The End: The Professionalization of Collegiate Athletics

Author’s note of apology: Sorry, this is so late. Old age and bad legs got to me over the last month. Writing and photography became excruciatingly painful experiences. Things are better, now so it’s off and running (well, walking gingerly) for the remainder of the Summer and into Fall.

This Might Just be a Money-pit House

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the fall out of the final moves that will end collegiate amateur sports, it is necessary to recap the events that have changed since the series was put in pause before the 2024-2025 sports season/academic year. The major new factor in the re-formation of the concept of collegiate athletics is the House vs. NCAA suit, and the settlement that will supposedly go into effect as of April 9, 2025.

Just Who is House?

Who is the ‘House’ in House v. NCAA settlement? Meet the man behind the lawsuit that will change college sports forever - Yahoo Sports

It has been a difficult slog finding full structured analyses of the settlement. There have been articles written and partial summaries, but the terms of the settlement are buried in legalese and contractual boilerplate. Getting to the meat and bones of the catalog of terms in the agreement has been frustrating since most commentary has an interest bias, and concentrates on one or two items in the settlement. The Knight Commission has published an analysis of the entire settlement, and it is written in a way that most laymen can understand. We will use that as a reference point. The link is a .pdf file so if you aren’t using a browser that can read pdfs, you’ll have to use another pdf reader after downloading the file.

The “whys and wherefores” of this legal agreement are interesting, surprising, and also depressingly incomplete. We’ll hit some of the major points from the Knight Commission Executive Summary but also speculate a bit on where things might go after the settlement is enacted since it doesn’t seem to settle too much.

That is the crux of this particular opening. There are three basic realities that have been completely avoided or ignored by the athletic departments, conference negotiators, plaintiffs, and defendants who have negotiated this “agreement”. First, there seems to have been minimal involvement from the student-athletes. Second, the agreement settles nothing in regard to regulatory requirements of several major Title IX standards, and third there is nothing that deals with the entirety collegiate athletics, mid-major conferences, and FCS programs.

This is an interesting take from a law student on the overarching potential effect of the settlement. This “incompleteness” will not solve the problems between the principals in this controversy and the collapse of the concept of collegiate athletics: the Athletes (students) and the programs for which they are the main product.

We’ll get into the effect of the settlement on the FBS, ACC, and Virginia Tech in particular as we actually see the fallout begin as the settlement technically goes into effect this week. For now, the reality is that there is largely nothing settled in regard to the professionalization of the athlete and the business rules (contracts, folks) that govern the relationship between the four major players in this mix; the collegiate institutions, the athletic departments, the media corporations, and the student-athletes.

“Hello, please sit and tell me why you are here?”

Being a professional isn’t usually in the wheelhouse of your average 17/18-year-old. Most of them don’t have the basic knowledge of how to balance a checkbook, negotiate contracts to mow their neighbors’ lawns. At 18, federal, state, and local taxes are usually pretty simple affairs and most W4 and their associated year-end W2 forms are pretty simple deals. Maybe they pulled in a couple of hundred bucks a month from working too much at the local retail establishment.

A contract negotiation and agreement are going to be far beyond their experience level. Yes, you will hear people pooh-pooh that as “paternalistic”, or derogatory… etc. Generally, those complaints come from people who either have skin in the new game as they try and advantage themselves of the situation. It also ignores the fact that a minor cannot legally sign a contract without their parent(s) or legal guardian signing as well.

Wait! No one said anything about contracts in and legal stuff between athletes and athletic departments and NIL providers… Actually the “House” settlement is loaded with contractual agreements and stipulations almost none of which directly involve the subject of this examination, the “student-athlete”. While there are a few mentions here and there in the summaries, and there are some limits involving them, the “student-athlete” has been largely left out of the settlement, unless the summaries are just missing those pieces, entirely.

The reality is that no matter how hard the NCAA backpedals or protests to the contrary, the current legal tort climate is rushing ever closer to declaring the student-athlete to be a professional and in the employment of the athletic department.

The Big Give, and Take of a Job

That means a major change in the tone, tenor, and purpose of the recruiting, signing, and retention of the, now, professional athlete. The effect of this reality has become the making of a braggadocios set of assurances that the young athletes and their families/representatives are capable of navigating the new conditions.

Well, the question at the top of the title of this section is something from my own career and experience interviewing candidates for a job. The question, “Hello, please sit and tell me why you are here?” had a dual purpose. It was the first demonstration of potential professionalism in any candidate for a job. It was asked as the surroundings were a corporate interview space across a table. I prepared by reading the candidate’s resume, and reviewing the job opening, itself. Upon committing things to memory, I would shake hands with the candidate, invite him/her to sit, and then took a seat with a note pad and a pencil/pen on the table in front of me. I always asked the question in a pleasant fashion, and always in a neutral tone.

I was looking for signs that this candidate was prepared to interview and would show promise regarding the job. If they didn’t tell me the position that they were interviewing for, hand me a current copy of their full resume (their entire Curriculum Vitae, not just a summary), and then offer some sort of positive response to how they felt they could perform the job, the interview would be conducted, pleasantries exchanged, and the HR folks would be notified that the candidate wasn’t what the company was looking for.

There was another part of that relationship, though. The question might seem to be a one-way challenge to the candidate, but it was also a challenge to me to figure out how to connect the candidate with the job, and also with something more substantive in the company. It was also a “what can we do for you” invitation.

In the past, with sports, the biggest monetary issue was the potential offer of a financial grant for the pursuit of a college degree. Now, with the advent of NIL (both institutional and third party non-related endorsements) along with the transfer portal and the athlete’s potential free agency at the end of the season the entire conversation has changed into a substantive professional bidirectional relationship.

Currently those “contracts” are highly unregulated, and non-uniform from state to state, team to team, and conference to conference. The whole concept of a contract also militates for employee and potential collective bargaining to be created. This is not in the settlement, either.

Employee… Benefits… Unionization… CBAs anyone?

The National Labor Relations Board has already ruled that the Dartmouth Basketball team is a special form of employment and therefore due the right under federal law and regulations to form a union to negotiate for certain benefits and compensation. This ruling is still sitting in some appeals court docket, and the administration is different so the board might or might not change its ruling, but that particular cat was let out of that specific bag, and there is no telling what the final result will be.

One thing that being an employee entails is successfully fulfilling the employee responsibilities in the contract. If the athlete is an employee and not a student, the employee can certainly be fired, and in many states that condition is completely independent of the reason for the separation. Many states have “employment at will” regulations in place, and a company can fire an employee for any reason, or no reason.

That makes contractual terms even more important, and that also means a bidirectional responsibility to the terms of the contract. How many NIL contracts will be blind guarantees of remuneration if the athlete bolts for another program before the terms of the contract are fulfilled by the athlete?

It is almost a guarantee that programs are going to insist on some sort of concession be offered if the athlete leaves the program early. Of course, this will be accompanied by some sort of termination buyout if the athlete is effectively ‘fired’ at or during a season.

And that, because there are so many student-athletes potentially covered by employment standard practices will militate toward unionization and a collective bargaining agreement. Since there are also outside considerations having to do with compensated endorsements (that inconvenient reality that an athlete in a big-name program will have higher NIL value than one in a minor program) those contract negotiations are going to be tedious and the terms potentially disadvantageous to the athlete. The result is the pressure to come up with some sort of valuation standard.

The NCAA just doesn’t have that sort of charter at the present time.

What’s Your Value?

Speaking of the standard employee issues of large organizations, contracts, and settlements we have two recent cases of perceived high value college athletes on opposite ends of their eligibility windows and the decisions taken based on business, not academic issues.

In the case of superstar women’s gymnastics phenom – who by happenstance attended Louisiana State University, Olivia “Livvy” Dunne we have post “graduation” issues about past collegiate NIL compensation from the massive, though probably insufficient, fund of prior funds available for former athletes covered by the agreement. Dunne is independently wealthy based on her modelling and endorsement celebrity career that was allowed under the “old” interpretation of NIL and the authorization for student-athletes to enter into external endorsement contracts.

Olivia Dunne gives statement during hearing for NCAA settlement case

The polar opposite is the case of Nico Iamaleava demanding double the amount of “new” style internal NIL compensation from Tennessee’s Athletic Department for the grace of him playing quarterback for the ironically named “Volunteers”. It seems the two plus million-dollar deal was insufficient by half according to Iamaleava’s contract valuation peeps.

Needless to say, Nico is no longer singing “Good Ole Rocky top”, not that he really cared all that much, anyway.

So, why are these two cases polar opposites but still related to the article? That’s because this is part of professionalism, and the fallout that comes from being a professional athlete with very limited performance windows and human nature involved in the contract negotiations.

If Dunne doesn’t opt into the settlement as a postgraduate, she might be able to sue, but the settlement precludes any easy paths to greater compensation. That means Dunne’s lawyers would win, and Dunne might end up netting very little. If she opts in, then her compensation from the seemingly huge pile of money over time might end up being a drop in the bucket compared to her net worth over the same period as a supermodel/Olympic gymnast. So, she must take a business decision based on disadvantageous options.

In Iamaleava’s case, we are talking about potential performance vs. actual results. NIL contracts tend to be “guaranteed” (which won’t last long in a professional environment), and barring his actual appeal to the popularity ratings spiking to huge levels, his external NIL value has only niche appeal until he proves himself. Those are business decisions, again, and involve more than Iamaleava’s opinion of himself. Tennessee took a business decision and waived off his contract demands, just like UNLV cut their quarterback with big demands, last season.

Well, That’s Business… Isn’t it?

“We made a business decision…” Many of those of us who work for a living have heard that one before. “Hey, it’s just business…” pops up often in the real world. Contracts expire; employment of no longer needed people is terminated. Situations change, new bosses come in and conflicts of style and capabilities don’t mesh. The revenues and margins aren’t there, and the business needs to terminate employees to save money because they can’t make payroll for the bulk of the other employees. The experienced folks who “make too much money” are let go in favor of younger cheaper talent…

For those of us who have put in decades of work at what we feel are low salaries, or hourly rates, or excessively long hours, all of those realities have come up at one point or another in our careers.

That’s not the way it generally went in college sports for most of the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Athletes did put in extra hours (Not trivial, folks, lots of this) over their studies for practice, conditioning, and travel, and some even footed their own bills because the scholarships were limited and they were practice squad or low on the depth chart and just looking for a way to contribute. The compensation was that dream full boat scholarship (more appropriately a specialized form of grant) to attend their university. Their reward might have been some wins, some bowl notoriety and some other trinkets and goodies, but for the most part that prize at the end was their diploma and a ticket to professional life in the real world after sports.

Of course, when they, like everyone else stepped into the post-collegiate experience of real life all of the realities of paying for everything from housing and food to healthcare and don’t forget real money going out the door for an endless parade of taxes dropped into their laps. Sure, there were a few who went on to professional opportunities, but those had their own pitfalls and struggles. The very busy but relatively charmed life of a student-athlete (and most regular students, btw) ended and “it’s just business” hit with a vengeance.

The Other Side of “Hello, please sit and tell me why you are here?”

We are seeing the fallout from the other side of the table in those interviews. When claiming professional rewards, there are going to be professional results demanded. The old system kept players, buried in the depth chart but marginally productive otherwise, either on scholarships or as non-scholarship athletes. That configuration goes by the wayside and the resulting situation will be much like any employment situation. “If you are paid to be here, then you have to perform according to the terms of your agreement.”

That means there will be many “frank conversations” had with players who have demanded some level of compensation. In a team sport, that performance level might be mitigated slightly by other players’ performances, but… results count when dollars apply, and what are the results required by the contract?

What are the goals of the team as it relates to the money paid out to each individual player? At the end of a season will there be a formal review process for the player and the Athletic Department to sit down and determine if the player met expectations? Will there be player concessions required within the terms of the contract?

On these and many other issues the NCAA has done little to solve the problems. It certainly has dragged its feet and been pulled kicking and screaming by court decision and law suit losses, into the proximity of finally admitting to reality.

Players have also been living in sort of a dream world where all remunerations are guaranteed, and their liabilities are either waived or capped. Eventually, that condition will have to cease as “real money” starts becoming an issue. If the players are suddenly a form of employee, then the taxmen come banging at the door even harder looking for their cut of the action. What happens to the Athletic Departments? Their situation was manageable when administrative salaries were modest, coaching issues were contained, and any compensation to the athletes came in a limited number of scholarships/grants of various kinds. The “House Settlement” doesn’t look like it settles those issues, either.

Predictions Time and More Questions than Answers in Conclusion

In general, we will probably see the following: (Unfortunately this bullet list is not exhaustive.)

• The House Settlement will only roil the waters more. It will settle little and even make matters worse.
• There will probably be increasing reports of sleazy agents taking advantage of players and families, and the fallout from lost or squandered funds.
• We are likely to see an increased flow of talent to 10-15 top money earning programs in the SEC and B1G, and a reshuffling of the modest talent into the other conferences as the tiers form and solidify.
• Division 1 FBS will naturally settle into separate levels of performance and revenue but without formal structure and business planning, many programs will begin to struggle as the quality of the product they can field suffers.
• Between the Transfer Portal (and its poor scheduling and governance) and NIL (which has little or no real regulation) college sports will wind into a gravitational well concentrating on football, men’s basketball, and limited women’s basketball. Other sports will begin to starve as available funds are sucked into the two larger and one minor sport.
• Eventually all of the other conferences outside of the SEC and B1G will begin to put heavy pressure on congress to address the problems.
• Look for many more lawsuits to be filed. Title IX suits will begin to dominate the court dockets as football rules. We’ll see suits against NIL collectives, agents, and Athletic Departments. We might even see suits filed against contracted players for breeching contracts to leave for other programs.
• In particular there needs to be a legislative and regulatory action to standardize a follow-on organization to the NCAA that has the anti-trust exemption and legal power to manage the situation.
• The employee relationship needs to be settled and finalized. Collective bargaining and unionization will rapidly follow, and those functions need federal approval. We’ll see an end to eligibility limits and probably an end to tax free scholarship status. Grants can be tax free, but the “employee” will be taxed according to his employment value. Is that going to be like the stipend and grants going to graduate teaching assistant? That all has to be regulated and stabilized across all of the NCAA members.
• Does the AD get a share of outside NIL compensation if it involves the player’s status with the program. Alabama NIL is going to be worth more than James Madison NIL. That formula needs to be worked out.

The Chaos Will Continue Until It All Ends

The reality is that few people are actually willing to commit to the true professionalization of college athletics. Too many people want it the way that it was. Too many see it as a way to get rich while they can, and too many people want conflicting things.

Unless and until Congress gets involved and recreates the NCAA along the lines of the NFL, MLB, or other professional sports league, this will continue, and collegiate athletics will hang by a thread. If the NCAA become a League with commissioners and all of the trappings therein, then the severance between college and athletic sport severs. How many colleges and universities will continue to host sports that offer nothing but some level of public relations for the institution?

Will professionalization ultimately be the end of collegiate sports?

That remains the begged question.

Next One Will be Some Suggestions – No one will listen, but then at least I won’t be a complainer.

John Schneider - SB Nation

GO HOKIES!!!