Follow the money. Even the most passionate donors will eventually want a system, not a perpetual auction.
And at some point, the media rights will transition from a growth model to a management model due to fragmented attractiveness (yep, it’ll be a thing), which is another reason collective bargaining is gaining traction. A negotiated system through collective bargaining may become necessary not because there is unlimited money available, but because there isn’t.
The whole "grow the pie" pitch (which was mentioned how many times yesterday?) assumes the pie keeps growing. Your read is that it doesn't, or at least not evenly. Once attention fragments, you're managing a finite, maybe shrinking pool instead of divvying up a windfall.
And that flips the usual story about why bargaining happens. People assume collective bargaining shows up when there's a big pot to split. The more durable kind tends to show up when there isn't, when somebody has to decide who takes the haircut. An auction only works as long as the money is effectively unlimited. The second it isn't, the auction becomes a fight, and fights eventually get institutionalized into rules.
The donor-fatigue line is exactly how I think about it though. This is finite stuff. A booster will fund a war chest. Almost nobody funds a standing payroll forever. The moment the donors want predictability instead of a perpetual auction, they're asking for a CBA. They just don't call it that yet.
Fascinating stuff here. I think the most important note from all of this is how little the athletes stand to gain from collective action…
Normally unions form when there is tremendous leverage on the side of management. As we see in virtually every CFB/CBB dilemma today is that elite athletes are the ones holding tremendous leverage
Yep, but I’d push a bit on the time horizon. Completely agree that elite athletes have individual leverage right now, which weakens incentives for collective action.
But, as we know, that leverage is highly positional and temporary—1–5 year careers, high turnover, constant replacement.
Unions usually emerge when individual leverage collapses or becomes unreliable. Roster limits, portal saturation, and non-matriculation will change that calculus. So, all of this exit is masking voice, and that will continue...until it doesn't.
Exactly. When exit beats voice, it’s not short-sightedness—it’s the system doing what it incentivizes. And you pretty much always get what you incent... Cheers!
Follow the money. Even the most passionate donors will eventually want a system, not a perpetual auction.
And at some point, the media rights will transition from a growth model to a management model due to fragmented attractiveness (yep, it’ll be a thing), which is another reason collective bargaining is gaining traction. A negotiated system through collective bargaining may become necessary not because there is unlimited money available, but because there isn’t.
The whole "grow the pie" pitch (which was mentioned how many times yesterday?) assumes the pie keeps growing. Your read is that it doesn't, or at least not evenly. Once attention fragments, you're managing a finite, maybe shrinking pool instead of divvying up a windfall.
And that flips the usual story about why bargaining happens. People assume collective bargaining shows up when there's a big pot to split. The more durable kind tends to show up when there isn't, when somebody has to decide who takes the haircut. An auction only works as long as the money is effectively unlimited. The second it isn't, the auction becomes a fight, and fights eventually get institutionalized into rules.
The donor-fatigue line is exactly how I think about it though. This is finite stuff. A booster will fund a war chest. Almost nobody funds a standing payroll forever. The moment the donors want predictability instead of a perpetual auction, they're asking for a CBA. They just don't call it that yet.
Fascinating stuff here. I think the most important note from all of this is how little the athletes stand to gain from collective action…
Normally unions form when there is tremendous leverage on the side of management. As we see in virtually every CFB/CBB dilemma today is that elite athletes are the ones holding tremendous leverage
Yep, but I’d push a bit on the time horizon. Completely agree that elite athletes have individual leverage right now, which weakens incentives for collective action.
But, as we know, that leverage is highly positional and temporary—1–5 year careers, high turnover, constant replacement.
Unions usually emerge when individual leverage collapses or becomes unreliable. Roster limits, portal saturation, and non-matriculation will change that calculus. So, all of this exit is masking voice, and that will continue...until it doesn't.
Exactly. When exit beats voice, it’s not short-sightedness—it’s the system doing what it incentivizes. And you pretty much always get what you incent... Cheers!