Rookie Contracts

[Red Rhino]

It seems to me that we have a major issue because of NIL. In order to bring in big name recruits, a team must pay big $ for a player that is completely unproven, (see exhibit A, Isaac Wilson). A team might find it extremely painful and costly to abandon a player that they paid huge money for when they are not playing up to the expectations. This will not just be a Utah problem. You also have an issue when players with little to no NIL $, who are vastly out playing high earning players. This is bound to cause major locker room issues. I believe Nick Saban foresaw this and that is why he retired when he did.

In the NBA, there is a rookie contract that typically lasts four years. The contracts are typically lower because the players are yet to be proven.

First overall pick: Around $12.6 million in the first year
Mid-first round pick: Around $8-9 million in the first year
Late first round pick: Around $5-6 million in the first year

That sounds like a lot, but it is about the average salary for an NBA player. The highest paid players in the NBA are: 1. Stephen Curry, $55,761,217 ; 2. Nikola Jokic, $51,415,938 ; 2. Joel Embiid, $51,415,938 ; 4. Kevin Durant, $51,179,020

We cannot pay freshman as if they are a proven All American player. It will not work for any team, let alone teams with less NIL $.

Here are some ideas:
1. NIL $ must come in the form of contracts with contingencies, restrictions, and qualifications.
2. Institute a maximum NIL limit for Freshman.
3. Freshman NIL contracts can not be longer than 1 year, with a re-evaluation clause after the year one performance.
4. Institute scaled contracts for loyal players, (meaning that players will make greater money for each year they stay).

What are your thoughts and ideas?

[DataUte]

Who is going to do this? NCAA? no. But I could see this type of concept gain traction when the P2 break away and form their own governance and rules (read SEC and B1G meeting a couple weeks ago to discuss how to mutually benefit each conference).

[Tony (admin)]

How much is IW’s NIL deal for this season?

[Red Rhino]

I believe college athletes are only required to report their NIL deals to their schools and it appears that Isaac’s NIL deals have not been disclosed to the public. Does anyone have an inside source on this?

[Utes 69]

NIL will ruin college sports, soon i will find other past times

[Red Rhino]

To answer your question DataUte, this would need to be a breakaway semi-pro league. I know that nobody wants that, but we are already there. We are a semi pro league living in anarchy. A semi-pro league with guidelines would be much better than what we have now.

[jshame17]

I have no problem with a semi-pro league….. as long as it is not affiliated with universities at all, in any fashion.

I cheer for the Utes because they are my alma mater, their connection to the community and state.

Professional sports do not have that and any attempt to pretend that so is comical. You can relocate any team at any time, you can’t move universities or history. 

[Red Rhino]

If I had to guess teams with above average NIL money, may find themselves struggling with this problem more than teams with less money to work with because of the locker room rifts the disparity of NIL money is causing.

Examples:

Utah
Oklahoma State
UCLA
Florida State
Arkansas
Iowa
Wisconsin
TCU

[silverliningsurfer]

My primary concern with NIL is that players now are ONLY about money. I don’t blame them at all (especially since a lot of these guys won’t go pro so get all the money you can while you can), but it makes it easy to be concerned about the bigger/long-term picture.

This current environment made NICK SABAN of all people retire. If there was ever a guy who had a program/culture that players should want to buy into, it was him. Like, if Bama offered a guy say $200k and another school was offering $300k, if there was ever a place for the players to take less money to commit to the program/vision, it’d be there. The fact that he walked away suggests it’s purely a bottom line for a lot of these guys. And that makes me concerned that Utah can and will get outbid by a lot of other programs with more to spend. Hell, if Ryan Smith continues to dump money into BYU, we could be losing players to them, let alone blue blood programs.

I don’t doubt that this will be scaled back eventually but I fear it might be too late at that point. That said, a few thoughts I have:
– The NCAA needs to mandate some kind of “salary cap” on how much a program can pay to their athletes. It can be different for different sports, but Utah football should have the same limit as Ohio State, Michigan, USC, etc., even if they can’t reach that ceiling.
– There needs to be some kind of actual restrictions on what it means to benefit from your “name, image, likeness”. It’s just pay-for-play with extra steps right now.
– They needs to impose some kind of limit/restriction on transfers. At this point, it’s basically a free agency free-for-all after every season. Maybe refined NIL contracts will have a requirement on years before transferring. If we’re going semi-pro, we may as well treat it that way.

[jshame17]

Let’s call it what it is…..

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