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St. John’s head basketball coach Rick Pitino has proposed a salary cap in college basketball following a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that Dartmouth College basketball players are employees.
“Ok – we all want solutions to preserve our great game. Today I’m going to suggest solution one,” Rick Pitino wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“For basketball – have the Power 5 & Big East conference commissioners get together and create a salary cap between 1.5 n 2.0 million. All contracts delivered to the league and school offices. All other conferences establish their own salary cap.
“I would never exclude anyone from the NCAA tournament.
“Obviously football is a different sport entirely and some of their talent makes more than NFL players. More solutions to follow in the coming days.”
Pitino followed up three hours later with another proposal.
“Remember this is only food for thought. All possible solutions,” he posted on X.
“Solution 2: Do away with letters of intent, make athletes sign a two year binding contract, no different than professional athletes – which they are.
“With that, the collective puts together their NIL contract based on the cap.
“Obviously a lot has to go into this. I believe the NCAA should be taken out of the equation and the commissioners put into it as the NCAA loses more cases than the defense lawyers on Law & Order.”
Rick Pitino’s ideas aren’t that far-fetched. In fact, they aim to solve another problem currently facing major college sports.
Last week, ESPN broadcaster and football analyst Kirk Herbstreit wrote on X, “CFB in its current state will be seeing more and more coaches heading to the NFL.
“Without boundaries and regulation that make sense coaches that get real opportunities in the NFL will be gone.
“This trend will continue until there is a new governing body and it creates a CBA with a players entity or union that would include issues like NIL-Transfer Portal-and eventually revenue sharing.
“The sport is spiraling out of control as we know and many these coaches are not sticking around and waiting. Just a new reality for the sport.”
They’re both right.
The way college football and basketball operate right now is akin to the NFL and NBA conducting business with every player being a free agent after every season and with no salary cap. It’s simply not a system that can survive for much longer in its current state.