In College Sports, the Revolution Is Just Beginning

“You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip out for beer during commercials, because the revolution will not be televised.” –Gil Scott-Heron 

There is a revolution underway in college sports, and while the pace of change is unprecedented, at this point the revolution is equivalent to a small band of men in New England dumping some tea into Boston Harbor. The true shots have yet to be fired, but rest assured they are coming.

The last couple of weeks have kept up the dramatic pace of change that is burning down the amateur model of big-time college sports. And as the powers that be are racing to set up a college football playoff, launch a new college football video game and build facilities, it is time to understand that the equivalent to “taxation without representation” in college athletes will end soon.

Yes, athletes have NIL and can transfer, but those are just concessions made facing a frontal assault from lost federal court cases.

Basketball players at Dartmouth are the aforementioned men in New England. They won the right to unionize and then voted to join an established service union. But that is just the Boston Tea Party in this revolution. 

The Battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill are up next. USC has a union/collective bargaining case pending and that decision is likely to go the way of Dartmouth. And like the domino theory of old, once USC “falls” and their players get pay and benefits, the rest of the Big Ten is sure to follow. That will trigger the SEC, et al.

The 12-team College Football Playoff system is not without its own drama. Reports have surfaced about stumbling blocks as to guaranteed slots for the Big Ten and the SEC, as well as some disagreements on the distribution of revenues among conferences. A future 14-team playoff is also being discussed. 

Rumors that the Big Ten and SEC may take their ball (football) and leave the NCAA are out there too. No word on if anyone has considered what would happen to 30 other sports at a school like Penn State if the Big Ten leaves the NCAA. 

But at least all the playoff stakeholders are at the table… except anyone representing the collective bargaining interests of the players. By comparison, when the NFL adjusts their schedule, the players’ union has an equal seat at the table. 

College football players will be asked to play an extra four games for free, bringing the season total to as many as 17 games for the two finalists. That’s taxation without representation. And while the revolution is underway, the colonists/student-athletes have yet to organize themselves to push this fight even further.

Meanwhile, a group of promoters has proposed an eight-team in-season men’s basketball tournament that will give the players (not the school) $1 million in NIL deals, with the winning team’s players getting an extra $1 million. Based on a 15-man roster, splitting that cash evenly would net every player just under $66,667 and the winning team’s players just under $133,334. Imagine the intensity of play in that tournament final when there is an extra $66K on the table for the winners.

And what’s to keep a promoter from putting together an eight-team, end-of-season NIL money tournament to compete with the College Football Playoff? Or perhaps we could see a competing 32-team tournament at the end of basketball season. Those tournaments would have little problem plucking the best eight football teams or the best 32 basketball teams from a football playoff or March Madness that doesn’t pay the players. 

Imagine that team meeting, with the head coach saying, “Guys, we’re gonna take a team vote. We can go to March Madness (or the College Football Playoff) and you play for free while I get a fat bonus from my contract. Or… we could go to this new tournament which is drawing all of the top teams and all of you will walk away with $150,000 or more. What do you guys want to do?”

It might be wise to pause on the 12-team playoff for 2024. The contracts the conferences sign will soon be obsolete when collective bargaining arrives. 

It’s vital to get the right business model with player representation at the table to settle the revenue sharing for the 12-team playoff as well as the whole season. The past few years, players have opted out of playing in one bowl game. Will those same players agree to play up to four more games for free when the television rights alone will be $1.3 billion per year? And how would ESPN feel if big-name players opt out of playoff games? They’d certainly want those guys locked in to play those games.

A wise man once told me that sometimes you’re better off being one year too late than one day early.

And while we’re talking about players getting a cut of the money, EA Sports is in a mad rush to sign up players for $600 for their likeness to launch the 2025 College Football game. 

$600 and not one piece of the sales action? That won’t last. Wait until a new players’ union gets to sit across from EA Sports.

And while there have been people who’ve come forward to organize a national players’ union, this will be serious business. Engaging in collective bargaining will require a union with the bargaining experience to play some hardball.

So what’s the solution? Instead of rushing to get a 12-team playoff done, the leaders of major college sports would be better off convening a constitutional convention in consultation with expert legal scholars, and student-athlete representation to rewrite the governing rules of college sports. 

For those holding out hope that amateur athletics can be saved, there is an adage that took place in a brothel. The customer states, “we’ve already established what you are, now we’re just establishing the price.” Legions of millionaire coaches and administrators have already established what college sports has become. Now it comes down to setting the price. 

And we all know the real reason this revolution is occurring is the television money, the commercials, the corporate sponsorships and billions of dollars flowing to the schools. 

But if the players refuse to take part, the revolution will not be televised.