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There are just 10 weeks until the 2023 college football season. Conference summer meetings in July and players arriving in six weeks. So why write a college football column when nothing significant is happening? Because what is developing on the world stage in professional sports is a harbinger of things coming to college football. The warnings are there. The distinction between professional sports and amateur sports has all but disappeared and the threat to college athletics is greater than at any time in history.
How did we get here?
Start with the PGA Tour, the association for professional golf. You know by now that LIV Golf, part of the $600 billion Saudi named Public Investment Fund (PIF) and its spokesman, Greg Norman (who is paid $100 million by LIV), recruits golf’s top players to play at various tournaments, guaranteeing them tens of millions of dollars just for participating. Winning results in huge bonuses. Now you may be a pure capitalist and believe that one’s services can be sold to the highest bidder, but what about when that bidder is from Saudi Arabia? Women in that country regularly experience discrimination. Human rights violations are part of their history. How about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist who was allegedly assassinated by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2022? And 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, though the Saudi government has consistently denied any involvement. This is the country America wants to do business with?
Clearly, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan didn’t think so when he referenced the victims of 9/11 to pressure many his members from accepting the LIV “blood money” and defecting. He was on record that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf would never merge. Faces of the game like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy had sacrificed hundreds of millions of dollars and pledged their allegiance to the Tour.
Then, the hammer fell when the two sides, while litigating their issues in court, announced a new deal. Monahan admitted he would be called a hypocrite by his own players. The Saudis never wanted to profit from this endeavor; they craved legitimacy, access and acceptance from the establishment. Influence is their goal and that is the danger. This merger indirectly compromises our golf’s legitimacy and our way of life. That’s why Congress and the Justice Department announced an investigation. Good luck with that.
The point here is when is enough enough?
But that’s not all. Soccer is the most watched sport in the world. The Saudis have been buying teams in Europe and instantly changing them from perennial losers to winners (see Newcastle). The great Cristiano Ronaldo, at one time, signed a three-year contract worth $200 million annually to play in Saudi Arabia. Karim Benzema opted out of his $30-million contract with Real Madrid for $150 million a year to play in the Kingdom. Finally, Lionel Messi, captain of Argentina’s World Cup championship team, and recognized by many as the GOAT, reportedly was offered a three-year $1.5-billion contract by you guessed it, the Saudis. He eschewed the offer to come to America and accept an estimated $200 million a year (both Apple and Adidas provided most of the compensation) to play for Miami FC. But he remains on the Saudi payroll as an “ambassador” for about $30 million.
So what does all this have to do with college football?
Everything.
The PGA Tour waved the white flag and said it couldn’t compete with these outrageous sums of money and decided to cut its losses. You can save the political argument about accepting money from the Saudis or any other country which does not share our values for another conversation. This is simply about the divisive effect big money has on sports. If Saudi Arabia decides it wants to start a professional basketball league, it says here they have the cache to do it, how does any league compete if salaries jump tenfold? Remember the AFL, WHA, ABA. LIV Golf is interested in spreading its influence and having a legitimate world stage and audience to advance its agenda.
The most vulnerable of all the popular sports in America today is college football (college basketball also is part of this vulnerability). Any entity (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) — foreign or otherwise — could compensate top players to establish relationships dedicated to advancing their interests. Nike, Adidas, FOX, ESPN, etc., are already doing this; we just haven’t identified it as a threat. But college football remains the most vulnerable because it has no collective bargaining agreement — and therefore no limits on what any third party can compensate an athlete under NIL. Some players already earn $1 million to $3 million.
What if Saudia Arabia decided to use its unlimited resources to pay the top players $10 million plus per year? Is it realistic? Let’s hope not.
That’s why on Wednesday a contingent from the SEC, including Alabama coach Nick Saban, arrived in Washington to address members of Congress about the need to regulate compensation under NIL. Don’t expect Congress to do anything anytime soon. The NCAA? Fuhgeddaboudit. There’s only one feasible solution: Unionize the players and negotiate a CBA that addresses NIL and limits the impact outside influences can have. Yes, a salary cap. Hard or soft, there’s no other alternative to save the competitive balance the game is losing. Stop the insane belief that college football players are amateur athletes and declare them professionals.
Time is not on our side and without dramatic changes, the exploitation of young, highly impressionable men is unavoidable. Otherwise, the resources, assets, support and capital, (all code words for money) of domestic and foreign companies will impact players at the college level to establish an agenda to manipulate the innocent and spread the influence.
That is the dangerous world we live in.
(Editor’s note: Ken Schreiber contributes a college football column for the Providence Journal. This post first appeared in the Providence Journal, part of the USA Today Network.)
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