Happy New Year You Surly Bastards!
Everything posted by Hayduke
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Big money ruining college sports has been solved; maybe
Agree in principle, but I'd say one person "should not" instead of "cannot." It's pretty clear that one person can have an outsized influence on an issue -- not just the president and not just this issue, but Trump does tend to have outsized influence. My first thought in looking at the executive order was that it probably written with the help of AI. I wrote on another forum that the presence of the "reported" fact of one team paying $35-40 million for its football team this coming season seems to come directly from the internet rumor. The revenue cut-offs in the executive order seem arbitrary and potentially very problematic. But now they're numbers that are out there, and we'd all be fooling ourselves if we didn't admit to the possibility that they could take on substantial weight before anybody knew exactly why or how.
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Big money ruining college sports has been solved; maybe
This is one of those borderline topics that, sadly, will probably end up in CR because it will get CRed up. Once it's there, it's probably not going to be very good sports discussion, as most folks will probably avoid it. I think folks always have the potential to talk about this stuff without the partisanship and name-calling. I'm sure that some will say I or others have already made it political, or that it's inherently too political. But I'm trying pretty hard not to be political -- just pragmatic and sports-focused, with an emphasis on where things are going that will affect the field of competition.
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Big money ruining college sports has been solved; maybe
So now I'll venture my best guess. Nothing these folks do will stop the flow of money upward to the bigs. In the near term, successful football and basketball schools will keep winning. Consolidation at the top will continue. So that's kinda "free market" and kinda not. If I'm interpreting correctly, it looks like @TornACL is saying that the executive order is a little anticompetitive, and I think there's a very strong argument to be made there. Some folks might even look at it and say that it's a little "socialistic" -- especially if you change the topic from college sports to something else, like professional sports or maybe electronics stores. It's pretty crazy stuff. I think, ultimately, it's going to hasten the shuttering of lots of lesser football programs and smaller team sports. That's one way of looking at it, but what I'm trying to do is look at the bigger picture of how everyone ELSE is going to react to that symbolic nothingness. I have no idea what the hell is going on around college sports right now. But I'm paying very close attention to it for several reasons. One is that I work for a university and am particularly close to the issue of how "policy," law and power work, both for internal and external issues. Another is that I have a young adult-child who's off to college in a year and is on the cusp of minor D1 sports competition -- not scholarship level, in almost all certainty, but the combination of scholarly and athletic ability are going to be very attractive to colleges who are begging for students and, in particular, students who have what they are looking for beyond just tuition dollars. Next week, we'll probably hit one major D1 university and one excellent D3 school that really emphasizes sports. What I'm not sure of is how my offspring feels about sport in either or both of these places, and whether the team we'll look at will even exist at the D3 school four or five years from now.
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Big money ruining college sports has been solved; maybe
I wouldn't write off its potential impact that quickly. For one thing, it already mirrors much of what the House seems to be trying to do with the SCORE Act, and I'm not sure that SCORE would generally be able to hold up well in court in different times. Now, with legislative and executive branches a little more aligned, it could have a lot more teeth. This is close enough to CR as it is, and I'm trying to stick more to general facts and avoid value judgments. But I think folks can agree -- regardless of where anyone is on the political spectrum -- that we're not operating under the same political rules this year that we were last year. We've already seen how this administration has reshaped, at least temporarily, the executive's ability to implement actual changes in things like the size of government departments, funding for science, and how DEI is implemented (in this case, no longer implemented) in educational settings. And universities, facing declining enrollments and unilateral cuts in scientific funding, consider themselves especially vulnerable to the will of the administration. If anyone here has been paying attention to the way Columbia, for instance, has approached pressure from the administration, it's pretty obvious that universities are very attentive to what the administration wants. Only a very few universities -- such as Harvard -- have fought back. The real questions come from how this will all play out with regard to the interactions among the administration, Congress, the NCAA, the big schools, the small schools, and both courts and lawyers. My guess is that between this order and SCORE, there will be more immediate shakeups than we anticipated, and even if folks try to dial it back a little when we get further down the road, the explosions will have already occurred and there will be a lot to clean up.
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NIL Recruiting News Megathread
Here's the executive order for anyone who wants to read it. I've read parts carefully and skimmed the rest, and it looks like this is going to butt up against both what the House is trying to do and what is actually going on with schools and collectives. My guess is Trump really trusted somebody else pretty completely on this order, and whoever it was didn't bother to do much in-depth analysis of the broader issue. The biggest clue is the speculative phrase "football players at one university will reportedly be paid $35-40 million." (is this Texas living rent-free in the collective D.C. consciousness?) Can't wait for the in-season lawsuits and injunctions.
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NIL Recruiting News Megathread
Well, that's pretty damn different than what the article conveys, but also not surprising. Just goes to show that a writer ought to read the bill they're writing about. The disappointing part is that the article is still more complete than most of what we can find out there. Not much info on the post, but that language on it is so broad that it could mean everything, or nothing. I'm sure we'll hear plenty about it in the coming days. Trying not to go CR, but if there's anybody I don't want ruling unilaterally on college sports, it's Donald Trump. Not sure he's even a real sports fan, but he's definitely more confident in his own correctness about everything than would seem helpful here.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
- NIL Recruiting News Megathread
Yesterday two House committees (Energy and Commerce Committee, Education and Workforce) advanced the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act (SCORE). Here's an article from this morning's Inside Higher Education that gives the best summary I've seen so far of major aspects of the bill. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/athletics/2025/07/24/republicans-rethink-structure-college-athletics Some key points: pre-empts existing state-level NIL rules prohibits student athletes from being recognized as university employees exempts NCAA from certain antitrust laws ties athlete compensation to how much TV revenue the team generates codifies the right to retain an agent caps compensation level at 5 percent [not sure of what -- article unclear] and outlines regulations for revenue sharing requires most colleges to maintain at least 16 sports programs prohibits colleges from using student fees to support the athletic department. Party-line vote in committee, although there was initially bipartisan support The student fee bit is a big one, as so many (see UW-Milwaukee report above) rely on that model. Others mentioned in the article as having recently raised student fees: Minnesota, Clemson, Fresno State. Article concludes there's a long way to go before it reaches the presidential desk. My guess: if this passes and keeps most of its form, non-revenue intercollegiate sports don't have much longer to live at most schools (by that I mean the vast majority of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., many or even most of which don't have them already). NCAA has a little more than 1,100 members and the NAIA about 250. I also think Title IX as it applies to sports would be dead. SCORE and Title IX are pretty antithetical to each other, as Title IX is absolutely revenue-blind and SCORE is all about the revenue. There's some nice coverage and good quotes from various parties in this piece. Worth a read if you're following this kind of stuff.- Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
PM @Tex Pete.- Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
You laugh, but as manager of this fund, I can tell you that several Surly posters have contributed to the "Gun & Alcohol Money for Every Out-of-state NIL Bag Recipient Organization," also known as GAME ON BRO.- Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
No, it's "attorney articulation ain't ambling away."- Double 07 Bond!
Interesting. If I'm interpreting all this correctly, it means Bond could be feeling the accommodation would go in his favor -- meaning Roe perhaps drops her complaint? Or, alternatively, he knows this is a failed gambit, a frivolous and flaming piece of shit, on his part? And I'm guessing the opposition to sealing the summons could only come from the defendant? Can it come from a third party? I'm obviously not an attorney, but I have been spending too much time figuring out how the law works, especially in context of your observation that government is "at its most powerful against the individual." Also glad that site you linked is pay. Would have gone down the rabbit hole of reading those PDFs.- NIL Recruiting News Megathread
Right. Why I wrote "optional." Few schools are going to be able to do that. When you look at a school like James Madison, it stands to reason that if any of those $53 million in segregated student fees -- which are called that because they go to specific expenditures -- are used to pay athletes directly, there will be questions and blowback. JMU might have enough athletic revenue overall to let bookkeeping magic take broadcast/conference revenue and non-student ticket revenue to pay the athletes. But its bookkeeping expenses will probably go up, too.- Double 07 Bond!
Sounds like you haven't had to go shopping for an attorney, especially on a complex matter that maybe they don't quite grasp and takes a lot of time to explain. And that's a good thing for you. My experience is that it's as hard to find one to give you the time of day as it is to get a plumber or electrician when you need one. The good ones are already plenty busy, and so are the lesser practitioners. With "against the plaintiff's wishes" meaning "not looking to be in Bond's favor," I take it? What are some of the possibilities you see here, @Lidig8r?- NIL Recruiting News Megathread
Ran across an interesting and detailed report on UW-Milwaukee athletics yesterday and am highlighting parts to illustrate how vulnerable most departments are for optional distribution of $20 million in revenue to ALL their athletes, especially as the revenue-sharing cap escalates. Helps put both revenue sharing and NIL in perspective. I've supplemented my notes with outside information. Some things to keep in mind: UWM has no football team, but is D1 and its men's basketball has made two Sweet 16s in its history (the last in 2005). It has three consecutive 20-win seasons under third-year coach Bart Lundy. Last time they did that (four consecutive) was also when they made the Sweet 16. UWM has 22K students, about the size of Iowa and slightly more than Baylor. Has 15 D1 teams (eight men's, seven women's). Note that half of the $10 million budget is salaries and fringe benefits. But only two athletics officials (Lundy, at $430K, and AD Amanda Braun, around $250K) are making much to speak of. About three dozen folks are listed on the athletics pages as being salaried, if I recall correctly -- many not making much, like part-time academic advisors. By far the biggest revenue source is student segregated fees ($7.1 million). Looked this up separately, and each student pays $700 a semester for this. Pretty standard stuff -- pays for rec centers and gets students game tickets. Note also that game operation expenses are more than double ticket-sales revenue. "Athletic student aid" is roughly $2,000 per athlete (about 300 total). This figure does not include room and board provision for athletes and a few other provisions that come out of other campus budgets. Bottom line is that most D1 schools with football are much closer to UW-Milwaukee in budgeting than they are to Texas and Ohio State at north of $250 million. I posted elsewhere that once you get past the 60 or so top schools, revenues are starting to top out around $65-70 million for football schools. But there are 261 D1 schools who play football (about half of them in FCS). Quick AI searches: James Madison, for instance, had about $68 million in revenue, with a whopping $53 million from student fees. Think about the implications of that: I'm a JMU student and I pay mandatory money to keep football players at their training table and getting a salary? And then they portal out? Somewhere, there's a student government association president wondering why the SGA doesn't have the primary voice in running the athletic program, since it's the primary funder. FCS football power South Dakota State had a $20 million athletic budget overall. How is it going to give $20 million in revenue to athletes? Here's a screenshot from the 81-page report (which was given to the Wisconsin Board of Regents if you want to see it -- it's at the end of the audit committee report).- Texas Offseason 2025 - Archmania Is Upon Us
Tarmac talk totally not taking off.- Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
Hell, everybody knows pedantry is the sausage in Surly's klobasnek. Especially in the offseason, it's a primary filling. There's only so many recruiting announcements, media days and arrests to keep everybody fed.- GEORGIA CAN SUCK MY DICK
No idea. Had never heard of the guy and your question made me curious, but it's hard to find much info, especially as the Butler County football roster appears to have been taken down from the school web site. He is from Powder Springs, GA, which is about 20 miles from Atlanta and which apparently was founded on land owned by a couple of Cherokee leaders, around the time of the Trail of Tears. Powder Springs also produced NFLers Kenyan Drake, Evan Engram and Chuma Edoga (not to mention Mark Day, guitarist for the Christian rock band Third Day ... never heard of him/them, either). All of those names are from Wikipedia, and that's about as far as I want to research.- GEORGIA CAN SUCK MY DICK
https://www.butlercountytimesgazette.com/2025/07/seven-cloud-facing-domestic-battery-charges/ Huh ... whaddaya know. A Georgia commit, JUCO AA defensive tackle Seven Cloud, is in legal trouble.- Surly official camping and backpacking thread
Agreed. One of the great things about hiking is most folks are respectful of privacy but happy to meet new people. Got a couple of hiking buddies who are always really good at that part of it and because we pretty much always find a nearby bar afterward, we get a lot of conversation both on and off-trail. Met a bar owner off the Ice Age Trail not too long ago who had been in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail and her stories were a riot, including the pink underwear Arpaio made everybody wear. Not on a trail, but I met the author of the trail book I screenshotted on the other post when I heard her and her husband talking German as they stopped for coffee while passing through town. So now I've got two more hiking buddies, a good book and the German amnesty offer to boot.- Johnny (football?) Manziel
FIFY. (*and live in constant fear of you finding one of my typos 😁)- Surly official camping and backpacking thread
You just gave a serious jolt to my Camino planning process, @tomahawk dunk. Thanks for posting those.- Beer 2025: Merry Christmas Everyone, Including the Haters and Losers
I'm still looking for a place that will sell singles of all three of the OMs in @Al_4_ISU's uncle's beer fridge to try at happy hour. I could go to Milwaukee, I guess, or just buy a sixer of each -- likely not to cost much more than three decent craft singles. But then we'd have to drink 'em all, because we don't even throw out frozen beer.- Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
To be fair, there was probably a short period when it actually was. Thankfully, it was a relatively short time when Texas was a job that relied on potential as a sales point. Historically, of course, there's no question.- Johnny (football?) Manziel
I, for one, am in favor of Manziel living for a long time, because that probably means he'll keep doing stuff to keep us entertained between games. He dies and then we've got nothing but memories to rehash. - NIL Recruiting News Megathread
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