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It’s hard to wrap my head around how out-of-control this has gotten.
For those unaware, college sports had its first “contractual dispute” play out over the past few days. Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who was allegedly given between $8-$10 million to come to Knoxville out of high school, is now leaving after basically asking for more money in the offseason and was told to kick rocks.
I’ve been able to put up with a lot of college sports’s nonsense in recent years. I’ve put up with an extremely flawed expanded playoff made primarily to make big money fast. I’ve put up with the Pac-12 essentially being plucked to pieces as part of conference realignment (although Stanford and Cal in the ACC still feels so weird to me). This, however, is what’s gotten me to draw the line.
It would be one thing if this was happening in the pros. For people at that level, sports are their livelihood; plus they have families to support and expenses to cover. Iamaleava is not a professional — not yet, at least. He is a college player who came to the University of Tennessee, not just the football program, on scholarship. That scholarship has to mean something.
Whether or not it was justified by either party is a different discussion. The more important discussion is how this is now a symptom of a much larger issue.
Name, Image and Likeness (aka NIL) has been in place for almost four years. The NCAA knew that this new policy, which would finally allow college players to make money, was coming for years ahead of time. Yet, instead of putting rules and guidelines in place to make sure NIL was a well-organized process, the NCAA did nothing, allowing situations like this to become possible. How they could have procrastinated on such an issue confounds me.
There is no one villain in all of this. This situation became what it is because of multiple groups and individuals who put their own needs above those of college sports. This includes the NCAA. It also includes Iamaleava.
It should be noted that, shortly after Tennessee’s season ended, Iamaleava and UT renegotiated and both sides came to a deal that, by all accounts, worked for them. Now, several months later, before even playing another regular-season game, Iamaleava wants to go back and renegotiate again? That’s not how business works. I wish someone told that to him instead of what he ended up hearing.
I do respect the team for putting its foot down. It sets a precedent that no one player, even in this new era of NIL, is above the team. That said, I hope that, for the Volunteers’s sake, they’re able to find a quarterback able to take them to the heights Iamaleava did.
Listen, I’m all for players making money. It’s long overdue, but there needs to be a system where a player’s scholarship and academic obligations factor into his or her decision to go to a school. Otherwise it’s not college sports anymore.
Whatever the future holds, it needs to include a system run by the adults in the room who finally put their foot down and say “enough”. They haven’t done that yet and look where it’s gotten us.
I still love the sport. I’ll keep loving the sport for as long as it exists, but people need to step in and get this under control.
Continue reading...
For those unaware, college sports had its first “contractual dispute” play out over the past few days. Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who was allegedly given between $8-$10 million to come to Knoxville out of high school, is now leaving after basically asking for more money in the offseason and was told to kick rocks.
I’ve been able to put up with a lot of college sports’s nonsense in recent years. I’ve put up with an extremely flawed expanded playoff made primarily to make big money fast. I’ve put up with the Pac-12 essentially being plucked to pieces as part of conference realignment (although Stanford and Cal in the ACC still feels so weird to me). This, however, is what’s gotten me to draw the line.
It would be one thing if this was happening in the pros. For people at that level, sports are their livelihood; plus they have families to support and expenses to cover. Iamaleava is not a professional — not yet, at least. He is a college player who came to the University of Tennessee, not just the football program, on scholarship. That scholarship has to mean something.
Whether or not it was justified by either party is a different discussion. The more important discussion is how this is now a symptom of a much larger issue.
Name, Image and Likeness (aka NIL) has been in place for almost four years. The NCAA knew that this new policy, which would finally allow college players to make money, was coming for years ahead of time. Yet, instead of putting rules and guidelines in place to make sure NIL was a well-organized process, the NCAA did nothing, allowing situations like this to become possible. How they could have procrastinated on such an issue confounds me.
There is no one villain in all of this. This situation became what it is because of multiple groups and individuals who put their own needs above those of college sports. This includes the NCAA. It also includes Iamaleava.
It should be noted that, shortly after Tennessee’s season ended, Iamaleava and UT renegotiated and both sides came to a deal that, by all accounts, worked for them. Now, several months later, before even playing another regular-season game, Iamaleava wants to go back and renegotiate again? That’s not how business works. I wish someone told that to him instead of what he ended up hearing.
I do respect the team for putting its foot down. It sets a precedent that no one player, even in this new era of NIL, is above the team. That said, I hope that, for the Volunteers’s sake, they’re able to find a quarterback able to take them to the heights Iamaleava did.
Listen, I’m all for players making money. It’s long overdue, but there needs to be a system where a player’s scholarship and academic obligations factor into his or her decision to go to a school. Otherwise it’s not college sports anymore.
Whatever the future holds, it needs to include a system run by the adults in the room who finally put their foot down and say “enough”. They haven’t done that yet and look where it’s gotten us.
I still love the sport. I’ll keep loving the sport for as long as it exists, but people need to step in and get this under control.
Continue reading...
