College sports keeps peddling a lie about players. Stop believing it

Let me explain the great fallacy of the NIL era, a five-year college sports circus so unhinged and unbridled, the NCAA and Congress can’t figure it out .

Or don’t want to.

Because the answer has always been as simple as collectively bargaining with players. A player union, strictly bargained rules, and consequences for those who break rules.

Now, the fallacy: Players don’t want to be employees and collectively bargain.

Maybe the biggest load of crap I’ve heard in five years of NIL era lies and deceit.

College sports leaders, and even some within Congress — at this point, can you tell the difference? — continue to push this ridiculous charade. Continue to say players keep telling them they don’t want to be employees, don’t want the on- and off-field protections that come with collectively bargaining.

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They just want to be individual contractors, negotiate directly with schools and be swindled by “agents” and “middlemen” and whatever the crooks who take 30% of their earnings are calling themselves these days.

I mean, what player in his right mind wouldn’t want to collectively bargain and have access to 48.8% of media rights revenue? Some quick math: The four Power conferences reported earnings of nearly $4 billion . And those numbers will grow exponentially over the next decade.

If college sports leaders were genuine and honest about it all, they’d admit it’s really just the top 1% of players who don’t want to collectively bargain. Why would they?

They have free movement, and many make more than end of roster players in the NFL. The current setup is perfect for them.

But not for the vast majority of the 14,500 football players in FBS. Not for thousands of players pushed into the portal by aforementioned “agents” — only to find it’s not what they were sold.

I’m sure college sports leaders have spoken to them, and they love the current setup that leaves them vulnerable within a broken system, and to coaches trying to find the next better — while trying to save their own hides and protect their own millions.

If you’re looking for answers to all the problems the brilliant minds of Congress are currently debating (that’s sarcasm, everyone), it’s right in front of you with collective bargaining.

Stanford football players formed the first player-led chapter of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA) the organization announced July 27. It's a first step toward potentially unionizing college athletes and developing a collective bargaining agreement.

Age limitations. Player movement. Elimination of judicial overreach (see: judge shopping). No rules. No enforcement.

All of it goes away with collective bargaining. But so, too, does the hoarding of cash.

Now you’re starting to see what this is all about, what it’s always about: money.

College sports leaders don’t want to fork over 48.8% (the current number NFL players receive from NFL franchises in CBA negotiations) of annual revenue. It has nothing to do with players and their desire to avoid employment.

Free player movement, blown salary caps and circumventing the salary cap with private NIL ends when collective bargaining begins. The free-for-all of roster turnover and player management ceases to be a problem.

All of the issues that currently plague college sports, that Congress has spent a year trying to fix and won’t — the Protect College Sports Act has zero chance of getting through Congress — will go away when universities and players collectively bargain.

The same way they collectively bargained, in a sense, to reach the original groundbreaking revenue share deal from the House case. That deal took a lawsuit and a judge, and universities fighting for every single inch of ground, but it happened.

It wasn’t the end of college sports as we know it, and it hasn’t pushed anyone or anything to the edge of a financial cliff — despite the nattering nabobs of negativism constantly declaring the end is near, yet somehow managing to field teams every single year.

Because there’s always more money in the game. How the regular season and postseason are formatted can be debated and collectively bargained — a helluva lot easier than SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti playing footsie for two years.

Live sports is everything for network television, and streaming sites. They can’t get enough of it because it’s the only thing that sells.

And nothing sells quite like football. The NFL and college football.

The only thing that’s real and undeniable in this current mosh pit of a five-year NIL era run.

There’s one way out of this mess: Share the $4 billion-plus-plus annually, and end this charade.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB . Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville .

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College sports keeps peddling a lie about players. Stop believing it | Opinion

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