A new and better FBS thread

[Gully]

Perhaps I've missed it....but is there a thread talking about NDSU opting out of the House settlement? I haven't noticed one and I really don't understand what's going on and how people can just decide to 'opt out'. What if everyone opted out?

[taper]

Perhaps I've missed it....but is there a thread talking about NDSU opting out of the House settlement? I haven't noticed one and I really don't understand what's going on and how people can just decide to 'opt out'. What if everyone opted out?

In a very small nutshell, House over-ruled parts of the NCAA's bylaws, but since only the NCAA and the 5 power conferences were named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the rest of us aren't covered. Until/unless the NCAA changes their bylaws, there are effectively two mutually exclusive paths for scholarships, roster sizes, and player payments. The P5 have to follow the new path. Everyone else can choose which(for now), but not mix and match.

[Gully]

In a very small nutshell, House over-ruled parts of the NCAA's bylaws, but since only the NCAA and the 5 power conferences were named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the rest of us aren't covered. Until/unless the NCAA changes their bylaws, there are effectively two mutually exclusive paths for scholarships, roster sizes, and player payments. The P5 have to follow the new path. Everyone else can choose which(for now), but not mix and match.

Thank you, that is helpful. Interestingly, it sounds like Montana State is opting in.

[Professor Chaos]

Thank you, that is helpful. Interestingly, it sounds like Montana State is opting in.

I think you can spin it as being the "virtuous" move in either case. Montana St says they're opting in so they can be more fair to their student-athletes and share revenue with them. NDSU says they're most likely opting out because the roster caps would mean they would have to cut ~65 student athletes altogether and that they can still take care of them financially through FCOA, Alston payments, and the collective.

As far as I understand it the real benefit of opting in is being able to have up to 105 players on (at least partial) scholarship whereas the benefit of opting out is you can go above the 105 player limit (so your walk-on program doesn't have to take a hit). The downside is the opposite - opting in means you can only have 105 players on your football roster whereas opting out means you can still only have 85 scholarship players to diivy up your 63 full rides to at the FCS level.

[HerdBot]

I think you can spin it as being the "virtuous" move in either case. Montana St says they're opting in so they can be more fair to their student-athletes and share revenue with them. NDSU says they're most likely opting out because the roster caps would mean they would have to cut ~65 student athletes altogether and that they can still take care of them financially through FCOA, Alston payments, and the collective.

As far as I understand it the real benefit of opting in is being able to have up to 105 players on (at least partial) scholarship whereas the benefit of opting out is you can go above the 105 player limit (so your walk-on program doesn't have to take a hit). The downside is the opposite - opting in means you can only have 105 players on your football roster whereas opting out means you can still only have 85 scholarship players to diivy up your 63 full rides to at the FCS level.

I don't know how big our roster is in the spring, but our regular season rosters range from 108 to 114. And you can't travel with all of them

So realistically we only lose 3-9 players

Opting in allows more scholarships, but you run into the risk of the weak teams getting pissed at the scholarship disparity and setting a hard limit. I could only think of 5 FCS teams willing to fund 105 scholarships

Revenue sharing is meaningless because none of us are going to have the budget to make a big impact. Leave it to the collective. Although it might be more practical to budget for a million bucks. Split it between men's and women's BB for title IX. A half million for each team would be transformative, especially for WBB

Splitting a million bucks between 30 players is 33k a year for each. That's impactful. Or maybe you pay it to the top 20 and pay 50k each. That could build some strong programs and make WBB a borderline revenue sport

But splitting a million between 105 football players, plus 105 womens to match is less than 5k per athlete. Don't get me wrong that's a lot for a broke ass college student, but not enough to regularly keep elite talent but it will make partial scholarships full and walk ons partial

[Professor Chaos]

I don't know how big our roster is in the spring, but our regular season rosters range from 108 to 114. And you can't travel with all of them

So realistically we only lose 3-9 players

Opting in allows more scholarships, but you run into the risk of the weak teams getting pissed at the scholarship disparity and setting a hard limit. I could only think of 5 FCS teams willing to fund 105 scholarships

Revenue sharing is meaningless because none of us are going to have the budget to make a big impact. Leave it to the collective. Although it might be more practical to budget for a million bucks. Split it between men's and women's BB for title IX. A half million for each team would be transformative, especially for WBB

Splitting a million bucks between 30 players is 33k a year for each. That's impactful. Or maybe you pay it to the top 20 and pay 50k each. That could build some strong programs and make WBB a borderline revenue sport

But splitting a million between 105 football players, plus 105 womens to match is less than 5k per athlete. Don't get me wrong that's a lot for a broke ass college student, but not enough to regularly keep elite talent but it will make partial scholarships full and walk ons partial

The collective is already doing that. They can take a guy who's not on scholarship and give him 5k from the collective instead of a partial scholarship. I think the opt-in vs opt-out decision is mainly an accounting thing for mid-major schools with an established collective like NDSU has. Do they want to handle payments to players in house or handle it through the collective? I'm guessing NDSU's logic to opt out is that the athletic department doesn't have excess money to share with the players right now that they wouldn't raise through increased ticket prices/donations/etc and they can do that just as well through the collective and the same people pay those bills regardless (which would be us fans) so might as well use the option that wouldn't cap rosters.

[BigHorns]

The collective is already doing that. They can take a guy who's not on scholarship and give him 5k from the collective instead of a partial scholarship. I think the opt-in vs opt-out decision is mainly an accounting thing for mid-major schools with an established collective like NDSU has. Do they want to handle payments to players in house or handle it through the collective? I'm guessing NDSU's logic to opt out is that the athletic department doesn't have excess money to share with the players right now that they wouldn't raise through increased ticket prices/donations/etc and they can do that just as well through the collective and the same people pay those bills regardless (which would be us fans) so might as well use the option that wouldn't cap rosters.

That makes sense in our case. I think for many schools, opting in also gives them more direct control and coordination with NIL. Per the letter of ncaa rules, outside collectives are supposed to operate at arms length. I've also seen some concern IRS will soon target outside collectives for tax enforcement. They consider it to be paid wages/earnings and not charitable for tax purposes. Not sure how that will play out in court or politically.

[NDSU92]

The collective is already doing that. They can take a guy who's not on scholarship and give him 5k from the collective instead of a partial scholarship. I think the opt-in vs opt-out decision is mainly an accounting thing for mid-major schools with an established collective like NDSU has. Do they want to handle payments to players in house or handle it through the collective? I'm guessing NDSU's logic to opt out is that the athletic department doesn't have excess money to share with the players right now that they wouldn't raise through increased ticket prices/donations/etc and they can do that just as well through the collective and the same people pay those bills regardless (which would be us fans) so might as well use the option that wouldn't cap rosters.

Also may be some big boosters that don’t want to see their money going towards NIL…

[The_Sicatoka]

The collective is already doing that. They can take a guy who's not on scholarship and give him 5k from the collective instead of a partial scholarship. I think the opt-in vs opt-out decision is mainly an accounting thing for mid-major schools with an established collective like NDSU has. Do they want to handle payments to players in house or handle it through the collective? I'm guessing NDSU's logic to opt out is that the athletic department doesn't have excess money to share with the players right now that they wouldn't raise through increased ticket prices/donations/etc and they can do that just as well through the collective and the same people pay those bills regardless (which would be us fans) so might as well use the option that wouldn't cap rosters.

Opt in means roster caps means 65 tuition paying students cut from NDSU rosters (per Forum / Matt Larson).

That potential loss is especially unfavorable in light of:
"With anticipated declines in funding due to decreased enrollment, we are carefully navigating how to balance our resources while positioning NDSU for future growth." - excerpted from email from Dr Cook to the NDSU campus last week

[southcliffbison]

Isn't it also true that a school can "opt-out" one year, then "opt-in" the following year. Seems like a smart move; see how it works opting out.......if it doesn't work to NDSU's advantage, change course.