Idea to fix this mess. Multi-year contracts.

Once they’re determined to be employees of individual schools, I would think that’s what’s going to happen. It’s absolute, utter bulls**t that you can devote time and resources on a specific player and then have some other school sweep in and scoop the player up at no cost to itself.

I agree, 4 year contract to start! Wait that sounds familiar…

In all seriousness – model it after the NFL and do away with years of eligibility, it’s the only way to force parity. All new recruits enter a draft. This way they can all stop pretending like their primary goal is education (I know it is for some, but many I feel would drop classes so quick if given the chance).

the solution is inevitable.

They need to be classified as employees.

Then there will little reason or incentive for many schools to participate.

big $$ will be spun off and Universities will lease their sites to outside interests (sometimes) that will own these semi-pro teams…

Like the USFL interest will drop as it becomes blurred and a watered down version of the NFL.

We foggies will all remember the good old days while gen Z watches E-sports on some new version of twitch and we sit around wondering what happened.

That’s what it eventually will be, but it’s not possible right now because the players have no power or say. The courts will never enforce such contracts (hence why the restrictions on transferring were killed by the courts) because the players are not represented or “fairly compensated”. So the only way for that to happen is that the players will need to collectively bargain it. In order to do that there’ll need to be a players union of sorts. or some representative body that can negotiate on behalf of players.

Such a structure would now be welcomed by the schools because it would provide a path towards standardization and normalization. Players would essentially be employees and sign contracts to play for a certain number of years. But it’s good and bad for both team and player. If a player ends up hating the school and program, he’s stuck or if he’s really good while playing at Marshall and wants to earn some bag by transferring to Penn State he’d be up a creek. Similarly, a team would get stuck with a player for 4 years. I’m sure they’d build in some accomodation for transferring or cutting players, but whatever deal is agreed to will definitely not be a team friendly as the NFL contract with the union.