r/CFB • u/arrowfan624 Notre Dame • Summertime Lover • Aug 25 '26

News [Dellenger] The SEC, as expected, adopts a ban on professional players returning to college, which also includes basketball.

https://x.com/rossdellenger/status/2092384141488620017?s=46&t=ORIpMJDxUeZOGLwe9AIhAg
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426

u/Shenanigangster Virginia • Jefferson–Eppes Trophy Aug 25 '26

Unironically soccer would probably be the third sport for that (and tbh soccer is by far the worst offender with grabbing pros but no one cares)

331

u/Sarollas Oklahoma • Michigan State Aug 25 '26

Soccer is also a the hardest to set an actual definition for.

Does a player making 30,000 per year in the English 5th division count as professional?

185

u/Irish8Runner Notre Dame Fighting Irish Aug 25 '26

Yes (although most of those teams are semi-pro)

144

u/Sarollas Oklahoma • Michigan State Aug 25 '26

Even that doesn't really make a difference in soccer.

I got paid 2000 for an individual tournament one time, I'm certainly not a god send of anything, but it is common enough in Europe/SA and small payments can jeopardize your NCAA eligibility

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u/Corgi_Koala Ohio State Buckeyes Aug 26 '26

Believe it or not, straight to jail.

3

u/BrilliantArm5914 Missouri Tigers Aug 26 '26

do not pass Go, do not collect $200

4

u/Which-Arrival6777 Missouri • Montclair State Aug 26 '26

obviously also death penalty for us

30

u/Milskidasith Texas A&M Aggies Aug 26 '26

I think we should press gang players of your skill level into a team and have you get blown out by top college teams for clickbait college vs. pro youtube videos

(E: Also what did you play? I was a terribly mediocre left back in high school. No pay)

2

u/BB_Pig_3480 Notre Dame • Indiana State Aug 26 '26

I'm in. Played Center Mid

20

u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 Auburn Tigers • West Florida Argonauts Aug 26 '26

UCF has a player right now that played for Lyon and Basel professionally. Dude played in the Europa League and is now on a college roster lol.

1

u/sleepthetablet Notre Dame Fighting Irish Aug 26 '26

Golf more straight forward w/ this? It's a parallel at least. You take cash for a win, you're a pro and out right? Take cash to play for a team, you're out. The league/team pays you in any way, you're out. Those contracts have to be explicitly dif than NIL deals for sure.

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u/Lailowla Aug 26 '26

It's a different kind of semi-pro. I don't think there's any in the 5th atm but occasionally some get up there that are literally just like... a business running a team of its employees. But they will also hire people to work at the business purely for the purpose of having them on the team.

1

u/CheaterSaysWhat Ohio State Buckeyes Aug 26 '26

It’s funny how common that is in other countries or even other sports (like hockey) yet folks say college football is ruined now that players can get paid 

3

u/Sarollas Oklahoma • Michigan State Aug 26 '26

The difference is around transfer rules, even with pay, it's still significantly harder to move between teams

11

u/Cicero912 UConn • Wake Forest Aug 26 '26

Not in England, vast majority of teams in the National League are professional. And even in the NL North/South its quite a lot of professional teams.

24

u/KennyKettermen Minnesota Golden Gophers Aug 25 '26

Hockey and baseball also have low level “pro” teams all over the world

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u/GreatPlains_MD Sep 01 '26

Do players go from Indy ball then to college? I always thought it was the other way around. 

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u/captainchaos19 Aug 26 '26

Here in Europe, American football is not that big but even here US players and Homegrown players we're warned that if they accepted ANY payment or anything like it they're eligibility would be gone

And I'm talking getting housing and food, not even money

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u/norcaltobos Aug 26 '26

Yeah if you get paid to play a sport you’re a professional. I’ve never understood the “semi-pro” moniker. You’re either a pro or you’re not.

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u/TurboRadical Iowa Hawkeyes Aug 26 '26

You're a professional if it's your profession - your income earned is enough to support yourself. You're a semi-pro if you earn an income that is not enough to support yourself.

You've never understood it because you simply didn't know it and had no interest in learning.

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u/norcaltobos Aug 26 '26

From a strict sense, if you’re paid to do something you are a professional. If you’re not paid you’re an amateur. I’m not saying people can’t call someone semi-pro but from a literal sense anyone being paid is a pro. Also what’s with the snarky ass response? Jesus.

10

u/Sarollas Oklahoma • Michigan State Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26

From a strict legal sense, semi professional means that you are paid to do something with it not being your full time employment.

Professional means that it is your main employment.

4

u/TurboRadical Iowa Hawkeyes Aug 26 '26

You aren't a professional if it isn't your profession. It isn't your profession if it doesn't earn you enough to support yourself. I now realize that you don't understand it because you're intentionally choosing not to understand it.

2

u/Daabevuggler Aug 26 '26

I made like 0-60 Euros a Game playing in the 9th or 10th tier playing Soccer in Germany, can I Call myself a pro?

24

u/AccidentalPilates Miami Hurricanes Aug 26 '26

Tennis has to be up there, too. I played at a small D1 and got smoked annually by a school in our conference that had guys rotating in from ATP Challenger Tour with full eligibility.

20

u/yung_dog Memphis Tigers Aug 26 '26

For real. Ohio State signed a guy a while ago who made a Premier League appearance and was on the bench for a Champions League game

13

u/wolverine237 Michigan • Northwestern Aug 26 '26

Ohio State had multiple players last year who had appeared in Premier League games and nobody cared

5

u/TheSavageDonut Paper Bag • Surrender Cobra Aug 26 '26

I think we need to start caring -- subsidizing the world's athletes when teams could be offering spots to homegrown talent doesn't make much sense.

3

u/Samwise777 Georgia Bulldogs Aug 26 '26

So funny 

26

u/Redditor_exe Abilene Christian • Indiana Aug 25 '26

The difference between soccer and basketball is that US universities are a step down from most European youth teams in that realm. Most of the time, if you haven’t signed a professional contract by the time you’re college age, you probably weren’t going to reach an NBA/NFL equivalent level. Maybe every 1/1000 will get lucky and sign with a League 2 or 1 team and work their up to the big leagues in their mid-20s, but most likely not

32

u/Better-Temporary-146 Clemson Tigers Aug 26 '26

See Vermont’s recent national title. 

Team was made of African and European players who weren’t going to advance in domestic soccer leagues, but could come to America and get an education and play

3

u/smcstechtips California Golden Bears Aug 26 '26

The problem is that youth soccer is often pro or semi-pro. There should be some exceptions for that.

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u/manmythmustache Verified Media Aug 26 '26

If there’s an overreach when it comes to baseball, it could have the unintended/intended consequences of severely hurting, if not eliminating, dozens of collegiate summer leagues across the country.

Could that degree of coaching, or the leagues’ partnerships with MLB, ever be considered “professional” even if the players are never paid? College coaches/programs are already becoming increasingly protective of their players on these teams and dictating more and more of their usage rates, what timeframe they can play during the season, etc. At what point do they just decided to have an extended summer/fall camp for baseball akin to spring football camp and the conferences use this as precedent for reassessing collegiate summer leagues.

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u/Lailowla Aug 26 '26

college soccer is virtually a recreational league, guys that are going somewhere in the sport have spent a decade training more every day than college teams are allowed to train in a week

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u/EarlyCuylersCousin LSU Tigers Aug 26 '26

In England, a soccer club will own the rights to a player in elementary school. Like Arsenal will sponsor a youth club team and pay the players and provide their kit and other stuff so that down the road if they are EPL worthy, they get the first crack at them. Same thing with a lot of these various European basketball leagues.

2

u/kingofthesqueal UCF Knights • Summertime Lover Aug 26 '26

I’d imagine it’d be baseball, there’s already loads of guys that end up playing in lower end Independent League (worse than Single A ball) after a +15 year Major/Minor League career just because they aren’t ready to give up the game.

Could easily see quite a few of those 35-40 year olds taking up college ball, especially since so many of them opted out of college to begin with their first go round

2

u/A-Centrifugal-Force Aug 26 '26

Wasn’t there even a dude who had played in the English Premier League who played college soccer last year?

2

u/MFoy Virginia • Commonwealth Cup Aug 26 '26

Hockey has also had a lot of issues with that.

In hockey, NCAA players can get drafted and go back to school for a year or two and maintain eligibility.

NHL teams would have rookie camps over the summer, and everything off ice would have to be segregated between NCAA prospects and non-NCAA prospects. NCAA prospects were required to provide their own transportation, hotels, meals, etc. Players drafted out of Europe or Canada would be chartered around, given tours of places around the city, have catered meals, etc.

0

u/grommit72 Aug 27 '26

Soccer is not a sport.