This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/InVodkaVeritas on 2024-01-20 06:23:04.
I stumbled on an interview Phil Knight did on January 3rd, when all the focus was on the playoff games so it went largely overlooked.
You can listen to the full interview here.
I thought it would be interesting for those that don’t want to give the full thing a listen to get to read the transcript of the questions surrounding the state of college athletics and NIL.
State of College Athletics:
Q: With Oregon going to the Big Ten next year, the end of the Pac-12, where do you think we go from here? What do you think this all looks like for Oregon and for just college athletics in general?
Phil Knight:
Well, Oregon came through the realignment on it’s feet, and so I was happy about that, but it really makes me very sad to see the breakup of the Pac-12. And I think it was so unnecessary, but the world of sports as we’ve known it has really suffered from weak leadership at the NCAA level. And it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle.
American collegiate sports is unique in the world. There’s not really any other nation that has it to the level of fandom, if you will, and interest and passion that exists in university sports in the United States. And that’s kinda hanging by a thread right now with the weak leadership and the wild wild west of the quartiles and NIL and where we go from there.
And the proposal from the Executive Director of the NCAA is very worrisome. It just misses the whole point. There’s nobody, really, that’s looking out for sports. In the vacuum that the NCAA created that the television networks stepped in. And they provide leadership, but they’re not really interested in the sport. They’re interested in TV eyeballs and the revenue from the ads.
So we’ve got leadership that isn’t really interested in the sport as it is, and so it’s a worrisome situation; and nobody knows for sure where it’s going to go. And there’s no mandate that says American sports has to succeed.
Q: That’s true… Is there anything you can think of, organizationally, you know, governance wise… I always worry about the incentive structure that there’s not a great deal of incentive; that there is no steward, there is no sort of person whose job it is, and a significant incentive for them to make sure that it’s taken care of in the long term. Can you think of anything that you could or would do in your experience to make for an organization that does forge a positive future?
Phil Knight
Well, first of all, as I said, I don’t think anybody is asking ‘what does the sport need?’ So for football, for example, if you’ve got Mack Brown and three or four other really respected coaches in a room, they’d come up with a solution in about two hours but nobody’s asking them.
For me, they’re trying to squeeze too many elements into one bottle. You’re not going to unpay athletes, particularly in football. That’s here to stay.
So it really makes sense to me to have three different divisions, and with each having a commissioner. You’d have the football division, you’d have the basketball division which would be men’s and women’s basketball, and then you’d have the Olympic Sports. And they’d all have different economics.
To try and squeeze them all into one group, looking out for all of the athletes in all three of those distinct areas is something that’s basically impossible.
NIL and College Apparel Deals
Q: How has NIL impacted how you feel about apparel deals with universities?
Phil Knight:
Actually, overall, it doesn’t matter to Nike. I mean, we have our NFL deal where each player has his own shoe deal and with the shoes in college we have to deal with the university on what their players are going to wear. I think the NIL deal challenges that a little bit, but it doesn’t bother us whichever rule they want to take.
…
Q: Are you surprised apparel companies like Nike aren’t already signing college athletes to multi-year contracts like they do in the NFL?
Phil Knight
Not under the existing rules, because essentially an athlete that competes for a Nike school has the right to sign with a different brand but he can’t wear that brand on the field when he’s most noticeable. So individual deals, that are different than the existing brand that the university endorses; they’re out there, but there are very few of them.
Q: I get the sense that if players had individual deals instead of team deals that they’d get paid a lot more and apparel brands would end up paying more overall.
Phil Knight
I think that that’s where it’s headed.
NIL and Paying Players
Q: With NIL, there’s no salary cap. There’s no anti-tampering policy. No free agency period. It’s just a free for all. But how do you do those things without giving someone a seat at the table to collectively bargain and make those trade-off choices?
Phil Knight
Well, I think that will ultimately happen. Either they’ll be employees or they’ll just be empowered some way. But there, again, I think football is different from track, my old sport. Trying to have the same rules for both muddies up the whole thing.
…
Q: I get the sense that you didn’t love NIL in the beginning, but is it fair to say that you’re all in now? I assume you’re supporting Oregon in a big way?
Phil Knight
No, I still don’t like it in the sense that it needs to have some rules. Right now it’s just chaos intentionally almost. And I don’t like all of that, but it is what the rules are now so you’re either going to recognize that or drop out; and so we’ve recognized it.
…
Q: What do you wish was happening with NIL? Do you believe collective representation and negotiation and then there’s a cap, kind of like the pro leagues, or?
Phil Knight
You know, the idea that college football is not a pro league is wrong. It’s not whether or not they’re gonna be pro or not. They’re pro. And the most successful league in all of sports is the NFL. So look what they do and try to follow that.
It’ll get there some day, but the NCAA moves pretty slowly.