re: Rich Eisen and Sark on stupidity of current CFB

I don’t disagree with y’all that the charm of the game has been impacted and the portal must be reined in somehow, but again this was inevitable when it became a zillion dollar business.

Everyone kept practically ejaculating about these big TV contracts because fans view everything as a competition with other conferences and schools, but I saw the danger ahead. $100 handshakes aren’t going to get it for a zillion dollar business.

And $10.5 million for a high school quarterback is obscene but any other college student could make that from anyone stupid enough to give it to them without any repercussions.

Things change. Nothing is eternal on this planet. Not even college football. Maybe the thing will implode. Maybe it won’t. Is what it is.

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Everyone kept practically ejaculating about these big TV contracts because fans view everything as a competition with other conferences and schools, but I saw the danger ahead.

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You weren't exactly the only one who saw this coming. Many people saw the writing on the wall back in 2010 when Texas first attempted to implode the Big 12. Though in truth it was Roy Kramer who got the ball rolling 35 years ago when he opted to expand the SEC in order to create a conference championship game and increased revenue for the conference via TV contracts.

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You get it. What is happening today was inevitable. But there’s a subset of fans who will always regard players as transitory gladiators who exist only to provide them entertainment instead of the ones actually putting their asses and necks on the line out there.

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Now apply this to the Uber drivers getting the people there, the workers making the stadiums, manufacturing all the plastics that everyone uses, the people pulling the raw materials for everything, ect ect.

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I think the NCAA could have stemmed the tide a bit if at some point in the 2000s or 2010s they faced reality and implemented rev sharing.

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Georgia and Oklahoma would’ve just done Version 2.0 of their TV lawsuit.

It was a legit question. I asked this in a previous thread and no one could cite the case.



NIL isn’t ruining football it’s the portal.

If they had to sit out a year then it’s all fine

There was an injunction given and then the NCAA settled. So unfortunately they just gave in

I didn’t read the lawsuit or the results, but couldn’t the NCAA keep the old eligibility requirements and allow them to still earn NIL money?

In other words they can still make money but cut out this portal business? Have to sit again if you transfer.

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You get it. What is happening today was inevitable. But there’s a subset of fans who will always regard players as transitory gladiators who exist only to provide them entertainment instead of the ones actually putting their asses and necks on the line out there.

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Complete opposite of how it is. Fans have loved the players and considered them like part of the 'Tiger Family' etc whether they are stars or backups. Before the NIL era, no one saw them as transitory gladiators. You give a deliberate mischaracterization of how college sports have been for several decades now.

You can't fill100k seat stadiums over 'transitory gladiators'. The NFL can't come close to that, and the NFL is anchored to cities with 10x the population of most big college programs. No one in the country is catered to like college football and basketball players.

I used to see UF players at clubs and bars all the time in Gainesville. Play on the road at noon, done by 4, dressed and out of the area by 6, on a plane and back in Gainesville by 9, at the bars by 10 or 11 - never once saw them pay for a drink. I mean that - not a single time can I remember seeing a football player reach into his pocket and pull out some cash. I'm sure it happened, but I never saw it.

The school used to pay me to tutor athletes. No other student got that deal. The idea that players have gotten any sort of raw deal has never been true. Not even a little bit. And this doesn't cover the 'tours' of the locker room for big boosters at halftime, where players find rolls of money in their jeans pocket after the game and all sorts of other things that take place.

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I used to see UF players at clubs and bars all the time in Gainesville. Play on the road at noon, done by 4, dressed and out of the area by 6, on a plane and back in Gainesville by 9, at the bars by 10 or 11 - never once saw them pay for a drink. I mean that - not a single time can I remember seeing a football player reach into his pocket and pull out some cash

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Free drinks. Amazing.

Portal being open while bowls and playoffs are going on is beyond stupid.

But its hard to come up with a good fix that isn’t without its own flaws. Opening the portal in January would avoid interfering with postseason rosters, except for teams that make it to the title game since its not until January 20 with the new expanded CFP. But opening the portal in January would mean schools are already back in session for a few weeks in some cases before players are committing to their new schools.

January portal would have worked better if the national title game wasn’t so late in the month. Another reason they should have only expanded the CFP to 8 teams. Title game could have been Jan 13 at the latest.

They should just open the portal up mid spring, scrap spring practices and have those practices during the summer like a mini camp to acclimate the portal players to the new teams.

Spring practice is absolutely meaningless with these days