I will try (and struggle no doubt) to make this brief.
I was following a discussion with the Arkansas AD about how, in the relatively immediate future, putting available resources into NIL Consortiums versus lavish facilities will be the way of the future. The summation goes something like this: as college athletics moves to a professional model, the athletes will be more concerned about their pay than their surroundings. The AD speculated that Booster bucks would transition to private NIL support or more direct "permitted" payments by the schools.
Think Phil Knight giving Oregon big money for salaries rather than gaudy locker rooms. That kind of thing. Of course a few places will have plenty of money to do both.
My reaction is typical for ISU. We finally get to a solid brick and mortar state, with significant but manageable debt. But the game changes and maybe into a way that will be difficult for us to compete.
Neuheisel opined that the only way to put the genie back in the bottle, would be for full acceptance of athletes as employees whose wage scale is determined by a collective bargaining agreement ala the NFL. Sounds complicated to me because of the vast number of "owners" and the complications of public versus private entities. Not to mention state law variations.
I tend to think it isn't fixable and we are likely seeing the end of College athletics in it's current form.
I was following a discussion with the Arkansas AD about how, in the relatively immediate future, putting available resources into NIL Consortiums versus lavish facilities will be the way of the future. The summation goes something like this: as college athletics moves to a professional model, the athletes will be more concerned about their pay than their surroundings. The AD speculated that Booster bucks would transition to private NIL support or more direct "permitted" payments by the schools.
Think Phil Knight giving Oregon big money for salaries rather than gaudy locker rooms. That kind of thing. Of course a few places will have plenty of money to do both.
My reaction is typical for ISU. We finally get to a solid brick and mortar state, with significant but manageable debt. But the game changes and maybe into a way that will be difficult for us to compete.
Neuheisel opined that the only way to put the genie back in the bottle, would be for full acceptance of athletes as employees whose wage scale is determined by a collective bargaining agreement ala the NFL. Sounds complicated to me because of the vast number of "owners" and the complications of public versus private entities. Not to mention state law variations.
I tend to think it isn't fixable and we are likely seeing the end of College athletics in it's current form.
