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2023-24 Transfer Portal

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
NCAA went really tight on its policy on a 2nd transfer. Basically, if you're not being abused then you're stuck if you already transferred once. No exceptions for coaching changes or even family illness/ tragedy.

I assume this wouldn't impact graduate transfers, but it might.
 
Unfair labor practice that will get tossed within a year.
That's what I'm thinking.

As a player, I maximize my deal out of HS.

Someone offers me a better deal for my skills if I play there as a soph, so I take it.

Isn't it restraint of trade if I can't do the same thing as a junior?

It's not like I'm operating under a collective bargaining agreement, so I'm an independent actor within a free market by definition. No?
 
I think that 2022-23 was also the last for no limit on initial counters as long as your total count didn't exceed 85.

The adjustment they'd been waiving which goes back into effect is "32 initial counters" - which is 25 prep + JUCO signees and 7 transfer signees.

Grad transfers don't count as initial counters since they're not in the "progress toward degree" calculus, iirc.

This will have a major impact on Coach Prime's strategy for the '24 roster. It will be much more prep focused.
 
That's what I'm thinking.

As a player, I maximize my deal out of HS.

Someone offers me a better deal for my skills if I play there as a soph, so I take it.

Isn't it restraint of trade if I can't do the same thing as a junior?

It's not like I'm operating under a collective bargaining agreement, so I'm an independent actor within a free market by definition. No?
Exactly. The NCAA can act like a cartel (much like the NFL) if it collectively bargains with the players. If it doesn’t want that, then there must be free agency.
 
I think that 2022-23 was also the last for no limit on initial counters as long as your total count didn't exceed 85.

The adjustment they'd been waiving which goes back into effect is "32 initial counters" - which is 25 prep + JUCO signees and 7 transfer signees.

Grad transfers don't count as initial counters since they're not in the "progress toward degree" calculus, iirc.

This will have a major impact on Coach Prime's strategy for the '24 roster. It will be much more prep focused.
The end game here is a players union, and the college will require binding contracts through their scholarships.
 
It isn't saying you can't transfer and receive a scholarship, it just says you won't be immediately eligible to play. Players are free to transfer whenever they want, doesn't mean that they are allowed to play without being in residence for a year.
i view the players as workers and each individual school an employer. The employers can hire who they want and the employees should be able to work for whom they want. The BiG just signed a $7 Billion contract FFS. They can collectively bargain and have rules, or they can choose to not bargain, but then it’s free agency without rules, without collusion. I simply do not understand why anyone thinks it’s fair to make people sit. I don’t have to do this when I leave a job.

Fortunately, the courts have been seeing it my way, and hopefully that pattern continues.
 
Except when you do.

I want to live in your fantasy world where the courts care about the rights of workers.
I am keenly aware of how non competes work. I work in commercial lending, which has been governed by these arrangements for a long time. The success of enforcing them has been a mixed bag in Florida.. I do not live in a fantasy land.

I am personally subject to a non compete and non solicitation agreement. I can go work somewhere else, however. I just can’t go after my existing clients for two years. Also, if they fire me without cause, they owe me two years of salary during my non solicitation period and they have to fully vest all my stock grants. We both have something to lose.
 
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I want to put some context into the discussion on college football players and the benefits they receive. I’ll engage in some back of the napkin math, so please feel free to correct me if I’m off, but I’m really trying to illustrate a larger point than fine tune the math.

First, let’s look at what the NFL collective bargaining agreement provided. According to Wikipedia, the current agreement calls for the players salaries to represent 48.8% of the NFL’s collective revenue.

Now, let’s look at the Big Ten. They just signed a $7 billion media deal for 7 years. We all know this is driven by football, but let’s say Fox and others also get some men and women basketball content too, as the other revenue sports.

So, what do the players get? They get a scholarship for tuition books and fees, room and board, and health insurance. The value on that varies greatly, but let’s use a value of $50,000 per year for out of state tuition, $40,000 for room and board, and $10,000 for insurance for a total of $100,000 per year per scholarship athlete. Walk ons and non revenue sport athletes largely pay their own way, but you do have some partial scholarships and so forth.

Using 85 football, 10 mens basketball, and 10 womens basketball, there are 105 scholarship per schools per year x 16 schools x the $100,000 figure as the scholarship and benefits value. Doing the math, that’s $168,000,000 across the whole Big Ten in benefit to the players. The Big Ten is collecting $1 Billion per year, so that is a 16.8% payout in benefits to the college players, well below the NFL getting close to 50%. I am also not including any secondary revenue from tickets sales, which would likely drive the percentage payout down further.

On top of that, there are these considerations:
>NFL gets cash, not benefits like college players
>NFL gets post retirement benefits after three seasons of play
>The college student must perform on a primary job (football) and then work a 2nd job (school) to realize the benefits
>Colleges routinely funnel players into lesser academic programs to meet goals of job #1 reducing the true benefit of the education
>Colleges and the NFL have created a system where there is no viable alternate to pursue the job of football player without using their unfair system. No minor league and a two year wait after high school to be NFL eligible
>If you look at a an average Big Ten salary pool for head coach and assistants, I imagine that it will be close to $10 million per team, or $160 million per year across the whole conference. Thus, the coaches are receiving almost the same comp as the players collectively at a far lower head count

Anyway, I know this is fuzzy math, but I hope it illustrates my point of how unfair this system has become. I could also go into a whole narrative about why I think the players meet the definition of an employee, but I try not to bore people. And while I’m not a lawyer, I think I usually have sound judgment on these types of issues.
 
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Restraint on players entering the NFL is purely on the NFL and its labor union. The NFL labor union likes this because it restricts new talent from coming in and owners like it to prevent big gambles on kids who frankly are not NFL ready, even the highest rated kid out of high school would be completely overmatched by a 2nd or 3rd year NFL guy, so in some instances this for the players own protection. The fact that there is no minor league (not including the CFL) and very little semi-pro speaks more to the lack of market for football outside of the NFL and NCAA. The NFL dominates because they have the best players. The NCAA exists because of affinity to the individual schools. The question then becomes, what is the value of those players if you remove the schools entirely. If universities would cease to offer football or basketball, what is the value of those players. For 90% of them the value would go to $0. The remaining 10% would have some value in a minor league system, with 1% garnering large contracts based on potential, the rest would be paid like most minor leaguers are, which is basically nothing.

I would like to see the NFL remove the 3 years removed requirement, then let those kids have opportunities. The rest should be happy they get the scholarships and stipends and advanced training. Lets not pretend though that the value of the TV deals is tied to having the best product on the field, it is tied to the number of eyeballs those schools have around the country. CU was the perfect example, ****tiest team in the country, yet still got 40,000 a game attendance. Maybe the value of the average player is slightly above the value of the scholarship and stipend, but it is no where near the %revenue value of the NFL.
 
I want to put some context into the discussion on college football players and the benefits they receive. I’ll engage in some back of the napkin math, so please feel free to correct me if I’m off, but I’m really trying to illustrate a larger point than fine tune the math.

First, let’s look at what the NFL collective bargaining agreement provided. According to Wikipedia, the current agreement calls for the players salaries to represent 48.8% of the NFL’s collective revenue.

Now, let’s look at the Big Ten. They just signed a $7 billion media deal for 7 years. We all know this is driven by football, but let’s say Fox and others also get some men and women basketball content too, as the other revenue sports.

So, what do the players get? They get a scholarship for tuition books and fees, room and board, and health insurance. The value on that varies greatly, but let’s use a value of $50,000 per year for out of state tuition, $40,000 for room and board, and $10,000 for insurance for a total of $100,000 per year per scholarship athlete. Walk ons and non revenue sport athletes largely pay their own way, but you do have some partial scholarships and so forth.

Using 85 football, 10 mens basketball, and 10 womens basketball, there are 105 scholarship per schools per year x 16 schools x the $100,000 figure as the scholarship and benefits value. Doing the math, that’s $168,000,000 across the whole Big Ten in benefit to the players. The Big Ten is collecting $1 Billion per year, so that is a 16.8% payout in benefits to the college players, well below the NFL getting close to 50%. I am also not including any secondary revenue from tickets sales, which would likely drive the percentage payout down further.

On top of that, there are these considerations:
>NFL gets cash, not benefits like college players
>NFL gets post retirement benefits after three seasons of play
>The college student must perform on a primary job (football) and then work a 2nd job (school) to realize the benefits
>Colleges routinely funnel players into lesser academic programs to meet goals of job #1 reducing the true benefit of the education
>Colleges and the NFL have created a system where there is no viable alternate to pursue the job of football player without using their unfair system. No minor league and a two year wait after high school to be NFL eligible
>If you look at a an average Big Ten salary pool for head coach and assistants, I imagine that it will be close to $10 million per team, or $160 million per year across the whole conference. Thus, the coaches are receiving almost the same comp as the players collectively at a far lower head count

Anyway, I know this is fuzzy math, but I hope it illustrates my point of how unfair this system has become. I could also go into a whole narrative about why I think the players meet the definition of an employee, but I try not to bore people. And while I’m not a lawyer, I think I usually have sound judgment on these types of issues.
I do not see how there can be a difference between scholarship and non-scholarship anymore. Anyone within a Sports team organization must be compensated, period. That is how it must be from now on, especially if the walk-on contributes. TV Revenue, Ticket Sales, Concessions, Sponsorships, etc should be utilized for Athlete-Student compensation. Going to school to get a degree is just an employee enhancement strategy.

Truth is a Nuclear Bomb has gone off in College Sports and nobody knows how to pick up the fall out.
 
I do not see how there can be a difference between scholarship and non-scholarship anymore. Anyone within a Sports team organization must be compensated, period. That is how it must be from now on, especially if the walk-on contributes. TV Revenue, Ticket Sales, Concessions, Sponsorships, etc should be utilized for Athlete-Student compensation. Going to school to get a degree is just an employee enhancement strategy.

Truth is a Nuclear Bomb has gone off in College Sports and nobody knows how to pick up the fall out.
I agree that they should also be viewed as employees too.

(My distinction for the walk-on players is that they pay tuition plus room and board, so the benefits don’t even apply to them. They get the worst of all worlds.)
 
Restraint on players entering the NFL is purely on the NFL and its labor union. The NFL labor union likes this because it restricts new talent from coming in and owners like it to prevent big gambles on kids who frankly are not NFL ready, even the highest rated kid out of high school would be completely overmatched by a 2nd or 3rd year NFL guy, so in some instances this for the players own protection. The fact that there is no minor league (not including the CFL) and very little semi-pro speaks more to the lack of market for football outside of the NFL and NCAA. The NFL dominates because they have the best players. The NCAA exists because of affinity to the individual schools. The question then becomes, what is the value of those players if you remove the schools entirely. If universities would cease to offer football or basketball, what is the value of those players. For 90% of them the value would go to $0. The remaining 10% would have some value in a minor league system, with 1% garnering large contracts based on potential, the rest would be paid like most minor leaguers are, which is basically nothing.

I would like to see the NFL remove the 3 years removed requirement, then let those kids have opportunities. The rest should be happy they get the scholarships and stipends and advanced training. Lets not pretend though that the value of the TV deals is tied to having the best product on the field, it is tied to the number of eyeballs those schools have around the country. CU was the perfect example, ****tiest team in the country, yet still got 40,000 a game attendance. Maybe the value of the average player is slightly above the value of the scholarship and stipend, but it is no where near the %revenue value of the NFL.
My responses:

I don’t believe the labor union feels that the draft eligibility rules “restricts new talent from coming in”. It does not. It only delays certain individual players. The crop of players coming out of college is essentially the same every year.

College teams crowd out the minor league. Minor league football would not be anywhere close to the popularity of the college game. We know this from minor league baseball, hockey, basketball, etc. We also know those minor leagues all exist, except in football. College is providing the only pathway.

i agree that the affinity to certain schools does drive attendance. I have local affinity for a lot of things, but that does not allow a company to screw its employees.

The value of the players is what they can negotiate. The college system does not allow them to negotiate. They pass down arbitrary rules to benefit the “owners” alone.

College football is now a $3 billion+ annual enterprise and needs to be treated as a business.
 
College teams crowd out the minor league. Minor league football would not be anywhere close to the popularity of the college game. We know this from minor league baseball, hockey, basketball, etc. We also know those minor leagues all exist, except in football. College is providing the only pathway.

The value of the players is what they can negotiate. The college system does not allow them to negotiate. They pass down arbitrary rules to benefit the “owners” alone.
I would respond that if there were value in a minor league system that paid players, it would exist. There isn't so it doesn't. As it is colleges have baseball and hockey, yet players still opt to forgo college and hit those minor league teams even though the pay is paltry and mostly below the value of college scholarships (even partials that hockey and baseball offer).

Most businesses don't negotiate with their employees, especially those hiring straight out of high school. Colleges are offering scholarships plus stipends in exchange for playing sports. Just because they are making a lot of revenue off of those they get doesn't imply that those they higher somehow deserve a certain % of said revenue. Also when one thinks of the AD as a whole, we must account for all the athletes across all sports. Just like any enterprise, just because one department generates the bulk of the revenue doesn't mean those that work in departments that are cost centers are any less deserving.

If high school football players don't think what universities are offering, no one is forcing them to attend. Maybe they should form there own leagues, or some enterprising individual will, until it fails because they can't afford the insurance, the facilities, the travel, let alone paying the players. I personally know a person that was in ownership of an indoor arena football team, and they don't make jack ****. They barely pay the players anything and still can't make a decent profit.
 
A lot of 4 Star guys go to college and find out they weren't really 4 Star guys. Juggling the transfer portal and figuring out who is legit and who is a JAG is going to be incredibly difficult going forward.
 
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