A New Era of College Football Begins

Another loss for those that stand in the way of progress.

Today is the first day in college football history that athletes can profit on their name, image and likeness. For non sports-followers to understand how big of a deal this is, consider that Governor Mike DeWine went around Jena Powell’s anti-transgender antics to sign an executive order on the issue.

Yes, it’s somewhat tragic how fast our state government will move when an economic and political golden goose like Ohio State football comes under attack. That’s a topic for another day.

This is the most pro-worker thing to happen in our state in as long as I can remember. Of course Ohio State fought it every step of the way until NIL profitability became inevitable, then it went to the legislature to ensure the law got written in a language that ensured its players couldn’t hamper their own sponsorship deals.

I remember arguing with right-wing Buckeye fans over the years on why players didn’t deserve to get paid. Their excuses were always comical.

They already get paid with “free” school! I had to work three jobs to pay for my education (because I couldn’t run a 4.3 40-yard dash and 105,000 people weren’t packing the Horseshoe to watch me take a chemistry test on Saturday afternoons).

“It will create tiers of haves and have-nots!” (as if only about five programs have a legitimate shot at winning a national title).

The trashiest argument has always been that it would “ruin the purity of the game” (which is usually what the fragile white male ego spews when it can’t handle the thought of a 20-year-old black athlete making more in a season than they make in four years).

The truth is most big-time players in college athletics have been getting paid under the table. And that will likely will still happen given that football boosters will do whatever it takes to ensure talented teams choose their program.

What will be most funny, however, will be watching tinpot dictator coaches having to deal with their star quarterbacks shooting commercials for sub shops instead of watching film.

What was it Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said in 2019, the year he cleared $9.1 million in salary?

“As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”

Wow, crazy that Swinney, a man of his word, will quit today to go do “something else” in a statement against all the entitlement in this world. Maybe in the meantime Jim Tressel and “the Tat Five” can get their wins reinstated.

This is how progress works in America. Somebody looks at a shitty economic system like college football and proposes a common sense idea like, “You know, players should at least be able to profit off their name, image and likeness.”

The opponents of change—any change—then shriek and stomp their feet and offer a litany of piss-poor, bad-faith excuses. They say if we enact this change, it will ruin the entire system as we know it.

Their preposterous antics serve nothing other than the entrenched status quo.

The economics of college football is better today than it was yesterday. But it is still not where it needs to be, which is players classified as employees and unionized under a collective bargaining agreement.

This idea will once again be fought by the same people who stood in the way of legalized NIL usage. They will offer the same excuses.

Thankfully, progress is inevitable; though will take time, and it won’t be easy.

But as former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes once said, “Anything easy ain’t worth a damn.”

THOSE WMDs. The oral history of Terminator 2: Judgment Day… The horror of Surfside… Indian Mounds Drive… The end of American politics… America’s pot labs have a THC problem… I know what it’s like to have your sanity questioned. Where is Guy Fieri’s sympathy for restaurant workers?