Re: F the NCAA
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 4:45 pm
Might the issue be more about the team giving up the rights to that player, or making that player draft eligible a second time?CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:04 am Any labor attorneys on here?
Help me out with this nonsense. I get that after the draft perhaps draft poolers may become part of the Union.
But why would that stop the NCAA from giving them eligibility? They can't leave the union? The NCAA is really at the NBPA's mercy here? Why would they do that?
Earlier this year, two California state senators introduced SB 206, much to the chagrin of NCAA bureaucrats. The bill, which is also known as the Fair Pay To Play Act, would allow college athletes to make money off of their own names, images, and likenesses starting in Jan. 2023. The state Senate approved the bill last month, with a 31-4 vote with two abstentions, which means it will head to the California Assembly’s Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee for a hearing and vote tomorrow.
Naturally, the NCAA hates this, since its business model is based on denying athletes the right to profit from their own labor. One week before the Senate voted to pass the bill, the NCAA announced the formation of a working group “to examine issues highlighted in recently proposed federal and state legislation” regarding athletes being able to be paid for the work they currently do for free. If you were wondering whether that group would explore whether athletes should be paid, well, no.
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“We recognize all of the efforts that have been undertaken to develop this bill in the context of complex issues related to the current collegiate model that have been the subject of litigation and much national debate,” Emmert wrote in his letter to the committee chairs. “Nonetheless, when contrasted with current NCAA rules, as drafted the bill threatens to alter materially the principles of intercollegiate athletics and create local differences that would make it impossible to host fair national championships. As a result, it likely would have a negative impact on the exact student-athletes it intends to assist.”
It is very in-character for the NCAA to moan about equal treatment and fret over a level playing field under the guise of protecting college athletes, when the most obvious systemic issue harming players is the existence of the organization itself. Emmert and the NCAA do not care about the welfare of the labor pool. Efforts to slow the bill down are transparently not about fairness; they’re about maintaining control. Emmert’s biggest fear is that other states will think this is a good idea.
Mark Emmert made $3.9 million in 2017. There’s no reason he should be paid to lie about the virtues of amateurism when his entire labor base works for free. California should make him follow through with threat and pass the bill.
The NCAA had years to correct its system of feudal injustice and join the modern world, but it steadfastly refused to, and now an industrial revolution is upon them. UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon woke up one day and saw himself playing basketball in an Electronic Arts video game, for which no one had bothered to ask his permission, much less paid him. He sued the NCAA, and he won. Now lawmakers at the federal level also are considering legislation to make things right for athletes. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), proposed a bill to Congress in March that would strip the NCAA’s tax-exempt status if it doesn’t stop robbing athletes “of their identity and sovereignty over their public image.”
Suddenly, behold! In May, the NCAA convened “a working group” to study the issue of name and likeness. Lord Emmert, High Guardian of the Pure Bastion, promises his panel will “examine the NCAA’s position on name, image and likeness benefits and potentially propose rule modifications tethered to education.”
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There is nothing to study. There are no “complex issues related to the current collegiate model.” These are rights the NCAA never should have interfered with in the first place. A player’s name, image or likeness should never be anyone else’s to sell or merchandise except by explicit consent. The NCAA has no business considering them in a “working group,” or blocking the exercise of those rights for another second more. There is only one thing to do: Give them back.
Every other citizen in this country owns their name, visage and other biographical details. To rob college athletes of these things is flat out stealing, and it leaves athletes as a separate, permanently impoverished disenfranchised class. California lawmakers should pass their bill, and while they’re at it, ask Emmert just who he thinks he is, to try to threaten an entire state. Presumably, Emmert sent such a letter because the NCAA leadership is scared. A law such as this could very well be how it all ends, how the NCAA’s feudal castle is finally dismantled, rotting old beam by beam.
Fourteen months ago, in one of the only player-friendly decisions the NCAA has made in the forum of athlete rights, it decided it would loosen restrictions and allow more transfers to play immediately at their new school if the circumstances the player presented matched up. Predictably, this led to a wave of requests, the NCAA out of habit making up its process as it goes, and now the recent “adjustments.”
This transfer rule is essentially a noncompete clause like a company uses to keep an employee from hopping to a competitor. So the NCAA wants to treat its most valued athletes as employees only when it suits the schools’ agenda.
At the O’Bannon trial, NCAA attorneys argued against the existence of a market for the name, image and likenesses of players. If there was no market for their services, then there could be no antitrust infringement.
Part of their argument was that fans of college football and men’s basketball would watch games, cheer their team on and pack tens of thousands into iconic stadiums and arenas across the country no matter who the players were. As long as there were young men wearing the school colors and as long as those young men were not being paid to play, the NCAA argued, fan interest would be sustained.
Well, if that were true, then why the fuss about a player transferring in an effort to better his situation?
The NCAA’s corrupt business model is simple: have it both ways. The organization wants all the power that comes with being the boss, the owner, the employer, but none of the responsibilities that are expected in a healthy work environment.
This hypocrisy is the root of what will ultimately bring down the NCAA or force it to change.
If it wants to survive and simultaneously do right by the athletes who fill its coffers, it will allow them to profit from their name, image and likeness. It will increase the meager “full cost of attendance” stipend to better reflect the players’ part in the hundreds of millions of dollars that their games attract in TV revenue.
Only then would a rule penalizing transfers make any sense.
Oh, and:The committee also said the former head coach violated NCAA ethical conduct rules when he knowingly provided false or misleading information during the NCAA enforcement investigation and declined to participate in a second interview with the enforcement staff and school.
“This case illustrates the importance of full candor and cooperation in the infractions process, as well as head coach control,” the committee said in its decision. “The former head coach faltered in both respects, increasing the severity of his violations and allowing violations within the program to occur for most of his tenure.”
The committee said the men’s basketball violations primarily stemmed from three situations: pickup games exceeding preseason countable athletically related activity limits, a video coordinator counting as a coach and resulting in more than the allowable number of coaches, and a booster providing extra benefits to student-athletes.
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“Failing to give the enforcement staff truthful information significantly harms its ability to conduct a thorough and timely investigation,” said the committee’s report. “The conduct was contrary to the standards of ethical conduct that the membership expects of athletics staff entrusted to set an example for student-athletes.”
A limit of 12 men’s basketball scholarships during the 2019-20 academic year, a reduction by one from the allowable 13 scholarships
I do not.NDballer13 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:48 am California bill to allow athletes to get paid just advanced to the next step. 9-0, by the way. Does anyone actually believe that the NCAA won't allow those schools to play for championships if this passes.