It's just the way it is.
and probably no. 1 before Monday's game. This is pure recency bias (not you but the experts).
him a year early and then just wait a year before he can play. But if I'm not mistaken, that wouldn't be an option because they would relinquish their rights after 1 year and then he'd be eligible for the following year's draft.
I guess it would work if the team signs him after the season, but before the next draft. Of course that team would not get any value from the pick during the year following the draft.
When you are a freshman or sophomore, you are not just ineligible to be signed to a contract, you are ineligible to be drafted by any team.
Lawrence will finish his Sophomore season in January 2020. The next draft would be April 2020. Then he'll finish his Junior season in January 2021. You seem to be suggesting that a team could draft him in April 2020, sign him after he completes his Junior season in January 2021, and get a 3+ month head start on getting him ready to start his rookie season in September 2021.
Based on the rules, I don't think Lawrence can be drafted until April 2021 unless he were granted some kind of special approval that has never been granted before.
"To be eligible for the draft, players must have been out of high school for at least three years and must have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season. Underclassmen and players who have graduated before using all their college eligibility may request the league’s approval to enter the draft early."
I was thinking of a Larry Bird type draft situation. Based on your info, Lawrence would not be eligible to enter the draft until his 3 years have passed.
Let's see if he continues being "All World" with a larger sampling. The "Talking Heads" have to have something to talk about now, so why not him. Is he good? Yes, but playing College teams ( and quite a few on Clemson's schedule were iffy) is not like facing elite NFL teams. The defensive lines would be all over him and a few DC's would scheme up ways to confuse him.
He's just the latest and newest of the next super star.
College players and their families are up against 3 powerful foes:
1. The NCAA , which wants to enjoy the fruits of its indentured labor for as long as possible
2. The NFL, which wants to appease/maintain its “minor league franchises”, and also doesn’t want unprepared young players with “potential” cluttering already razor-thin 53-man rosters; and
3. NFL players, who want to maximize the already short duration of their playing careers, and delay competition from lower cost youngsters
Even though it is not part of the NFL’s labor agreement (as KeoughCharles05 points out below), the NFLPA has an interest in the status quo.
Across the table are the kids and their families – individually weak, transitory, and poorly funded.
The parties of interest that could emerge to bring more balance of power are new leagues like XFL 2.0, and powerful agents like Tom Condon.
One could see Lawrence’s agent – whoever that will be – being less than happy at missing out on 10% of the marginal economics generated by two extra career years if Lawrence was drafted in 2019 vs. 2021.
Ultimately, however, the agents are just that – “agents” for the players. And the pool of players in the NFL at any given time has a vested interest in delaying eligibility.
The much more credible leadership of Oliver Luck notwithstanding, I don’t see the XFL becoming a huge commercial success. The combination of sub-par training/coaching, likely low pay, exposure to injury, and the possibility of retribution at the NFL level will deter the best players.
The only college players who would take that as an option are either marginal draftees, or in real near-term financial need. It will remain an option for those players who, for one reason or another, can’t be part of a college program.
I don’t think the NCAA cares what the rules are. So the NFL and NBA both remove their barriers to entry and allow kids to go pro when they want. Do you think that will affect college basketball or football’s popularity? I don’t. People aren’t generally tuning into college sports to watch the games played at their highest level with the best talent. If that was the case, I’d go watch the G League instead of college basketball; all of those teams would wipe the floor with 99% of college teams. They watch because they feel allegiance to their schools of choice whether that be because they’re alumni or some other reason. If the players had so much value, you’d see a minor league in either basketball or football gain traction. But they don’t because you’re not watching CFB to see Trevor Lawrence or Tua Tagavailoa, you’re watching to see Clemson versus Alabama.
Even though it is not in the CBA itself, the rule was upheld as a product of the general bargaining process.
Yount started at SS at the age of 18. I am not sure why Lawrence and Ross don't have that option but I haven't fully explored the issue.
1) allow players to profit off of image/likeness.
2) Mimic the college baseball option where kids can declare for the draft after their senior year but once they step foot on campus they're committing to 3 years at the school.
In baseball those high school kids go to the minors. The NFL has no such option at present.
Football players also have a shorter playing window than baseball players, so it is more imperative that they start earning as soon as they can.
I think yours is a good idea that does have a model, but I think having a professional developmental league would be necessary. Kids would then be able to decide whether they wanted to start earning right away, or take a shot at a bigger paycheck with stardom in college football.
with his new league
his youngest fits the bill of the kids that would play in that league.
CFB is a major sport. The attendance, viewership and TV deals for major college football equal and in some cases exceed those of the other pro sports leagues (esp MLB and NHL).
Playing in a football minor league would relegate players to podunk towns, 5,000 fans in attendance, and zero TV exposure. It would definitely be a downgrade.
What's to stop the bag men in today's game from partnering with a local auto dealership, and offering Bama's top recruits $1 million to put their face on a billboard advertising a local car dealership? Things like giving players a cut of sales of jerseys with their name/number on them seem easier to police. But unless I'm missing something obvious, this feels like a huge loophole that the allows the "haves" in the college football world to further separate themselves from the have nots to the detriment of the competitive balance in the sport.
And I should note I have no principled objection to preventing players from profiting off their image/likeness to the extent they're receiving FMV for legitimate purposes. I just worry about how that could possibly be enforced.
their championship games?
is that the NCAA is really bad at enforcing rules and if you give them more enforcement they're only going to fuck it up worse.
Let the market dictate.
your face on a billboard?
If someone was willing to pay you a million for such a task, should someone step in and stop them? I mean, how is it fair that you get a million but everyone else doesn't?
Non wise-ass answer to your question: the fact that everyone can profit off of their image and likeness will mean that the vast majority won't. There is going to be a limited supply of resources available and the sheer number of players eligible for it will limit on it's own.
between what someone is willing to pay to use someone's image and likeness and the value that the use of the image and likeness provides. E.g. I'll pay celebrity X $Y to endorse my product because I think it will generate as much or more revenue through increased sales. That's fundamentally different than paying a college player $1 M to put his face on a billboard that perhaps might drive $100k in additional car sales. That's not a bona fide payment for the use of the player's image and likeness, it's a bribe to get him to come to the school papered over as an image and likeness payment.
I recognize that a small number of players would garner such payments, but if a handful of schools have boosters willing to play that game, those schools would disproportionately and unfairly benefit from such a system.
sounds exactly the same to me.
Having a top 5 star recruit endorse that business might lead to more attention on the business which would lead to more consumers.
If you happen to think that there are bag men floating all about the deep dark south ready to drop a million dollars on every 5 star recruit, than I guess you and I just disagree.
The market will take care of itself.
In a normal business transaction for someone's likeness and image, the amount they are paid is rationally related to the value that the person using their likeness and image expects to get from its use. I.e., they're paid what their image and likeness is worth. When Nike pays Tiger, they're not paying him for anything other than the benefit they expect their association with him to bring Nike.
In a college athletics situation, without enforcement mechanisms, one can imagine an image and likeness payment being used to hid bribery. I don't think anyone thinks a booster should be able to pay a guy $1M to go to their school (I'm using big round numbers for simplicity, no I don't think there are tons of guys out there willing to pay high school kids $1M).
But one could easily imagine someone making a payment to a kid for the use of their image and likeness that is far greater than what the use of their image and likeness is actually worth to essentially cover up a bribe. You say "having a top 5 star recruit endorse that business might lead to more attention on the business which would lead to more consumers." Absolutely, and the payment to the 5 star recruit should be rationally related to expected increase in business. If you expect his endorsement to get you $100k more business, pay him $100k, not $1M. But if he gets paid $1M for an anticipated $100k bump in business, we're not really talking about paying him for his image and likeness.
I just don't see how you can say "let kids get paid for their image and likeness and we don't need any rules, the market will sort it out," unless you're just fine accepting that there will be some non-zero number of instances in which bag men and boosters are paying kids "for the use of their imagine and likeness" not for bona fide business purposes (i.e. the value they expect to get from the kid's endorsement), but to bribe the kid to go to their school.
in order to maintain your idea of "fairness." I would imagine that you would feel differently if it were someone willing to pay you for your image and likeness.
Why should I care what your employer pays you? Should I start to discuss how unfair it is that you make more than someone else? Is your employer bribing you to stay with him/her/it? I suppose if what you provide is extremely valuable and a rare skill set, perhaps that is the case.
Why should you care what someone is willing to pay someone for their image and likeness? Who cares if it is a million dollars? Do you think that there is just an unlimited amount of money that would tip the scales? Don't you think that someone would have to be very talented in order to justify that kind of investment? Who are you to dictate how much someone else can make off of their talent?
You basically just want to control what money other people can make.
If we're opening up college football to a world where alumni and boosters can just flat out pay top recruits in order to get them to come to their school, we should just blow the whole thing up. So yeah, in that regard, I do want to limit what college athletes can get paid. Do you disagree?
I'd be fine with some sort of increased stipend system. I'm fine with bona fide image and likeness payments (e.g. some sort of organized licensing model like the professional players associations have). I'm fine with letting top recruits who want to get paid go straight to the NFL (I like the baseball model better than the basketball model).
But you've utterly failed to respond to my example where something couched as an "image and likeness" payment clearly is not, because the amount of the payment far exceeds the economic benefit that one could reasonable expect to obtain through the use of the image and likeness. That's like me hiring a company owned by a local politician to do some work on my house and paying them 10x what the work is worth, not because I want my house fixed really well, but because I want the politician to do me a favor. We could just say "hey free market, he's willing to pay it, that must be what it's worth." But no rational person would look at it that way. We know the payment is for something other than fixing the house. A payment to an athlete for the use of their image and likeness in an amount that far exceeds the potential benefit from the use of the image and likeness isn't a payment for the image and likeness, it's clearly a payment for something else.
if someone is willing to pay a kid a million dollars for his autograph, then who the hell are you to tell him he can't get that money? Do we do the same thing for child actors? Child music prodigies? Child math geniuses? What makes athletes so unique that we have to monitor their income?
Are you willing to have your own compensation held to the light in such a way? I think your employer is paying you more than market rate and you should be paid less. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Let me help you out here--by giving everyone the right to profit off of their image and likeness, only a select few actually will, because the demand for everyone will be minimal. By giving a stipend to everyone (as you foolishly suggest) you would actually spend a lot more and still have the same corruption problems that now exist.
We don't have child millionaire actors walking around all over the place for a reason, in other words. You have to have unique skill and talent to be able to demand that kind of pay at any age.
The answer is less bureaucracy manofdillon, not more.
Do Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have their free market value subject to a salary cap due to competiveness reasons? I don’t disagree with all of your points but let’s recognize that sports is its own animal without comparison to other industries.
"for competitiveness reasons."
Who does that salary cap protect? Certainly not the fans; ticket prices have been going up for years.
I bet you movie studios sure wish they had salary caps in place for actors. Would you argue that there isn't the same amount of competition in show business as in professional sports?
There's a reason the MLBPA has never agreed to a cap, and there's a reason why they never should have changed from having an attorney leading their union to having a former player lead their union.
While still playing football. Just think how that made his teammates fell that they didn’t have the type of money he did during the ‘06 season
If he got some exception to be a pro in baseball that they couldn't also get, then they would have been upset. Him being pro in a different sport than them has no logical reason to upset them. It wasn't that he was still playing baseball at ND and being paid for baseball.
I think it is more likely that we see a kid sit out a year rather than go through a lengthy legal process. We already have many examples of players sitting out bowl games. Nick Bosa had an injury then took the rest of the year off rather than risking rushing back. It is not hard to imagine a top-flight prospect simply sitting a year and waiting to be drafted. I doubt anyone could do it for two years.
they will get laid often.
This must be weighed against the NFL opportunity
he intends to be back. He even said for 3 more years.
He started to answer that question with "Well, at least..." caught himself, and then kinda laughed and said "three more."
I'm pretty sure he was going to say "at least two more." That dude knows he's going pro after his junior year.
To say anything resembling that he planned to leave early would come across as arrogant. Actually I think he was actually responding to question regarding how many more championships he thought they would win. There is no way this cat is playing four years if he is healthy after his third.
A big reason why college football is great is the offseason storylines. As a fan you get to circle a game on the calendar, hoping for payback against the player who got the best of your team last season, and each season begins with recognizable stars. College basketball used to be great when you were allowed to hate or grudgingly respect guys like Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Laettner & Hurley, etc. Nowadays, nobody knows these guys until March Madness, and as soon as they make a name for themselves they're gone, then you start the next season with renewed apathy.
But college football still has that appeal. Having Heisman winners like Leinart, Winston, and Tebow trying to defend both their individual Heisman and their team's championship, pulling some rabbits out of their asses along the way but then ultimately failing in dramatic fashion, has made the sport incredibly interesting.
Whether that's fair or exploitative to the individual players is valid question. I'm just speaking selfishly as a fan that I hope the 3 year requirement doesn't go away.
between the NFL and NFL Players Association?
If so, then it might be harder to overturn via the courts.
From Clarett's court case:
The current collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and its players union was negotiated between the NFL Management Council (“NFLMC”), which is the NFL member clubs' multi-employer bargaining unit, and the NFL Players Association (“NFLPA”), the NFL players' exclusive bargaining representative. This agreement became effective in 1993 and governs through 2007. Despite the collective bargaining agreement's comprehensiveness with respect to, inter alia, the manner in which the NFL clubs select rookies through the draft and the scheme by which rookie compensation is determined, the eligibility rules for the draft do not appear in the agreement.
At the time the collective bargaining agreement became effective, the eligibility rules appeared in the NFL Constitution and Bylaws, which had last been amended in 1992.7 Specifically, Article XII of the Bylaws (“Article XII”), entitled “Eligibility of Players,” prohibited member clubs from selecting any college football player through the draft process who had not first exhausted all college football eligibility, graduated from college, or been out of high school for five football seasons. Clubs were further barred from drafting any person who either did not attend college, or attended college but did not play football, unless that person had been out of high school for four football seasons. Article XII, however, also included an exception that permitted clubs to draft players who had received “Special Eligibility” from the NFL Commissioner. In order to qualify for such special eligibility, a player was required to submit an application before January 6 of the year that he wished to enter the draft and “at least three NFL seasons must have elapsed since the player was graduated from high school.” The Commissioner's practice apparently was, and still is, to grant such an application so long as three full football seasons have passed since a player's high school graduation
is included, because the collective bargaining agreement included a waiver of any challenges to the NFL's bylaws, and the rule is in the bylaws, such that the rule is part of the "unique bundle of compromises" between the PA and the league.
They appear to enjoy college and their teammates. Dabo has created a great atmosphere for them. If such a challenge were to occur, it would more likely come from a player at USC, Alabama, or Ohio State.
it will take an ass from Michigan to challenge the rule. Not sure if they have anyone good enough to do so (outside of their own mind)
Are there new circumstances that would cause the courts to take a fresh look at this?
From Mike Williams' wiki page:
"Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett was suspended by his school following his 2002 freshman year. After being unable to gain reinstatement with Ohio State, Clarett made the decision to declare for the NFL Draft. However, since Clarett was only of true sophomore eligibility, he had to legally challenge the NFL rule that a player must be three years removed from high school to be eligible for the NFL Draft. After a court proceeding, a federal judge ruled that the NFL could not legally bar Clarett from entering the 2004 NFL Draft.
Williams, having completed his sophomore year and only two years removed from high school, made the decision to declare for the 2004 NFL Draft as well after hearing the federal judge's ruling. Williams hired an agent and moved forward presenting himself as a legitimate first round pick (and most, if not all, NFL pundits and NFL personnel agreed that Williams was a first round choice). By declaring his intent to enter the draft, hiring an agent to represent his interests, and filing the NFL paperwork necessary to enter the draft, he made himself ineligible for NCAA reinstatement.
Still, prior to the 2004 NFL Draft the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the Federal Judge's decision allowing Clarett to enter the Draft. Additionally, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a final appeal. Clarett and Williams were ineligible for the 2004 NFL Draft.
As Williams was ineligible for NCAA reinstatement, he was required to sit the entire 2004 football season and was not allowed to practice with USC as well."
Someone could in theory try to sue the NFL in another jurisdiction, hope to get a conflicting appellate court ruling (appellate courts view decisions by other appellate courts as persuasive, but not binding), and then try to get the Supreme Court to take the case to resolve the split between the circuits.
So, presumably, any challenge would be one vote down out of the gate
to would-be professional male athletes.
That said, actual S.Ct. precedent is murky enough that it doesn't seem out of the question that a different circuit (particularly the 8th) could rule the other way and set-up a split. Perhaps Squee, PJ, and Moose can crack open some beers and guide the current court in the right direction.
like this.
Maybe Roberts were just perplexed on how to call balls and strikes on this one.
But I wouldn't want to be the college kid to challenge it. You likely wouldn't get a final ruling until after you could already go pro anyway, and in the mean time you'd be buying yourself a ton of extra stress, attention, etc...
I could see students and recently-graduated former players banding together, with one of the former players (maybe somebody who had a career ending injury in college) representing the class. But I’m no lawyer, so this might not work for a number of reasons.