I don’t understand why Tom Izzo is having a big fuss about this.
As a casual sports fan I never understood how hockey and baseball, prospects can get drafted and remain in school while football and basketball prospects couldn’t?!?
I always thought those basketball and football teams who could identify top talent and pay for their education and give them stipend was a much better solution to pay players versus this NIL system we have now which completely broke college athletics.
That way all the risk is on the pro team if the player pans out or not. Plus the pro team can pay a kicker to the school to keep incentives in alignment to see the success of the student come to fruition.
I don't have that much to say because I kinda hate college sports to begin with. Might be one of my most unpopular opinions I dunno
I've been all over the map on college athletics, landing on being basically indifferent to them.
One thing I've wondered about is why the sports can't just be major fields of study. They occupy a ton of the students' time and feed directly into an extremely lucrative profession.
That would at least eliminate many of the perverse incentives and corruption around pretending most of these athletes are actually taking normal courses and degrees.
Yeah that is true
College sports are okay I used to be big fan of college football and basketball but as I aged I don’t watch as much as I found it hard to be critical of young adults versus paid professionals
I just don't like what it does / what it signals about college culture and society more generally
Yes I am a curmudgeon
Yeah I can see that especially for the major 4 sports.
Letting them continue playing college ball would be similar to how drafting foreign players works. European players are allowed to stay with their European teams up until the NBA team that drafted them actually signs them to the roster.
If they go back to school to play does that void their pro contract?
That’s a good question. In this NIL age maybe not?
I like the idea of it for development purposes. Maybe a guy goes back plays a year or two more in college and finishes his degree if he isn't NBA ready. I know the NBA has the G league but that could be another path. It would actually encourage guys to enter the draft right away and the team's could lock up their rights but if they aren't ready they go back to school and play. Not bad but these guys do get big signing bonuses to go pro so maybe those should be deferred until they actually make a pro roster.
This isn’t a bad idea