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Post by mplsgopher on May 19, 2024 16:03:33 GMT -5
I've said this before in another thread and it's worth repeating here:
conferences aren't educational institutions and they don't receive federal funding, therefore if conferences directly purchase student athlete NIL, then there can be no Title IX implications.
Coaches can direct the conference to payout to each student athlete in the same way they do it now with collectives.
Schools continue to spend on scholarships and overall on teams in a way that is congruent with Title IX.
I don't see any possible downsides with this. If I can figure this out, surely they can as well.
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Post by mervinswerved on May 19, 2024 17:01:03 GMT -5
An athletic department isn't an independent organization that just exists in geographic proximity to a university. It's a unit with in the school itself and when it violates federal law, it's the university violating federal law. I think title IX works pretty well in terms of discouraging schools from discriminating against people. Can you explain this to me, I was never clear on this. I was told that the large schools with large athletic programs operates separately from the university at large. This was done years ago because of the fear that the athletics programs would financially impair the university. Of course we know that the athletic departments of the major universities are making much more money that the universities. I never understood the governance of the athletics within the context of the university and how the financials work? Are they siloed from each other? Thanks. University of Florida actually has a nonprofit, the University Athletic Association which operates UF athletics, but that is a pretty uncommon arrangement. At most schools, athletics is another unit, most often with the AD reporting up to the president (as opposed to the provost). But the exact structure varies by school. I have seen ADs report to SVPs or whatnot but not often at the P4 level. The financial part varies more than governance, in my opinion. For example, I know of one state university which was prohibited from loaning its athletic department money to cover COVID losses. Something in their bylaws, I believe. |
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Post by mikegarrison on May 19, 2024 18:22:50 GMT -5
indeed would be borderline absurd to punish researchers or (prospective) students who had absolutely nothing to do with the transgressions. See, here's my problem with everything you have posted. You seem to be operating under the assumption that Athletics will just do what it has to do in order to be competitive, and it would be "absurd" if that ended up damaging the entire rest of the school. But there is an easy solution for that -- keep the Athletics within the law. If that means they become uncompetitive, then so what? The purpose of a school is not supposed to be to field competitive athletics teams, it is supposed to be to teach, do research, and other similar things. |
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Post by badgerbreath on May 19, 2024 19:17:42 GMT -5
It is usually a blanket ban on future funding for some period of time. AFAIK, money that has already been dispersed to the university by contract remains with the university. Clawing back money is a fraught process which could be subject to numerous other laws and would be a lot of work for both the feds and the university. Simpler to just avoid giving money in the first place. Whether support for continuing grants can be pulled in future fiscal years is something I don't know. If you know off the top of your head, have you ever heard of a major public school whose students could not apply for FAFSA grants or whose PI's could not receive federal research grants?
I have never heard of that, but I have not looked into much. My wild guess is that no such thing has ever occurred, and indeed would be borderline absurd to punish researchers or (prospective) students who had absolutely nothing to do with the transgressions.
Off the top of my head for Title IX issues in athletic departments, no. But the feds do step in for other cases/reasons. Large labs have been refused funding for research misconduct by lab subordinates, including some very prominent cases involving labs run by nobel laureates. Funding has been denied or canceled for failing IRB oversight in human research. I think Dr Oz got nailed for animal care issues at Columbia. There are enough cases like this that the threat is taken quite seriously. My brother who was dean of a major vet school was deeply concerned they would lose federal funding when some wacky football booster was pushing to use electric prods to force an animal mascot into the trailer for transport to football games. The vet school was the unit who had responsibility of care over the mascot. There is no one person to single out - it would have been an institutional failure. Losing funding for failing basic animal care standards would gut the school and ruin its reputation. Because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. Title IX is a larger institutional obligation. Universities simply do not want to risk losing the right to apply for federal funding because it is such a huge pot of money, essential to the running of the institution so they avoid running afoul of it. It would certainly be nuclear option, but you hear congress right now threatening to remove federal funding for campuses that don't dismantle student demonstrations. That gets admin attention even though its unlikely to really happen. The risk is too severe. |
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Post by vbnerd on May 19, 2024 20:16:30 GMT -5
I've said this before in another thread and it's worth repeating here: conferences aren't educational institutions and they don't receive federal funding, therefore if conferences directly purchase student athlete NIL, then there can be no Title IX implications. Coaches can direct the conference to payout to each student athlete in the same way they do it now with collectives. Schools continue to spend on scholarships and overall on teams in a way that is congruent with Title IX. I don't see any possible downsides with this. If I can figure this out, surely they can as well. Can the conferences pay athletes without it impacting title IX? Perhaps there is some gray area there. Can a coach (or any employee or representative of the university's interests) direct an organization to which they pay dues to pay specific amounts of money without regard for title IX? Not a chance. |
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Post by vbnerd on May 19, 2024 20:44:42 GMT -5
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Post by mikegarrison on May 20, 2024 4:34:28 GMT -5
Yeah, not surprising. It seems that the main recipients of the back payments to athletes will be football players, while the main source of those payments will be basketball programs. Particularly problematical for schools that don't even have a football team but do well in basketball. |
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Post by n00b on May 20, 2024 7:44:34 GMT -5
Yeah, not surprising. It seems that the main recipients of the back payments to athletes will be football players, while the main source of those payments will be basketball programs. Particularly problematical for schools that don't even have a football team but do well in basketball. Will most of the payments go to football players? If this is a class action lawsuit, doesn’t everybody in the class get the same amount? |
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Post by mplsgopher on May 20, 2024 8:17:06 GMT -5
I've said this before in another thread and it's worth repeating here: conferences aren't educational institutions and they don't receive federal funding, therefore if conferences directly purchase student athlete NIL, then there can be no Title IX implications. Coaches can direct the conference to payout to each student athlete in the same way they do it now with collectives. Schools continue to spend on scholarships and overall on teams in a way that is congruent with Title IX. I don't see any possible downsides with this. If I can figure this out, surely they can as well. Can the conferences pay athletes without it impacting title IX? Perhaps there is some gray area there. Can a coach (or any employee or representative of the university's interests) direct an organization to which they pay dues to pay specific amounts of money without regard for title IX? Not a chance. I would like to learn the basis for your last sentence, if you have some links to precedent or at least a reasonable argument that you think could be made for why? Currently the coaches direct third party non-profit organizations (so-called "collectives") on how much to offer specific players, with no Title IX issues so far that I've heard of. Obviously schools don't pay dues to these organizations, but I don't understand why that small bit of your second sentence is able to do such heavy lifting. Why?
And that's assuming that schools actually do pay dues to their respective conferences. I'm not sure that's actually true. AFAIK, conferences just skim a little bit off the top of the incoming revenues to pay for their own operating costs. Or, I don't see how they couldn't very easily switch to such a model if that was the lone thing preventing the bypassing of Title IX issues in the overall arrangement.
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Post by mplsgopher on May 20, 2024 8:20:55 GMT -5
If you know off the top of your head, have you ever heard of a major public school whose students could not apply for FAFSA grants or whose PI's could not receive federal research grants?
I have never heard of that, but I have not looked into much. My wild guess is that no such thing has ever occurred, and indeed would be borderline absurd to punish researchers or (prospective) students who had absolutely nothing to do with the transgressions.
Off the top of my head for Title IX issues in athletic departments, no. But the feds do step in for other cases/reasons. Large labs have been refused funding for research misconduct by lab subordinates, including some very prominent cases involving labs run by nobel laureates. Funding has been denied or canceled for failing IRB oversight in human research. I think Dr Oz got nailed for animal care issues at Columbia. There are enough cases like this that the threat is taken quite seriously. My brother who was dean of a major vet school was deeply concerned they would lose federal funding when some wacky football booster was pushing to use electric prods to force an animal mascot into the trailer for transport to football games. The vet school was the unit who had responsibility of care over the mascot. There is no one person to single out - it would have been an institutional failure. Losing funding for failing basic animal care standards would gut the school and ruin its reputation. Because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. Title IX is a larger institutional obligation. Universities simply do not want to risk losing the right to apply for federal funding because it is such a huge pot of money, essential to the running of the institution so they avoid running afoul of it. It would certainly be nuclear option, but you hear congress right now threatening to remove federal funding for campuses that don't dismantle student demonstrations. That gets admin attention even though its unlikely to really happen. The risk is too severe. Thanks, this is a great post.
Agree fully that if there is misconduct in a specific PI lab, then that PI could be cancelled or have their proposal review scores downgraded. Things like that would seem fair.
It just seems preposterous that something could happen in the athletic department, so incredible that it far surpasses the kinds of cheating we've already been exposed to and are aware of, that it would warrant the entire university community being subjective to a fairly significant punishment. Talking a limit on how many students are allowed to qualify for FAFSA grants, or a limit (or ban!) on applying to any federal research grants, for some period of time.
Just don't think we'd ever see that. That'd practically be the same thing as shutting down the university. There'd be lawsuits, there'd be politicians up people's rear end.
Also, to clarify (because it seems some here are thinking I am advocating the following thing): I'm not saying that school's (athletic departments) should just choose to ignore Title IX obligations when it comes to paying directly for NIL simply because it's unlikely to receive a huge ban on federal funding.
They should try to follow the law, and they will for exactly the reasons you describe.
I'm saying that, if it ever came to it, it would be terrible to essentially go after students and PI's who had nothing to do with the NIL/athletics transgressions. That's all
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Post by mplsgopher on May 20, 2024 8:31:06 GMT -5
Yeah, not surprising. It seems that the main recipients of the back payments to athletes will be football players, while the main source of those payments will be basketball programs. Particularly problematical for schools that don't even have a football team but do well in basketball. Will most of the payments go to football players? If this is a class action lawsuit, doesn’t everybody in the class get the same amount? Is it allowed to create an unequal distribution scheme for any settlement or verdict within the class, so long as the class agrees to it (beforehand)?
Also, I'm not fully on board with mikegarrison's claim that "the main source of those payments will be basketball programs".
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Post by mplsgopher on May 20, 2024 8:33:21 GMT -5
indeed would be borderline absurd to punish researchers or (prospective) students who had absolutely nothing to do with the transgressions. See, here's my problem with everything you have posted. You seem to be operating under the assumption that Athletics will just do what it has to do in order to be competitive, and it would be "absurd" if that ended up damaging the entire rest of the school. But there is an easy solution for that -- keep the Athletics within the law. If that means they become uncompetitive, then so what? The purpose of a school is not supposed to be to field competitive athletics teams, it is supposed to be to teach, do research, and other similar things. I think schools should obey Title IX law. No issues there.
The better conversation to have, in my opinion, is if the direct NIL payments (this is really the only part that would be likely to cause T9 issues) can come from the conferences instead of the schools, thus bypassing that issue altogether.
And I'd like this to all be collectively bargained with the student-athletes on board from the git go, using a newly created legal authority to do such a thing without them being employees.
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Post by vbnerd on May 20, 2024 9:23:20 GMT -5
Also, I'm not fully on board with mikegarrison's claim that "the main source of those payments will be basketball programs".
From the Big East article... "Over a 10-year payback period, the NCAA is responsible for paying 40% of the $2.77 billion with the other 60% coming from a reduction in school distributions. To determine how much each of the 32 Division I conferences contribute, the association created a formula based on the amount of distribution that a league earned over a nine-year period starting in 2016, according to separate documents shared with commissioners. Most of the distribution that the NCAA divides among leagues— more than $700 million annually — is derived from revenues of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament." NCAA Distributions are based on NCAA D1 men's basketball tournament games played by each school. There are no NCAA distributions for any of the other 90 sport championships. The mechanisms can change slightly from conference to conference (see the ACC) but most schools share with their conferences who distribute that money equally. This is just how it is. I'm not sure what's to be on board with. |
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Post by vbnerd on May 20, 2024 10:25:02 GMT -5
Can the conferences pay athletes without it impacting title IX? Perhaps there is some gray area there. Can a coach (or any employee or representative of the university's interests) direct an organization to which they pay dues to pay specific amounts of money without regard for title IX? Not a chance. I would like to learn the basis for your last sentence, if you have some links to precedent or at least a reasonable argument that you think could be made for why? Currently the coaches direct third party non-profit organizations (so-called "collectives") on how much to offer specific players, with no Title IX issues so far that I've heard of. Obviously schools don't pay dues to these organizations, but I don't understand why that small bit of your second sentence is able to do such heavy lifting. Why?
And that's assuming that schools actually do pay dues to their respective conferences. I'm not sure that's actually true. AFAIK, conferences just skim a little bit off the top of the incoming revenues to pay for their own operating costs. Or, I don't see how they couldn't very easily switch to such a model if that was the lone thing preventing the bypassing of Title IX issues in the overall arrangement.
First, don't assume coach directed NIL complies with Title IX. Coaches were not allowed coordinate with collectives until the Virginia and Tennessee AGs got an injunction earlier this spring. Coordinating between the coaches and the collectives was an NCAA violation so while it certainly happened, it wasn't in the open. Now that the NCAA cannot enforce those laws and things are happening in the open, I imagine someone is collecting articles and public records while we wait for the new world order to unfold. The reports have been pretty consistent, nobody knows how to factor Title IX into the next iteration of college sports, and Title IX attorney's are standing by to "help" figure it all out. |
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Post by vbruh on May 20, 2024 10:38:06 GMT -5
Whether as a direct employee model, or some other form of all SAs being paid NIL or other money directly from schools, wouldn't Title IX dictate that any payments to SAs be equally distributed? So if football and MBB players receive $20M/year, women athletes must receive the same amount?
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