Latest / Mostly College Football / #285 - NCAA NIL Chaos: How Loopholes Are Reshaping College Sports
Transcript
- Micaiah: Welcome everyone. Been a busy day for me. We've been to the vet. Taking the dog to a vet for an annual checkup. We did some housekeeping. We played a very stressful video game today against ⁓ Florida State. Took my UCF Bulls. We are 4-0, but we needed to, little magic down the stretch and game. tying field goal that missed at the end of regulation by the computer. So we are now 4-0. This is a college... Oh my goodness. No, this is not the college football podcast. This is a college football podcast, but this is the fourth in one podcast. I am your host, Captain Boyne. Thank you everyone for being here. I am writing solo this week because some news dropped, an article dropped on ESPN that I just wanted to talk about. And everyone is already tired of me listening to me. We are now one minute and 10 seconds into this podcast and everyone is already tired because everyone knows where this is going. We are going exactly where you think we are going and I'm going to stand on my old man's soapbox and just bitch more about the NCAA. However, it's a little different. So an article drops that 18 Nebraska football players are suing the College Sports Commission, which to catch everyone up, the College Sports Commission was set up by the NCAA as a policeman of NIL deals, right? They were using something called, they are using something called NIL Go. You're supposed to type in all NIL deals into this NIL Go. And then the College Sports Commission investigates it, makes sure that it's a legitimate NIL deal. Because with the house settlement last year, they basically set a cap for college football teams at 20 million dollars that colleges can directly pay their players 20 million dollars. Well, 20 million dollars doesn't get you a whole lot because that's what teams were already playing before this house settlement went in. So teams are finding a way to circumvent that. One of the ways they are circumventing that is they are using NIL deals in quotations to basically directly pay the players while warehousing it. Warehousing what they're supposed to do in return. So NIL deals are supposed to be, we'll give player X amount and player X has to shoot a commercial for us, promote this, go to a signing, do this, show up at this public event, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Name, image, and likeness. That's what wa- that's what NIL stands for. That's what it is supposed to be. And the drift has been now directly paying players. Warehousing is when you get a- as Nebraska does, they use this, ⁓ Play-Fi sports, which is... I'm trying to think of best way to describe it to you. It is basically like a player marketing school marketing firm that some colleges use. So Playfy Sports is a prominent athletic department marketing firm. What they are doing and how schools are circumventing this is normally Playfy would pay Nebraska the entire the entire athletic budget. says in this ESPN article that was written by Dan Murphy, Matt Olson, and Pete Thamel. It's a great written article. You should go check it out. It is called arbitration case that could bring change to college sports in quotations messy middle. So what Play-Fi would normally do is they would pay the Nebraska Athletic Department $8 million. Well, what now to circumvent the whole direct what The college is allowed to pay players, which is $20 million. What they are doing is they're saying, hey, why don't you, Playfi Sports, just directly pay the players? And what Playfi Sports is doing is they are using a term that I learned by reading this article, which is warehousing the talent of the player. in which a company buys the rights to use an athlete's NIL in future but doesn't provide specific tasks and deliverables the athlete must complete. An unsigned sample of the agreement provided to Nebraska players required a player to dedicate a certain number of hours of work and social media posts before the end of 26 but does not include any specific events or product the athlete would be promoting according to a copy obtained by ESPN. Okay, so now we are seeing how teams are circumventing the rules. College football and college athletics, however I'm speaking specifically for college football, is known for circumventing the rules. You take it to Michigan and they're alleged and they're proven advanced scouting. You take it to SEC teams. Maybe paying players under the table, Johnny Man, not maybe, they were. Johnny Manziel came out and said that he was handed duffel bags full of cash. go all the way back to 2005 USC, Reggie Bush. He wasn't allowed his Heisman until just recently, a few years ago, because an agent bought his parents an apartment or something like that, right? Now that is all legal. Now we are using firms to circumvent the $20 million cap that the House settlement put on things. I am up here to tell you that and show you another way in which the NCAA has no foresight whatsoever. I'm reading this article and this is why I'm recording this podcast today because this makes me just... angry because it takes foresight to run a multi-billion dollar company and that's what the NCAA is. It is a multi-billion dollar company and you have to have foresight. The NCAA is still looking in the rear view mirror and there's a crash going on in front of them currently. It's happening and they're just staring in the rear view mirror and they're driving right into the crash and they're not even paying attention. So let me read you a a paragraph from this article. I know it's everyone's favorite thing, but if you don't read it, I want everyone ⁓ to know and then I'll talk about it. So this is so I'll read a few things because it is worth noting. It's no surprise that the market rate for playoff contending football rosters is closer to 40 million than 20 million. Nor is it surprising with a spending cat's cap set roughly at 20 million that schools almost immediately found loopholes to use third party NIL deals to meet market demands. That's what I just said. It's a market in which schools are manufacturing NIL for student athletes. Sealy said he is the CEO of the college sports commission. ⁓ He told reporters earlier this month, here's what I want everyone to listen to. So turn your ears on. He said his team has been overwhelmed. Again, this is at the college football. This is at the College Sports Commission. They oversee all NIL deals. He said his team has been overwhelmed with the deals in need of extra scrutiny since the transfer season in early January because the people who designed the vetting system, here we go, assumed the vast majority of contracts being reviewed would be genuine endorsement deals that would take very little time to improve. I'm going to read it again for the people in the back. Because the people who designed the vetting system assumed the vast majority of contracts being reviewed would be genuine endorsement deals that would take very little time to improve. Nearly four out of five deals that Power Force schools have submitted for review since January have been from groups looking to pad a team's payroll rather than a traditional endorsement opportunity according to data shared by the SCS earlier this month. So the NCAA implemented a system and put a policeman in charge of a system that they thought every single school was just going to abide by. At what point do we think that the adult in the room would look around and be like, no one respects me anymore? They still think that what they say teams are taking as law and that's just not the case anymore. And now the SCS is being sued. And if Nebraska wins, that means the SCS has no authority to dictate NIL deals. And that means that it's the wild wild west and the entire system crumbles, which is what this article goes on to say. Sealy and his team has been put in a very difficult position trying to... police all of these deals because they were set up to fail from the very beginning by the people that have zero foresight. They assumed that everyone would say, the NCAA says it's $20 million, the house settlement says it's $20 million, that's it. Everyone will buy by the rules, like in the old days. But now lawyers have gotten much better or the NCAA's lawyers have gotten a lot worse. Either way, it doesn't really matter because no one. is respecting these rules. Everyone is trying to find moop holes. All right, Nebraska's football team generated $124 million in revenue a year ago. According to the athletic department's most recent public accounting documents, add up the compensation the players receive, 3.8 million in scholarship, 825,000 in academic stipends, an estimated 15 million indirect payments. included other benefits such as free meals, $4.2 million, and miscellaneous support the total that roughly $25 million. That's 20 % of the revenue share. Professional athletes typically receive about 50 % of the money the league generates. It's no surprise then the market for the playoff contending football rosters is closer to 40. Now, Here's where the NCAA did kind of get, ⁓ I won't even defend them. They got outlawed in court when trying to come up with this house settlement to set the cap of $20 million. The article goes on to state, and I can't remember if it was before or after. that basically they were told that it would add if you add in everything in of what I just read compensation, scholarship, academics, stipends, direct payroll, it would equal just about 50. The problem there in lies. Why lawyers on both sides of the negotiation defended the cap at settlement hearing by saying the direct payments when added together other benefits such as tuition and stipend that athletes receive would get very close to 50. Their math, here we go, their math lumps all athletes on campus together rather than acknowledging that football players and most of their peers exist. exist in different markets. The men's tennis team at Nebraska, for example, generates $87,000 in 2025. Counting only their scholarships, academic stipends, the tennis team already receiving about 400 % of the revenue they created. So what the lawyers did is they were sneaky. They said, hey, listen, it will reach 50%. But in the back, they're like, yeah, if you include all the athletes, all wear on campus, not just football. And if you look at me, football needs to be its own thing because it drives way more revenue than any other sports. There are exceptions in certain colleges that are basketball heavy. Speaking of the tournament being right now, the NCAA tournament right now. I'll get to that in just a second. I'll touch on that in just a second. But what the lawyers is they said, oh, yeah. So if you add the, okay, so the football teams only get about 25%, right? They're only about 25, the players only get about 25 % of the revenue. But if the tennis team's getting 400, that takes that 25 and that shoots it way up. you can math kind of math there. It's just, I don't know what the NCAA was doing, where the NCAA foresight was with this. But the good old days of the iron fist, The NCAA ruling with an iron fist are just completely over. They're over and done. No one respects them anymore. The article says that some athletic departments, college coaches, athletic directors are hoping that the system fails because then it can only be built up from there. At this point, there can be no large governing body and it's going to have to be all the conferences. And if we get to that point, I truly believe it will just be the big 10. which will be like comprised of 40 teams by that point in time and the SEC again comprised of 40 teams. If it gets down to the conferences being the governing body and all of the conferences agreeing to play under one thing, it's going to be two conferences and then everybody else. And it's going to be a sad day in college football. And I get what the players at Nebraska suing the SCS are saying is, well, why do you get to determine how much I make based on market value? Right? I get what they're saying, but also the players are trying to get paid, respect that, but they're also destroying the sport at the same time. And I'm not saying it's the kids fault and it's not their fault at all. It's the adults in the room again. Go back to some earlier podcasts as the adults in the room that are destroying this sport that I love so much. When I read that the system was set up because they just magically thought that everyone was going to play by the rules, my blood pressure probably went from a nice 120 over 80 to a nice 200 over 110. It makes me so angry to think about. because of all the lessons they had learned prior. The number one lesson that they should have learned from everything that happened prior was, hey, people immediately try to circumvent whatever rule we put in. So we need to think like them. And we need to try to think about how someone might circumvent this whole NIL cap thing. And let's put in a rule, right? Or let's at least design a system, NIL Go and the SCS. Let's design a system and man it. assuming everyone is going to find loopholes for this. But they didn't do that. And now they're stuck in the next 45 days. So it's March 23rd. So by the middle of May, unless extensions are granted, by the middle of May, we will either have the wild, wild West everywhere for now until a conference comes in and sets order, conferences come in and set order, or the NCAA will actually have a governing body that can provide punishment to teams. Now let's flip this and let's, so let's look at both sides. So first, first the players win with Wild Wild West. The NCAA has no, in states that have voted or have been ruled against. ⁓ in where the NCA has been ruled against its wild wild west everyone can get paid whatever they want no forcible punishment for anyone they rule with the CSC now we have some guidelines and now we have a organization or at least a policeman that has a taser and can settle people down and back people off a little bit. However, if the CSC wins, there are hundreds of millions of dollars been promised to kids that are no longer valid and kids are going to go from making four million dollars what they were promised, four to $6 million in some deals that I've heard and seen on the internet to make in less than a million. So you're gonna have a bunch of kids promise millions of dollars and they're gonna have, and they're taking a dramatic pay cut. And they said, and in the article they said, it might affect who plays in the fall. Now, if the ultimate goal is making the national football league, you need to play in the fall. You can't just sit out. Right? So this is getting very messy. This has gotten very messy very quickly. They all had to sit down with Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, that he listened apparently. He then came out and he set an exclusive window for the Army-Navy game, which again, why are we worried about the Army-Navy game? I'm sorry. I like the Army-Navy game as much as the next guy, but honestly, it doesn't need its own exclusive window. I don't need the president involved setting an exclusive window for that. We're worrying about the wrong things. Everything else going on in the world, we're worrying about the wrong things. So comment down below. Where do they go from here? Where do they go from here? Or actually, you know what? Comment down below. Do this as said. Comment. Do you agree with the Nebraska players, or are you hoping for Wild Wild West just to see what happens? Or do you agree with the SCS that there needs to be some form of regulation governing by? I- I- I'm on the side of the SCS, I think there does need to be some sort of regulation governing body. but also I don't wanna go back to what, be ruling with an iron fist. And I'm afraid that if the SCS wins, that's what's going to happen is it's going to be an iron fist, but maybe it'll kind of bring an IELTS back a little bit and and settle things down. Maybe, maybe not. But I just had to get on today and I had to talk about this. Also needed more content for the social media pages. Fourth one podcast everywhere except Tic Tac. That's fourth one pod because fourth one podcast was already taken. All right, I do want to talk about college basketball because I can. ⁓ The NCAA tournament is going on right now. My bracket is sort of busted. I had Florida making the... the final four, they lost to Iowa. I did have them making the final four, so they were one of the hottest teams in the country in January and February they they obviously cooled off a little bit So who do I have right now my East bracket is doing pretty good I only picked two games wrong that was the very first game of the whole tournament TCU, Ohio State and then I did pick ⁓ I did pick Louisville to upset Michigan State and that didn't happen. Other than that, my East bracket is just about, is excellent. The South bracket, Florida, I had them make it in the Final Four, so we know how that ended up there. My Midwest bracket, not doing too bad. My West bracket, I got three wrong. I do have Michigan being the national champions just because in the bracket I had worked out, they were then playing teams, they lost to the rest of the way and revenge is the best. is a dish best served cold. And I thought that they would win. ⁓ And I thought that they would come out on top in those matches because I have them facing Duke. They lost to Duke earlier this year. So I have them them winning. But college basketball has all the same problems college football does. All the same problems in terms of NIL deals. Like they'll be impacted by these rulings, right? Football is what I talk about most is what we normally talk about. But College basketball is probably gonna be the second most thing impacted, men's college basketball, because there's a lot of money floating around, especially at the Blue Bloods, at Duke, at Carolina, at Kentucky, schools like that. There's a lot of money floating around right now. And so if this goes through, that might have to be backed off because, okay, yeah, $15 million goes to basketball team. Well, if that, if five million, if the other five million is going to the men's basketball team, Right? And I'm not saying that's how it works out. I'm sure some schools spread it out a little more evenly, but let's just say the other five million. Well, now, if you actually have to pay 15 million and say to that, you're going to back the 15 million off because you're going to have to get more college basketball and baseball. if you're a school that has really good programs throughout the university, Michigan's got football. That's good. They've got basketball. That's great right now. They got hockey. I think they're the number one team in the country right now in the number one overall seed. For teams like High Point who almost exclusively focus on basketball, that's a different story. High Point was a great story. I picked that upset. I do want credit for that. I picked two upsets actually. I picked high point. What's the other upset that I picked? And I was right. ⁓ I picked VCU over North Carolina. So yay, yay, Makai. Yay, your boy. I do know some stuff. So as it leaves right now on Friday, it is Michigan, Alabama. It is Tennessee, Iowa State. On Thursday, it's Illinois, Houston, Nebraska, Iowa. Friday is also Michigan State, Yukon, Dukes and St. John. And Thursday, it's also Arizona. Arkansas, Purdue, and Texas. Texas is an 11 seed. They're the only double digit seed to make the Sweet 16. People have kind of been complaining that the Cinderella is dead because the only double digit seed to make the Sweet 16 was Texas this year. And in previous years, we had more than that. So a few things I've heard throughout is that they are seeding the teams more accurately than they've been seeded ever before. And also that NIL has spaced the talent. Now Duke isn't getting all the talent, right? Now Carolina is not getting all the talent, is kind of being more spaced out. And the lower men majors aren't necessarily, the guys there aren't staying for four or five years. So you don't have a senior leading team that comes in and beats a bunch of freshmen out of Blue Bud, right? Those seniors, when they're juniors, they get offered from all throughout the country and they go and they go other places. Just take Michigan. Michigan has the actual Lindenburg. Yaxle, Big Ten player of the year, might be national player of the year. We'll see how it plays out. But he was at UAB. If it weren't for NILL and the transfer portal, he'd probably still be at UAB, maybe taking the Blazers to an NCAA tournament. But now he's leading Michigan. Same with Michigan Center, Ademar. He spent two years at UCLA. Now he's over here. Michigan is just a whole bunch of transfer portal guys, right? So NIL has kind of re-spaced things in college basketball, much like they've done in college football. But that's one reason why we don't have the Cinderella. The other reason, from what I'm hearing, is they went to this Kenpom ranking, which is a new ranking system that really dives deep into analytics. And it ranks them better than what the committee used to rank them. And I think, and you see that in the results of the big teams or the higher seeded teams kind of winning because they should. The one example that was given was in previous years, St. Louis, who was a nine seed and lost to Michigan in the second round, based on their resume in previous years, they probably would have been a four or five seed. Well, St. Louis lost by 23 points to the number one seed in Michigan. So if they were a four or five seed, and let's say they got a. ⁓ They got a blue blood like a UCLA a seven seed or a Yukon that slipped at the end, right? I'm not saying or Louie. Let's take Louisville Louisville scored 83 points against South Florida Well, what it happens if Louisville draw st. Louis in the first round right now Now it's a 12-5 matchup and now that technically is an upset, but it wasn't really because they weren't ranked Again, these are just things that I'm seeing of why the Cinderella's going away is because the talent from the small mid majors that would provide the upset in pre and historically is now being plucked by NIL and Transfer Portal. There is still more money at the higher end of college basketball, the Duke, the Carolina, the Kentuckys, right? The Yukons even. and then more accurately seeding. So I'm very excited to see how this all plays out. I'm very nervous for Michigan coming up in the Sweet 16 taking on Alabama. Alabama can score and they can hit a bunch of threes and that's Michigan's one big weakness is when their defense and their threes aren't falling and Yaxle's not getting his shot going, then Michigan becomes very susceptible to teams that shoot a lot of threes in becoming lazy on defense. And then that's when Michigan could get upset by a four seed Alabama. Another thing, I think I talked about this a little bit, but the NCAA did approve changes ⁓ for a one year trial to get rid of the suspension for targeting. For at least one season, a targeting penalty will no longer take a college football player off the field for the following game. So for the 26th season, a player disqualified for targeting for the first time in the season can participate in the following game. The trial rule will apply regardless of which half the the targeting penalty called on. Previous years, 2025, it was targeting the second half. You had to sit out the first half of the next game. Now that is no more. So may stay still take the player off the field for that game in which I talked about what I would like to see the targeting penalty go to. But now the NCAA did something right, made it. And I don't think it should be a rollover in the next game whatsoever. ⁓ So just ⁓ a quick little last thing is an Oklahoma linebacker, Owen Heinecke, is suing the NCAA for 2026 eligibility. He has been preparing for the NFL draft since his waiver and appeal earlier this year was denied by the April. by the NCAA. An emergency hearing for Heinecke's suit has been scheduled for April 16th. The NFL draft is the 23rd. So if he gets drafted, he's automatically ineligible. ⁓ he is suing and again this just goes to the fact that The NCAA has no power and has no foresight. Heinecke's determined claim that Heinecke intended to be a two sport athlete at Ohio State was but what but was denied the opportunity to join the Buckeyes football team in the fall of 2021 semester due to reasons beyond his control citing COVID related disruptions. His recovery from a hip injury suffered in high school and Ohio State deciding not to hold ⁓ walk on football trials in the spring of 2022. At issue in Heineken's waiver request with the NCA was whether the linebacker was denied a participation opportunity with Ohio State in 2021. So he's saying he was denied that chance in 2021. So he should have a former year. Heineken enjoyed a breakout season with the Sooners in 2025, recording 74 tackles and 12 tackles for loss. earning all SEC second team recognition. He participated in the senior bowl and scouting combine and a pro day and is expected to be a late round selection. Therefore, he could make more money in college. ⁓ He is suing to be able to continue eligibility. So this would be probably for a sixth year he is suing for. No foresight, no adult in the room and a Trinidad-Chamberliss won or got an injunction. If this kid gets an injunction, he's probably going to play next year. it's just, with all of these players suing, it's just slowly dwindling the power that the NCAA has. Slowly dwindling, slowly dwindling, slowly dwindling. And we will get to a point where football and the conferences are just going to have to figure it out themselves. So I... can get off my soapbox. It's been a half an hour. I want to thank everyone for being here. enjoy it. If you liked this, don't forget to like and share and subscribe. That's the best way to support this whole podcast is just share it with your family and friends, subscribe. And I hope that I educated you on something you didn't know today. Until next time, everyone. This has been the 4th of 1 podcast. Don't forget to wash your hands because y'all are filthy animals. I'm trying to find the outro music, but I can't find it anywhere. I guess it's right here. So I'm just going to roll with that. And until next time, everyone, God bless. Peace out.