Conference Realignment - What's next?

74072 Poke said:
I could see the sec trying to eliminate the number of years of eligibility in the not so distant future. It's a logical next step, right?
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I’ve read several articles saying that if players become employees they will add eliminating eligibility “term” limits to their list of collective bargaining demands.

We are truly at the infancy of where this is headed.
 
HacklemanPoke said:
I’ve read several articles saying that if players become employees they will add eliminating eligibility “term” limits to their list of collective bargaining demands.

We are truly at the infancy of where this is headed.
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Hah! "Bargaining demands" reminds me of a company I worked for early in my career. Three plants signed up enough hourly employees to force a unionization vote (as an engineer, I was 'management '). We had just hired an HR VP who had experience with union negotiations. We held several informational meetings at each plant, and the one thing the VP stressed was that if the union was certified and we began negotiating a contract, EVERYTHING would be on the table. And everything would include the 100% company-paid health insurance and the nearly guaranteed 15% bonus annual bonus they all had received from the early days of the company's existence. Once it became clear that some or all of that could be lost, the union vote was doomed. The vote ended up being around 90% against unionization.

The players can demand all they want, but they may regret the costs.

PS: I wonder how the universities will deal with right-to-work states. Might they be able to bring in enough non-union labor (players) to field a team? Might their fans prefer this?
 
OSU79 said:
I wonder how the universities will deal with right-to-work states.
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I don't understand. If the players see the value in joining a union they'll do so voluntarily, right? However, if the "representation" that the union offers isn't worth the union dues, then players can have the freedom to opt out, right? I thought NIL was about benefiting the workers/players and not union organizers. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
 
New_to_OKC said:
I don't understand. If the players see the value in joining a union they'll do so voluntarily, right? However, if the "representation" that the union offers isn't worth the union dues, then players can have the freedom to opt out, right? I thought NIL was about benefiting the workers/players and not union organizers. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
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Yep, that's how all unions are supposed to work, and maybe some do. Yet you rarely see the head of a union who is poor, or one who lives on his constituents average wage.

But for 'college' football, I was wondering if there may not be enough players who would forego joining a union to play for the measly sum of, oh, I don't know, let's say a full college scholarship, free room and board, and maybe a new car. These guys might never make it to the NFL, but love to play football and would work their ass off just to do so. And maybe you could get enough of those guys to fill 8-12 teams within a given geographic region. A pipe dream, of course, but maybe....
 
OSU79 said:
Yep, that's how all unions are supposed to work, and maybe some do. Yet you rarely see the head of a union who is poor, or one who lives on his constituents average wage.

But for 'college' football, I was wondering if there may not be enough players who would forego joining a union to play for the measly sum of, oh, I don't know, let's say a full college scholarship, free room and board, and maybe a new car. These guys might never make it to the NFL, but love to play football and would work their ass off just to do so. And maybe you could get enough of those guys to fill 8-12 teams within a given geographic region. A pipe dream, of course, but maybe....
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I think there’s several factors working the way of the players. Not least is that there are only a handful of 18-24 year old young men that are 6’4 220 pounds that can run a sub 4.5 40 w a vertical of 39” and can rep 225 on the bench 25+ times.

Money is the root. Universities have made millions and millions off of these young men going on 30 years. Prior to the 90s before lucrative tv contracts coaches salaries and universities had revenues to basically cover expenses. Student athletes weren’t missing out bc there wasn’t a lot to miss out on. They were compensated w a free college edu and room and board. That was fair. Then tv revenues and sponsorships and jersey sales and merchandise and video games put lots of money in people’s pockets. Namely universities and coaches. Players were putting their bodies on the line and not getting what everyone else was.

NIL changed the game. The former players lawsuit pushed it further down the track. We are only a few years away from college players seeing what the NFLPA did for the lives of NFL players. They will unionize and some universities will bow. Others will stand firm. Then we’ll get the 24-36 team super league.

Too much money not to move that way. The NFL, NBA and MLB have provided the business model. That’s one of the other factors the players have in their favor. The wheel has already been invented.
 
HacklemanPoke said:
I think there’s several factors working the way of the players. Not least is that there are only a handful of 18-24 year old young men that are 6’4 220 pounds that can run a sub 4.5 40 w a vertical of 39” and can rep 225 on the bench 25+ times.

Money is the root. Universities have made millions and millions off of these young men going on 30 years. Prior to the 90s before lucrative tv contracts coaches salaries and universities had revenues to basically cover expenses. Student athletes weren’t missing out bc there wasn’t a lot to miss out on. They were compensated w a free college edu and room and board. That was fair. Then tv revenues and sponsorships and jersey sales and merchandise and video games put lots of money in people’s pockets. Namely universities and coaches. Players were putting their bodies on the line and not getting what everyone else was.

NIL changed the game. The former players lawsuit pushed it further down the track. We are only a few years away from college players seeing what the NFLPA did for the lives of NFL players. They will unionize and some universities will bow. Others will stand firm. Then we’ll get the 24-36 team super league.

Too much money not to move that way. The NFL, NBA and MLB have provided the business model. That’s one of the other factors the players have in their favor. The wheel has already been invented.
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I agree with everything in your post. As you said, there are only so many of those guys, though, and they'll end up populating an NFL minor league with college names and mascots. Not sure if osu will be one of those, and not sure I care either way.
 
HacklemanPoke said:
Student athletes weren’t missing out bc there wasn’t a lot to miss out on.
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Mark Richt's brother-in-law profited off of Todd Gurley's autograph. However, when Gurley profited from his own autograph, he was suspended.

That's just downright un-American, and that's why we are where are.
 
Georgia Poke said:
Mark Richt's brother-in-law profited off of Todd Gurley's autograph. However, when Gurley profited from his own autograph, he was suspended.

That's just downright un-American, and that's why we are where are.
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as a one upsman that ain’t nothing. Dez Bryant had his college career ended not bc Deion Sanders bought him a sandwich but bc an OSU baseball player dared challenge the NCAA and won and the NCAA got pissed at OSU and took a 19 yo kid into an interrogation wo counsel and entrapped him in a lie. The lunch was ok but the minute he denied going to lunch they suspended him for the rest of the season. Counting the bowl it ended up being 9 or 10 games bc he lied about a sandwich.
 
HacklemanPoke said:
as a one upsman that ain’t nothing. Dez Bryant had his college career ended not bc Deion Sanders bought him a sandwich but bc an OSU baseball player dared challenge the NCAA and won and the NCAA got pissed at OSU and took a 19 yo kid into an interrogation wo counsel and entrapped him in a lie. The lunch was ok but the minute he denied going to lunch they suspended him for the rest of the season. Counting the bowl it ended up being 9 or 10 games bc he lied about a sandwich.
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Okay. The NCAA is screwed up, but those aren't parallels.
 
GratefulPoke said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1812611965220766003

Guy was right from the start about the last round of realignment.
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You don't have to have true parity to make the product successful but you do need to have the illusion of parity to keep fans of teams like ours interested. That's what college football has always been until now. Honestly I'd rather the Big 12 break away from the SEC and BIG10 and form our own league with it's own championship.
 
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