Interesting insight into how NIL and free transfers have combined (and only the combination could have done it) to wreak havoc on the G5, and to some extent up and down the chain. Seems the biggest schools are even cobbling together NIL packages for “walk-ons” that mysteriously cover the cost of attendance.
“They’ve got to make up what a scholarship covers. I get it. It’s smart,” Chadwell said. “But the NCAA needs to create a rule requiring players to sit out a year if they are not on full academic scholarship.”
But as always, this is where they lose me. Limiting player movement without compensation is never the answer. Either you’re a student and this an extracurricular and anything you do or anywhere you go between seasons is your own goddamn business (even you Trevor fucking Etienne, even you, traitor), or you deserve material consideration for limiting your own mobility during your prime developmental years and/or your last chance to play a game you love competitively.
While I don’t think pro/rel is the solution in CFB, at all, I do think professional soccer has it right in how they handle similar roster pressures with nominally “equal” clubs on obviously uneven financial ground. If you pay players for a 3-4 year commitment, there is control with compensation. Big teams buy the contracts of players from smaller teams, and they pay training compensation to the teams where players first developed, and some non-negligible fees go to the players as well. Players still move, but in doing so they keep their old clubs financially healthy, the costs throw some grit into the flow from small to large, so not every player moves after every good year, and players are incentivized to maximize their value where they are. Something roughly analogous could happen in a professionalized CFB, though obviously compressed with most of the players moving on after 3-5 years.
Though, as I wander off on a tangent, admittedly the length of contracts is another wrinkle in professionalizing, and the powers that be do have their work cut out for them finding the right way to maintain a connection to the schools to keep product differentiation (i.e. how to keep it “college” football). A “lower” league can be vibrant and have passionate fans, but it needs something to make it unique and to have its rewards valued by stakeholders; in England for instance, history and community ties are enough to keep 100+ clubs culturally relevant. A “minor” league, on the other hand, is ultimately practice with uniforms and has a natural cap on how much enthusiasm it can generate.
I actually personally somewhat buy into the pro/rel model for cfb. I just think the model has to also accommodate regional rivalries and other cherished games. I think it could actually add a lot to the sport, could you imagine laughing at uga getting kicked to the EFL equivalent? I think what will ultimately start to degrade fan interest in lower tier programs is a decline in regular season stakes. I hate how ESPN is desperately artificially pumping up the post season, I think bowls where you celebrate a good year is all we really need, who doesn’t love arguing about the best team anyway? Like even after the ncg, we argue about it for shits and giggles. Keeping an emphasis on beating insert rival here lets smaller programs still survive and benefit from any kickback the bigger teams may have to pay and it lets big teams survive potential falls from grace with the additional coaching (and staff) carousel this sport has to survive as well.
So, maybe I’ll backpedal a bit. I used to argue vigorously against pro/rel for CFB, and I still don’t think it works particularly well for the American mindset and not at all if you have rosters that have (1) players early in their development curves, (2) limited player movement and (3) literally every player cycling out of the “league” in 5 years. In the older system, it causes the exact problem, competitive imbalance, it meant was invented to combat, because what is more classic than a team of seniors overachieving or one full of freshmen taking their lumps and learning on the job?
In the old days, annual Euro stlye pro/rel would be a disaster for any “interesting” newly promoted teams and an unsatisfying romp for many relegated ones. You’d eventually settle into yoyo clubs but to an even less satisfying degree than in England now. Latin America style rolling performance relegation could work, but it rarely goes smoothly in practice, and is basically dead (or at least in a coma) in Mexico. Hell, the Superleague is rearing its head again in Europe, because Real Madrid and Juventus have somehow decided that a world where they can’t outspend their opponents is the same thing as soccer “dying.” We might see the end of pro/rel in Europe before we see a large US organization adopt it.
Still, In the new world order of CFB? Who the heck knows. Pro/rel could work. Playoffs aren’t going away, so base playoff participation (but not seeding) at least 75% on conference performance, ban contracts for advance OOC scheduling (it’s sports… the “need” to schedule 10-12 years out is overstated), let players go part-time and hang around for 7-8 years if they don’t have an NFL future. Rework the TV deals with parachute payments and revenue sharing. You could craft a scenario where it works, and it could be an antitrust dodge the biggest schools are willing to stomach. I don’t THINK SO, but nothing makes sense anymore anyway, LOL.