July 10, 2025 • 44 mins
Understanding the SCORE Act: The Future of College Sports?
Join Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr on this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast as they dive deep into a proposed bi-partisan bill in Congress called the SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsement Act). The hosts discuss the implications of this bill on the future of college sports, including athlete compensation, NIL deals, agent fees, and the potential impact on Olympic sports programs. Tune in for an in-depth analysis of how this legislation could shape the landscape of college athletics.
00:00 Introduction and Banter
01:11 Discussing the SCORE Act
05:47 Political Challenges and Implications
08:17 Debating Athlete Rights and NIL
13:01 Potential Outcomes and Legal Hurdles
20:45 Transfer Rules and Stability in College Sports
22:57 Eligibility Standards and JUCO Loopholes
25:48 Agent Compensation and Athlete Deals
28:52 Academic Support and Healthcare for Athletes
32:45 Maintaining Varsity Sports Teams
35:39 Media Rights Revenue and Student Fees
39:23 NIL Deals and University Codes of Conduct
43:03 Final Thoughts and Optimism
Join Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr on this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast as they dive deep into a proposed bi-partisan bill in Congress called the SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsement Act). The hosts discuss the implications of this bill on the future of college sports, including athlete compensation, NIL deals, agent fees, and the potential impact on Olympic sports programs. Tune in for an in-depth analysis of how this legislation could shape the landscape of college athletics.
00:00 Introduction and Banter
01:11 Discussing the SCORE Act
05:47 Political Challenges and Implications
08:17 Debating Athlete Rights and NIL
13:01 Potential Outcomes and Legal Hurdles
20:45 Transfer Rules and Stability in College Sports
22:57 Eligibility Standards and JUCO Loopholes
25:48 Agent Compensation and Athlete Deals
28:52 Academic Support and Healthcare for Athletes
32:45 Maintaining Varsity Sports Teams
35:39 Media Rights Revenue and Student Fees
39:23 NIL Deals and University Codes of Conduct
43:03 Final Thoughts and Optimism
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony Gerdaman here
as always with Tom or Tom. How's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to cea span where we talk about Congress, and
we're going to talk a lot about Congress. And I
can't wait to talk about Congress and more than that, Tony,
you know what I can't wait for people trying to
psychoanalyze what are exact specific political beliefs based are based
on this conversation about the future of college sports? Tony,
(00:32):
who's your favorite president? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I want to start dropping some nineteen ninety three McLachlan
group skits from SNL on here, Dana, you got it.
I was actually just watching some of those the other day.
Popped up on my TikTok. Yep, TikTok. I'm old. Anyway, Yes,
we are talking politics, and we all have a favorite president.
We all have multiple favorite presidents, especially if you're a
(00:58):
fan of an entire family, because why can't you have
multiple people in the same family be the most powerful
man in the universe. Anyway, Tom, let's start this show
over now. We are discussing something that Ross Allinger is reporting.
Ross Dollinger from Yahoo Sports the preliminary, the pre eminent
(01:19):
number one college sports reporter out there. I recommend everybody
give him a follow Ross Ellinger on Twitter. But he
is reporting that we're just gonna read. It's a whole
tweet thread. We're going to read the tweets. We'll go
through them and talk about him and get you all
cut up. But if you want to follow along, you
can follow along at Ross Dollinger on Twitter. The first
week starts. Members of the US House are planning as
soon as Thursday, which is the day we're recording this,
(01:42):
to introduce an amended college sports bill and a parentheses
the Score Act. Sources tell Yahoo Sports. They opposed by
many Democrats. The Act is on track to progress further
than any all encompassing athlete compensation legislation. This kind of
went through some preliminary things a few weeks ago to
a month or so ago or a couple of months ago,
(02:03):
and it was basically, as far as I remember, like
the Republicans were doing it and basically the Democrats were
locked out, which is a great way to start, and
it's a great way to not get what you want
in the end. But the bill, which tom as we
said it's the Score Act. But this Act may be
cited as the Student Compensation and Opportunity Through Rights and
(02:26):
Endorsement Act, or the Score Act. Actually tom that, if
we're gonna be precise, it's the SCA O tree A Act.
So it's I think Greek basically is the language of origin.
But in reality, what this does is what a lot
of college football fans want it to do, which is
(02:48):
and I'll just go to the next week. The the Act,
an amended version obtained by iox Sports Code, kindifies the
settlement the House Settlement, grants liability protection, preempt state and
I L laws, which have been a thworn in the
side of this whole thing, and includes an anti employ
employment clause, which players don't really want employment from, at
(03:09):
least what they've been saying previously. In schools don't want
it either, and it brings regulation to agents and requires
schools to provide athlete degree completion and postgrad healthcare. I
say it has done a lot of the postgraduate or
the athlete degree completion. I'm not sure how much of
the postgraduate health care they're in on. But really this
is the main gist of it, and we'll start there.
(03:34):
That we've said here on the show before that, back
when this was being an issue before the House maybe
like well before the house settlement, but when all when
all of the legal stuff started, Congress told members of
Congress told the NCAA like, we will help you, We're
not going to save you. Now this is onto the
(03:55):
helping port part, I think, but it's still early.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's still early, and you know, I think the fact
that a lot of this sort of settles around where
that house settlement is is a pretty good indication of
what you just said that they're going to help but
not save. But they can. They can take the structure
that the NCAA reached and that the theory the judge
(04:22):
signed off on in that case, and can use that
as sort of a structure to build this. Will this
make everyone happy? Absolutely not. There are thousand different groups
here and you cannot serve everyone. The football players who
generate most of the money are going to say, you
can't restrict my earnings at all. And if you restrict
(04:45):
that my earnings at all, then that takes money away
from you know, if you don't restrict my earnings, then
that takes money away from the Olympic sports. The women's sports.
It creates total nine issues. It's just there's no way
to make everyone happy. And there's also because of just
the nature of college sports and the emotional ties that
people have to college boards, there is never going to
(05:06):
be any kind of restriction. People are always gonna be
looking for a way around it that state legislators can
looking for ways around nil rules and all that kind
of stuff. So this is this is going to have
to if there is some kind of an agreement here
and everyone can sort of hold hands in sing kumbaya,
which has happened so many times recently in Washington, d C.
(05:27):
But if you can get to that point, you still
you know, this will still probably at some point be
challenged in court because someone's not going to be happy
with it. And we have seen that stuff. Going to
court is a great way to make headway against the NCAA.
How successful will it be? Great question. Let's even see
if this gets through Congress.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
First, I'll we'll move on here. In second, I get
annoyed at the people who are like, yeah, this isn't
going to solve everything, so so should we not even bother,
like should we not take the incremental steps? Like why
even try if this isn't going to be like if
everybody's not going to be happy, Like no, the people
(06:10):
who say that have no concerns about whether other people
are happy. They only care about whether they're happy for
the most part. So it's like, yeah, this isn't just
if it makes everybody happy. I don't know how you
did it. It's impossible. So if it makes it so
that everybody can coexist and find their own happiness, I
guess then that's a step towards progress. And I get
(06:35):
annoyed at the like, well, this isn't going to fix
it all right away, so why even bothers like nothing
is going to fix it all right away. The House
settlement didn't fix it all right away. That was one step.
This is the next step, and then eventually you're you're
able to like breathe for a few years, which is
I think all people want right now. So then the
next tweet from from Ross and this series of tweets
(06:56):
the Act originating from three committees as a chance to
swiftly move through and onto a Republican controlled House floor,
which is not insignificant. There'll be two built markups, which
are serious steps, and wrote to the floor or planned
for this month, though many hurdles remain in its passage
through the House. The acts biggest hurdle lies in the
divided US Senate at one of the more divisive times
in American history. What and where philibuster rules require the
(07:19):
support of sixty senators. The Senate has fifty three Republicans.
So this is where we get into politics, because you're
gonna have to find seven Democrats. Basically, assuming all fifty
three Republicans would sign off, you can have to find
what like the seven Democrats that are going to be
okay with this, which means you got to give them
something or just let them be involved. And because when
(07:42):
we talk about this, people are like, well, what are
the issues? And I'll play a video here in a
bit talking about the issues. In the preliminary version of
this was that it's all about restricting the student athlete,
and it's restricting what they can get. Now, we look
at all of the stuff that they get it we're like,
how are they restricted? But in some viewpoints they are.
(08:05):
The thought that all of these steps are about restricting
what a player, a student athlete can earn. So that's
that's going to be an issue. But Tom, this is
where you got to get into the politics of it, right.
You've got to find people that you can bring over.
And as I mentioned on the buckehead a message board
presented by Jeffreyby's clubus like, this is where you promise
(08:27):
somebody a bridge in their district. This is where you know,
somebody gets you know, money for a courthouse, like whatever
it takes. These are the things that you know have
to get done well.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And you know, I have not done a real deep
dive on this on where the forty seven Democratic senators
are from, but I would wager that you probably have
some of them in states where there are major college
sports folks and major's college sports programs. I'm going to
guess some of the new Big ten states probably have
(09:02):
Democratic senators. On the West coast, you know, the University
of Washington, the University of Oregon, USC UCLA, they are
probably all going to be kind of lobbying for this
and pushing for this. So, you know, I think there's
there's some hope that you're going to have a little
bit of a bipartisanship here with or without new bridges.
(09:23):
Sometimes it does take new bridges, but you know, you
could you could potentially see some movement there. A lot
of this, though, is going to come in that those
markup step that you mentioned, where you're you're going through
and you're tweaking stuff and you're adding stuff, and you know,
I'll tell you what, why don't we play that clip
right now from the the congresswoman from Massachusetts just listing
(09:45):
some of the stuff. And this is this is from
an earlier portion of the process. So this is like
a preliminary thing a little while ago. So this is
not all exactly one hundred percent true now, but this
is this is sort of like if you're going to
take the opposite side, you know, this is this is
a bad thing. This is kind of what that argument
(10:05):
sounds like.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Mister whom, I'd like for you to indulge me for
a moment. I'm going to describe a few provisions of
this bill, and I want to tell I would love
for you to tell me in your expert opinion, whether
each one strengthens or restricts the rights of college athletes.
You can simply respond with strengthen or restrict, So we
get through it. First, A blanket antitrust exemption for the
(10:27):
NC DOUBLEA and conferences that eliminates athletes' ability to sue
over eligibility NIL and compensation rules. Restricts a provision banning
college athletes from ever being permitted to collectively bargain, regardless
of their sport or the revenue they generate. Restricts language
allowing schools or the nc douablea to block in IL
(10:50):
deals that conflict with existing contracts. Restricts a preemption of
all state in IL laws, even those that currently expand
and protect athletes. Right restricks, Thank you, mister Huma. So,
from what I'm hearing, this bill imposes significant new restrictions
on college athletes. But let's look at what, if anything,
(11:10):
it gives them in return. Mister Huma, If in your
reading of the legislation, does it strengthen Title nine enforcement
to ensure more women can play college sports or ensure
that they benefit fairly from the House Settlement?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Does it include any provisions to help international athletes like
Alex Condon, who helped lead the Chairman's beloved Florida Gators
to a men's basketball title this year, access their NIL rights.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So I just want to get this straight. This committee
is considering a bill that would constrain or roll back
athlete rights, block further progress, and give them little in return.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Correct, All right, so that was again that was an
earlier version of this. But I think you're hearing some
of the you know, some of the anti side of this.
So within all of that, there also is an opportunity
for Okay, you know she's talking about women, opportunities for
female athletes. Well, maybe maybe this does you know, maybe
(12:11):
this can be amended or tweet to provide some of that.
This is no one is going to get everything they
want because it is literally impossible for everyone to get
what they want, but it is you know, this is
at least Tony call me, call me a crazy optimist,
call me a mister Smith goes to Washington, crazy eyed optimist, Tony.
(12:31):
I think those clowns in Congress may be able to
find some common ground here if they are willing to try,
Because I think if you listen to a lot of
the stuff that she was listing in terms of you know,
this stuff, this stuff that's being restricted right now, This
was stuff that four years ago, five years ago, there
was no right to a lot of this stuff. You know, Well,
(12:51):
they're they're earning potentials being being capped here, well, their
earning potential was zero before, so you're you've seen significant,
significant progress the last few years. But also if it
continues in the way that it is right now and
it becomes totally unregulated, that that's going to cause major
issues and you're probably going to see a lot of
(13:12):
other areas where people, you know, you want to talk
about the loss of you know, the loss of opportunities
for female athletes or something like that. You know, one
of the things in this in this proposal is that
each school will be required to have sixteen scholarship sports.
If you don't have that requirement on there, there are
probably going to be school that dump a whole bunch
(13:32):
of their non rev sports, of their Olympic sports, and
you know, you do whatever you need to require, you know,
stay in compliance with Title nine, but there's no guarantee
that you keep you know, sixteen revenue sports. Ohio State
has thirty six right now, but there are plenty of
schools go through a lot of schools in the South,
and there's a lot of schools that are kind of
at that sixteen kind of level right now. So ultimately
(13:57):
there's probably going to be a lot of yelling and
a lot of hair pulling, a lot of you know,
a lot of mad tweets and all that stuff. But
it does feel like this is something that it doesn't
have to be this bill, but ultimately there is probably
going to have to be something like this to really
provide some guardrails because you know, yes, it's it's something
(14:19):
that is would you know this is better than students
had several years ago. I also look at this right
now and go, you know, NCAA, if you had just
done this five ten years ago, everyone would have said
this is incredible, what a generous offer, and you know
this is and you probably would have had zero issues
(14:40):
with people looking at this and go, oh, this is
overly restrictive. But they didn't do it. There was no foresight.
It was just kind of, well, you know, we'll just
keep going until some court tells us we can't. And
now a bunch of courts have told you can't, and
now you're at the point where it's like, well what
about this.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well, and we've said it before. Once the house case
got there and you have a judge looking at it
and she's like, we're not dealing in the land of
make believe like college sports has been running in for
fifteen in the last fifty years or so, like I
want legitimate answers and legitimate you know reasons why and
(15:18):
when those reasons aren't great, then it's like, Okay, well,
let's let's fix this. And now we're in the middle
of that. The next tweet in this the bill prohibits
athlete compensation that may put schools over the new rev
share cap, which is twenty point five million and requires
all NIL deals sold a valid business purpose and aligned
(15:39):
with NIL goes fair market value compensation range and the
College Sports Commission's anti circumvention rules. This tweet to me
is one that all of the schools like Ohio State
and in Texas who's been like sitting back on the
NIL stuff, like yes, let's get real rules in here.
(16:00):
And the whole valid business purpose, I think is something
that was the original intent of NIL and so this
gets us back to that, and a lot of this
gets us back to some of the way things were,
but in the way they were intended to be rather
than the way they've become. So yes, and that way
(16:22):
it's regressive, But if it's regressing to do regressing to
do what you what the intention was, and that the
original intention was very progressive. Like I think it's okay
to say no, these are still good steps, but a
lot of people are gonna view them as backwards steps
because you're taking something away from people. And yet this
(16:45):
doesn't really ban what a player can make. It's just
they have to make it in a certain way. And
if if Sex's Tech is going to give a kid
one point five million dollars, they're going to need one
point five million dollars worth of activity from work from
him basically, although not employees, but in terms of the
(17:05):
it says the quote, the quote is valid business purpose.
So I think a lot of people really really love
this part, and I'm one of them. I think this
is really what the intended. The whole intention of NIL
is pretty much summarized in this tweet right here.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, this is this is kind of putting a little
bit of a legal framework around what they set out
to do initially four years ago. The challenge with all
of this stuff is there are always going to be
people who are going to be pushing the envelope, and
in previous decades, those were, you know, one hundred dollars
handshakes and McDonald's bags full of cash and gold trans
(17:47):
ams and that kind of stuff that was sort of
under the table. Now it's a little more above the table.
But it's really stretching the stretching the limits of what
the intentions of the initial thing were. And I don't
I am not a law talking guy. I got an
A in my only law class, but that was media law,
so I can tell you all about libelous headlines and
(18:10):
things like that. I am not quite as well versed
on the commerce clause or restraint of trade. But I
know those are phrases I have heard before, and I
know those are phrases I will probably hear if and
when this thing passes from people who are representing Cody
what's his name at Texas Tech or probably some some
you know, hot shot football player in a year or
(18:32):
two who wants to earn more money. And here's the thing,
it's not even that they're necessarily wrong, Like I would
be annoyed if Congress passed the law that would limit
the amount of money that I can earn to do,
you know, to do my work. It's not like there's
an alternate pro pro football league that these guys can
go too straight out of high school. So I get it.
(18:54):
I see the other side of this. It's just I
do I do not know if this is to get
through Congress, and if it does, I do not know
if it will stand up two courts. It's this is
just one of these things where like you said, I
think the intention here is good. I think there is
a greater good argument for the future of college athletics,
and that will benefit a lot of other people. But
(19:18):
I you know, that does not necessarily guarantee that all
of this will hold up in court. If it does
come to that time.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You got an a in your one court, one court class.
I believe I've mentioned here before that I think in
the fourth grade we had a mock trial and I
was the attorney for the dad of the three bears
who was being sued by Goldilocks for a burn from
the hot porridge. And of course it's like.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Well, she broke the tony, she broke it house.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Right, and I lost the case. Now, I the only
I had more, I had more jury jurors on my side.
And again these are nine year old jurors, so you know,
and so so like, if this had been yes, it
was a jury of my peers. But come on, who
(20:11):
are you talking about a bunch of idiots? But I
think the the whole this is what people want. This
is not what lawyers want and so and this is
not what agents want. But nothing says hey, if you
don't go go earn one point five million from Adidas
(20:31):
or from Joe's crabshack. See if you can get that
without playing college football, though, And if you can't, then like,
well maybe maybe maybe you might just want to play
by the rules that are in place. And and we'll see.
But the next set in the next tweet here, the
act authorizes an association, such as the NCAA or the
(20:52):
College Sports Commission, to require athletes to disclose deals and
aggregate and share publicly, animate and anonymize data of those deals. Important.
The bill allows establishment of a one time transfer rule
and eligibility standards, which are both under legal attack. The
one time transfer rule again, coaches want this. I think
(21:17):
a lot of people would like it. The it's going
to be hard to get back to that though. I
think that might be something. Maybe it's a two time
or something. But one time. After we're seeing guys play
with five different schools getting back to a one time
transfer rule, I do how much do coaches want that?
Do you think a lot of coaches like to be
(21:39):
able to just boot players or is it more about like,
if they've already transferred, then I'm golden with them, and
then if I want to get rid of them, I can,
and then then they can have their waiver. Do you
think that's Do you think we're going back to a
one time transfer rule?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, I would say that based on the fact that
this is in here, I think that's something that probably
there's a decent chunk of the coaching community that probably
does favor that. Just stability is something that I think
everyone in college sports is seeking in every possible way
right now, and a one time transfer rule would certainly
provide more stability, and you wouldn't have guys, you know
(22:19):
what percentage of college basketball rosters are turning over every year?
This year, it feels like minimally fifty percent of every
college basketball rosters turning over every year, and so for
you know, for football, it's not quite that percentage, but
it's pretty darn high. In a lot of cases. This
is one where you could go back ten years and
say if you came to college players and said you
(22:41):
will get a one time transfer without having to sit
out the year in residence, which was the old rule.
Everyone would have taken that with a big smile on
their face and thanked you for the opportunity. And now
you're in a spot where you've got guys on there,
you know, I mean, what's TJ. Finley? Is he on
his sixth school?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Now?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I think maybe it just, you know, you just hop
somewhere new every year, and so now it's kind of
you're trying to kind of close the door the barn
doors after the horse is out to a certain degree.
But I think that's true kind of everything in here.
So I don't know that. I think that's less likely
than anything else, the eligibility standards. When they talk about
(23:20):
eligibility standards. That's kind of the Diego Pavia thing where
he lent to the NC Double A and said, well,
you don't You're not in charge of Jucos, so therefore
Juco doesn't count as college football, So therefore my years
at JUCO don't count. So now I can play another
two years at Vanderbilt, And the NC DOUBLEA just kind
of went, yeah, man, we don't have any more time
to spend in the courtroom, So yeah, go ahead and
(23:41):
just do that. I guess, I don't know. And they're
just kind of trying to find some parameters there as
well to sort of return you to whatever the standard
is five years to play for for everyone, or you know,
maybe you get an extra year if you have you
have a medical whatever, you know, maybe more a little
bit more of a return to the older system, which again,
(24:04):
like that that's none of this is unreasonable, but a
lot of this just feels like schools trying to kind
of put guardrails back up after they've you know, both
players and teams have kind of tried to find any
possible way to sneak through there.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The the eligibility standards thing, you know, with you're eventually
if you don't have this in there, you're gonna have
somebody that is going to sue to stay indefinitely. Basically.
And when people will say you can't restrict earnings from
it's it's it's not legal to restrict earnings. It's like
of college players earnings are being restricted by telling players
(24:43):
that they can only be there for five years, you know,
and so and then that's accepted. We accept that. So
why so obviously we accept that you can restrict earnings
in some fashion because eventually those earnings have to run out.
You've got to get out of here, you got to go.
And nobody has necessarily challenged that portion of it. They've
challenged the the the the the JUCO thing. And but
(25:04):
in terms of like, yeah, I've been at Ohio State
five years, played four of those years. I'm not ready
to go yet. I'm I'm gonna sue and then you know,
I don't necessarily have to play at Ohio State, but
you know, you can't tell me that I can't continue
to earn money from college the year like. But that's
what that four that that four rule, that four year rule,
(25:25):
five year rule is. And so this would again, as
you said, just basically eliminate the JUCO thing, and then
also whatever thing would come after that, because people are
gonna look for like, you know what, let's just try it,
and maybe the NCAA will have some fatigue and be
like whatever. And then and then the danger there is
(25:45):
that you've you've established precedent and the the next tweet
here and perhaps one of the more crucial concepts, the
Act places parameters and requirements around agents, most notably limiting
agent compensation to five percent of a total athlete deal.
Coaches told Yahoo Sports this week from Big ten, Big
twelve media days, the agents are often charging ten to
(26:07):
twenty percent, and that is no surprise that you're seeing
agents trying to oh, this is terrible. This is you know,
you're restricting. You're restricting. Agents are being restricted. And so
the fact that you had Felix Ojo, five star offensive
tackle his agent was making the the the media rounds
(26:30):
last week and this week talking about the deal that
he signed with with Whos Texas Tech and that some
of the details are like, well, if if we have
to follow the rules, it's like a one point three
million dollars deal. If we don't, it's five point one.
(26:50):
I don't what world is this that we're existing at.
And then the agent, of course is like, I sure
hope it's the one where where we get five point one,
because you know that's that's a million dollars for me
right there.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, to to quote the great Stringer Bell, are you
taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? Like, well, if we
are allowed to continue to flaunt through rules as we
love to like, oh boy, that is really saying the
quiet part out loud there. But yeah, yeah, I think
as you know, sort of quickly as this has sort
(27:25):
of like all happened and all come together, I don't
think it's a huge surprise that there are probably some
somewhat unscrupulous folks in this area kind of gouging people
and charging significantly more than maybe they would from a
you know, under a normal basis. I mean most most
most athlete contracts like pro athletes is what like maybe
(27:45):
five percent something like that. It's not yeah, it's not
it's not that much. So yeah, if you're paying your
agent twenty percent, that's uh, that is that is quite
a chunk to be to be handing over. So yeah,
that this is this is one of those things where
you know, we're going to get to some stuff that
does help you know, is sort of on the pro
(28:06):
athlete side of things. This is definitely one of those
things where if you could help sort of rain in
some of those bad actors who are you know, I
don't want to say praying on these on these uh
these students, but they're you know, it's it's uh, you know,
you have you have people who are probably not the
most scrupulous and are perhaps taking some advantage of folks
(28:28):
who maybe are in doing this for the first time
in something of an unregulated area. This is this is
a pro from the athlete side of things.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So payday loan agent basically uh, And then you wonder
if it goes knocked down to five percent max. Then
our agent's less aggressive in just being a thorn in
the side of the entire process. The next week. The
Act requires schools to provide athletes with certain levels of
(28:56):
academic support and out of pocket healthcare for accellent athletes
than three years of leaving school, and schools are not
permitted to cut scholarships for injury or performance in a
long time. That's say long time Democrat requests in any bill.
This is something some of this Ohio state has done
in terms of you can come back whenever and get
your degree. They were one, I think one of the
(29:17):
first to do that, maybe the first big schools to
do that. It's becoming more in vogue. It's becoming more
than norm it's something you can sell in recruiting. I
think the idea of the healthcare for a few years
after leaving school makes complete sense, and that is that's
some advocacy for the athletes. And we've seen many, many
(29:39):
times over the last twenty years where kids just you
get hurt, you're off the team, and you're now those
players also got to keep those scholarships for the most part,
but I guess at times maybe they didn't. You're not
permitted to cut scholarships for performance is something that's like
kind of always been but you know, wink wink. But
(30:03):
the thing is like if players aren't playing, they generally
leave anyway. So like that doesn't really do much for me.
But the idea that you know, this would just put
into law that you're gonna have you're gonna have the
ability to go back to school, and you're gonna have
some healthcare, I think makes complete sense.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, this is stuff that you know, this is this
is where you're maybe kind of reaching across the aisle
a little bit, because it feels like the first five
or six of these tweets that we were talking about,
we're all, this is exactly what the schools would want.
And now you're sort of getting into with the agent
restrictions and you're getting into some of the stuff with
here's what the schools have to give back. You're getting
into a little bit of the Okay, what do the
(30:43):
athletes get out of all of this? And while it
is easy to sort of point to the real high
profile players and go you're restricting their earnings, the vast,
vast majority of college athletes are going to benefit much
more from something like this than they would from completely
unrestricted earnings. You're a softball player, or you're a you know,
(31:03):
just okay basketball men's basketball player, or anyone like that.
Even the vast majority of football players, you know, across
one hundred and thirty what four teams, one hundred and
thirty six FC FBS teams. Now, the vast majority of
those players, on the vast majority of those rosters are
going to be helped way, way more by this than
they are by an unrestricted amount of earnings. You think, everyone,
(31:28):
if you're an Ohio State fan right now, you're thinking,
what about all the you know, naming naming down all
the players who might see less money that they're the
exception not the rule in most cases. So you know,
this is this is something that might impact the high,
high level Ohio State players in a negative way in
terms of earnings to a certain degree, but stuff like
this is going to benefit the vast majority of other
(31:52):
other I really don't want to use the word student
athletes because that was the NCAA's terma da kaka is.
I believe the term of art there that they use
to sort of get around calling them employees or getting
you know, acknowledging that there was any sort of a
other relationship there other than people who are going to
school and just happen to be playing sports. But yeah,
(32:14):
the athletes are getting a lot more out of this,
the vast majority of them out of this provision that
you're talking about. Then there would be losing in terms
of higher level earnings.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And as I scroll through, I don't know that Ross
Allenser has used the word student fit at all. He
just says athletes. Yeah, hey, these kids still go to school,
all right now? They do. The next one here is
as a and one of the more interesting concepts, do
you got some time?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I was just gonna I had it in front of me.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So in one of the more interesting concepts, the Act
requires schools to maintain sixteen varsity sports teams, which so
happens to be the FBS minimum of sports, likely a
way to protect various Olympic programs under threat of elimination
and a new revshare era. And this is something that
you alluded to earlier, where if you've got to spend
fifteen million dollars on football and you do, then you're
(33:08):
not going to have the money to spend on other places.
Or you know, we've seen schools are already cutting programs,
cutting teams or maybe turning them to club teams or
maybe like yes, they're there, but the amount of funding
that they're going to get. If you don't have one
sugar Daddy per sport, you know, then you know, good
(33:28):
luck funding that sport. This at least makes them stay
serious enough. And so I think this is another one
where some of these to me feel like there's been
some negotiation. The previous one in terms of the healthcare
and the academic that's something that Democrats have always pushed
(33:49):
four bills like these, so maybe maybe that's been one
of the gives there from the Republicans. But this, again,
this is a good faith and a a a gesture
that it's not like you need to continue to do
good by as many athletes as you can.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and you know this is also something that I'm
sure the US Olympic Committee is lobbying for because you
got to remember, yeah, you they have you know, football
develops for the NFL and basketball develops for the NBA.
But you know, the US Olympic soccer team comes largely
from guys either you know, either you go straight to
the two mls or you go through the Olympic soccer
(34:34):
program or the college soccer programs and women's women's soccer
and gymnastics. Those guys are those guys and girls are
all pretty much Olympic or college athletes. You know, a
lot of them are LSU or u c l A
gymnasts who you see it competing in in the Olympics.
(34:54):
So you know, the Olympic Committee, that's a you know
that that is also a pretty big business that is
based on not having to pay for a lot of
the development there isn't you know, there is an Olympic
development program and all that kind of stuff, but you know,
the funnel to get up there a lot of that
runs through college and high level college programs. So that's
that's a big, big deal from the Olympic side of things.
(35:16):
So it's you know, this is not only something that
is probably beneficial in terms of just keeping as many
people inside the tent as you can and having really positive,
you know, a positive impact on as many people as
you can in this in this bill, it's also really
beneficial from the Olympic side of things.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
The second to last one here another interesting one. Here,
schools that earn at least fifty million dollars annually in
media rights revenue are not permitted to use student fees
to support their athletic programs, a concept that would chiefly
impact schools in the Big ten and the SEC. And
I was thinking back, I thought, I heard like Tennessee
(35:57):
was going to do something like this where there was
a ten percent talent fee on ticket purchases and single
game tickets and so like would have to come off
of student tickets. You know that that sort of thing,
or you know sometimes the just the general school whatever,
the whatever, the tuition is like, well, you know, four
(36:20):
hundred dollars of that's going to go to nil. And
this would kind of just be like, you got enough money,
you don't need to force students to pay for for
what you already have. It's kind of like whenever you
go to a Walmart or whatever and you pay and
they're like, would you like to round up and contribute money.
It's like, that's all money that Walmart has promised to
give to charities, and by you rounding up, you're just
(36:43):
you're paying that portion for Walmart. This is something where
stop making the students round up.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, and this is something that shows up on your bill.
I just was trying to pull this up right now.
I remember before Rutgers came to the Ohio, came to
the Big Ten that Rutgers was this is like twenty thirteen,
but Rutgers was famous for having like the highest student
athletic fees in the country, And it's like, what exactly
are you getting for your student athletic fees at Rutgers.
(37:13):
But you know there, I just pulled up an article
from Minding the Campus, which is a blog, and they
did a study on a bunch of different schools and
how much this is. And like, at the University of Virginia,
the mandatory intercollegiate athletic fee is seven hundred and twenty
dollars per year. At Virginia Tech it's three hundred and
(37:34):
eighty four dollars per year. You know, it's that it's
like Okay, that doesn't sound like that much money. But
remember how many people are taking out student loans. So
now you're paying you know, that's part of your student fees.
That's just part of your tuition that you're mailing in. Well,
it's not nineteen ninety six anymore. You're probably paying it
online anyway, You're that's part of your student fees in
(37:55):
part of you know, part of your tuition every quarter,
every semester. And you might be paying student loan fees
on top of that. You might be paying interest on
your student activity fees for the next thirty years as
you're trying to pay off your student loans all to
fund Virginia football. Like, what are we doing here? Gang? Really,
(38:17):
what are we doing? And this is a great way
to you know, if you have to do it, and
you have to do it at a smaller school to
fund some of that stuff, and it's an important part
of the student experience, and YadA, YadA, YadA whatever. That's fine.
But schools that earn at least fifty million dollars annually
in media rights revenue, like you shouldn't. You have plenty
of money coming in. You do not need to be
(38:37):
soaking the students for more money right now. And that's
true of the schools that are just barely at that level.
That's really right now. That's going to mostly impact the
Big ten and the SEC. But any kind of broader
expansion of those conferences that's going to bring more folks
into that tent. You're presumably probably going to see Big
twelve and ACCTV media revenues going up at some point,
(39:00):
and they may fall under that as well. But yeah,
if you are a Big ten or SEC school, you
should not be soaking your students for that money. And
if you can't afford to run an athletic department without
douging your own students, maybe you should run a smaller
athletic department or at a lower level.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
And this one also feels this rule of this request
kind of feels bipartisan as well. And then the last
one here, the Act permits schools to restrict athlete nil
deals if they violate the university's code of contact or
conflict with any existing school agreement, such as an athlete
(39:38):
striking a deal with Nike while playing for an Adida school. Now,
this is something that was originally supposed to be a
rule where a Nike school like a like Jeremiah Smith
just signed with a Dida. So Highest State is a
Nike school. And the original way this was done two
(39:58):
or three years ago, players not have been permitted to
sign deals with an opposing brand, and but also players
were not allowed to participate in any add or commercial
with logos on them either. But what happens is if
one school allows it, then it becomes a recruiting tool,
(40:20):
so everybody eventually has to allow it. So this one
the Act permits schools to restrict death the nil deals.
Do you think Ohio State's gonna tell Jeremia Smith you
can't do Adidas Like, I mean, good luck. I mean
tell the guy that you know you you've worked so
hard to land, Like you know what, why don't you
stay with Nike and they'll give you forty percent less?
(40:42):
But it would be really good because we'd Nike school.
It's like, yeah, the word permit is going to do
a lot of work here. I don't expect any of
that to It's not gonna help the schools. It's only
gonna harm them in recruiting because not everybody's gonna follow
those and so then school kids are going to go
where they have more freedom, and this all over all
these restrictions out they're being put upon, This one, I
(41:06):
feel is a restriction that isn't even gonna matter in
the end.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right, yeah, this is this is a you can do that.
But then it doesn't take very long for Jeremiah Smith
to say, Okay, well, then how much am I getting
from the Nike deal? And the answer is none? And
then the answer as well, okay, why not? And you know,
Nike what is what? You know, Nike gets a little
bit of something out of having Ohio State players be
(41:32):
their brand ambassadors. But you already have them wearing Nike jerseys,
Nike shoes, Nike gloves, Nike whatever on the on the
football field every Saturday, So you already have them associated
with your brand. So it's not that beneficial to have
that as an added thing where you're you know, and
(41:53):
now we're also paying you to do this commercial like
you can maybe, I mean, you can do that, but
it just doesn't feel like that's gonna be worth it
for Nike to pay full boat there. I do think
it's relatively interesting that, you know, most of Phil Knight's
most of the places where Phil Knight has decided it
was worth investing in athletes have been athletes at Oregon,
(42:14):
which tells you that maybe it's not really as much
about the athlete as it or the you know, the
actual value provided there as it is about Hey this
helps Oregon.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Well, yes, for sure. And then also Jeremiah Smith wants
to sign with the Didas Ohio State's like, no, we're
a Nike school. So Jeremiah Smith's like, okay, I'll go
to an Adida school. You know it's an Adida school Miami,
you know where he's from, South Florida. Like you're going
to chase somebody away back home to a place that
they're familiar with. I don't just don't see it happening.
(42:47):
Like I said, that's what they originally wanted, and they
found pretty quickly like this isn't gonna work because not
everybody's going to comply and complying with this. I just
don't see schools doing that. So there you go. I
thought we needed to really explore the room on this one.
I am with you, Tom, I'm a positive. I'm an
optimistic person in this regard because one this kind of
(43:09):
has to happen. But also to Tom, I grew up with.
My president was Dave right the movie Dave. If you
can't be optimistic about the United States government after watching
Dave from nineteen ninety four, perhaps then you just you
just don't have it in you. So I recommend everybody
(43:30):
this weekend go watch Dave. Have some optimism in your
hearts that the government can save America's great game. Because
if the government can't do it, nobody can, is that, right, tom?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
If we can't rely on those clones in Congress, Tony,
who can we rely on the eternal question?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
It's just ourselves. We are doomed. So there you go.
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talk to you guys later.
Hello, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony Gerdaman here
as always with Tom or Tom. How's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to cea span where we talk about Congress, and
we're going to talk a lot about Congress. And I
can't wait to talk about Congress and more than that, Tony,
you know what I can't wait for people trying to
psychoanalyze what are exact specific political beliefs based are based
on this conversation about the future of college sports? Tony,
(00:32):
who's your favorite president? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I want to start dropping some nineteen ninety three McLachlan
group skits from SNL on here, Dana, you got it.
I was actually just watching some of those the other day.
Popped up on my TikTok. Yep, TikTok. I'm old. Anyway, Yes,
we are talking politics, and we all have a favorite president.
We all have multiple favorite presidents, especially if you're a
(00:58):
fan of an entire family, because why can't you have
multiple people in the same family be the most powerful
man in the universe. Anyway, Tom, let's start this show
over now. We are discussing something that Ross Allinger is reporting.
Ross Dollinger from Yahoo Sports the preliminary, the pre eminent
(01:19):
number one college sports reporter out there. I recommend everybody
give him a follow Ross Ellinger on Twitter. But he
is reporting that we're just gonna read. It's a whole
tweet thread. We're going to read the tweets. We'll go
through them and talk about him and get you all
cut up. But if you want to follow along, you
can follow along at Ross Dollinger on Twitter. The first
week starts. Members of the US House are planning as
soon as Thursday, which is the day we're recording this,
(01:42):
to introduce an amended college sports bill and a parentheses
the Score Act. Sources tell Yahoo Sports. They opposed by
many Democrats. The Act is on track to progress further
than any all encompassing athlete compensation legislation. This kind of
went through some preliminary things a few weeks ago to
a month or so ago or a couple of months ago,
(02:03):
and it was basically, as far as I remember, like
the Republicans were doing it and basically the Democrats were
locked out, which is a great way to start, and
it's a great way to not get what you want
in the end. But the bill, which tom as we
said it's the Score Act. But this Act may be
cited as the Student Compensation and Opportunity Through Rights and
(02:26):
Endorsement Act, or the Score Act. Actually tom that, if
we're gonna be precise, it's the SCA O tree A Act.
So it's I think Greek basically is the language of origin.
But in reality, what this does is what a lot
of college football fans want it to do, which is
(02:48):
and I'll just go to the next week. The the Act,
an amended version obtained by iox Sports Code, kindifies the
settlement the House Settlement, grants liability protection, preempt state and
I L laws, which have been a thworn in the
side of this whole thing, and includes an anti employ
employment clause, which players don't really want employment from, at
(03:09):
least what they've been saying previously. In schools don't want
it either, and it brings regulation to agents and requires
schools to provide athlete degree completion and postgrad healthcare. I
say it has done a lot of the postgraduate or
the athlete degree completion. I'm not sure how much of
the postgraduate health care they're in on. But really this
is the main gist of it, and we'll start there.
(03:34):
That we've said here on the show before that, back
when this was being an issue before the House maybe
like well before the house settlement, but when all when
all of the legal stuff started, Congress told members of
Congress told the NCAA like, we will help you, We're
not going to save you. Now this is onto the
(03:55):
helping port part, I think, but it's still early.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's still early, and you know, I think the fact
that a lot of this sort of settles around where
that house settlement is is a pretty good indication of
what you just said that they're going to help but
not save. But they can. They can take the structure
that the NCAA reached and that the theory the judge
(04:22):
signed off on in that case, and can use that
as sort of a structure to build this. Will this
make everyone happy? Absolutely not. There are thousand different groups
here and you cannot serve everyone. The football players who
generate most of the money are going to say, you
can't restrict my earnings at all. And if you restrict
(04:45):
that my earnings at all, then that takes money away
from you know, if you don't restrict my earnings, then
that takes money away from the Olympic sports. The women's sports.
It creates total nine issues. It's just there's no way
to make everyone happy. And there's also because of just
the nature of college sports and the emotional ties that
people have to college boards, there is never going to
(05:06):
be any kind of restriction. People are always gonna be
looking for a way around it that state legislators can
looking for ways around nil rules and all that kind
of stuff. So this is this is going to have
to if there is some kind of an agreement here
and everyone can sort of hold hands in sing kumbaya,
which has happened so many times recently in Washington, d C.
(05:27):
But if you can get to that point, you still
you know, this will still probably at some point be
challenged in court because someone's not going to be happy
with it. And we have seen that stuff. Going to
court is a great way to make headway against the NCAA.
How successful will it be? Great question. Let's even see
if this gets through Congress.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
First, I'll we'll move on here. In second, I get
annoyed at the people who are like, yeah, this isn't
going to solve everything, so so should we not even bother,
like should we not take the incremental steps? Like why
even try if this isn't going to be like if
everybody's not going to be happy, Like no, the people
(06:10):
who say that have no concerns about whether other people
are happy. They only care about whether they're happy for
the most part. So it's like, yeah, this isn't just
if it makes everybody happy. I don't know how you
did it. It's impossible. So if it makes it so
that everybody can coexist and find their own happiness, I
guess then that's a step towards progress. And I get
(06:35):
annoyed at the like, well, this isn't going to fix
it all right away, so why even bothers like nothing
is going to fix it all right away. The House
settlement didn't fix it all right away. That was one step.
This is the next step, and then eventually you're you're
able to like breathe for a few years, which is
I think all people want right now. So then the
next tweet from from Ross and this series of tweets
(06:56):
the Act originating from three committees as a chance to
swiftly move through and onto a Republican controlled House floor,
which is not insignificant. There'll be two built markups, which
are serious steps, and wrote to the floor or planned
for this month, though many hurdles remain in its passage
through the House. The acts biggest hurdle lies in the
divided US Senate at one of the more divisive times
in American history. What and where philibuster rules require the
(07:19):
support of sixty senators. The Senate has fifty three Republicans.
So this is where we get into politics, because you're
gonna have to find seven Democrats. Basically, assuming all fifty
three Republicans would sign off, you can have to find
what like the seven Democrats that are going to be
okay with this, which means you got to give them
something or just let them be involved. And because when
(07:42):
we talk about this, people are like, well, what are
the issues? And I'll play a video here in a
bit talking about the issues. In the preliminary version of
this was that it's all about restricting the student athlete,
and it's restricting what they can get. Now, we look
at all of the stuff that they get it we're like,
how are they restricted? But in some viewpoints they are.
(08:05):
The thought that all of these steps are about restricting
what a player, a student athlete can earn. So that's
that's going to be an issue. But Tom, this is
where you got to get into the politics of it, right.
You've got to find people that you can bring over.
And as I mentioned on the buckehead a message board
presented by Jeffreyby's clubus like, this is where you promise
(08:27):
somebody a bridge in their district. This is where you know,
somebody gets you know, money for a courthouse, like whatever
it takes. These are the things that you know have
to get done well.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And you know, I have not done a real deep
dive on this on where the forty seven Democratic senators
are from, but I would wager that you probably have
some of them in states where there are major college
sports folks and major's college sports programs. I'm going to
guess some of the new Big ten states probably have
(09:02):
Democratic senators. On the West coast, you know, the University
of Washington, the University of Oregon, USC UCLA, they are
probably all going to be kind of lobbying for this
and pushing for this. So, you know, I think there's
there's some hope that you're going to have a little
bit of a bipartisanship here with or without new bridges.
(09:23):
Sometimes it does take new bridges, but you know, you
could you could potentially see some movement there. A lot
of this, though, is going to come in that those
markup step that you mentioned, where you're you're going through
and you're tweaking stuff and you're adding stuff, and you know,
I'll tell you what, why don't we play that clip
right now from the the congresswoman from Massachusetts just listing
(09:45):
some of the stuff. And this is this is from
an earlier portion of the process. So this is like
a preliminary thing a little while ago. So this is
not all exactly one hundred percent true now, but this
is this is sort of like if you're going to
take the opposite side, you know, this is this is
a bad thing. This is kind of what that argument
(10:05):
sounds like.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Mister whom, I'd like for you to indulge me for
a moment. I'm going to describe a few provisions of
this bill, and I want to tell I would love
for you to tell me in your expert opinion, whether
each one strengthens or restricts the rights of college athletes.
You can simply respond with strengthen or restrict, So we
get through it. First, A blanket antitrust exemption for the
(10:27):
NC DOUBLEA and conferences that eliminates athletes' ability to sue
over eligibility NIL and compensation rules. Restricts a provision banning
college athletes from ever being permitted to collectively bargain, regardless
of their sport or the revenue they generate. Restricts language
allowing schools or the nc douablea to block in IL
(10:50):
deals that conflict with existing contracts. Restricts a preemption of
all state in IL laws, even those that currently expand
and protect athletes. Right restricks, Thank you, mister Huma. So,
from what I'm hearing, this bill imposes significant new restrictions
on college athletes. But let's look at what, if anything,
(11:10):
it gives them in return. Mister Huma, If in your
reading of the legislation, does it strengthen Title nine enforcement
to ensure more women can play college sports or ensure
that they benefit fairly from the House Settlement?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Does it include any provisions to help international athletes like
Alex Condon, who helped lead the Chairman's beloved Florida Gators
to a men's basketball title this year, access their NIL rights.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So I just want to get this straight. This committee
is considering a bill that would constrain or roll back
athlete rights, block further progress, and give them little in return.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Correct, All right, so that was again that was an
earlier version of this. But I think you're hearing some
of the you know, some of the anti side of this.
So within all of that, there also is an opportunity
for Okay, you know she's talking about women, opportunities for
female athletes. Well, maybe maybe this does you know, maybe
(12:11):
this can be amended or tweet to provide some of that.
This is no one is going to get everything they
want because it is literally impossible for everyone to get
what they want, but it is you know, this is
at least Tony call me, call me a crazy optimist,
call me a mister Smith goes to Washington, crazy eyed optimist, Tony.
(12:31):
I think those clowns in Congress may be able to
find some common ground here if they are willing to try,
Because I think if you listen to a lot of
the stuff that she was listing in terms of you know,
this stuff, this stuff that's being restricted right now, This
was stuff that four years ago, five years ago, there
was no right to a lot of this stuff. You know, Well,
(12:51):
they're they're earning potentials being being capped here, well, their
earning potential was zero before, so you're you've seen significant,
significant progress the last few years. But also if it
continues in the way that it is right now and
it becomes totally unregulated, that that's going to cause major
issues and you're probably going to see a lot of
(13:12):
other areas where people, you know, you want to talk
about the loss of you know, the loss of opportunities
for female athletes or something like that. You know, one
of the things in this in this proposal is that
each school will be required to have sixteen scholarship sports.
If you don't have that requirement on there, there are
probably going to be school that dump a whole bunch
(13:32):
of their non rev sports, of their Olympic sports, and
you know, you do whatever you need to require, you know,
stay in compliance with Title nine, but there's no guarantee
that you keep you know, sixteen revenue sports. Ohio State
has thirty six right now, but there are plenty of
schools go through a lot of schools in the South,
and there's a lot of schools that are kind of
at that sixteen kind of level right now. So ultimately
(13:57):
there's probably going to be a lot of yelling and
a lot of hair pulling, a lot of you know,
a lot of mad tweets and all that stuff. But
it does feel like this is something that it doesn't
have to be this bill, but ultimately there is probably
going to have to be something like this to really
provide some guardrails because you know, yes, it's it's something
(14:19):
that is would you know this is better than students
had several years ago. I also look at this right
now and go, you know, NCAA, if you had just
done this five ten years ago, everyone would have said
this is incredible, what a generous offer, and you know
this is and you probably would have had zero issues
(14:40):
with people looking at this and go, oh, this is
overly restrictive. But they didn't do it. There was no foresight.
It was just kind of, well, you know, we'll just
keep going until some court tells us we can't. And
now a bunch of courts have told you can't, and
now you're at the point where it's like, well what
about this.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well, and we've said it before. Once the house case
got there and you have a judge looking at it
and she's like, we're not dealing in the land of
make believe like college sports has been running in for
fifteen in the last fifty years or so, like I
want legitimate answers and legitimate you know reasons why and
(15:18):
when those reasons aren't great, then it's like, Okay, well,
let's let's fix this. And now we're in the middle
of that. The next tweet in this the bill prohibits
athlete compensation that may put schools over the new rev
share cap, which is twenty point five million and requires
all NIL deals sold a valid business purpose and aligned
(15:39):
with NIL goes fair market value compensation range and the
College Sports Commission's anti circumvention rules. This tweet to me
is one that all of the schools like Ohio State
and in Texas who's been like sitting back on the
NIL stuff, like yes, let's get real rules in here.
(16:00):
And the whole valid business purpose, I think is something
that was the original intent of NIL and so this
gets us back to that, and a lot of this
gets us back to some of the way things were,
but in the way they were intended to be rather
than the way they've become. So yes, and that way
(16:22):
it's regressive, But if it's regressing to do regressing to
do what you what the intention was, and that the
original intention was very progressive. Like I think it's okay
to say no, these are still good steps, but a
lot of people are gonna view them as backwards steps
because you're taking something away from people. And yet this
(16:45):
doesn't really ban what a player can make. It's just
they have to make it in a certain way. And
if if Sex's Tech is going to give a kid
one point five million dollars, they're going to need one
point five million dollars worth of activity from work from
him basically, although not employees, but in terms of the
(17:05):
it says the quote, the quote is valid business purpose.
So I think a lot of people really really love
this part, and I'm one of them. I think this
is really what the intended. The whole intention of NIL
is pretty much summarized in this tweet right here.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, this is this is kind of putting a little
bit of a legal framework around what they set out
to do initially four years ago. The challenge with all
of this stuff is there are always going to be
people who are going to be pushing the envelope, and
in previous decades, those were, you know, one hundred dollars
handshakes and McDonald's bags full of cash and gold trans
(17:47):
ams and that kind of stuff that was sort of
under the table. Now it's a little more above the table.
But it's really stretching the stretching the limits of what
the intentions of the initial thing were. And I don't
I am not a law talking guy. I got an
A in my only law class, but that was media law,
so I can tell you all about libelous headlines and
(18:10):
things like that. I am not quite as well versed
on the commerce clause or restraint of trade. But I
know those are phrases I have heard before, and I
know those are phrases I will probably hear if and
when this thing passes from people who are representing Cody
what's his name at Texas Tech or probably some some
you know, hot shot football player in a year or
(18:32):
two who wants to earn more money. And here's the thing,
it's not even that they're necessarily wrong, Like I would
be annoyed if Congress passed the law that would limit
the amount of money that I can earn to do,
you know, to do my work. It's not like there's
an alternate pro pro football league that these guys can
go too straight out of high school. So I get it.
(18:54):
I see the other side of this. It's just I
do I do not know if this is to get
through Congress, and if it does, I do not know
if it will stand up two courts. It's this is
just one of these things where like you said, I
think the intention here is good. I think there is
a greater good argument for the future of college athletics,
and that will benefit a lot of other people. But
(19:18):
I you know, that does not necessarily guarantee that all
of this will hold up in court. If it does
come to that time.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You got an a in your one court, one court class.
I believe I've mentioned here before that I think in
the fourth grade we had a mock trial and I
was the attorney for the dad of the three bears
who was being sued by Goldilocks for a burn from
the hot porridge. And of course it's like.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Well, she broke the tony, she broke it house.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Right, and I lost the case. Now, I the only
I had more, I had more jury jurors on my side.
And again these are nine year old jurors, so you know,
and so so like, if this had been yes, it
was a jury of my peers. But come on, who
(20:11):
are you talking about a bunch of idiots? But I
think the the whole this is what people want. This
is not what lawyers want and so and this is
not what agents want. But nothing says hey, if you
don't go go earn one point five million from Adidas
(20:31):
or from Joe's crabshack. See if you can get that
without playing college football, though, And if you can't, then like,
well maybe maybe maybe you might just want to play
by the rules that are in place. And and we'll see.
But the next set in the next tweet here, the
act authorizes an association, such as the NCAA or the
(20:52):
College Sports Commission, to require athletes to disclose deals and
aggregate and share publicly, animate and anonymize data of those deals. Important.
The bill allows establishment of a one time transfer rule
and eligibility standards, which are both under legal attack. The
one time transfer rule again, coaches want this. I think
(21:17):
a lot of people would like it. The it's going
to be hard to get back to that though. I
think that might be something. Maybe it's a two time
or something. But one time. After we're seeing guys play
with five different schools getting back to a one time
transfer rule, I do how much do coaches want that?
Do you think a lot of coaches like to be
(21:39):
able to just boot players or is it more about like,
if they've already transferred, then I'm golden with them, and
then if I want to get rid of them, I can,
and then then they can have their waiver. Do you
think that's Do you think we're going back to a
one time transfer rule?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, I would say that based on the fact that
this is in here, I think that's something that probably
there's a decent chunk of the coaching community that probably
does favor that. Just stability is something that I think
everyone in college sports is seeking in every possible way
right now, and a one time transfer rule would certainly
provide more stability, and you wouldn't have guys, you know
(22:19):
what percentage of college basketball rosters are turning over every year?
This year, it feels like minimally fifty percent of every
college basketball rosters turning over every year, and so for
you know, for football, it's not quite that percentage, but
it's pretty darn high. In a lot of cases. This
is one where you could go back ten years and
say if you came to college players and said you
(22:41):
will get a one time transfer without having to sit
out the year in residence, which was the old rule.
Everyone would have taken that with a big smile on
their face and thanked you for the opportunity. And now
you're in a spot where you've got guys on there,
you know, I mean, what's TJ. Finley? Is he on
his sixth school?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Now?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I think maybe it just, you know, you just hop
somewhere new every year, and so now it's kind of
you're trying to kind of close the door the barn
doors after the horse is out to a certain degree.
But I think that's true kind of everything in here.
So I don't know that. I think that's less likely
than anything else, the eligibility standards. When they talk about
(23:20):
eligibility standards. That's kind of the Diego Pavia thing where
he lent to the NC Double A and said, well,
you don't You're not in charge of Jucos, so therefore
Juco doesn't count as college football, So therefore my years
at JUCO don't count. So now I can play another
two years at Vanderbilt, And the NC DOUBLEA just kind
of went, yeah, man, we don't have any more time
to spend in the courtroom, So yeah, go ahead and
(23:41):
just do that. I guess, I don't know. And they're
just kind of trying to find some parameters there as
well to sort of return you to whatever the standard
is five years to play for for everyone, or you know,
maybe you get an extra year if you have you
have a medical whatever, you know, maybe more a little
bit more of a return to the older system, which again,
(24:04):
like that that's none of this is unreasonable, but a
lot of this just feels like schools trying to kind
of put guardrails back up after they've you know, both
players and teams have kind of tried to find any
possible way to sneak through there.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The the eligibility standards thing, you know, with you're eventually
if you don't have this in there, you're gonna have
somebody that is going to sue to stay indefinitely. Basically.
And when people will say you can't restrict earnings from
it's it's it's not legal to restrict earnings. It's like
of college players earnings are being restricted by telling players
(24:43):
that they can only be there for five years, you know,
and so and then that's accepted. We accept that. So
why so obviously we accept that you can restrict earnings
in some fashion because eventually those earnings have to run out.
You've got to get out of here, you got to go.
And nobody has necessarily challenged that portion of it. They've
challenged the the the the the JUCO thing. And but
(25:04):
in terms of like, yeah, I've been at Ohio State
five years, played four of those years. I'm not ready
to go yet. I'm I'm gonna sue and then you know,
I don't necessarily have to play at Ohio State, but
you know, you can't tell me that I can't continue
to earn money from college the year like. But that's
what that four that that four rule, that four year rule,
(25:25):
five year rule is. And so this would again, as
you said, just basically eliminate the JUCO thing, and then
also whatever thing would come after that, because people are
gonna look for like, you know what, let's just try it,
and maybe the NCAA will have some fatigue and be
like whatever. And then and then the danger there is
(25:45):
that you've you've established precedent and the the next tweet
here and perhaps one of the more crucial concepts, the
Act places parameters and requirements around agents, most notably limiting
agent compensation to five percent of a total athlete deal.
Coaches told Yahoo Sports this week from Big ten, Big
twelve media days, the agents are often charging ten to
(26:07):
twenty percent, and that is no surprise that you're seeing
agents trying to oh, this is terrible. This is you know,
you're restricting. You're restricting. Agents are being restricted. And so
the fact that you had Felix Ojo, five star offensive
tackle his agent was making the the the media rounds
(26:30):
last week and this week talking about the deal that
he signed with with Whos Texas Tech and that some
of the details are like, well, if if we have
to follow the rules, it's like a one point three
million dollars deal. If we don't, it's five point one.
(26:50):
I don't what world is this that we're existing at.
And then the agent, of course is like, I sure
hope it's the one where where we get five point one,
because you know that's that's a million dollars for me
right there.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, to to quote the great Stringer Bell, are you
taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? Like, well, if we
are allowed to continue to flaunt through rules as we
love to like, oh boy, that is really saying the
quiet part out loud there. But yeah, yeah, I think
as you know, sort of quickly as this has sort
(27:25):
of like all happened and all come together, I don't
think it's a huge surprise that there are probably some
somewhat unscrupulous folks in this area kind of gouging people
and charging significantly more than maybe they would from a
you know, under a normal basis. I mean most most
most athlete contracts like pro athletes is what like maybe
(27:45):
five percent something like that. It's not yeah, it's not
it's not that much. So yeah, if you're paying your
agent twenty percent, that's uh, that is that is quite
a chunk to be to be handing over. So yeah,
that this is this is one of those things where
you know, we're going to get to some stuff that
does help you know, is sort of on the pro
(28:06):
athlete side of things. This is definitely one of those
things where if you could help sort of rain in
some of those bad actors who are you know, I
don't want to say praying on these on these uh
these students, but they're you know, it's it's uh, you know,
you have you have people who are probably not the
most scrupulous and are perhaps taking some advantage of folks
(28:28):
who maybe are in doing this for the first time
in something of an unregulated area. This is this is
a pro from the athlete side of things.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So payday loan agent basically uh, And then you wonder
if it goes knocked down to five percent max. Then
our agent's less aggressive in just being a thorn in
the side of the entire process. The next week. The
Act requires schools to provide athletes with certain levels of
(28:56):
academic support and out of pocket healthcare for accellent athletes
than three years of leaving school, and schools are not
permitted to cut scholarships for injury or performance in a
long time. That's say long time Democrat requests in any bill.
This is something some of this Ohio state has done
in terms of you can come back whenever and get
your degree. They were one, I think one of the
(29:17):
first to do that, maybe the first big schools to
do that. It's becoming more in vogue. It's becoming more
than norm it's something you can sell in recruiting. I
think the idea of the healthcare for a few years
after leaving school makes complete sense, and that is that's
some advocacy for the athletes. And we've seen many, many
(29:39):
times over the last twenty years where kids just you
get hurt, you're off the team, and you're now those
players also got to keep those scholarships for the most part,
but I guess at times maybe they didn't. You're not
permitted to cut scholarships for performance is something that's like
kind of always been but you know, wink wink. But
(30:03):
the thing is like if players aren't playing, they generally
leave anyway. So like that doesn't really do much for me.
But the idea that you know, this would just put
into law that you're gonna have you're gonna have the
ability to go back to school, and you're gonna have
some healthcare, I think makes complete sense.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, this is stuff that you know, this is this
is where you're maybe kind of reaching across the aisle
a little bit, because it feels like the first five
or six of these tweets that we were talking about,
we're all, this is exactly what the schools would want.
And now you're sort of getting into with the agent
restrictions and you're getting into some of the stuff with
here's what the schools have to give back. You're getting
into a little bit of the Okay, what do the
(30:43):
athletes get out of all of this? And while it
is easy to sort of point to the real high
profile players and go you're restricting their earnings, the vast,
vast majority of college athletes are going to benefit much
more from something like this than they would from completely
unrestricted earnings. You're a softball player, or you're a you know,
(31:03):
just okay basketball men's basketball player, or anyone like that.
Even the vast majority of football players, you know, across
one hundred and thirty what four teams, one hundred and
thirty six FC FBS teams. Now, the vast majority of
those players, on the vast majority of those rosters are
going to be helped way, way more by this than
they are by an unrestricted amount of earnings. You think, everyone,
(31:28):
if you're an Ohio State fan right now, you're thinking,
what about all the you know, naming naming down all
the players who might see less money that they're the
exception not the rule in most cases. So you know,
this is this is something that might impact the high,
high level Ohio State players in a negative way in
terms of earnings to a certain degree, but stuff like
this is going to benefit the vast majority of other
(31:52):
other I really don't want to use the word student
athletes because that was the NCAA's terma da kaka is.
I believe the term of art there that they use
to sort of get around calling them employees or getting
you know, acknowledging that there was any sort of a
other relationship there other than people who are going to
school and just happen to be playing sports. But yeah,
(32:14):
the athletes are getting a lot more out of this,
the vast majority of them out of this provision that
you're talking about. Then there would be losing in terms
of higher level earnings.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And as I scroll through, I don't know that Ross
Allenser has used the word student fit at all. He
just says athletes. Yeah, hey, these kids still go to school,
all right now? They do. The next one here is
as a and one of the more interesting concepts, do
you got some time?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I was just gonna I had it in front of me.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So in one of the more interesting concepts, the Act
requires schools to maintain sixteen varsity sports teams, which so
happens to be the FBS minimum of sports, likely a
way to protect various Olympic programs under threat of elimination
and a new revshare era. And this is something that
you alluded to earlier, where if you've got to spend
fifteen million dollars on football and you do, then you're
(33:08):
not going to have the money to spend on other places.
Or you know, we've seen schools are already cutting programs,
cutting teams or maybe turning them to club teams or
maybe like yes, they're there, but the amount of funding
that they're going to get. If you don't have one
sugar Daddy per sport, you know, then you know, good
(33:28):
luck funding that sport. This at least makes them stay
serious enough. And so I think this is another one
where some of these to me feel like there's been
some negotiation. The previous one in terms of the healthcare
and the academic that's something that Democrats have always pushed
(33:49):
four bills like these, so maybe maybe that's been one
of the gives there from the Republicans. But this, again,
this is a good faith and a a a gesture
that it's not like you need to continue to do
good by as many athletes as you can.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and you know this is also something that I'm
sure the US Olympic Committee is lobbying for because you
got to remember, yeah, you they have you know, football
develops for the NFL and basketball develops for the NBA.
But you know, the US Olympic soccer team comes largely
from guys either you know, either you go straight to
the two mls or you go through the Olympic soccer
(34:34):
program or the college soccer programs and women's women's soccer
and gymnastics. Those guys are those guys and girls are
all pretty much Olympic or college athletes. You know, a
lot of them are LSU or u c l A
gymnasts who you see it competing in in the Olympics.
(34:54):
So you know, the Olympic Committee, that's a you know
that that is also a pretty big business that is
based on not having to pay for a lot of
the development there isn't you know, there is an Olympic
development program and all that kind of stuff, but you know,
the funnel to get up there a lot of that
runs through college and high level college programs. So that's
that's a big, big deal from the Olympic side of things.
(35:16):
So it's you know, this is not only something that
is probably beneficial in terms of just keeping as many
people inside the tent as you can and having really positive,
you know, a positive impact on as many people as
you can in this in this bill, it's also really
beneficial from the Olympic side of things.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
The second to last one here another interesting one. Here,
schools that earn at least fifty million dollars annually in
media rights revenue are not permitted to use student fees
to support their athletic programs, a concept that would chiefly
impact schools in the Big ten and the SEC. And
I was thinking back, I thought, I heard like Tennessee
(35:57):
was going to do something like this where there was
a ten percent talent fee on ticket purchases and single
game tickets and so like would have to come off
of student tickets. You know that that sort of thing,
or you know sometimes the just the general school whatever,
the whatever, the tuition is like, well, you know, four
(36:20):
hundred dollars of that's going to go to nil. And
this would kind of just be like, you got enough money,
you don't need to force students to pay for for
what you already have. It's kind of like whenever you
go to a Walmart or whatever and you pay and
they're like, would you like to round up and contribute money.
It's like, that's all money that Walmart has promised to
give to charities, and by you rounding up, you're just
(36:43):
you're paying that portion for Walmart. This is something where
stop making the students round up.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, and this is something that shows up on your bill.
I just was trying to pull this up right now.
I remember before Rutgers came to the Ohio, came to
the Big Ten that Rutgers was this is like twenty thirteen,
but Rutgers was famous for having like the highest student
athletic fees in the country, And it's like, what exactly
are you getting for your student athletic fees at Rutgers.
(37:13):
But you know there, I just pulled up an article
from Minding the Campus, which is a blog, and they
did a study on a bunch of different schools and
how much this is. And like, at the University of Virginia,
the mandatory intercollegiate athletic fee is seven hundred and twenty
dollars per year. At Virginia Tech it's three hundred and
(37:34):
eighty four dollars per year. You know, it's that it's
like Okay, that doesn't sound like that much money. But
remember how many people are taking out student loans. So
now you're paying you know, that's part of your student fees.
That's just part of your tuition that you're mailing in. Well,
it's not nineteen ninety six anymore. You're probably paying it
online anyway, You're that's part of your student fees in
(37:55):
part of you know, part of your tuition every quarter,
every semester. And you might be paying student loan fees
on top of that. You might be paying interest on
your student activity fees for the next thirty years as
you're trying to pay off your student loans all to
fund Virginia football. Like, what are we doing here? Gang? Really,
(38:17):
what are we doing? And this is a great way
to you know, if you have to do it, and
you have to do it at a smaller school to
fund some of that stuff, and it's an important part
of the student experience, and YadA, YadA, YadA whatever. That's fine.
But schools that earn at least fifty million dollars annually
in media rights revenue, like you shouldn't. You have plenty
of money coming in. You do not need to be
(38:37):
soaking the students for more money right now. And that's
true of the schools that are just barely at that level.
That's really right now. That's going to mostly impact the
Big ten and the SEC. But any kind of broader
expansion of those conferences that's going to bring more folks
into that tent. You're presumably probably going to see Big
twelve and ACCTV media revenues going up at some point,
(39:00):
and they may fall under that as well. But yeah,
if you are a Big ten or SEC school, you
should not be soaking your students for that money. And
if you can't afford to run an athletic department without
douging your own students, maybe you should run a smaller
athletic department or at a lower level.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
And this one also feels this rule of this request
kind of feels bipartisan as well. And then the last
one here, the Act permits schools to restrict athlete nil
deals if they violate the university's code of contact or
conflict with any existing school agreement, such as an athlete
(39:38):
striking a deal with Nike while playing for an Adida school. Now,
this is something that was originally supposed to be a
rule where a Nike school like a like Jeremiah Smith
just signed with a Dida. So Highest State is a
Nike school. And the original way this was done two
(39:58):
or three years ago, players not have been permitted to
sign deals with an opposing brand, and but also players
were not allowed to participate in any add or commercial
with logos on them either. But what happens is if
one school allows it, then it becomes a recruiting tool,
(40:20):
so everybody eventually has to allow it. So this one
the Act permits schools to restrict death the nil deals.
Do you think Ohio State's gonna tell Jeremia Smith you
can't do Adidas Like, I mean, good luck. I mean
tell the guy that you know you you've worked so
hard to land, Like you know what, why don't you
stay with Nike and they'll give you forty percent less?
(40:42):
But it would be really good because we'd Nike school.
It's like, yeah, the word permit is going to do
a lot of work here. I don't expect any of
that to It's not gonna help the schools. It's only
gonna harm them in recruiting because not everybody's gonna follow
those and so then school kids are going to go
where they have more freedom, and this all over all
these restrictions out they're being put upon, This one, I
(41:06):
feel is a restriction that isn't even gonna matter in
the end.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right, yeah, this is this is a you can do that.
But then it doesn't take very long for Jeremiah Smith
to say, Okay, well, then how much am I getting
from the Nike deal? And the answer is none? And
then the answer as well, okay, why not? And you know,
Nike what is what? You know, Nike gets a little
bit of something out of having Ohio State players be
(41:32):
their brand ambassadors. But you already have them wearing Nike jerseys,
Nike shoes, Nike gloves, Nike whatever on the on the
football field every Saturday, So you already have them associated
with your brand. So it's not that beneficial to have
that as an added thing where you're you know, and
(41:53):
now we're also paying you to do this commercial like
you can maybe, I mean, you can do that, but
it just doesn't feel like that's gonna be worth it
for Nike to pay full boat there. I do think
it's relatively interesting that, you know, most of Phil Knight's
most of the places where Phil Knight has decided it
was worth investing in athletes have been athletes at Oregon,
(42:14):
which tells you that maybe it's not really as much
about the athlete as it or the you know, the
actual value provided there as it is about Hey this
helps Oregon.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Well, yes, for sure. And then also Jeremiah Smith wants
to sign with the Didas Ohio State's like, no, we're
a Nike school. So Jeremiah Smith's like, okay, I'll go
to an Adida school. You know it's an Adida school Miami,
you know where he's from, South Florida. Like you're going
to chase somebody away back home to a place that
they're familiar with. I don't just don't see it happening.
(42:47):
Like I said, that's what they originally wanted, and they
found pretty quickly like this isn't gonna work because not
everybody's going to comply and complying with this. I just
don't see schools doing that. So there you go. I
thought we needed to really explore the room on this one.
I am with you, Tom, I'm a positive. I'm an
optimistic person in this regard because one this kind of
(43:09):
has to happen. But also to Tom, I grew up with.
My president was Dave right the movie Dave. If you
can't be optimistic about the United States government after watching
Dave from nineteen ninety four, perhaps then you just you
just don't have it in you. So I recommend everybody
(43:30):
this weekend go watch Dave. Have some optimism in your
hearts that the government can save America's great game. Because
if the government can't do it, nobody can, is that, right, tom?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
If we can't rely on those clones in Congress, Tony,
who can we rely on the eternal question?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
It's just ourselves. We are doomed. So there you go.
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