What is the solution to NIL and Poaching?

[dman115 522]

I like @BerniePragle thought process on this...think about this as "what is the problem we are trying to solve" and "do we even have a problem?"

I personally do not think it is a "huge" problem right now.  Once could try and infer that it has the potential to be a "huge" problem, and that is okay.  Nonetheless, a couple things I think could help it before it could potentially become a "huge" problem (I am not sure it will):

1.  If you get X$ from NIL you are no longer eligible for a scholarship.

2.  Each school and it's coaches have protocols on how to work in the environment of NIL and how to navigate the booster/business owners of their area to increase the opportunities for NIL and the athletes they recruit (not sure if this would be legal or not, but I think it would help the "little guys" keep up with the Joneses")

3.  Maybe there is a "salary cap" for NIL's??

 

Or this is one of those things that is "different" and people often overreact to the new thing in a negative way and it will all work itself out.

[southend 241]

There will always be some that will try to push the envelope, or test the limits of anything new and different. Not purposefully breaking the rules but to get a leg up on the competition. It’s up to the system ,that has been set up ,to rein in any one going out of the boundaries.  I just don’t see NIL being a problem. I see it as being a window of opportunity for schools and athletes alike. 

[ionel 2,534]

1 hour ago, southend said:

There will always be some that will try to push the envelope, or test the limits of anything new and different. Not purposefully breaking the rules but to get a leg up on the competition. It’s up to the system ,that has been set up ,to rein in any one going out of the boundaries.  I just don’t see NIL being a problem. I see it as being a window of opportunity for schools and athletes alike. 

The "system" doesn't work and this isn't a new thing, those breaking the rules have been purposely breaking them cause they know the system isn't working.  

[southend 241]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

The "system" doesn't work and this isn't a new thing, those breaking the rules have been purposely breaking them cause they know the system isn't working.  

The NIL system was just set up. Seems , so far ,to be working as planned. 

[CB 91]

This doesn't address any of the NIL $ or the means by which athletes get it:

Stay at the school you originally signed with for 2 years

Year 2+, transfer 1 time with no participation penalty

Transfer a 2nd time, sit out 1 season and lose that year on your eligibility clock

[scribe 1,835]

For some people, they can't believe something is adverse until something is actually impacted (ie: gone).

For others, so long as a situation benefits them, who cares what happens to those it might harm. Last man standing wins.

[ionel 2,534]

1 hour ago, southend said:

The NIL system was just set up. Seems , so far ,to be working as planned. 

Wasn't talking specifically NIL was talking about NCAA.

[jackwebster 296]

"You can't say the spell backwards now. No one knew the whole spell anyway. It was a group effort, you know." -TP

This seems about right. It's not as if any one interest group is responsible for the current situation. I'm certain that each program, learning on the fly, have been trying to leverage NIL to their own advantage. And each ad hoc response creates new opportunities for some and challenges for others. It is not as if the smaller programs opted out on principle. To further complicate matters, teams have -- from the beginning -- integrated their NIL strategies with their RTC, red/grey/med/Oly shirt, camp, scholie, financial aid strategies thus creating 78 different entanglements. As a result, top down regulation can't reset the game. 

So, the best way to police poaching might be a common law approach. This would require an initial more-or-less irrational ruling on a particular case of poaching or potential poaching, say that of the App State or Wyoming kid. 

I imagine this ain't how the NCAA works. So maybe wrestling could somehow police itself. Have some sort of court with sanctions like ostracism, as somebody else suggested.

Absurd. Just musing.

Edited April 13 by jackwebster

[southend 241]

8 hours ago, ionel said:

Wasn't talking specifically NIL was talking about NCAA.

That’s afore gone conclusion. Weren’t we talking NIL? Thus the thread topic?

[boconnell 1,624]

I think NIL was the solution.  If rich boosters want to pay college wrestlers, I am all for it.

[Idaho 1,344]

9 hours ago, boconnell said:

I think NIL was the solution.  If rich boosters want to pay college wrestlers, I am all for it.

Without any regulation to competitive balance and keeping D1 teams in the sport?  The ramifications could be disastrous, unless you are a fan of one of the top 5-7 teams that have a lot of money, then it's great.

What is the solution to paying NIL out, but at the same time keeping the teams that have to fundraise most or all of their budget every year afloat and competitive? 

[dman115 522]

38 minutes ago, Idaho said:

Without any regulation to competitive balance and keeping D1 teams in the sport?  The ramifications could be disastrous, unless you are a fan of one of the top 5-7 teams that have a lot of money, then it's great.

What is the solution to paying NIL out, but at the same time keeping the teams that have to fundraise most or all of their budget every year afloat and competitive? 

Isn't this true if there is NIL or not?  The big schools have the money anyway.  To me NIL offers athletes many more options to earn money then just relying on if the school has big donors or not.  And I'll say again, why can't other schools find ways to get the big donors, big NIL deals, etc??

[scribe 1,835]

16 minutes ago, dman115 said:

Isn't this true if there is NIL or not?  The big schools have the money anyway.  To me NIL offers athletes many more options to earn money then just relying on if the school has big donors or not.  And I'll say again, why can't other schools find ways to get the big donors, big NIL deals, etc??

The can’t find donors/dollars because they don’t exist. If they did exist they would have presented themselves by now.
 

The ones that do exist are interested individuals in a sport like wrestling rather than legitimate businesses who could invest in a name or an image to sell products. Those authentic deals require eyeballs on associated activity (wrestling) which don’t exist. People who dump their money into wrestling do do out of passion rather than legitimate business decisions. 
 

there are just enough targeted donor/dollars out there now to collapse small programs with the might at the top programs.

[Elevator 307]

On 4/9/2022 at 12:52 PM, southend said:

The NIL system was just set up. Seems , so far ,to be working as planned. 

I think it will take a few years to get up to speed and to assess its impact on athletes, programs, and competitive balance.  Do not think there can be caps by NCAA, schools. or individual programs because this is anti-competitive and contrary to the NIL rights of individuals.

As to competitive balance, it is somewhat helpful that wrestling is both a team sport and individual sport.  Even if the best-funded teams tend to be the strongest, indlviduals from other teams can achieve in their own right.  Looking at the variety populating AA and NCAA finals - PSU champs notwithstanding - I am not sure it is much different now than in the 15 years prior to NIL.  

[Idaho 1,344]

3 hours ago, dman115 said:

Isn't this true if there is NIL or not?  The big schools have the money anyway.  To me NIL offers athletes many more options to earn money then just relying on if the school has big donors or not.  And I'll say again, why can't other schools find ways to get the big donors, big NIL deals, etc??

I don’t mean this in a jerky way, but have you ever had to fundraise as a staff on a high school or college team? You  ask the question “why can’t they” as if they haven’t. They do. Year around. NIL puts them at a bigger disadvantage because now there is no way to recruit decent kids which has always been a challenge anyway…but now they can’t KEEP the kids they are developing. 
nobody is saying athletes don’t have the right to earn money - it’s how to keep the balance from getting so one sided as a result of NIL, to be able to keep teams going and competitive. It’s the reason why major sports have salary caps, revenue sharing, competitive balance draft picks etc. Wrestling does not have the revenue to do some of those things, so then what is the answer to keep D1 wrestling healthy and growing  as a whole in the age of NIL?  

[Idaho 1,344]

36 minutes ago, Elevator said:

I think it will take a few years to get up to speed and to assess its impact on athletes, programs, and competitive balance.  Do not think there can be caps by NCAA, schools. or individual programs because this is anti-competitive and contrary to the NIL rights of individuals.

As to competitive balance, it is somewhat helpful that wrestling is both a team sport and individual sport.  Even if the best-funded teams tend to be the strongest, indlviduals from other teams can achieve in their own right.  Looking at the variety populating AA and NCAA finals - PSU champs notwithstanding - I am not sure it is much different now than in the 15 years prior to NIL.  

The problem and point of the whole discussion this week is that best funded teams can now use those funds to poach those strongest individuals from those other teams - even using 3rd parties when they aren’t in the portal This is VERY different than what we have seen the last 15 years and very new territory 

Edited April 10 by Idaho

[VakAttack 4,014]

Maybe a simple solution like no school can start more than one new, non-graduate transfer?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[1032004 1,452]

58 minutes ago, Idaho said:

The problem and point of the whole discussion this week is that best funded teams can now use those funds to poach those strongest individuals from those other teams - even using 3rd parties when they aren’t in the portal This is VERY different than what we have seen the last 15 years and very new territory 

Yeah I’m not sure there’s a “solution” that doesn’t hurt the athletes, except for maybe more effort in raising money and finding those rich 3rd parties to give money to athletes at the smaller schools.

I did see this the other day which was pretty cool:

 

 

[ionel 2,534]

58 minutes ago, Idaho said:

The problem and point of the whole discussion this week is that best funded teams can now use those funds to poach those strongest individuals from those other teams - even using 3rd parties when they aren’t in the portal This is VERY different than what we have seen the last 15 years and very new territory 

Its not new, been going on last 15 years but this is a new level.  

[NJDan 1,073]

Unless I am very wrong, any athlete who takes NIL money (or any kind of money) in order to enroll in  a school (as a transfer or originally) is committing a serious NCAA violation. If the deali is hidden (as in "I will give you NIL money, not for enrolling, but only if you wrestle for a certain school) it would still seem to be  a violation. One solution to using NIL as bribes is to require all athletes and all sponsor to publicly disclose who the money is coming from, who it's going to and what promotional services are being exchanged for the money. Any failure to disclose should itself be a serious NCAA violation.

[Mphillips 1,732]

7 minutes ago, NJDan said:

publicly disclose who the money is coming from,

https://nilcollegeathletes.com/athletes

[boconnell 1,624]

7 hours ago, dman115 said:

Isn't this true if there is NIL or not?  The big schools have the money anyway.  To me NIL offers athletes many more options to earn money then just relying on if the school has big donors or not.  And I'll say again, why can't other schools find ways to get the big donors, big NIL deals, etc??

Yep.  This thread (and many like it) pretends that a few teams dominating is a dangerous new thing.  Our sport has less parity than any sport around.  We have had a handful of teams dominate from the beginning.  A couple of schools having money to poach athletes will change where half a dozen kids wrestle.  The same powerhouse schools will stay powerhouses.  Nothing has changed except a handful of college wrestlers will get paid up front instead of through a deferred RTC promise.

[jp157 513]

31 minutes ago, boconnell said:

Yep.  This thread (and many like it) pretends that a few teams dominating is a dangerous new thing.  Our sport has less parity than any sport around.  We have had a handful of teams dominate from the beginning.  A couple of schools having money to poach athletes will change where half a dozen kids wrestle.  The same powerhouse schools will stay powerhouses.  Nothing has changed except a handful of college wrestlers will get paid up front instead of through a deferred RTC promise.

The more disparity created. The more easy it is to cut programs. And just because it’s been a certain way doesn’t mean it’s okay

[TBar1977 4,532]

I get the impression that those who want some measure of forced parity are just annoyed their team isn't winning enough. 

Edited April 10 by TBar1977

[Show_Me 340]

44 minutes ago, TBar1977 said:

I get the impression that those who want some measure of forced parity are just annoyed their team isn't winning enough. 

Not accurate. At least for me.