Impact of NIL on Gap Between Group of 5 & Power 4 Conferences

[vhcat70]

Shouldn't be surprising, but WSJ article shows how top players in G5 frequently moving to P4 school exacerbates the quality gap between the two.

"The Wall Street Journal reviewed the 2023 first-team all-conference selections for the five smaller leagues that compete the top tier of Division I. These conferences are the American Athletic, Conference USA, the Mid-American, the Mountain West and the Sun Belt, known collectively as the “Group of Five.”

The impact of the transfer portal is striking: After eliminating those who graduated or departed for the NFL, a whopping 40% of the remaining players with all-conference honors switched to another program. The vast majority of them bolted to a team in the Power Four (the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten and Southeastern conferences). Even when adding second- and third-team all-conference picks, 36% wound up transferring.

The data shows the extent to which the balance of power has shifted in college football. The smaller conferences have always had a disadvantage compared with their larger peers. Now, they have effectively become a farm system—developing talented players only to lose them to their wealthier competitors. Competing against the likes of Alabama and Michigan was always hard, even before those juggernauts could just snatch up players like books in the campus library.

“Some of those leagues,” former Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said in a radio interview earlier this year, “they’re becoming glorified junior colleges.”"

https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/college-transfers-power-five-conferences-aee82375?mod=sports_lead_pos2

 

[bballcat4]

I think this trend started with the new transfer rules when players no longer had to sit out a year. NIL just sped up the process by adding $ to the process.

I remember hearing Saban talk about how the new transfer rule would hurt small schools.

I’m happy that players get to experience the American Dream where success is rewarded with opportunity. Ray Davis went from small school to Vandy, to Uk, then to NFL. There’s no doubt the smaller schools and conferences are the new minor league where larger schools will poach their best talent.

 

[K_TIME]

For sure this makes total sense.

1. For UK....we have QB depth for first time every. Largely due to buying off Wimsatt, Beau Allen,etc.. who would never come to UK with a younger QB ahead of them on depth chart...but NIL $$$ changes what motivates you. And I think just about every SEC school has better depth across the board.
2. For college as a whole.....this has to be a disaster. I have long predicted football programs will be closing shop in smaller schools. Why follow schools if you are a fan at places like Tennessee Chattanooga, Western Ky, UAB, etc...heck even Central Michigan, Toledo, etc...why have a team if you're a farm team for your better players jumping to P5.

I still have no idea why football allows this free agency nonsense every year. (even bigger school coaches don't like this concept). So this could go down the path of MLB...big markets get all the talent and smaller markets can't keep their own talent. And as fans get tired of this stuff.....more and more followers will just not even follow and then the money is gone and the pool keeps getting smaller and smaller of fans that follow the sport.

 

[PersianCat387]

For sure this makes total sense.

1. For UK....we have QB depth for first time every. Largely due to buying off Wimsatt, Beau Allen,etc.. who would never come to UK with a younger QB ahead of them on depth chart...but NIL $$$ changes what motivates you. And I think just about every SEC school has better depth across the board.
2. For college as a whole.....this has to be a disaster. I have long predicted football programs will be closing shop in smaller schools. Why follow schools if you are a fan at places like Tennessee Chattanooga, Western Ky, UAB, etc...heck even Central Michigan, Toledo, etc...why have a team if you're a farm team for your better players jumping to P5.

I still have no idea why football allows this free agency nonsense every year. (even bigger school coaches don't like this concept). So this could go down the path of MLB...big markets get all the talent and smaller markets can't keep their own talent. And as fans get tired of this stuff.....more and more followers will just not even follow and then the money is gone and the pool keeps getting smaller and smaller of fans that follow the sport.

While I also dislike it, what I worry about it that this is the model EVERYWHERE, for just about every major profitable sport in the entire world except for the US. Most obvious in international football/soccer, but played out to a lesser extent with other sports. Athletes are able to realize their value very effectively in almost every other sport's globalized farm system. So that pressure to be the same will always be there. I love the old college football of course and hate almost everything about the new system, but I think the fact that it is played out this way almost every where else means that it is probably inevitable here. I guess the one positive we could try to find is that most of those global sports with multiple tiers and farm systems, etc have not died out, they have found a way to maintain their fanbases and markets, it is just a matter of adjusting.

I love college sports but it really is something unique to the US for the most part. Sports at colleges are restricted to clubs for the most part in other countries, with some of the more serious athletes who are in school being focused on the olympic sports rather than team ones. All those guys are in the club and farm systems instead.

 

[The-Hack]

The article does not lie . . . and any MAC or G5 program that visits Kroger should realize their younger players are auditioning for a transfer to Kentucky.

Just the way it is, and frankly, allowing the Top notch G5 players a shot to move up creates a slot for another player at the G5 level. Hardly a catastrophe, and actually a reflection of how free market economics and actual “freedom” is supposed to work.