Michchamp
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2011
- Messages
- 34,249
Or endure and determine over a few seasons the relationship between NIL and success on the field. NIL sure undermines ?The Team, The Team, The Team? that is memorialized in the Michigan Stadium tunnel.
I look at it this way: it was always a bit of a scam to generate money from an "amateur" sport, but it wasn't an egregious slogan back in those days, when football coaches made $100k/year tops. Which was not way out of line from what professors, heads of public agencies, doctors, lawyers, etc. - i.e. educated people who provided things the public needed - made... and not way outside what a typical middle class family earned.
But in this day and age, it's indefensible.
If we wanted to truly embrace the ethos behind "The Team, The Team, The Team" we would've gone the route UChicago did with their athletics.
We should allow NIL money, and should allow these players to get paid, and stop living the fiction that a BGS from Michigan is fair compensation for the hundreds of millions of dollars they generate, the wear and tear on their bodies, and the substantial time they spend practicing, lifting, traveling and at team meetings