Credit: Craven Whitlow
Depending on how much you paid attention in high school, you may or may not recall the Gilded Age in the United States. The time period from the late 1800s into the first decade or so of the 20th century saw tremendous contrast between the Haves of the USA and Have-Nots. From the outside looking in, the country’s transition from agrarian to industrial economies appeared rapid and beneficial to all. Except behind the scenes, the workers fought tooth and nail to avoid, or at least lessen, exploitation and close the economic gap.
Just like a story I know called “The Puppy Who Lost His Way.”
In seriousness, the United States is on the cusp of a period that hearkens back to that time. On purpose. We even have the disenfranchised laborers fighting for their benefits and the corresponding self-sabotage by their brethren who are not reaping the new welfare.
Arkansas at Forefront of New Pushback of American Labor Movement
Debbie and Dennis Downer are quick to tell you of college sports’ demise:
The transfer portal and NIL have ruined the purity of college football. It used to be about pride. It used to be about the name on the front, not the back. It used to be that tickets didn’t cost an arm and a leg. It used to be I could get tickets, a hot dog and a Coke for $15.
Ah, sentimentality. Last week’s signing of the state of Arkansas’ NIL law by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders raised hackles further. The state of Arkansas will no longer tax the NIL funds made by players at its public universities and fact alone has brought out the knives.
The players, whom fans used to lovingly (and oft-times passively-aggressively) refer to as ‘kids’ – as in, ‘these kids are giving it all for their school’ – have become the bad guys. The infantilization of legal adults by such folks was already annoying. Now that they’re making money, it’s worse.
The backlash should have been easy to see coming because of pre-existing attitudes. Arkansas football and basketball play-by-play commentator Chuck Barrett, co-host of the Bo and Chuck Show, spots it regularly.
“I’m beginning to get a little concerned that the pendulum is swinging against the players,” Barrett said earlier this week. “People (are) not pro-player. Now, all of a sudden, ‘man, they’re not having to pay taxes, either. I mean, at least the coaches are paying taxes.’”
Barrett is right. I too am concerned for the future of sports at the collegiate level. Just not for the same reason as the people who proclaim players’ rights and payments as the culprit.
When Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek announced that he intended to help the university’s NIL collective recoup its losses due to the transfer of quarterback Madden Iamaleava to UCLA, Arkansans were thrilled. Even nationally, Yurachek’s remarks received attention. From common fans, the attention was usually accompanied by proverbial applause. From fellow administrators, the same.
Razorbacks May Be Digging Their Own Grave
But national radio host Paul Finebaum, like Barrett, provided much-needed words of sanity and caution.
“I know a lot of people say (Arkansas) is doing the right thing. We all understand that,” Finebaum recently said on the radio show McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning. “But I think the problem for universities, when you try to go to court, when you start suing players you recruited and offered, you run a big risk of getting a very bad reputation.”
Arkansas has long suffered a poor tradition when it comes to recruiting loads of high-quality talent. Even before NIL, players simply preferred other schools in the Southeastern Conference. NIL hasn’t much helped, either. The Razorbacks are ranked 15th out of 16 SEC teams in the Class of 2025 high-school recruiting rankings. They’re ranked in the same spot in the transfer-portal net rankings over at On3, as well. The highest Arkansas has finished in the high-school recruiting rankings since 2015 is ninth, a mark it’s reached three times.
Hinting, or outright telling, recruits if they leave the school will sue for lost funds, isn’t conducive to creating a positive environment. Who wants to work for a place that makes you have to always wonder what will happen if you leave? But instead of empathy, fans have largely shown the emotion of jealousy, a whole ‘If I Don’t Get It, Why Should You?’ mentality.
Players Are The Villains In Upside-Down World
Here we have a classic case of siding with management over labor. Such is the American Way. Even in the days of the Haymarket Riot and Homestead Strike, both incidents that took place in the Gilded Age, labor unrest resulted in a negative public perception of the workers, not their bosses and companies. The 16 deaths that occurred during the Homestead Strike and eight deaths during the Haymarket Riot were largely blamed on the workers. Suggesting fans change their outlook is foolhardy – 150 years of picking one side regularly over the other creates a lot of set-in-stone feelings – but perhaps their consideration of what it means for their favorite company, er, team would at least soften that stance.
“I do wonder,” Barrett continued, “and worry may be too strong a word, but I see for the first time public sentiment moving away from ‘these are kids’ perspective, into ‘these are professional grown men and I’m going to treat ‘em that way. They’re getting advantages I’m not getting and I’m going to let ‘em know about that.”
Treating them that way isn’t going to help Arkansas land superior players. They’ve played in a system stacked against them since its inception and are only now, in the last few years, reaping benefits. To this author, such seemingly exorbitant sums are justified as a source of reparation. That, of course, is another concept foreign to American domestic interests.
Finebaum put it best.
“I would let it go. Arkansas can live without the money,” he said. “Ultimately this goes on every day, everywhere. And do you want to be the school that young players are afraid of going (to) in case a mistake is made?
“I think it’s a bad look for Arkansas and they have enough problems in football right now without bringing in a bunch of guns like Tom Mars to make it worse.”
Leaderless Arkansas Edge Missing Forest For The Trees
Arkansas Edge, the school’s NIL collective, hired Mars as attorney over the weekend to pursue action against players who supposedly violate the terms of their contract. He previously represented Bret Bielema on the other side of the courtroom when the former Razorbacks head coach sued the Razorback Foundation over his buyout upon his firing. Mars was hired, mind you, but the University of Arkansas claims no one is in charge right now at Arkansas Edge.
Funny, then, that Brandon Marcello at CBS Sports suggested that part of the reason Mars might have been hired is to litigate in hopes of receiving a settlement. A prolonged court battle could only damage the school’s reputation, not the players’. Right now, the school is winning in the court of public opinion but risking losing that goodwill the longer an actual court case drags on.
Mars had told Arkansas Times on Thursday that players’ NIL contracts are similar to coaching contracts, wherein universities build in a buyout clause for a coach who chose to leave early and if the buyout is challenged or left unpaid, schools have sued to recompense.
It remains to be seen if that’s the case. No such legal precedent has been set with players’ NIL contracts. Given America’s post-Civil War history, Mars is likely to earn his retainer and the fundraising arm will get back its precious $200,000.
But at what cost?
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National media is paying attention to Arkansas. Just like we figured.
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