It was inevitable.
When big time college sports teams were forced to allow players to make money from endorsing products, and had to allow players to move more or less freely between schools, a third big change became predictable: Schools were going to use advertising contracts to lure players to their teams.
That’s exactly what happened recently when a highly sought-after California high school quarterback, Jaden Rashada, reneged on his earlier commitment to the University of Miami and signed a letter of intent with the Florida Gators. Rashada made the switch because an outfit called the Gator Collective offered him $13 million in advertising deals to play in Tallahassee.
But then the Gator Collective dropped their offer. Rashada was once again a free agent and, incidentally, this could play to the advantage of former Badgers’ QB Graham Mertz, who transferred to the Gators in the midst of this whole mess. Rashada now appears headed to Arizona State.
At the heart of the problem is the NCAA itself. Always a group of officious busybodies, the organization is now fighting for its very life. In the face of a new more free market-style environment, it has to come up with some reason to exist and that reason is to do what it has always done: enforce picky rules designed to keep money out of the hands of college athletes.
So, when the NCAA was forced by the courts to allow players to benefit from their own name, image and likeness (NIL) and to drop their rule that required players to sit out a year if they changed schools, they rushed in with a new rule that says that schools can’t use NIL to induce players to join their programs.
This is like a rule that says that water must stop flowing downhill or that when you drop a plate it must rise to the ceiling.
Booster groups of wealthy alumni have always found ways to get cash into the hands of star players, below or just above the table. So once the ban on NIL was lifted and players could move more easily between programs those booster groups were going to find ways to use money to attract players to their teams.
Not only is this inevitable, but it’s also a good thing. Big time college sports is a multi-billion dollar industry. New Badger football coach Luke Fickell will be paid $7.5 million a year and his assistant coaches will make somewhere between the mid-six figures and over a million dollars. Athletic department administrators also make well into the six figures. UW Athletic Director Chris McIntosh will make a million dollars this year plus perks like free cars and a country club membership. Television networks and other media interests, apparel makers, stadium food and beverage vendors and others do very well off of college sports. The only people who have been prohibited from making a buck are the players themselves.
And no, a scholarship and some meals and tutoring is not adequate compensation compared to what others are making. And, by the way, how would you like it if your employer told you he’d decided to pay you, not in cash, but in room and board and continuing education in your field?
What I like about Florida and its boosters is that they tried to be honest about it all. They were going to pay Rashada to play for the Gators. No pretense. No baloney about “student-athletes” and blah, blah, blah.
The same can’t be said for Wisconsin’s approach. Badger boosters have started what they call the Varsity Collective. But, out of either cynicism or genuine naivete, they say they will insist on following the NCAA’s goofy rules.
In a recent Wisconsin State Journal piece, sports columnist Jim Polzin quoted the director of the Collective, Rob Master: “We don’t make any promises, any guarantees. We live the letter and the spirit of the NCAA guidance around inducements. We have not been involved in any way, shape or form in any inducements. We tell the story of The Varsity Collective and the opportunities to get deals for NIL and for opportunities for student-development and programming, but that’s where we draw the line in terms of any engagement with recruits.”
Really? Because the trip down the hall between “the opportunities to get deals for NIL” and “inducements” is only a few paces.
But more importantly, why the pretense? Outside of following the unrealistic NCAA rules which will fall soon enough anyway, why not just put together lucrative deals to lure the best players to the UW and be honest about it? Why contort the language and put yourself through hoops to try to dress up pay-for-play (another way of saying just compensation for services rendered) as something noble and student-athletey?
Unfortunately, I can answer that question. The reason to resist the appearance of inducements is that if you allow them to be explicit then it further erodes the myth of the “student-athlete.” And that fiction is at the heart of what the UW and other schools really don’t want: recognition that the players are university employees, deserving of a real salary. It’s one thing to allow private boosters to pay for NIL, but quite another to cut a slice out of the pie enjoyed by coaches and administrators.
And that’s just greed at work because no matter what happens the pie is big and will just keep growing. It’s not perfect, but as a rule the free market is a wonderful thing. After all, it’s the means by which all those wealthy boosters and those coaches and administrators got rich. Why shouldn’t that work for the players just as well?
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. Both his reporting and his opinion writing have been recognized by the Milwaukee Press Club. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
Editor's note: This post has been corrected to note Jim Polzin is a columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, rather than sports editor.
