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The wild west period of college sports has made it more difficult to move forward.
Bubba Cunningham sent a letter to all Carolina alumni and supporters on the state and future of Tar Heel athletics, and there are two elements where the toothpaste got out of the tube that will have serious implications for how smooth the new era of amateurism will go.
In both areas, the only people who are sure to have success and get rich are the wealthy lawyers representing the athletes, the schools and the NCAA in toto.
One is the seemingly arbitrary decision to exclude all of the athletes who played before 2016 from the settlement that, if the courts allow, to be about $2.8 billion that will be split among the major universities over 10 years after the decision comes down.
NIL stems from UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, who as he was leading the Bruins to the 1995 national championship saw his name, image and likeness on a video game. What happened with every athlete between then and 2016 who should share in the settlement?
Tyler Hansbrough, for example, did as much for the UNC brand between 2006 and 2009 as any athlete in Carolina history, yet he will have to get a lawyer and a bunch of his contemporaries and sue somebody. Supposedly, the ballooning TV rights in 2016 are the reason for that cut-off date, but certainly athletes before then deserve something.
The second is that the transfer portal and NIL appeared on the scene at about the same time, and it immediately turned into the pay for play incentive that it was not supposed to be. The NCAA had washed its hands of NIL without laying down some guidelines and suggested valuations that will make it very hard to contain payments moving forward.
What is getting a new car worth for doing TV commercials and social media posts? There is nothing a college athlete can sell his or her rights for that is worth a million dollars, which the 5-stars in the early days of NIL received and are still getting. Superstars of the future will want as much as their predecessors, which will lead to more class action suits.
So the newbies and their agents are also bound to lawyer-up and sue for more money, but where will it come from as schools try to figure out how to add revenues necessary to keep broad-based programs going like Carolina has without cutting sports and getting into a Title IX mess with the federal government?
Mack Brown has said for years we are heading for the pro models of the NFL and NBA, and it sure looks like starting anew with collective bargaining and revenue-sharing at arm’s length from the schools and NCAA will be the only way to separate the future from the past.
Nobody seems to know where all this will end up, but they can start with more lawsuits.
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
