ragtimejoe1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 7:59 am
LawPoke wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:45 am
The NIL genie is out of the bottle. In some form, paying athletes is now part of the bargain. My guess is that the demand for more money accelerates, with calls for media rights sharing, etc. With Title IX, there will be legal requirements to elevate women's equity in the pay scheme, which will only increase the sticker price to field a slate of athletics teams.
I think the future of nil is less clear. Technically that's a private endorsement deal once the guidelines are established. I imagine they won't be able to regulate it much. I wonder if there are rules in pro sports? Would it be possible for nfl fans to pay a collective not associated with the team and the collective paid players?
Absent an antitrust exemption from Congress, the NCAA cannot regulate anything. The courts have been clear. Given the dysfunction of Congress and lack of consensus on the topic, I don't expect to see anything happening on the legislative front.
As for the collectives, you are most correct that
so long as they are wholly separate from the Universities, Title IX and other federal laws cannot be brought to bear. The issue is that the line between the collectives and the university brass, foundations, coaches, and general apparat is wholly blurred right now. Wyoming is an outlier, as our admin is generally averse to the collective structure (my impression) and will not push the line at all. Other schools - not so much. If you read between the lines in the filings in the Oregon Title IX suit, there is a lot to suggest that the coordination between the boosters, collectives, universities, and athletic departments is so complete as to render them undiscernible. The reality is that the collectives are now part and parcel of the continuum of university athletic departments and, factually, Title IX will fall like a hammer to force equity across the collective ranks. The upshot of that? I don't know. But universities are failing the test you appropriately lay out and it isn't a close call in most cases.