I could be wrong with this settlement NIL goes away. This is a way for the schools to get back some control with the salary cap.
G5 Playoff
- Thread starter mtfblue
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Nope. The $20 million is what the schools will pay the players now. I'm assuming they will consider scholarship costs to count towards the $20 million but that still leaves tons of money that can distribute as they see fit.
NIL is completely separate and will only increase now because they are removing all restrictions surrounding payment to players. Ohio State QB can now collect $1 million from the school and however many millions from NIL. And NIL is still in it's infancy. Wait until these college kids are getting shoe deals, trading cards, clothing lines, etc. This is only the beginning.
I'll say it again, I don't think people realize the amount of money Power 4 players are about to be making. They're about to get a significant pay raise and already could easily buy any player from a G5 they want. Now they will be able to buy our best players for depth and maybe even practice squad.
G5 needs to be renamed to the JC5. (Junior College 5)
So we are basically going back to the FCS? Regional, play-offs, no longer in the same division as the Power 5....?
Going back to the 70's and 80's....
Sorry, just not interested. I'm never going to accept going backwards. Significantly backwards.
Victories over Maryland, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Miami, Vanderbilt, etc. Very close games with Kentucky, Missouri (again), Virginia (we won that game), and I'm sure many more I'm forgetting.
We could play with those guys on occasion. Many occasions. And I get that we can't control their unfettered greed and desire to turn us into junior colleges. But I can't help the fact that I just don't find the whole thing interesting anymore.
The whole allure that originally drew me in was the fact that we played in the "same division" as the big guys. When my roommate explained that, and said we are playing Georgia next week on the road and asked me if I wanted to go, I signed up for the road rally and the rest is history.
The entire thing has been turned upside down. They can take it and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
Noted.
Honestly, the possibility of competing in a playoff with similar sized schools with a chance at a national championship is much more appealing to me than watching us play FIU hoping we get to 6-6 for a shot at the Nobody Gives a Shat Bahama Bowl versus 7-5 MAC school on the Saturday before Christmas.
Sonny Dykes said it and it’s true, “La Tech (CUSA) and Georgia are not playing the same game.”
Just because we pay and say we are FBS, does not mean we are the same as other FBS schools. I don’t get the delusion that most G5 and some P5 schools have.
Unless NIL gets roped in, which it won't without a few more lawsuits or Congressional help, there won't be a single Autonomy football starter making less than $1m/yr. Between the $22m salary cap (which as of right now won't affect Title IX so football will get the bulk of that and it will include Alston payments) along with the NIL from collectives, it will be the norm for a top 5 QB to be making $5-10m.
There will be more realignment because the salary cap is optional. There will be several current Autonomy schools that won't do it. It will come to the point the conferences will say do it or you are gone and they will join us. As someone said, it'll follow the TV contracts so by the end of the decade, things won't be the same. There will be current G5s who will pay that and move as well.
So I say let's just see what happens. We aren't the same as UM or Bama. It's just reality. I'd love to maintain the argument we all are FBS, but this week proves even more the disparity.
I bleed Blue no matter what. FBS Autonomy, G5, FCS, IDC. I'm to the point I'd rather try and be a big fish in a little pond than the opposite. We just don't know what that pond will be yet or what the other fish will be. Still way too many unknowns that could drag on for years.
If NDSU moved up I think we all would say they could average 8-9 wins. Would they rather have that and a random bowl win or those National Champs and rankings? I know which I'd choose.
There will be more realignment because the salary cap is optional. There will be several current Autonomy schools that won't do it. It will come to the point the conferences will say do it or you are gone and they will join us. As someone said, it'll follow the TV contracts so by the end of the decade, things won't be the same. There will be current G5s who will pay that and move as well.
So I say let's just see what happens. We aren't the same as UM or Bama. It's just reality. I'd love to maintain the argument we all are FBS, but this week proves even more the disparity.
I bleed Blue no matter what. FBS Autonomy, G5, FCS, IDC. I'm to the point I'd rather try and be a big fish in a little pond than the opposite. We just don't know what that pond will be yet or what the other fish will be. Still way too many unknowns that could drag on for years.
If NDSU moved up I think we all would say they could average 8-9 wins. Would they rather have that and a random bowl win or those National Champs and rankings? I know which I'd choose.
Not only are we going back to the FCS, but now every JC5 school will lose their best players after every season to the Power 4 money machine AND for the next 10 years we will be financially hamstrung to the point of near-bankruptcy because we got strong armed into a terrible settlement agreement......
I'm not sure I could script a worse scenario....
I'm not sure I could script a worse scenario....
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At what point does the NFL start trying to make this go away. College kids are going to be making way more money than NFL rookies if they don’t figure this out.
That part is not happening, which is where we diverged previously on this. The settlement has been reached and keeps the P4 and NCAA in tact.And keeps lawsuits from those schools at bay.
It does and it doesn't.
The $22m salary cap is fully optional. I'd guarantee there are schools currently in the P4 that won't do it. And after a few years those that don't will become dead weight to their conferences (more so than Vandy and Rutgers) and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the P2 especially adopt language that forces a certain $ commitment. There will be change. Not immediately, but it'll happen.
And while there may not be lawsuits from schools, the NCAA and the conferences aren't out of the woods yet. There is the Fontenot case ongoing, this week's settlement may not even get approved and even if it is, the non P4 conferences could sue. Plus there 100% will be Title IX lawsuits over this. The NCAA/P4 still could blow up.
It'll be years of changes. Nothing is settled yet.
so with the athletes being transitioned to employees, How will they handle health, Supplemental and workers comp insurance. Just the workers comp policy will be an additional 2 to4 million a year, insurance companies with have to create new nail, sic codes to cover this. You can't not have these coverages by law. I would like to be that agent writing 1 school, that's about a 400k commission, and that's on the low end.
We'll just have to agree to disagree.
We've had major realignments in 1996, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and now 23-24. The only constant is change. I can't tell you what it will look like, but I disagree if you think that things are settled once and for all here.
And now, with the new rule changes, many schools are in far different places financially and with their own athletic ambitions than they were ever before. What's Texas's budget going to look like in 2029? Compare that to Vandy's - who get the bulk of their budge from revenue distribution/sharing.
They've put a shark in an aquarium with a goldfish - it's just a matter of time.
I can't sit here and tell you the mechanism that will cause it - maybe the breakup of the ACC, maybe private equity starts a superleague, maybe some forward thinking TV exec gets the schools to pool their rights ala NFL style, I don't know.
And if you're not one of the money programs - say you have a limited budget, smaller fan base, etc, Why do you even want to play this game? Do you really want to have to pay salaries to players? Are you even able to? Are you going to have to cut sports? How will that go over?
I feel like there's probably a lot of internal discussions going on in Admin buildings now, asking whether or not this new reality is appropriate for where they are in the sport. But woe be tide the guy who first steps forward to suggest that maybe you rein some of this stuff in - egos and paychecks can drive people far down the wrong road for a long time.
Doug you’ve implied there’s only going to be 30 teams or so and everyone else sent down. The settlement brings that issue to an end for the foreseeable future. Not saying it will never happen but with respect to where things will be for some time that specific issue is resolved. No one in a P4 currently is going to elect to bail out voluntarily. Sure it’s going to be tougher for schools like Houston and UCF but they aren’t going to electively quit. And absolutely no way a charter member of the Big or SEC like Vandy is going to drop down. They are set to make millions more than they ever have before even with the new expenses thanks to the new playoff revenue model that kicks in next year.
If you think the Bamas and Ohio States of the world are not going to figure a way to get away from the Vandys and Northwesterns you’re only fooling yourself. Vandy maybe a founding member but that’s not going to matter if they create an entire new entity.
Sometimes I wonder if you guys pay attention to what’s really happening.
If they intended to do that it would have been now. All they had to do was not settle this case, the NCAA then has to file for bankruptcy and a new entity is formed. But they didn’t. They decided to keep the NCAA in tact as well as the P4 by settling the one suit that could have most effectively resulted in that outcome. I’m telling you guys but no one is listening that is not the fight they want to take on. Which is why it didn’t happen.
Agree with MT01 on this.
I’m sure the top of P4 would love to find away to get more money. However, given the NIL deal, uncapped transfer portal, the new anti-trust settlement, and what someone would need to pay now to break grant of rights/conference exit fees on top of a more lucrative TV deal, it just doesn’t make sense to split now financially. Someone from outside Disney or Fox would need to make an offer so ridiculously over the top to pay the exit fees, legal fees and still guarantee more revenue than those schools are still getting for longer than a decade. Throw in Title IX ramifications if they did split now, it’s a mess. Why move now when you have such a sweetheart deal in the weakened NCAA?
The bottom revenue schools in SEC/B10 are right place right time, and barring a Disney bankruptcy, are safe until at least 2034.
I’m sure the top of P4 would love to find away to get more money. However, given the NIL deal, uncapped transfer portal, the new anti-trust settlement, and what someone would need to pay now to break grant of rights/conference exit fees on top of a more lucrative TV deal, it just doesn’t make sense to split now financially. Someone from outside Disney or Fox would need to make an offer so ridiculously over the top to pay the exit fees, legal fees and still guarantee more revenue than those schools are still getting for longer than a decade. Throw in Title IX ramifications if they did split now, it’s a mess. Why move now when you have such a sweetheart deal in the weakened NCAA?
The bottom revenue schools in SEC/B10 are right place right time, and barring a Disney bankruptcy, are safe until at least 2034.
I'm not here to tell you who is getting sent down, or promoted, or what it will look like, how many schools it will have, who will start it, or when it will get here. I have no idea. I don't know if teams will give it up, I don't know if something will come along and bigger fish will leave, I don't know if some new hybrid division will be created for teams that can't run with the biggest, I have no idea.
All I'm 100% certain of is that the model that exists right now, is unsustainable for 80-ish schools. These lawsuits have settled nothing for anyone except maybe the biggest earners.
If anything, it's made it far more likely that someone, somewhere will soon say "you know what, we just can't afford to play this game, we're going to try and thrive by doing something else".
The chance of MTSU and Ohio State playing in the same class of football by 2034 is virtually nil.
What that something else looks like we can speculate all day.
We may not even be playing at the same division in 2025. I guess technically we can stay but given I doubt we’re going to pay players as much or any at all then we aren’t even going to get the guys who don’t want to sit on a bench at those schools. Especially since scholarship limits are going to go away.
I’m talking about the rest of the P4 which you did say would break down to 30 or so teams.
Aside from that I genuinely think we see these issues the same way.
If you're asking me to guess what it'll look like.
I think that sooner or later, some of the G5 coalesce into a new division between FCS and the P2/4-ish. With it's own playoff, top 25 (they've already talked about this), and hopefully, some realignment along geographic lines to cut costs and promote rivalry. I'm going to guess 2026, when the SEC/Big 10 can change the playoff format to exclude conference winners (i.e. the top 5 conference winner) and just take the top 14 ranked. At that point, there really won't be an incentive to keep the old conference structures at the G5 level.
I am convinced that at some point- probably once the TV contracts roll over - there's going to be a "superleague" formed of the biggest 30-40 or so money makers. I don't think teams will drop out or drop down, there will just be some new entity formed and invites will only go out to the teams that will bring in the revenue. And NFL-ized college football with the biggest teams would probably generate revenue on par with most of the other pro-sports leagues sans the NFL itself. The P4 teams that were left behind will likely find a home in with the G5-ers in their new division.
Just watched the movie National Champions that came out a few years ago. It's on Freevee and Prime. Good movie and very relevant. Fictional of course but no doubt some of the shady things and money discussed happens. Backdoor deals, NDAs, and blackmail. I suggest a watch. The amazing JK Simmons is in it as well.
Synopsis
Three days before the college football national championship game, star quarterback LeMarcus James and teammate Emmett Sunday ignite a player's strike -- declaring they won't compete until all student athletes are fairly compensated. With billions of dollars at risk and legacies on the line, the stakes couldn't be higher. Now, with only hours until kickoff, their head coach and various power brokers must race against the clock to protect or destroy the prevailing collegiate athletics system.
Synopsis
Three days before the college football national championship game, star quarterback LeMarcus James and teammate Emmett Sunday ignite a player's strike -- declaring they won't compete until all student athletes are fairly compensated. With billions of dollars at risk and legacies on the line, the stakes couldn't be higher. Now, with only hours until kickoff, their head coach and various power brokers must race against the clock to protect or destroy the prevailing collegiate athletics system.
I'm a big fan of The Athletic, and Stewart Mandel was asked in his mailbag about what college football might look like:
Can you provide a thoughtful prediction of what college athletics looks like in 10 years? Provide a reason for hope and for concern. — Mike
First and foremost, all roads lead to major college football becoming its own separate entity. Every tectonic shift taking place right now — four time-zone conferences, NIL collectives, schools suing their own conferences and revenue sharing — is because of football, with everyone else dragged along for the ride. The logical endgame is the creation of a TV-driven Super League/Premier League that takes football out from under the NCAA’s rooftop. The details, most notably the number of teams, are anyone’s best guess.
Then the question becomes, would all the other sports still stick together, or would we perhaps see a more federated approach? Could there be a College Basketball Association? Not just for the men, either, as women’s hoops is becoming its own significant revenue driver that might itself need a different model from all other women’s sports.
And then I could see an entirely new model acknowledging that all the other sports — from swimming to tennis to track and field — still largely hold to the traditional college model. The universities don’t sponsor these sports to make money from them, and the athletes are under no delusion they’re going to get rich off them. I could see one unifying governing body, whether the NCAA, the USOC or something else, with the schools regrouped back into sensible geographic conferences.
Everything else is too complicated to prophesize.
My hope is we see some sanity and order prevail, as we no longer try to hopelessly shoehorn such disparate entities into a grossly outdated model. Through some form of collective bargaining, rules around transfers and recruiting become more normalized.
My concern is that only 25 or so college football teams will remain nationally relevant while everyone else becomes glorified FCS and the sport loses a whole lot of longtime fans because of it. ESPN, Fox, etc., will still get their ratings, because lots and lots of people will still watch Texas-Michigan, Alabama-Ohio State, etc., but in much of the rest of the country, previously rocking stadiums are half-full on Saturdays.
Note: It doesn’t have to end that way, but it might if university presidents continue to allow TV networks to run the sport for them.
Can you provide a thoughtful prediction of what college athletics looks like in 10 years? Provide a reason for hope and for concern. — Mike
First and foremost, all roads lead to major college football becoming its own separate entity. Every tectonic shift taking place right now — four time-zone conferences, NIL collectives, schools suing their own conferences and revenue sharing — is because of football, with everyone else dragged along for the ride. The logical endgame is the creation of a TV-driven Super League/Premier League that takes football out from under the NCAA’s rooftop. The details, most notably the number of teams, are anyone’s best guess.
Then the question becomes, would all the other sports still stick together, or would we perhaps see a more federated approach? Could there be a College Basketball Association? Not just for the men, either, as women’s hoops is becoming its own significant revenue driver that might itself need a different model from all other women’s sports.
And then I could see an entirely new model acknowledging that all the other sports — from swimming to tennis to track and field — still largely hold to the traditional college model. The universities don’t sponsor these sports to make money from them, and the athletes are under no delusion they’re going to get rich off them. I could see one unifying governing body, whether the NCAA, the USOC or something else, with the schools regrouped back into sensible geographic conferences.
Everything else is too complicated to prophesize.
My hope is we see some sanity and order prevail, as we no longer try to hopelessly shoehorn such disparate entities into a grossly outdated model. Through some form of collective bargaining, rules around transfers and recruiting become more normalized.
My concern is that only 25 or so college football teams will remain nationally relevant while everyone else becomes glorified FCS and the sport loses a whole lot of longtime fans because of it. ESPN, Fox, etc., will still get their ratings, because lots and lots of people will still watch Texas-Michigan, Alabama-Ohio State, etc., but in much of the rest of the country, previously rocking stadiums are half-full on Saturdays.
Note: It doesn’t have to end that way, but it might if university presidents continue to allow TV networks to run the sport for them.
This is where I believe you get lawsuits from the silver spoon programs who don't find themselves in this group. We're already in a state of anti-trust, which Congress appears to be creating a carve out for. But when you do this to large, rich state land grant institutions who have always been in the upper echelon it blows anti-trust out of the water and is a very different story. Any super league has to include most of the schools already in the P4 or they take on massive, massive litigation risk.
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That's where the salary cap and investment come in to play.
It is totally optional right now. They will give it a few years and see who is in, who isn't. The results on the field will show it too. And that $22m cap will increase every 4yrs. On top of that it was reported last week that schools can buy an athlete's rights and generate 3rd party NIL for them, which does not count against the cap. So an even bigger separation occurs. I guarantee Ohio St can get more for their players than NC St.
Eventually, through either a new entity or conference by-laws change, that cap will become a minimum required investment. Then those who aren't all-in won't make the cut. Most conference changes like that (even expansion) don't require 100% approval by member schools.
Or imagine a new FOX owned or PE funded league that doesn't "invite" schools but simply says "join us and you'll get $x each year, but we require $x budget and revenue sharing for players. Who wants in?" Not every current P4 school will meet the requirements. And because it is fully optional to join, no lawsuits.
It'll easily take 10yrs, but I still think a split will happen. There's too much $ to be made for the big boys to not find a loophole/gray area somewhere and not push others out, but simply move on without them.
I just don't see the legal mechanism that would provide any remedy or recourse.
Schools forming their own conferences are not anti-competitive. It's not a monopoly - there's already multiple tiers of college athletics. There's no bars to entry other than the desires of TV networks to broadcast your school. No one is leaving Baylor behind, they just don't have anyone that wants to pay billions of dollars to put their games on TV. The anti-trust case that is open now is between schools and players, not between schools.
There's no real damages that could be claimed. They would have to argue that if Big State U leaves us to play in a more lucrative league, we won't be getting the revenue that Big State U is solely generating and sharing with us. That's not going to stick.
In fact, the Big State U schools would probably have a stronger case that they are suffering damages from Small State U forcing them to not only remain in a conference to their detriment, but also share revenue with entities that are not generating sufficient income.
I also don't see politicians touching this with a ten foot pole. Most states are going to have a Big State U that wants to join the superleague. It would be political suicide for a legislator to take on, say Texas A&M and Texas in order to curry favor with....Texas Tech.
Or, like Mtneer says above - they could just raise the cost of business so high that only the top teams can afford to play.
Suppose they said that every school that wants to join must sponsor the maximum amount of sports and also offer all athletes (including women's sports) $50k per year. Ohio State wouldn't bat an eye at that. But you wouldn't get too far down the list until some schools are shaking out the couch cushions for pennies.
I really do think that at some point, some G5 and lower level P4 schools are going to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they can afford to operate at this level, and if there's not a better way. It's going to be hard because it's going to cost administrator jobs (and no one is going to want to give up their spot on the gravy train of higher education/athletics), and egos are going to be flattened, and fans are not going to like being told that they need to adjust to the new world, but it's got to happen.
I don't necessarily disagree with that. But there are 69 P4/P5 schools. Even at 32 that would be over half being cut from the highest level. I don't see either a) that many voluntarily bailing or b) that many being kicked out without a fight. Sure maybe schools like Rutgers and Wake say nope not for us, but you're not going to get to that number voluntarily. Most will find a way to spend the money because it's still a net profit in the end.
There's an argument to be made that the reason the Pac schools went to the Big 10 is because there's only going to be two leagues standing in the end. Which is a fair argument. I just see this consolidation (which is what I've been calling this two decades not expansion), is going to come down to three or four leagues with most of those currently in it still in it.
There's too much power and money combined in schools like NC State, Oklahoma St, Kansas, etc. if you try to eliminate them. There are more of them than would be in a 24-32 team league.
There's too much power and money combined in schools like NC State, Oklahoma St, Kansas, etc. if you try to eliminate them. There are more of them than would be in a 24-32 team league.
I can’t even keep up with all this expansion/realignment crap anymore and throw in the NIL/Portal free agency plan I can’t remember players nor when they played where. I’m with Wiley. It’s no longer fun for me.
I agree. I'm suspecting only a few will bow out. Texas and the like is still going to want some easier opponents on their schedule so it's not going to make sense to push everyone out and only have 25 elite teams remaining. I just don't see that happening. Would get real old, real fast.
There will definitely be some culling though but it's not going to be extreme, at least at the Power 4 level. Something around 50 teams seems about right.
G5 will be the new Junior College 5. You'll definitely see some regionality once teams like Memphis, South Florida, UAB, Boise, etc. realize they're just another JC5 school and get all their best players stolen every off-season by the Blue Bloods because they've been priced out too. Now that's going to be a tough pill to swallow.
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Now what do you think will happen once, the athletes become employee's? They won't be able to run them off just because, they will have the same rights as a professor or any employee on campus. Because somebody will sue, and they will lose that battle in court for wrongful termination. Also with the roster cap of only 85 scholarship players and no walkons being discussed as part of the settlement, that will be an extra 1200 P5 kids and 1400 G5 kids. So that will keep the talent level even, no paying for players under NIL, no hoarding of players by the rich.
Another great article from The Athletic ($$)
www.nytimes.com
The kicker is that the House case, which incorporates two other antitrust suits, isn’t the greatest fear of some conference executives. It’s the Johnson v. NCAA case, which argues that student-athletes should be classified as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and subject to a minimum wage and overtime pay. The outcome of the case could officially eliminate the outdated notion of amateurism at the collegiate level and clear the way for athletes to unionize and collectively bargain working conditions.
“If that happens,” the commissioner said, “you’re going to see a lot of non-Power 5 athletic departments go away, including at the Division I level.”
G5 schools and lower level P5 schools are on a sinking ship and the P5's got all the spots in the lifeboats. Don't let ego and selfishness drop us into the drink.
Get ahead of this, get together with the other like minded (budgeted) schools, and put out a non-pay to play model, re-alignment, consolidation, and come up with a solution to keep us all playing.
Trotter: NCAA realignment could take on dramatic new meaning if House settlement approved
Lower-level DI schools to be "hurt the most" trying to make up for lost revenue. If it sounds like financial Darwinism, it's because it is.
www.nytimes.com
The kicker is that the House case, which incorporates two other antitrust suits, isn’t the greatest fear of some conference executives. It’s the Johnson v. NCAA case, which argues that student-athletes should be classified as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and subject to a minimum wage and overtime pay. The outcome of the case could officially eliminate the outdated notion of amateurism at the collegiate level and clear the way for athletes to unionize and collectively bargain working conditions.
“If that happens,” the commissioner said, “you’re going to see a lot of non-Power 5 athletic departments go away, including at the Division I level.”
G5 schools and lower level P5 schools are on a sinking ship and the P5's got all the spots in the lifeboats. Don't let ego and selfishness drop us into the drink.
Get ahead of this, get together with the other like minded (budgeted) schools, and put out a non-pay to play model, re-alignment, consolidation, and come up with a solution to keep us all playing.
Speaking of $, here is an interesting post from a Delaware fan. I've never seen a map of the current G5 state that shows how inter-mingled and non-regional we really are. There is a lot of wasted $ spent on travel that G5s really don't have. Left is currently, right is his dream scenario.
I would move Marshall to the MAC, Liberty and Buffalo to the AAC, NMSU and UTEP to the MWC and last but least MT and WKU to the SBC. Put together a TV deal for all leagues under one umbrella and get it popping.
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