College Football Thread

[WayneFleekHoosier]

1 hour ago, cbp4iu said:

20 team caps in the new bill if it passes. Guessing the next wave of expansion is coming. Will Big 10 take Stanford/Cal or Miami/someone else

Would guess they want market in Carolina and maybe Florida.  UNC/Miami? But Duke and UNC won’t separate. Stanford/Cal makes some sense but not from a TV market perspective.  
 

IDK.

in my make believe world, I’d want to drop Rutgers, Minnesota and add UNC/Duke/Miami/Notre Dame

[Brass Cannon]

57 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Would guess they want market in Carolina and maybe Florida.  UNC/Miami? But Duke and UNC won’t separate. Stanford/Cal makes some sense but not from a TV market perspective.  
 

IDK.

in my make believe world, I’d want to drop Rutgers, Minnesota and add UNC/Duke/Miami/Notre Dame

I’m not sure media markets are the main drivers anymore.  Feel like alumni/donor base might have become the key targets. 

[realTomCrean]

Miami/FSU would be electric

[Lebowski]

I'm very skeptic with the bill. I have a feeling this will be a disaster and will only fix parts of the current climate. I don't have any knowledge about the bill so keep that in mind. I just think the folks in DC are inept at just about 80% of things they do with the other 20% being about themselves. We as fans should question why they're in a hurry pass this. 

Can someone on here give me the cliff notes with the bill and provide pros and cons? I can probably google it but I'd prefer to hear it from Hoosier Nation. 

[Lebowski]

This Friday, Virginia Tech-Pitt will be the first matchup in the history of modern college football to feature two unranked, 4-0 major conference teams. 

[Brass Cannon]

29 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

I'm very skeptic with the bill. I have a feeling this will be a disaster and will only fix parts of the current climate. I don't have any knowledge about the bill so keep that in mind. I just think the folks in DC are inept at just about 80% of things they do with the other 20% being about themselves. We as fans should question why they're in a hurry pass this. 

Can someone on here give me the cliff notes with the bill and provide pros and cons? I can probably google it but I'd prefer to hear it from Hoosier Nation. 

I don’t think it fixes anything.  All it does is restrict things that some programs will ignore and just cheat.  

[Home Jersey]

10 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

I'm very skeptic with the bill. I have a feeling this will be a disaster and will only fix parts of the current climate. I don't have any knowledge about the bill so keep that in mind. I just think the folks in DC are inept at just about 80% of things they do with the other 20% being about themselves. We as fans should question why they're in a hurry pass this. 

Can someone on here give me the cliff notes with the bill and provide pros and cons? I can probably google it but I'd prefer to hear it from Hoosier Nation. 

It's worth googling for the full picture.

The TLDR is basically implementing 5 for 5 with a 1 time penalty free transfer among many other important provisions. 

5% cap on agent fees, which is the best part IMO. Also some longer term academic (10 years assistance) and healthcare (5 years assistance) support resources. 

Some measures to make it harder for there to be backdoor NIL payments above the cap, which is sort of the primary point of contention with the bill. 

The NCAA, being a monopoly, would fail to make a bunch of rules because of antitrust laws (why we see so many lawsuits now). Normally there would be an exemption like how pro sports work and there would be collective bargaining. But for there to be a CBA, players would need to be employees and that's logistically not viable for a myriad of reasons. If the bill passes, they would not be considered employees and wouldn't be able to sue, unionize, etc. 

Direct payments would be hard capped at $50M annually. That'd be a 22% base revenue share. Leaving plenty of profit for the hangers on of the sport and partners like ESPN. Very different split from the pro leagues that CFB and CBB feed into as developmental leagues. 

Our development system is much different than the rest of the world, so the NCAA sometimes sounds incoherent because of their ideals of "amateurism" (not a real legal concept) and not counting grown up Euro basketball players as pros, for example.

IMO no solution will make everyone happy. I tend to agree with skepticism about intervention from Congress making things appreciably better here. My hot take is that this bill passing + continued CTE research would lead to a significant decline in the amount of kids choosing to play football over a long time horizon.

Lastly, important to note that it needs to pass the House which is a much different animal than the Senate. The House is also in recess until after the midterm elections in November, so IMO it's unlikely this passes in general. But it may have a shot in the lame duck session before the new Congress is sworn in. The bill will expire on Jan 3 2027 if it's not signed into law before then.

[Pagoda]

12 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

Some measures to make it harder for there to be backdoor NIL payments above the cap, which is sort of the primary point of contention with the bill. 

....

Direct payments would be hard capped at $50M annually. That'd be a 22% base revenue share. Leaving plenty of profit for the hangers on of the sport and partners like ESPN. Very different split from the pro leagues that CFB and CBB feed into as developmental leagues. 

From an IU perspective, if this cap was actually enforced or mostly enforced, that could help us.

We're are $35M for FB (#10-15 range) and close to $20M for MBB (around #10 who knows)... so ~$55M total.  Some schools are around $50M for football with room to go up, plus they're spending $15M+ on MBB too... so they're well past us.

IU is never going to be able to compete with the mega football program schools (or the big billionaire backers like Oregon) in terms of spending.  It's impressive we're ~#10-15 given our small stadium.  We've got some great donors.  Key thing is it seems this cap would hurt the big FB schools more than us.

Now, how things actually play out are very hard to predict.  I have a sneaking suspicion there would be some workaround that lets the big FB schools keep spending whatever they want.

[Lebowski]

17 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

It's worth googling for the full picture.

The TLDR is basically implementing 5 for 5 with a 1 time penalty free transfer among many other important provisions. 

5% cap on agent fees, which is the best part IMO. Also some longer term academic (10 years assistance) and healthcare (5 years assistance) support resources. 

Some measures to make it harder for there to be backdoor NIL payments above the cap, which is sort of the primary point of contention with the bill. 

The NCAA, being a monopoly, would fail to make a bunch of rules because of antitrust laws (why we see so many lawsuits now). Normally there would be an exemption like how pro sports work and there would be collective bargaining. But for there to be a CBA, players would need to be employees and that's logistically not viable for a myriad of reasons. If the bill passes, they would not be considered employees and wouldn't be able to sue, unionize, etc. 

Direct payments would be hard capped at $50M annually. That'd be a 22% base revenue share. Leaving plenty of profit for the hangers on of the sport and partners like ESPN. Very different split from the pro leagues that CFB and CBB feed into as developmental leagues. 

Our development system is much different than the rest of the world, so the NCAA sometimes sounds incoherent because of their ideals of "amateurism" (not a real legal concept) and not counting grown up Euro basketball players as pros, for example.

IMO no solution will make everyone happy. I tend to agree with skepticism about intervention from Congress making things appreciably better here. My hot take is that this bill passing + continued CTE research would lead to a significant decline in the amount of kids choosing to play football over a long time horizon.

Lastly, important to note that it needs to pass the House which is a much different animal than the Senate. The House is also in recess until after the midterm elections in November, so IMO it's unlikely this passes in general. But it may have a shot in the lame duck session before the new Congress is sworn in. The bill will expire on Jan 3 2027 if it's not signed into law before then.

Appreciate your response here. These maybe dumb questions and I apologize up front. I'm wondering why there's a cap but not a CBA? Am I understanding that correctly? Players are getting paid by a college institution, will have health care insurance, etc. etc., but they aren't considered an employee? How does that even work? Like how do they file taxes and what does the W2 say about their place of employment? Employed by the federal or State? Or self-employed? 

I might send you a DM about this if you don't mind?

[Brass Cannon]

2 minutes ago, Pagoda said:

From an IU perspective, if this cap was actually enforced or mostly enforced, that could help us.

We're are $35M for FB (#10-15 range) and close to $20M for MBB (around #10 who knows)... so ~$55M total.  Some schools are around $50M for football with room to go up, plus they're spending $15M+ on MBB too... so they're well past us.

IU is never going to be able to compete with the mega football program schools (or the big billionaire backers like Oregon) in terms of spending.  It's impressive we're ~#10-15 given our small stadium.  We've got some great donors.  Key thing is it seems this cap would hurt the big FB schools more than us.

Now, how things actually play out are very hard to predict.  I have a sneaking suspicion there would be some workaround that lets the big FB keep spending whatever they want.

There will never be an adequate or responsive enough system to enforce the cap. 

[Lebowski]

3 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

There will never be an adequate or responsive enough system to enforce the cap. 

There might be, especially if they model it after a pro league. At the end of the day, college sports is now just another extension of professional athletes. 

[Magnanimous]

12 hours ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Would guess they want market in Carolina and maybe Florida.  UNC/Miami? But Duke and UNC won’t separate. Stanford/Cal makes some sense but not from a TV market perspective.  
 

IDK.

in my make believe world, I’d want to drop Rutgers, Minnesota and add UNC/Duke/Miami/Notre Dame

I want Stanford and Notre Dame. I’m partial to keeping Rutgers since I live in NJ and the Hoosiers come out east. But they’re also dead weight, and if we replace them it should be with another “gimme game” program - Cal. 

[Brass Cannon]

13 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

There might be, especially if they model it after a pro league. At the end of the day, college sports is now just another extension of professional athletes. 

The issue is schools are giant institutions with infrastructure far beyond just a single athletics department.  The leagues are much more focused.  And even with that more focused attention they still have issues as recently seen with the clippers.  

[Lebowski]

2 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

The issue is schools are giant institutions with infrastructure far beyond just a single athletics department.  The leagues are much more focused.  And even with that more focused attention they still have issues as recently seen with the clippers.  

Totally understand what you're saying here and agree to an extent. I'm just saying there might be a system to work out at the end of the day. It's not an impossible task. 

[Pagoda]

14 hours ago, cbp4iu said:

20 team caps in the new bill if it passes. Guessing the next wave of expansion is coming. Will Big 10 take Stanford/Cal or Miami/someone else

This is a grim view, but it’s my take: the B1G sold it’s soul for media rights a long time ago.  We’ve got a big mess of schools with limited cohesion already.

At this point I’d just add whoever increases our media rights check the most.  That’s more we can spend on FB and MBB and everything else.  Simple as that.

[str8baller]

1 hour ago, Home Jersey said:

is basically implementing 5 for 5 with a 1 time penalty free transfer among many other important provisions. 

5% cap on agent fees,

The above is really all that needs done for the time being. My understanding was the competing bill that didn’t pass essentially did this.   
 

The monetary cap is a bad idea with a whole host of consequences, some predictable and others not, that come with it. Just setting a hard number like that legislatively is dumb on so many levels.  
 

Like you pointed out, Senate passed it. It’s basically for show as the House is out. I’m shocked they got 77 votes, though, so I guess it will come back. Behind the scenes the universities must be pushing this hard. The financials of ath depts across the country must be a mess. 

[Home Jersey]

2 hours ago, Lebowski said:

Appreciate your response here. These maybe dumb questions and I apologize up front. I'm wondering why there's a cap but not a CBA? Am I understanding that correctly? Players are getting paid by a college institution, will have health care insurance, etc. etc., but they aren't considered an employee? How does that even work? Like how do they file taxes and what does the W2 say about their place of employment? Employed by the federal or State? Or self-employed? 

I might send you a DM about this if you don't mind?

These are good questions but I am not a lawyer so can't give very nuanced answers.

My understanding is that the CBA would require players to be part of a union, which would mean the athletes have to be A) employees of some entity B) organize themselves, which is logistically difficult with so many schools and big rosters. 

They can't really be employees of the Universities because it would be prohibitively expensive and could open the floodgates for other groups like TAs/RAs/campus service workers to sue the university claiming they are employees and as such require things like healthcare benefits, etc. I am simplifying a lot here. If you're really curious, it's worth doing some research on. 

A quick Google search tells me these athletes currently have their revenue share income (direct from the school) treated as independent contractor income, not W-2.  

[AZ Hoosier]

1 hour ago, Home Jersey said:

These are good questions but I am not a lawyer so can't give very nuanced answers.

My understanding is that the CBA would require players to be part of a union, which would mean the athletes have to be A) employees of some entity B) organize themselves, which is logistically difficult with so many schools and big rosters. 

They can't really be employees of the Universities because it would be prohibitively expensive and could open the floodgates for other groups like TAs/RAs/campus service workers to sue the university claiming they are employees and as such require things like healthcare benefits, etc. I am simplifying a lot here. If you're really curious, it's worth doing some research on. 

A quick Google search tells me these athletes currently have their revenue share income (direct from the school) treated as independent contractor income, not W-2.  

I'm not a lawyer, don't play one on TV and haven't been to a Holiday Inn Express in years... but my understanding is that they are not employees... no w2, but a 1099 instead... no taxes withheld, so they better have a good tax guy, especially those pulling down $1M or more (estimated tax payments, etc). And who pays the medical premiums? As amateurs (days gone by), that would simply be a perk of their athletic scholarship.

[Pagoda]

14 minutes ago, AZ Hoosier said:

I'm not a lawyer, don't play one on TV and haven't been to a Holiday Inn Express in years... but my understanding is that they are not employees... no w2, but a 1099 instead... no taxes withheld, so they better have a good tax guy, especially those pulling down $1M or more (estimated tax payments, etc). And who pays the medical premiums? As amateurs (days gone by), that would simply be a perk of their athletic scholarship.

Premiums were never a perk of a scholly.  And the players are still on scholarship.

There is family or school primary coverage (player is usually paying) required to play, athletic department almost always pays out-of-pocket for football injuries and has secondary insurance in place, NCAA catastrophic exists for the worst cases, and since 2024 a two-year aftercare layer for documented sport injuries.

[Lebowski]

Appreciate everyone's input here. I haven't dug into it all that much because I've been pretty good about trying to avoid all things political and frankly, I've been a much happier person in general by doing so.  So again, truly appreciate everyone's feedback.