{"id":3414,"date":"2024-03-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwjqp1.com\/march-madness-pitino-nil-pay-transfer-7fbb1d5949abd79bc7ec3c43e34bdfa1\/"},"modified":"2024-03-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T00:00:00","slug":"march-madness-pitino-nil-pay-transfer-7fbb1d5949abd79bc7ec3c43e34bdfa1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwjqp1.com\/march-madness-pitino-nil-pay-transfer-7fbb1d5949abd79bc7ec3c43e34bdfa1\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness as we know it could be on the way out amid seismic changes in college sports"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tracking the changes upending college sports can be as frenetic as flipping between all the games going down over the first week of March Madness.<\/a> Ultimately, those changes could impact what America\u2019s favorite basketball tournament looks like in the future \u2014 or whether it exists at all. <\/p>\n
News about \u201cpay for play\u201d in college sports gushes from a veritable firehose these days. Whether it\u2019s the Dartmouth basketball team looking to unionize<\/a>, a judge undercutting the NCAA\u2019s ability<\/a> to regulate payments to athletes or yet another bout of conference realignment<\/a>, the stakes are clear: Everything in college sports is open for discussion, interpretation and adjustment. <\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no pretense anymore,\u201d said Rick Pitino, the St. John\u2019s coach who recently made news by proposing a salary cap<\/a> and a two-year contract for players who negotiate name, image and likeness sponsorships. \u201cNow we\u2019re dealing with professional athletes in the guise of NIL. I\u2019ve tried to think of solutions and ways around it. But any solutions, the courts will just obliterate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pitino sees the courts reshaping and redefining college sports<\/a> in much more aggressive fashion than what he describes as a largely hapless NCAA, an organization he has tangled with repeatedly<\/a> over the years. <\/p>\n
The coach also recognizes the irony of basketball being inextricably linked to the future of football, where revenue from media, ticket sales and other areas dwarf those in basketball, even with its March Madness TV deal worth around $900 million a year. Virtually all the biggest decisions in college sports stem from the biggest conferences in football trying to squeeze more money out of TV rights, whether through an expanded playoff<\/a> or realignment or maybe even an expanded basketball tournament.<\/a><\/p>\n
March Madness 2024<\/b><\/p>\n
Follow<\/b> the March Madness brackets for the men\u2019s <\/a>and women\u2019s<\/a> tournaments.<\/p>\n
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Jay Bilas, the former Duke player who works for ESPN and has long criticized the NCAA for exploiting athletes, said today\u2019s trends \u2014 more money and players grabbing a larger slice of it \u2014 could suggest a future in which players partake in revenue-sharing arrangements<\/a> from the actual events they star in. <\/p>\n
The most likely short-term shift appears to be expanding the tournament from its current 68 teams to somewhere between 76 and 80 \u2013 a concept that can only gain steam after an unpredictable set of conference tournament results<\/a> dramatically shrunk the bubble<\/a> and left a number of power-conference teams out of the draw.<\/p>\n
Pitino sounds confident that the NCAA knows enough not to mess up that part of the equation.<\/p>\n
The changes might be best portrayed on a casual stroll through any Division I athletic facility\u2019s parking lot. Not even a decade ago, the sight of a big-name athlete rolling through campus with a fancy car would send a jolt that reverberated for miles \u2013 from the school\u2019s athletic department to the phones of the local beat reporters, all the way to the NCAA compliance office.<\/p>\n
These days, nobody thinks twice about that. Everyone from Rickea Jackson<\/a> (Tennessee) to Nijel Pack (Miami) to the entire Utah basketball and gymnastics teams<\/a> have well-publicized endorsement deals with car companies. <\/p>\n
The cars, the jewelry and even the deal signed with a memorabilia company by Iowa star Caitlin Clark \u2014 reportedly worth more than $1 million in the first year \u2014 all started to become possible in 2021. State laws allowing sponsorships for college athletes forced the NCAA to drop the ban on such things; athletes were buoyed by a separate Supreme Court<\/a> ruling that made clear that any attempt by the NCAA to stop them would likely fail.<\/p>\n
That sort of ruling only applies to private schools, which are a distinct minority in major college sports. Still, Southern California\u2019s football and basketball players are pursuing a similar path<\/a>, and there\u2019s a sense more will follow. Sensing the inevitable shift, NCAA President Charlie Baker sent a letter to schools in December proposing a new tier of Division I sports in which schools would be required to offer at least half their athletes a payment of at least $30,000 a year through a trust fund. <\/p>\n
In case after case, judges are ruling against those sort of restrictions.<\/p>\n
The Dartmouth ruling came shortly after a judge in Tennessee ruled the NCAA could not forbid schools from using NIL offers as recruiting inducements. Late last year, a judge in West Virginia put a stop to an NCAA proposal to restrict transfers<\/a>, meaning players remain free to move between schools, often in pursuit of more playing time and better NIL deals. <\/p>\n
Add it all up and there are few constraints to this opening burst of college free agency \u2013 a system unevenly regulated by a patchwork of state laws, with the NCAA all but standing to the side watching a new era develop, or envelop, the business it is tasked with overseeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying we\u2019ve been living in the dog days of college sports, because we\u2019re seeing seven years\u2019 worth of changes in one year,\u201d said Amy Perko, who chairs the Knight Commission, a college sports advocacy group that seeks reforms based on academic and Title IX compliance.<\/p>\n
Most coaches, at least in public, agree players are long overdue to receive some sort of payday as the main cogs in what has become a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry.<\/p>\n
Pitino is in that camp. When he made news last month by calling this the most difficult year of his coaching career, most interpreted it as a shot across the bow at his team, which was underachieving at the time and fell short of reaching the NCAA Tournament. Pitino responded by saying his team wasn\u2019t interested in the NIT<\/a> and was moving on to next season.<\/p>\n
He said his real frustration lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n
AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard contributed.<\/p>\n
AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"