I’ll summarize and close out my participation in this thread with this post:
1. I don’t fault players seeking compensation or trying to maximize their compensation. Many of these kids come from poor to modest financial backgrounds, and I would never fault someone from taking advantage of an opportunity afforded to them to improve their family’s situation.
2. The allure of college athletics to an alumni (at least to me) is a connection to the student athletes and university. Prior to NIL and the Penn State led effort to unionize and demand a share of media rights (demand was their chosen verb), such a connection existed. While the variables may have been different for each, all of us chose RU for a set of uncompensated reasons to improve ourselves through education and access to more lucrative career opportunities. Granted, I can see non-alumni eagerly supporting these initiatives. But as an alumni who puts the school first, I struggle to do so.
3. I don’t fault contributors to NIL. The landscape has changed, and it’s not returning to the prior status quo. Nor am I trying to convince anyone what to do. Simply expressing my views as a supporter of the university, which is something I care deeply about.
4. Players who utilize free agency to maximize compensation are within their rights, and their is nothing immoral about such actions. But such actions are not, in my opinion, the action of a college athlete. It is the action of a semi-pro athlete regardless if said athlete attends classes as may be required, or not.
5. I dont wish to support semi-pro sports associated with Rutgers. Others, indeed the majority of posters, may not like the idea but are willing. No problem from my perspective to have differing views and to act on those views.
6. Finally, those asking posters with opposing views on this issue to keep their views silent are really just lending credence to the views they oppose. If those of us willing to walk away are wrong, why wring your hands about our arguments?
I enjoy supporting RU athletics, and would be happy to continue to if my assumptions above prove incorrect. But I fear the worst is yet to come, I suspect realignment will involve the extraction of the most successful teams into a national league of ~25, and everyone else will be in a second division. Think of the attempt in Europe a year ago to establish a super league of the continents best soccer clubs. Supporters pushed back strenuously, and the effort was abandoned, Does anyone thing fans of Ohio State or Alabama would do the same? I know my answer,