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Cancelling the college football season is about union busting, not health

The athletes do need some written health protection improvements... but addl cash payments makes this impossible, title 9 would require equal cash for the women's bowling team... not gonna happen.

Do the athletes think a 40k per yr education is worth nothing .....98%+ will not play sports professionally, so does their educ become invalid or a waste of time ?
..
 
The athletes do need some written health protection improvements... but addl cash payments makes this impossible, title 9 would require equal cash for the women's bowling team... not gonna happen.

Do the athletes think a 40k per yr education is worth nothing .....98%+ will not play sports professionally, so does their educ become invalid or a waste of time ?
..
I still do not get the "pay the players" mantra ... if you want to get paid go the professional leagues. If the leagues won't let you ... then sue them for restraint of trade.

Where do people think the money these players "generate" go? Not to some greedy ultra-rich owner. Not to some legal entity who's asset value increases and can resold guaranteeing a return on investment.

The monies go to fund all non-revenue sports, it goes to title IX requirements, it goes to thousands upon thousands of employees, workers, companies that support inter-collegiate athletics. Do some coaches and administrators (Saban, Swinney, Frost, Moos ...) make an obscene level of income compared to their players? Sure but relatively speaking the collective amount of this is minor.

Yes athletes help generate billions of revenue that go back completely to their athletic departments.

Also please do remember ... the majority of athletic departments receive support from their universities in the form of student fees, budgetary support ... where is this money that is supposed to "pay" athletes going to come from?
 
I still do not get the "pay the players" mantra ... if you want to get paid go the professional leagues. If the leagues won't let you ... then sue them for restraint of trade.

Where do people think the money these players "generate" go? Not to some greedy ultra-rich owner. Not to some legal entity who's asset value increases and can resold guaranteeing a return on investment.

The monies go to fund all non-revenue sports, it goes to title IX requirements, it goes to thousands upon thousands of employees, workers, companies that support inter-collegiate athletics. Do some coaches and administrators (Saban, Swinney, Frost, Moos ...) make an obscene level of income compared to their players? Sure but relatively speaking the collective amount of this is minor.

Yes athletes help generate billions of revenue that go back completely to their athletic departments.

Also please do remember ... the majority of athletic departments receive support from their universities in the form of student fees, budgetary support ... where is this money that is supposed to "pay" athletes going to come from?
Paying anything more than they get right now isn't going to work for the reasons you've outlined.

I think the B1G really screwed up their approach here. Spring isn't likely to happen IMO and even if it does, it will be garbage. You'll have players that graduated and aren't playing, a short season in really cold weather in many parts, coaches not wanting to risk too much because the season means nothing as there isn't going to be a championship or playoffs or bowl games. It will be a glorified Spring Game.
 
Big 10 canceled the season, in my humble opinion, due to:

1. Liability (Driven by Conference & School lawyers)
2. Union busting (Driven by School Administrators & lawyers)
3. The health of the Players (Driven by Science, Politics, and certain school leaders)

My thoughts from stepping back, reading up on what is happening in other conferences.
Would love input from Lawyer/Attorney (I am neither).

GBR!
 
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Big 10 canceled the season, in my humble opinion, due to:

1. Liability (Driven by Conference & School lawyers)
2. Union busting (Driven by School Administrators & lawyers)
3. The health of the Players (Driven by Science, Politics, and certain school leaders)

My thoughts from stepping back, reading up on what is happening in other conferences.
Would love input from Lawyer/Attorney (I am neither).

GBR!
I don't think there is a liability issue here above and beyond what already exists. If there was additional liability concerns for football players why are dorms opening up? In person classes? Probably intramurals.

I have no idea how accurate the union busting theory is here. I don't know if @ShortSideOption has any better info from his sources. If it's true and part of shutting down was related to union busting, the decision makers are even dumber than I feared.

The conferences haven't ever really cared about player health if we're being honest. Sure there is some homage paid to it and steps taken long after issues were known (concussions). I don't think this is a health concern.

My best guess is that there are many in higher education positions that really don't like football or at least the attention football gets compared to academics. Most schools put money into their football programs or at least don't make much off of them. 20 programs show a profit Now, there are accounting "tricks" built into the numbers so there's no doubt more than 20 making money. How many? No idea, but not all schools make money.

There is absolutely politics in play here as well. This is a case of people that believe they know what's better for you than you know for yourself. They feel duty bound to do whatever they want because they know better than you.
 
I don't think there is a liability issue here above and beyond what already exists. If there was additional liability concerns for football players why are dorms opening up? In person classes? Probably intramurals.

I have no idea how accurate the union busting theory is here. I don't know if @ShortSideOption has any better info from his sources. If it's true and part of shutting down was related to union busting, the decision makers are even dumber than I feared.

The conferences haven't ever really cared about player health if we're being honest. Sure there is some homage paid to it and steps taken long after issues were known (concussions). I don't think this is a health concern.

My best guess is that there are many in higher education positions that really don't like football or at least the attention football gets compared to academics. Most schools put money into their football programs or at least don't make much off of them. 20 programs show a profit Now, there are accounting "tricks" built into the numbers so there's no doubt more than 20 making money. How many? No idea, but not all schools make money.

There is absolutely politics in play here as well. This is a case of people that believe they know what's better for you than you know for yourself. They feel duty bound to do whatever they want because they know better than you.
My main "connections" if you will are for Nebraska. I posted this a few days ago:


Now... I happen to know that Scott and his staff are all for athletes getting a little bit more (whatever that be, not trying to open a can of worms here). However, they were wanting to push forward regardless of unionization or anything else. So I don't think for Nebraska it had anythign to do with anything.

With that said, I have connections at USC, and while they didn't directly say it, I think the Pac-12s decision may have been made easier with how aggressive the union stance was from their athletes.

I just don't have any idea how we went from "flatten the curve" when the virus made it to America, to now it being completely insurmountable to play a football season. But for only some conferences. I mean, I know the answer, but it's just frustrating.
 
I don't think there is a liability issue here above and beyond what already exists. If there was additional liability concerns for football players why are dorms opening up? In person classes? Probably intramurals.
The difference is the general student population is not doing something FOR the university ... the university is doing something (providing an education) FOR the students. Additionally the students will have almost an impossible time proving where they got COVID from and that the university was negligent.

The university will be able to "prove" all the things they've done to address COVID ... mask mandates, smaller classes, more online classes.
 
Big 10 canceled the season, in my humble opinion, due to:

1. Liability (Driven by Conference & School lawyers)
2. Union busting (Driven by School Administrators & lawyers)
3. The health of the Players (Driven by Science, Politics, and certain school leaders)

My thoughts from stepping back, reading up on what is happening in other conferences.
Would love input from Lawyer/Attorney (I am neither).

GBR!
I do think you have 2 and 3 switched ... union busting is a beneficial by-product of cancelling the season not a primary driver IMO.
 



I didn’t buy it as it was initially being reported, but a little deeper look makes it possible or even probable that the ‘union’ conversation actually elevated the liability concerns. It’s one thing to get sued by individuals, but it’s another level of concern to be sued by a collective body. I don’t see the cancellations as an effort to ‘bust the union’, rather it may be a reaction to all the talk of a college ‘players association’ coupled with the institutions perceived level of risk related to COVID. I also think politics played a role in all of this but won’t get into that here.
There is no collective body yet. So no one but the individuals would have sranding in a lawsuit, unless it eventually became a class action, but even then it would only consist of affected individuals, not a players organization.

The players organizations arent formally recognized, organized, or resourced yet. And really, even if they were all they would do would be jawbone and potentially do work stoppages and try to negotiate polcies, not become the counterparty for lawsuits over cases like this.

There's plenty of legal liability to affected individuals but these player movements don't make that proce tag go up, imo.
 
I think it's 99% the potential legal and moral liability for bad covid outcomes. If there was no covid the schools would deal with the players movements the way they will anyway. There is a progression in place for improved situations for Div 1 athletes anyway, so Prezes know they're going to negotiate this eventually anyway, and players want to play long term rather than just have the whole thing shut down permanently, so all this will be worked out over time. The prezes know shutting down this year over covid isnt going to make this all go away.
 
The difference is the general student population is not doing something FOR the university ... the university is doing something (providing an education) FOR the students. Additionally the students will have almost an impossible time proving where they got COVID from and that the university was negligent.

The university will be able to "prove" all the things they've done to address COVID ... mask mandates, smaller classes, more online classes.
The students do everything for the university. They pay tuition, they keep it going. Without them there isn't anything.

The football players will have the same issues proving where they got it from.
 
My main "connections" if you will are for Nebraska. I posted this a few days ago:


Now... I happen to know that Scott and his staff are all for athletes getting a little bit more (whatever that be, not trying to open a can of worms here). However, they were wanting to push forward regardless of unionization or anything else. So I don't think for Nebraska it had anythign to do with anything.

With that said, I have connections at USC, and while they didn't directly say it, I think the Pac-12s decision may have been made easier with how aggressive the union stance was from their athletes.

I just don't have any idea how we went from "flatten the curve" when the virus made it to America, to now it being completely insurmountable to play a football season. But for only some conferences. I mean, I know the answer, but it's just frustrating.

The answer is obvious, it's all political.
 



The students do everything for the university. They pay tuition, they keep it going. Without them there isn't anything.

The football players will have the same issues proving where they got it from.
That's not the point - football is a university sanctioned program. If Adrian Martinez got myocarditis and he could reasonably prove that it was during a university sponsored athletic event (i.e. someone from the Iowa football team had it) and was seriously debilitated by it ... is different than a random student who contracted from another student who went to a party or got it from eating at the local pizza joint.
 
There is no collective body yet. So no one but the individuals would have sranding in a lawsuit, unless it eventually became a class action, but even then it would only consist of affected individuals, not a players organization.

The players organizations arent formally recognized, organized, or resourced yet. And really, even if they were all they would do would be jawbone and potentially do work stoppages and try to negotiate polcies, not become the counterparty for lawsuits over cases like this.

There's plenty of legal liability to affected individuals but these player movements don't make that proce tag go up, imo.
I know there’s no official collective body yet. But what I’ve heard is that the talk of it, and the informal organizing that has already taken place had raised concerns. Keep in mind that you had some players, as a group, making demands and some of those demands were related to COVID. I don’t think we summarily dismiss the possibility of that impacting the calculus.
 
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That's not the point - football is a university sanctioned program. If Adrian Martinez got myocarditis and he could reasonably prove that it was during a university sponsored athletic event (i.e. someone from the Iowa football team had it) and was seriously debilitated by it ... is different than a random student who contracted from another student who went to a party or got it from eating at the local pizza joint.
Or said random student got it in the dorm or 10 students got it from one student in the dorm.

If the dorms are open football should be played.
 

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