Moola moola!

I couldn't get the story. Business Insider has a paywall. But I was able to grab the lede:

College donors are feeling pressure to donate to NIL "collectives" to attract the best athletes. The NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said he's tired of his alma mater asking for donations. Donors are getting fatigued in part because of a lack of transparency about how the money is spent.

And it was interesting enough that, as we near the professional amateur college football season, to be folowed by the professional amateur college basketball season, I thought it might be a good topic for Pink Slip. A bit of a google bounced me to a NY Times article from last October that talked about these NIL collectives, with their "rich donors and loose rules" that are "transforming college sports."

A few years ago, the Supremes ruled against the NCAA and allowed for "student athletes" to make money from use of their "name, image, and likeness" (NIL). As well they should be. Sure, Rah-Rah U is giving these "student athletes" a free ride, but if Rah-Rah U is selling jerseys with the "student athletes'" names and numbers, why shouldn't the "student athletes" get to pocket a bit of coin? Why shouldn't those "student athletes" be allowed to sell championships rings that they were awarded? Etc.

But there are, of course, unintended consequences to unleashing NIL, and one of these is the emergence of donor collectives with bogus charitable wings that let tax-deductible donations flow in one door, and out the other door and into the pockets of "student athletes."

The rapid rise of big-dollar payments to student-athletes from so-called donor collectives has emerged as one of the biggest issues in college sports, transforming how players are recruited and encouraging a form of free agency for those looking to transfer. And because many of the groups are set up as charities or with charitable arms that make donations tax-deductible, they are drawing scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service.

The shift stems from a decision forced on the N.C.A.A. two years ago to allow payments to student-athletes. The system that has grown out of that change is reshaping college football and other major sports by unexpectedly empowering collectives, little-regulated groups that raise money from alumni and other die-hard fans and channel the proceeds to players, ostensibly for charitable work, social media posts or other small tasks. (Source: NY Times)

I'm all for some of the money flowing into the big money, big time college sports programs flowing to the players, not just the programs. But it's gone well beyond NIL and into the realm of the "student athletes" actually being paid to play, which remains verboten. 

The average starter at a big-time football program now takes in about $103,000 a year, according to Opendorse, a company that processes payments to the players for the collectives. This year, Opendorse said it expects to process over $100 million in payments for athletes, with about 80 percent coming through collectives.

In one example cited in the article, a football player at the University of Iowa (who had been lured from Michigan with the promise of money-making) got "a job delivering meals to seniors and visiting children in hospitals. It pays about $600 an hour."

Talk about moola-moola!

I'll have to check in with my cousin Ellen, who has a granddaughter at Iowa who actually is a student-athlete getting an excellent education while playing for a varsity team, whether the average student job at Iowa pays $600 an hour. And whether doing meals-on-wheels to old geezers or visiting kids in hospitals tends to be a paid gig, rather than a goodness-of-heart (or resume-builder) activity. 

But my question is: why on god's green turf should the "donations" that fund these collectives be tax deductible?

How about this:

• Acknowledge that the major football programs are the minor league for the National Football League. 
• Acknowledge that, to perhaps a lesser extent - many players go pro directly out of high school, and the NBA does have a development (minor) league - the major basketball programs are the minor league for the National Basketball Association. (While we're at it, acknowledge that there are a handful of women's basketball programs that are the minor league for the WNBA.)
• Make a list of the Division 1 college programs that comprise these minor leagues. Call it D-0, or semi-pro, but stop pretending that the athletes playing in these leagues are students. 
• Have the NFL and NBA/WNBA pay for their minor leagues.
• Pay the young folks who play in them. 
• Offer those who want an education an education, either at the time they're playing in the minor leagues, OR if they fail to make it to the professional leagues. Make it so that the kids who don't go pro have something to fall back on other than their unrealized visions of end-zone dances or their unrealized hoop dreams.

How about ending the situations where "student athlete" is an absolute farce, and let the true student athletes be just that. 

Moola moola indeed.