JuJu Watkins, the USC phenom guard, seems to be all of those things as well except the last one. Between the two of them, we have some fantastic competition vs Clark coming into the league in the next few years at that position, lots of choices for people to become fans of and great narratives to drive interest.
Yeah, JuJu is the real deal. She is an absolute PHENOM and it's amazing to watch her play. She's already a major college star and should be, unless something terrible derails her, a massive WNBA star as well.
I used to think so, but now I'm really not sure how much money changes hands these days. It's the Wild West.
CNN Article
How did privilege get her to the point that she could be successful on the basketball court? Not sure I’m following.
nO KIDDING.
I don't think any reasonable reading of her post would suggest that she endorsed Aja's sorta-passively-racist point of view, or anything having to do with any player's privilege. She was just sharing the context of how the league's players are reacting here - reporting, not opining. So this is a pretty aggressive remark to fling in her face, don't you think?
Well you're not asking me but for my part, yes I do know her personally. I work with athletes at UConn. I don't know her, like, as well as I know my own kids obviously, and I guess in this day and age we shouldn't be surprised by anything that happens even with a person you think is really good. But, well, as far as I know her personally, she's pretty great.
I think prior to the sea change in 2021, it was inconceivable that someone like Paige Bueckers would stay in school for her final year of eligibility instead.of going pro. Going pro would not mean she wouldn't have endorsements still, of course. But it does mean that the UConn collective can come up with enough money (I heard around $1.4M? Geno was giving her shit), such that it's close or even favorable for her bottom line to stay. It's not the salary difference of $0 vs $65k rookie contract that does it, though - it's the endorsement differential, which is 10-20x those numbers.
That's disappointing from Wilson. I expect it's connected to how white players tend to be able to better afford year-round trainers and AAU fees and that is a real thing, speaking as a long-time youth coach. But, Paige didn't have the best of upbringings (more family dynamics than money but BJ knows better than me) and it's not her fault she is where she is. This discussion should probably move to the W thread I started in V&N. I'll pick it up there.
So they've been gradually increasing the season length, they're finally getting record ratings and attendance, and you think cutting back the season by a massive amount is a good idea? Because that's the only way they could possibly play everything out in 4 months. Also seems like a great way to get the players even less money than they're already getting because you just slashed their TV deal by a massive amount.
It really is a weird dynamic, isn’t it? In every other sport, the top pay equates with the top level of competition. It will be interesting to see if this starts to happen at all in the NFL, I’m thinking Arch Manning, but it can’t be good when the top players in your sport can make more money playing in an “amateur” league than playing in the league that has all of the top players.
The answer, of course, is that college football and basketball aren't "amateur" at all, but are and almost always have been professional - except the athletes went nominally unpaid. There's a reason they call them "revenue sports". There's a reason the athletes in those sports are expected to devote themselves full-time towards training to compete (the very definition of a professional), and any hints otherwise, that they should go to class or something, are scoffed at. There's also a reason they've been paying top athletes well for a long time in order to recruit them, mostly under the table. We were just tolerant of that exploitation for a long time, under the guise of some romantic Victorian notions.
Couldn’t the same be said for any for-profit-business or even politics? (No I’m not going V&N here)
Sure. That's why we've generally designed the law to try and ensure that crime doesn't pay. It's also why criminalized but victimless, massively misunderstood businesses like growing pot have ended up having a coalition built to change the law. They've succeeded more at the ballot box, while college athletics has been a combination of court tort cases, settlements thereof, antitrust stuff, politicians leaning on people, and eventual collective bargaining. 100 years ago, a similar labor rights movement would have had to resort to (and been opposed with) violence. So I'd have to say the tools to bring about change seem to be working decently well, if always slower than people would like. And if the result for now is some weird hybrid thing like NIL rights (but uncapped money), my guess is that this was more acceptable to more people than the alternatives: either full liberation of all athlete compensation, or continuing the status quo.
Yes but my understanding is, they nominally connect it to sponsorship / appearances duties, with performance obligations in order to keep it "legitimate", and there's a layer of administration in between the school and the player that makes it cumbersome and mildly awkward. As opposed to just, you know, hiring an employee at a salary and on a contract. Name, Image and Likeness rights are a marketing asset, IP that an athlete holds that they can monetize, and it was the fundamental unfairness of a school profiting off the athletes' own names and images, without those athletes being allowed to earn a penny from it themselves, which drove the major court decisions that opened this door - and then they drove a truck through it. But the door that opened is payment for rights to lending their name and image to sponsorship of other stuff. Could be the local car dealership, a national brand, or something arbitrary, but there's performance obligations attached to it, aren't there - ones which aren't connected at all to the duties of training for and playing sports. So the kids aren't just getting a steady paycheck just to play ball - they're doing marketing activities which pay them, which just so happen to be loosely connected to their willingness to stay and play at a particular school's team. There's still a bit of a hiding-the-ball kind of dance around this, is my sense. And that's why I say it's a step short of just saying, "they're employees, contract with them and pay them a salary". Which might yet come, but for the moment we're in this slightly hybrid world.
I would love to see the big universities lease their names to professional sports organizations for a stiff fee and use the money to run intramural leagues at the schools so the students could get a chance to play. Then on Saturdays everybody could troop down to the stadium and watch the “university” teams play and pretend that they represented the school for the cameras. A win-win situation for everyone.
Or, and this is crazy, maybe the universities would be able to use the money to further their educational mission.
My understanding of "the athletic department budget" is: when the athletic program makes money, it keeps the extra for its own uses, and when it loses money, which I think has historically been pretty common, it draws on the general university budget to make up the difference. There is also a philosophical question of how large the athletic department budget should be as compared to the overall university budget, and more generally how influential university athletics are as compared to the rest of each university's endeavors. For example the post to which I replied said "I would love to see the big universities lease their names ...", not "I would love to see university athletic programs ..." — we often conflate a university with its athletics program. Is that a good thing?
Huh?
How does hockey in Canada not make money?
Junior is the route to the NHL, so most eleite players exhaust that route. Some, especially late maturers, and skill guys, will play Junior B and trasy to go NCAA since it may still offer a chance to go pro. Until NCAA players were allowed to make money Junior A players were banned from the NCAA. But that is probably changing with NIL. Junior hockey team used to make decent money, but the travel, at winter around a massive nation makes it expensive. Over the years the abuse, exploitation of players has led to a scholarship program, and rules that give money back to the players. Many junior teams are now community run like the Packers, and some lose money. The scholarship program allows/allowed former Junior A players to play colleg for free, so Usport teams are mostly older players who did make the NHL. There is a class divide where hockey fans tend to be blue collar so even the level of play in Usport is exceptional, hard core hockey fans don't shell out to go to games of college teams. It is very weird. College hockey does not allow fighting and is the first to adopt visors and other safety measures. It is also harder to convince experienced players in their 20s, working on degrees, to become goons. Until recently college games did not serve alcohol so many hard-core blue color fans see Usport hockey as soft and elite even though the players are almost all from Junior A just older and better now.
Good analysis.
For sure…they’ve just lost something. Bonner is struggling…do you think she’s dealing with an injury?
Maybe. She’s also 37 years old. And I think she’s soft. She can be dangerous but I don’t trust her in a big spot ever.
Full detail on it here, including the ownership group, the crucial involvement of Senator Ron Wyden, their ambitions prior to tipoff (20,000 season tickets!), and the path they took from being ruled out a year ago to being announced today.
I’ve been saying this on here for years.
