Throwing The Transfer Portal Wide Open

December 13, 2023 1:48 PM

A federal judge has issued a 14 day temporary injunction against the NCAA enforcing limitations on players transferring to other schools, as part of a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of several states asserting that said rules are an unlawful restraint of trade against the players.

The NCAA has historically required players that transfer schools to sit out and lose a year of eligibility - the so called "redshirt rule", with waivers given on a limited basis in response to criticism of the policy being overly strict. Further criticism as well as fallout from the Alston ruling led the NCAA to grant players waivers when looking to transfer, but over the past few months have engaged in a crackdown on transfers - leading to the lawsuit by the states. In addition some college athletics officials are floating the idea of ending transfer waivers and enforcing the redshirt rule across the board.

posted by NoxAeternum (41 comments total)

I'm sure all these players are transferring schools to find a better fit for their particular academic program or to study under a professor who is esteemed in their field.

And your point?

The reality is that the NCAA's transfer limitations are illegal, and this sneering at players asserting their rights under the law is rather uncouth.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:04 PM on December 13, 2023 [57 favorites]

Few things more despicable in sports than seeing a multi-millionaire college football coach go red in the face ranting about student-athletes transferring schools, only to leave the same school on year 3 of his 5 year contract for a better offer.
posted by thecjm at 2:05 PM on December 13, 2023 [48 favorites]

In reality, they largely ARE in fact transferring in hopes of getting further in their chosen professional field than they would at their old institution, either because they'll actually have the chance to see the field of play or they feel they'd work better with a different coach. What reason is there to hold them out for a year? What if they're not playing as much as they thought they would when they signed up for the school in the first place? Why penalize them?
posted by LionIndex at 2:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [29 favorites]

I'm sure all these players are transferring schools to find a better fit for their particular academic program or to study under a professor who is esteemed in their field.

Say you're a grad student stuck with a professor who can't be bothered to publish their research, despite promises that the grad would be their top priority. Or what if the the professor goes to another school, and the new head of the physics department is more concerned about the new students they brought in?

Should that grad student be allowed to transfer schools? Should they be required to wait a year under they're allowed in that new school's lab?
posted by thecjm at 2:15 PM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]

The original sin here was letting college sports become the minor leagues of professional sports rather than an extramural activity. Failing a dramatic reform of that system, I’m all for the players having greater power and autonomy (including a fair share of the enormous revenues).
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:23 PM on December 13, 2023 [81 favorites]

In a lot of places, it's unlawful for an employer to try and enforce a non-compete agreement against an employee. For example, if you worked at Tim Horton's, you're allowed to take your skills across the street to Coffee Time. Timmy's can't make you spend a year on the bench. You don't need to be a lawyer to see the similarity between this Red Shirt rule and a non-compete. Athletes are workers, and they should benefit from all that entails.
posted by LegallyBread at 2:29 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

What reason is there to hold them out for a year? What if they're not playing as much as they thought they would when they signed up for the school in the first place? Why penalize them?

leaving the core issue Horace Rumpole raised, what good does it do the system as a whole if current basketball powerhouse schools are now able to gain even MORE advantage than they have already?
posted by Dr. Twist at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

The original sin here was letting college sports become the minor leagues of professional sports rather than an extramural activity.

This is an incredibly ahistoric look at college athletics, and college football in particular, where the college game predates the professional one by decades.

This is my point.

And shitting on players and their efforts to claw back a portion of the product of their labor serves your point...how, exactly?
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:39 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]

There's a difference between acknowledging a broken system and making a joke about the people exploited by said system.
posted by thecjm at 2:40 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

what good does it do the system as a whole if current basketball powerhouse schools are now able to gain even MORE advantage than they have already?

The NCAA is more than welcome to treat players as employees and enter into a collective bargaining agreement that lays out rules on transferring, if this is such a concern. Of course, players are going to demand things for that - like revenue sharing.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:41 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's about time courts cracked down on weird shit in sports. Now take a long, hard look at the antitrust exemptions.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:42 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

And to allay the fears about the all the big programs hoovering up all the top players, there are only so many spots on a roster, and more importantly, in a starting lineup. So for every player on some mid-major who has a good season and wants to go play for a top school, you've got multiple athletes at the top schools stuck on the bench who might be looking for more playing time elsewhere.
posted by thecjm at 2:44 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's about time courts cracked down on weird shit in sports. Now take a long, hard look at the antitrust exemptions.

That's what Alston did for the NCAA - the Supreme Court ruled that they have no antitrust protection.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:45 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm trying to think about what sort of giant spinning crashing glorious mess would happen if the pros lost their anti-trust exemptions. It might be LIV style boring fascist crap or maybe a grand spinning up of goofball competitors.

And the players are most certainly trying to swap schools to get more playing time, practice and attention in the hopes of making the pros. It's a moon shot for most of them and they're running hard for it. The old system was even worse than pre-free agency baseball.
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:02 PM on December 13, 2023

Yep - Joe Burrow, who made it to the Super Bowl with the Bengals recently, was stuck on the bench at Ohio State, so he transferred to LSU and won the championship there.

My school has a bunch of guys transfer out every year for basketball when they realize they're going to have a hard time getting playing time ahead of the more experienced players. And in basketball, a lot of the really good players aren't even going to college now, they just go straight to the G League (which is more like a minor league) and get drafted from there. Only one top 5 NBA draft pick was from a college team this year.

I have a lot of problems with how college sports are going, with TV money for football destroying just about everything else, and it'd kind of be nice if the kids playing for schools were playing for the school because they were from the area or whatever, but we're so far past anything like that. At least for basketball and football, college sports are de facto minor leagues, and it's probably better for the players if we treat them like that instead of trying to keep a fig leaf of amateurism on it. I can actually kind of see where basketball is normalizing a bit - like the players that were just going to show up for one year and then leave are going to other countries or the G League for a while, which leaves the players who need to develop their skills more, so it might end up more like baseball, but there's nothing like that for football yet.
posted by LionIndex at 3:14 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is an incredibly ahistoric look at college athletics, and college football in particular, where the college game predates the professional one by decades.

And even more than that, corruption in college athletics predates the professional game by decades. The Marx Brothers did a whole movie about it because it was as common and accepted as rich people riding cruise ships and unethical hucksters selling overpriced real estate in Florida. If you're looking for a time before college sports were exploiting athletes and corrupting school institutions, you need to look at a time before college sports existed.
posted by firechicago at 3:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]

Yep - Joe Burrow, who made it to the Super Bowl with the Bengals recently, was stuck on the bench at Ohio State, so he transferred to LSU and won the championship there.


Not just Burrow. Almost all of the Heisman Trophy (annual most outstanding player) finalists this year transferred between schools. It turns out that learning multiple schemes and systems improves the players, and gives them a leg up on making a lot of money in the NFL.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:42 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Interesting. We’re going to end up with a system soon in which college athletes have more freedom of movement, etc, than professional athletes do.
posted by notyou at 4:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

We need a law that the budget of a school's athletic department can't exceed the budget of its humanities department. (Want a bigger stadium? Hold a bake sale.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:32 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]

I'm sure all these players are transferring schools to find a better fit for their particular academic program or to study under a professor who is esteemed in their field.

Sportsball, am I right??
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 4:51 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Let me add this as I think it's related: US map of the highest-paid public employees by state.

The students need a union.
posted by cccorlew at 5:08 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]

coach Jimbo Fisher is getting paid $77 million to NOT coach Texas A&M anymore. I understand the booster wouldn’t provide all that money to the humanities department, but you could hire a lot of professors and pay lots of grad students for that much cash. I am not worried about student athletes moving around.
posted by CostcoCultist at 5:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

Sportsball, am I right??

This keen insight has to be tempered with
If you're looking for a time before college sports were exploiting athletes and corrupting school institutions, you need to look at a time before college sports existed.

Hey sports are fine if you like them, but I think it's ok for some of us caught in their gristmill to wish they didn't steal our academic funding and shit on our students so much.

Start a new farm league if you must, but I'm personally sick of football taking money from our academic coffers while claiming they don't.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]

In addition to the athletics department being funded on a dollar for dollar basis with the humanities department, the money the athletics departments receives should be equally distributed between every sport the school has a team for
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:43 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]

In addition to the athletics department being funded on a dollar for dollar basis with the humanities department, the money the athletics departments receives should be equally distributed between every sport the school has a team for

I always find it telling when academics are so cavalier with the labor of others.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:54 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

This entire system should not exist.

Collegiate athletics as a going business interest should be wiped out entirely, and colleges and universities should be... institutions of higher learning. Defending any part of it here--for any reason--is on par with defending any other "good" part of the monstrous neoliberal horseshit that's otherwise typically hated on MetaFilter.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:57 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's less about defending college sports, and more about the initial backlash inevitably being a joke about the athletes not being real students. Eventually the conversation shifts to how the big football and basketball coaches are grossly overpaid for what they claim in an amateur endeavor.

If we were talking about un/underpaid garbage collectors in their late teens/early twenties not being allowed to transfer to another city department, there would be outrage if the first comment was belittling the exploited labourers.

Yes, the system is rotten. But victories against the plantation mentality of college athletic directors should be celebrated.
posted by thecjm at 6:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]

I always find it telling when academics are so cavalier with the labor of others.

I don't actually think that's the case here, exactly. If you look at some "non-revenue" sport, students are expected to devote just as much time in exchange for less scholarship money and (I suspect) less support than, say, the football players. The university is still benefitting from the labor of the gymnastics team or whoever (and in the case of some women's sports, arguably subsiding football, which has outsized rosters, creating Title IX problems). Yes, they're making less than they are off football or basketball (men's basketball dwarfs women's basketball in revenue at most schools, but I think women's basketball tends to be the third highest revenue generator), but it's still a weird exploitative dynamic.
posted by hoyland at 6:35 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

This entire system should not exist.

Collegiate athletics as a going business interest should be wiped out entirely, and colleges and universities should be... institutions of higher learning

That horse left the barn so long ago that the siding fell off the barn and the remaining structure was condemned by the county. The idea that colleges should be institutions of higher learning is of course the ideal. But sports is far from the only offender here. If we want to be idealistic, how about we don’t allow the results and products of research at publicly funded colleges and universities to be patented by private industry?

Defending any part of it here--for any reason--is on par with defending any other "good" part of the monstrous neoliberal horseshit that's otherwise typically hated on MetaFilter.

You make assumptions here about what people are thinking when many of them are simply acknowledging the reality as it exists. Making that equivalence between people defending the system and defending “monstrous neoliberal horseshit” is ridiculous and is on the verge of yelling at clouds. College athletics has been a big industry since before the turn of the 20th century. The only thing that will change that is when the economics of it all force a change. With the amount of revenue college sports bring in at the Division 1 level, it’s going to be a long wait.
posted by azpenguin at 10:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

The decision by the judge for the 14 day injunction was for the SECOND transfer. The first transfer was already allowed without sitting out a year.

One of the plaintiffs or one of the witnesses testified that the limitation was torteous interference with the contract they signed for NIL money because part of the compensation was based on games played.

I happen to think that the players should be paid and should have the freedom to work/play where they want. Having said that, I preferred it when they were "amateurs". I think what the NCAA should do is differentiate between D-!, D-II and D-III schools in terms of pay levels. D-! are essentially pros., D-II schools have limits on what their athletes can be paid. D-III limit compensation to scholarships, room, board and transportation to and from school some number of times per semester. Colleges and Universities can then choose what division they want to compete in.

I lived with some D-I scholarship athletes one year in college. I can tell you without hesitation that anyone playing D-I sports, especially football and basketball (men and women) have essentially two full time jobs. One is the team obligations and the other is academic obligations. The amount of time (and the times of day) that they are expected to put in daily for practices, weight training, film sessions, etc, is enormous. Paying them is the least they can do for them.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:07 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Paying them is fine and I support it in theory but then where does the money come from? I'm serious, my university's athletic dept. is around $300 million in debt. They recently 'borrowed' $32 million from the academic system, that they will never repay. I've worked at five D-I big state universities and every single one of them claimed that athletic funds were separate, but every single one stole some amount of money from the university. In plain sight, without much notice and certainly no repercussion. The notion that athletic depts bring money to the university is a lie in many/most situations that far too many people credulously swallow. There's plenty of money of course and we all know where it goes but I don't think eg the highest paid state employees in every midwestern state are going to give up a cent of their money earned from exploited labor. I can't figure how any of them sleep at night or how any of their students can respect them.

Yes I know we are stuck with this system, and I know that the vast majority of student athletes work insanely hard and are decent students. But that doesn't mean I want a rope around my neck tied to their sinking ship, and I will continue to hate on them and their bullshit grift until it ceases.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:31 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Funny you say that, azpenguin: I regularly say IRL "but reality exists," both as a bit, and as a gentle check on spending too much time on ideas that won't fly for whatever reason. That said, any number of MeFites are constantly yelling at clouds and trotting out as reasonable the wildest of ideas, born in a Bermuda Triangle bounded by entitlement, arrogance, and ignorance. Why should I do any different?

(I'm being somewhat facetious, as that's not usually my way here. After reading that horrible Leftists/"Leftists"/"You're terrible"/"No, YOU'RE terrible" thread, I thought... why the fuck not? What even is reasoned discourse?)
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:31 AM on December 14, 2023

A simple way to know that the NCAA is evil and wrong is that the Republican Party doesn't attack it.
posted by srboisvert at 4:51 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]

If we want to be idealistic, how about we don’t allow the results and products of research at publicly funded colleges and universities to be patented by private industry?

That is also a good idea, and we should do this too.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:00 AM on December 14, 2023 [10 favorites]

Paying them is fine and I support it in theory but then where does the money come from?

From the billions of dollars the conferences and schools get from TV contracts and endorsement deals.

There is just an absurd amount of money flowing through the corporate side of university athletics, which coaches, athletic directors, sports conferences and the NCAA itself are hoarding. Instead of being scared paying the athletes in line with the value they generate for all these people is going to hurt academics, try finding some solidarity with them and work on shaking loose more of that money for everyone.
posted by dry white toast at 10:08 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Interesting. We’re going to end up with a system soon in which college athletes have more freedom of movement, etc, than professional athletes do.

Actually, I do not think pro athletes would want the college freedom. Charlie Finley, former owner of the Oakland A's baseball team once proposed that baseball makes everyone, EVERY PLAYER, a free agent every year. That is essentially what college is doing, right? The players (and other owners) rejected that proposal. It required the players to have to perform every year. If they had a bad year, their pay would presumably be limited the next year. Every year would be a make good year. Contrast that with Shohei's deal. 10 years, $700 million. That $700 very large is guaranteed. I think college athletes would like to be able to sign multi year contracts for scholarships and NIL money rather than have to go through the process multiple times in their college careers.

College athletes risk having their scholarships taken away and risk being "forced" to transfer as schools recruit new players. Just today the Texas backup QB entered the transfer portal because Arch Manning is presumably next in line jumping over his place on the depth chart or the starter is coming back for another year thus pushing him back on the bench.

The system was broken and a plantation type system before O'Bannon. The problem with the system now is that it was created ad hoc mostly our of response to court rulings rather than evolving from scratch and being well thought out. It is like zero based budgeting versus adding or subtracting from last year's budget. Inequities develop when you are making deals on the margin rather than starting from zero with everyone having a say at the table. Courts have imposed a change in one area without having to consider how that affects other areas.

I admit to being a sports fan. I further admit to being a huge college basketball fan. (Hate the rigged NBA). In college, I played in many intramural leagues. The revenue sports of men's football and men's basketball do generate massive amounts of revenue for the schools. They also support the non revenue sports to some or all extent. I was an undergrad liberal arts major. I was required to take foreign language, English, history, etc. Basically a traditional well rounded education. I happen to think that athletics, sports, individual or team, is an important part of a well rounded education and person. In k-12, phys ed, gym, is required for a reason. Those saying that athletics or sports are taking away from academics clearly do not see the value in athletics as a discipline. I think they are intertwined. Athletics, physical health, is an important part of academics and in education. Back to budgeting, saying sports is taking away from say the English department is, in my mind, no different that saying the history department is taking away money from the Women's Studies department. All the departments are fighting over the same pool of money (albeit a large pool) that is partly filled with Athletics revenue.

US Senators are constantly touting how much money they bring back to the State or Congress members tout how much money they bring back to the district. They often refer to how much they bring back vis a vis how much is collected in taxes for that State or district. Same thing here with the athletic department. They generate revenue for the university. (Most other departments are expenses not revenue generators.) They fight over how much of that revenue they can keep in the department.

I am not sure what my BA is worth, but the fact that The University offered phys ed classes, intramural sports opportunities, open gyms, weight rooms, etc, as part of tuition makes me proud of my well rounded education.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:06 AM on December 14, 2023

We just need to abolish "college football" entirely, admit it's pro football's minor league, divorce it from schools, and treat the atheletes like the low level pros they are instead of indulging in the fantasy that they're students who just happen to also play a sport for fun.

And yes, I am aware that there is an official minor league football in America. It's a joke that no one cares about and we all know college football is the real deal.
posted by sotonohito at 11:07 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

The problem with the system now is that it was created ad hoc mostly our of response to court rulings rather than evolving from scratch and being well thought out.

Which is because the NCAA has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, court ruling by court ruling. An equitable, well thought out system is quite possible - but it would require the NCAA and the schools to give up power and money, and they would never do that without a fight.

We just need to abolish "college football" entirely, admit it's pro football's minor league, divorce it from schools, and treat the atheletes like the low level pros they are instead of indulging in the fantasy that they're students who just happen to also play a sport for fun.

This argument isn't just ahistorical, but flat out wrong as there has never been an era where the players were seen as playing just for fun. The NCAA literally created the term "student-athlete" to kill attempts to grant players workers' compensation (which is why I refuse to use it myself.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

And speaking of kicking and screaming, the NCAA has released an advisory stating that players who take advantage of the restraining order will lose their eligibility if the ruling is reversed.

Beyond this being a move of cartoonish villainy that would make Snidely Whiplash proud, it's also counterproductive, because on the 27th the NCAA will be before the judge who issued the order again, and judges historically do not look kindly on litigants before them that tell the judge "fuck you".
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:21 PM on December 14, 2023

If we want to be idealistic, how about we don’t allow the results and products of research at publicly funded colleges and universities to be patented by private industry?

Alright, let's do it

I like the way you think, dude
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:10 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

And in another reversal, the NCAA and the states have come to an agreement to extend the injunction for the remainder of the competition year. I imagine NCAA legal finally explained to Baker and the others exactly how legally fucked they are.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:56 PM on December 15, 2023