FBS to be split- Now we know why schools paid heavy prices to move up

[BambooRdApp]

Wrong thread but the Luke Combs scenario of enforceable contracts with buyout clauses solves a lot of issues. I'd suggest up to 75% of the contract paid into an escrow account to be forfeited if the contract is broken. If a P6 wants the player bad enough, they buy out the escrow too, which funds the replacement.

I think it should be the actual amount plus 2x, 3x, etc given the operating costs to assist the young player to get to next level... personnel costs, facilities costs, scholarship cost, etc. I get these types of costs have historically incurred, however the attrition rates of players have never been so high.....realize that will probably never happen, however, the cost of making a great player is more than NIL

[JTApps1]

The main problem with I-AA/FCS was there were no minimum requirements to join. I don't like the idea of playing a level down, but the current path of FBS driven by the P2 is unsustainable for all but a few. Maybe we can hang on long enough to see it collapse.

Having a separate subdivision doesn't sound as bad now as it would have a couple years ago if we stay on the current path.

[appdaze]

While i believe contracts are in the future, just remember, once it goes down the path of contracts there is no going back. Its a professional league. Now we are talking unions, personal health care insurance, sick leave, days off, labor laws, etc.... contracts might rein in the wild west transfer portal but they bring their own Pandora box. It wouldn't surprise me if some sue to not have to be a student anymore. Its happening slowly, year by year, right in front of everyone. The death of college sports as we know it.

[Saint3333]

FCS is just like FBS, only 20 programs or so have a legit shot at winning it all, have and have nots is both subdivisions.

[appst89]

While i believe contracts are in the future, just remember, once it goes down the path of contracts there is no going back. Its a professional league. Now we are talking unions, personal health care insurance, sick leave, days off, labor laws, etc.... contracts might rein in the wild west transfer portal but they bring their own Pandora box. It wouldn't surprise me if some sue to not have to be a student anymore. Its happening slowly, year by year, right in front of everyone. The death of college sports as we know it.

Many states do not allow collective bargaining for state employees. I don’t see that changing, especially just to accommodate athletes.

[Bigdaddyg1]

Has App State athletics (as a whole) ever really netted any significant money? After all revenue less expenses have we been in the black, before being FBS, any FCS year or since moving up?

I’ve always been a Reds fan and have seen the huge highs of World Series wins and the lows of many losing seasons. It’s painful to see small market teams achieve success only to lose good players to the big clubs. Imagine ownership reaching out to fans asking them for donations above their season tickets to help pay for salaries. Also imagine if players were only on one year deals and could freely leave even after fans ponied up extra cash to pay them. Nope!

[appdaze]

While i believe contracts are in the future, just remember, once it goes down the path of contracts there is no going back. Its a professional league. Now we are talking unions, personal health care insurance, sick leave, days off, labor laws, etc.... contracts might rein in the wild west transfer portal but they bring their own Pandora box. It wouldn't surprise me if some sue to not have to be a student anymore. Its happening slowly, year by year, right in front of everyone. The death of college sports as we know it.

Many states do not allow collective bargaining for state employees. I don’t see that changing, especially just to accommodate athletes.

Correct on state employees, but i dont think they would be state employees for that reason. They can be contracted workers much like a school hiring a local plumber to do a job. Thay plumber is not a state employee. I dont belive the athletes will be state employees as there isnt enough money for the agents and the salaries would be lower. Pro sports have nation wide unions that no state has interfered with. College athletes will end up with a similar set up inwould imagine. It might be more regional than national but that is still to be determined.

[APPdiesel]

While i believe contracts are in the future, just remember, once it goes down the path of contracts there is no going back. Its a professional league. Now we are talking unions, personal health care insurance, sick leave, days off, labor laws, etc.... contracts might rein in the wild west transfer portal but they bring their own Pandora box. It wouldn't surprise me if some sue to not have to be a student anymore. Its happening slowly, year by year, right in front of everyone. The death of college sports as we know it.

You said you think contracts are the future. If you (or those reading who do) have aprehension about it, what do you see as being the downside of those labor concessions given to athletes who sign contracts?

I’m all for them because athlete contracts because it...
1. Protects the athlete compensation model. (Athletes win)
2. Sets up a model that would make it easier for schools to keep athletes with the program for a set period of time OR protect the school losing a player if he goes somewhere else (School wins)
3. Protects athletes' long term health if he or she gets injured in our uniform (Athlete wins and it's simply the right thing to do)
4. Provides them with a model to take sick or injured time away. (Athletes already have this)
5. Could potentially codify a model of minimum academic standards that would have a clear violation/punishment system (Most fans probably support maintaining the academic model).

I’m not arguing I’m genuinely asking because I hear from a lot of people who don't want athletes to become employees but I personally don’t see many of the outcomes of employment being things these athletes don’t already get, just codified in a contract or being things that we, as fans, want programs to have too.

[Yosef10]

I didnt really think apathy had set on for me but then I had a huge wakeup call last Thursday night when I came home and found my wife watching the VCU-UNC game (she is a VCU alum). It was at that moment that I realized I didn't even know the basketball tournament had started.

Yeah, it’s getting harder and harder for me to care about any of this stuff.

Still haven’t decided if I will renew my season tickets for this year.

I don’t want to walk away but I also hate the idea of contributing to all this craziness.

Hard to believe that anyone could find a way to ruin something as awesome as college sports, but in my opinion that’s exactly what they have done.

Can you be more specific in what has been ruined for you? Not meant to come off as snark either. My opinion is that folks forgot what it was like to have a couple of down seasons, which were always going to come along no matter the landscape of college athletics. Now that we’ve endured a few, the sky is falling. Again, just my opinion, but I think a lot of the doom and gloom will wear off when we run off back to back 8-10 win seasons.

[Yosef10]

It’s not fans’ jobs to know how the debt gets paid off. We’re not involved in planning, funding, approvals or construction. Asking that of fans and then saying “I knew you didn’t have an answer” is a red herring. Ask those questions of those with the power to do something about it.

It is a good question for the media to ask our leadership. The only reason I would even think about it is the fact they are asking us to give to NIL and I know that the debt is part of a strategy to expand so we could get an invite to a bigger league. I just don't think Gillin's plan is going to happen the way he is gambling on it happening. Sadly, instead of paying it down he is letting Loggains burn through cash at amounts we have never seen before.

Hey, maybe you’ve heard it directly from the horses mouth, but I’m not so sure the expansions are a gamble to land in a different league. Hell, he and Everts basically get credit for the SBC realignment, which everyone claims they want in terms of regionality etc. I think the expansions have simply been because they’re sorely needed. The IPF simply didn’t have enough space, especially when you factor in how often we’ll use it in Boone, along with the other sports. The east side of KBS, I could pick nits at that, but something is needed with that side of the stadium. I’m not saying the SBC has the best facilities around, but App did have catching up to do in that regard. I think that’s largely what we’ve done.

[AppStFan1]

It’s not fans’ jobs to know how the debt gets paid off. We’re not involved in planning, funding, approvals or construction. Asking that of fans and then saying “I knew you didn’t have an answer” is a red herring. Ask those questions of those with the power to do something about it.

It is a good question for the media to ask our leadership. The only reason I would even think about it is the fact they are asking us to give to NIL and I know that the debt is part of a strategy to expand so we could get an invite to a bigger league. I just don't think Gillin's plan is going to happen the way he is gambling on it happening. Sadly, instead of paying it down he is letting Loggains burn through cash at amounts we have never seen before.

Hey, maybe you’ve heard it directly from the horses mouth, but I’m not so sure the expansions are a gamble to land in a different league. Hell, he and Everts basically get credit for the SBC realignment, which everyone claims they want in terms of regionality etc. I think the expansions have simply been because they’re sorely needed. The IPF simply didn’t have enough space, especially when you factor in how often we’ll use it in Boone, along with the other sports. The east side of KBS, I could pick nits at that, but something is needed with that side of the stadium. I’m not saying the SBC has the best facilities around, but App did have catching up to do in that regard. I think that’s largely what we’ve done.

I think you are right about that being a big part of it but I think you upgrade to impress the folks you want to be with as well. I am sure the Sun Belt would have looked over us if we had kept our facilities the same from the 1980s up until 2012. We needed to upgrade some things to get taken seriously by some leagues we hope invite us as well.

[KentHogan]

I didnt really think apathy had set on for me but then I had a huge wakeup call last Thursday night when I came home and found my wife watching the VCU-UNC game (she is a VCU alum). It was at that moment that I realized I didn't even know the basketball tournament had started.

Yeah, it’s getting harder and harder for me to care about any of this stuff.

Still haven’t decided if I will renew my season tickets for this year.

I don’t want to walk away but I also hate the idea of contributing to all this craziness.

Hard to believe that anyone could find a way to ruin something as awesome as college sports, but in my opinion that’s exactly what they have done.

Can you be more specific in what has been ruined for you? Not meant to come off as snark either. My opinion is that folks forgot what it was like to have a couple of down seasons, which were always going to come along no matter the landscape of college athletics. Now that we’ve endured a few, the sky is falling. Again, just my opinion, but I think a lot of the doom and gloom will wear off when we run off back to back 8-10 win seasons.

Sure, I wasn’t referring to winning and losing, although it has been tough to see the program struggle.

I’m just not a fan of the new state of college athletics, which is basically no longer college athletics.

Endless transferring, pay for play, etc. I have no issue with true NIL deals, but most all of this is just pay for play. Not to mention all the kids playing well into their 20’s. Indiana’s average age was 23, most are out of college before they turn 23. Miami QB admitted he hadn’t been to class for two years.

There’s no longer loyalty to a team, school, coach or anything, it’s just run to the highest bidder.

The spirit of the game has been destroyed, supporters of the current system don’t even bother to pretend to care about the education aspect of it any longer. I mean, how can you build relationships and get an education if you are at 4 different schools in four years.

Finally, I just never believed that all the kids who just got a free education were victims.

I’m open minded, true NIL deals are fine, any kid who is popular enough to represent a brand and make money, more power to them! I would even be okay with the kids getting some level of compensation for all the extra time required to play college athletics.

However, I’m not good with turning college athletics into a professional league with endless free agency, seemingly endless eligibility, etc.

Thanks!

[Saint3333]

Wonder what the attrition rate on season tickets were this year across the G6?

[AppSt94]

I heard most MAC schools experienced a 50% decrease in season ticket sales. ADs are scrambling to figure out how to replace those 5 people that didn’t renew.

[AppGrad78]

The part I didn’t fully anticipate when NIL came on the scene is the adverse role agents are playing. Almost all them are incentivized to encourage their clients to transfer because the agent won’t make any real money if his or her client stays put. As an example, Michael Marcus Jr. seems like he enjoys his experience at App. He’s playing regularly on a winning team and seemingly is benefiting from the coaching staff’s tutelage. In the old days he would play four years in Boone with a possible shot at a pro contract overseas and would be held in high esteem each time he returned to campus. Today, we might offer him, say, $40,000 to stay at App, while a deep-pocketed school like Charlotte or High Point will counter with $100,000. Marcus might be willing to accept the lesser figure (the so-called home team discount) because of the benefits listed above, but his agent will have no desire to pass on $60,000. Player “churn” is what makes this system work for the agent to the detriment of schools like App.

[Yosef10]

Wonder what the attrition rate on season tickets were this year across the G6?

If I’m not mistaken, Gillin said to the BOT in their most recent meeting that the waiting list for App season tickets continues to grow.

[Saint3333]

We are still in unique position in that our demand outpaces supply. Only a handful of G6 programs can claim that.

[AppStFan1]

The part I didn’t fully anticipate when NIL came on the scene is the adverse role agents are playing. Almost all them are incentivized to encourage their clients to transfer because the agent won’t make any real money if his or her client stays put. As an example, Michael Marcus Jr. seems like he enjoys his experience at App. He’s playing regularly on a winning team and seemingly is benefiting from the coaching staff’s tutelage. In the old days he would play four years in Boone with a possible shot at a pro contract overseas and would be held in high esteem each time he returned to campus. Today, we might offer him, say, $40,000 to stay at App, while a deep-pocketed school like Charlotte or High Point will counter with $100,000. Marcus might be willing to accept the lesser figure (the so-called home team discount) because of the benefits listed above, but his agent will have no desire to pass on $60,000. Player “churn” is what makes this system work for the agent to the detriment of schools like App.

Happens a lot but also hearing that the players are blowing their money and having to enter the portal a lot to get a signing bonus so they can pay their taxes. When you combine greedy agents, greedy parents, and naive players it is a recipe for disaster.

[AppStFan1]

We are still in unique position in that our demand outpaces supply. Only a handful of G6 programs can claim that.

I wonder how much longer it will be before that is no longer the case with the current state of athletics.

[Saint3333]

If I had to wager probably one more up and down cycle, so three years.