my *actual* opinion is that the NFL needs to pay for a real minor league system/expand rosters and take major CFB away from the colleges because they don’t know what to do with it but that usually gets things thrown at me when I say it
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That may be the best outcome for the NFL but it would almost certainly lead to reduced income for those elite players (no one is paying major CFB money to broadcast/watch a minor league) and destroy something that people love watching/participating in.
They could just buy the UFL. The structure is all there. It has 8 teams. Each NFL division could assign/share players on one team and fight for who gets called up from the team.
Yeah but you're talking about a MAJOR cultural change that the important people in college athletics would want nothing to do with plus a serious probably years long effort by the NFL to get the infrastructure set up, just seems wildly unrealistic
The other major sports have developmental/minor leagues for pro players who have been drafted and still have very strong collegiate competition. So I think it’s doable to have both for football too. The point about age when draft eligible is critical though bc now players go to the NFL immediately
draft the country’s best players at 18, put them in your own educational system where you pay them, develop them, teach them business/finance/life skills, give them insurance/end the nonsense
In this scenario were to happen nobody would really care if colleges still had teams minus the the top top players going to the nfl minor leagues, they’d still watch it with the same fervor.
Yes this. The NFL needs to take seriously better player development to improve the talent and overall quality of the league. Imagine the NFL now but with more talent at QB, for example.
And I also hope my college team would be in the lower division where it's more about playing for fun than playing to develop into a pro. But I'm a boring old fuddy duddy who liked regional college football in the 1980s.
They are the only major sport that doesn’t do this and it’s always been weird to me. Hockey stashes kids all over the place to develop. Baseball obviously. Basketball now offers the G-league but again can stash players overseas to develop. Football…most money/profit driven so they won’t pay for it.
Nail on the head here Nick. Players blow out a knee in college and their career is over it costs the NFL nothing. Wouldn’t be that way if they were laying a development salary to them. So they will let it happen and draft the next available player instead.
I'm agreed but from an alum's view. 1) I think pretending athletes ever had the time for school (and coaches actively preventing athletes from taking certain majors) made amateurism a joke. It defrauded the non-NFL bound kids from getting great educations, and left them with no comp on the back-end.
So, end the farce. Make it clear they aren't students. Not "student-athletes", athletes. (2) Schools have a lot of goodwill and school resources tied up in their football programs, so schools should have the opportunity to license their trademarks and facilities out. (3) Schools have an incentive...
...to stop associating their academic brands with athletics. 1-and-done and rent-a-player transfers will lead to instances that further the myth that higher ed is a scam or has no value or is full of bs majors. If the most famous person from your school is a "cosmology major", that's a bad look.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if it is an "educational system" that receives even a single dollar of federal funds, it needs to adhere to Title IX. Which your suggestion would, I think, be in violation of. The real answer is divorce the minor league system of sports from colleges.
How would it be different beyond the pay? I think that in order for the university to directly pay, then they need to adhere to Title IX which means equal money going to women's sports. NIL was the way around because schools don't pay.
I think the way around is for Minor League teams to be organized and have them sign use agreements with colleges for naming rights and facility usage. At least that is my very amatur leagal view. Someone correct me where I am wrong.
I think professional sports should completely disassociate with and not be afraid to compete against colleges. The colleges and their rules wouldn’t apply.
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