Should College Football Players be Allowed to Make Free Market Money?

[ShotgunDawg]

No, it would completely destroy a recruiting process that is already dramatically flawed. It would open the door for recruits to need contractual promises of autograph signings before signing.

It would offer major incentives for larger fan base schools to offer to recruits in return for their signature. Under these circumstances, A recruit would be dumb to sign with MSU or Ole Miss when he can sign with Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, etc due to them having double or greater the amount of fans. If the fan base is bigger & more national, it offers much great financial avenues. Say bye bye to Simmons, Cam Akers, Kylin Hill, AJ Brown, etc.. All those players would have had financial reasons to sign with other SEC schools.

This is the conversation on Bo Bounds this morning &, since I don't call into the show, I thought I'd bring the discussion here.

Bo doesn't understand why Katie Ledecky can make more than $100,000 + at the Olympics but Leonard Fournette can't sign autographs on the quad at LSU. The answer is easy, making money on the Olympic team is not an incentive & enticement a school can offer to beat other schools in a recruiting battle. It's really that simple IMO

Anyway, I think Bo & Jackson are missing the boat on this discussion. For whatever reason, the media, not just Bo, has had a ton of trouble getting this & figuring out the real reason why college football players can't be paid on the free market. Not sure why the media Jay Bilas, etc can't wrap their arm around the unintended consequences of allowing players to make money on the free market.

Now, I wouldn't be opposed to the Power 5 schools breaking away & all paying the players a standard amount, which couldn't be used as a recruiting enticement since everyone would be getting the same amount of money.