#and just like the tobacco industry the social media industry is just as predatory and profit-driven

[onewomancitadel]

The worst view in the Tumblr UI update is /blog/ which I use the most because it's where I post from. Information on the left-hand column is doubled up on the right, and information is displayed twice, and every time I reload this page (I am bad with tabs please don't look at my shame) the Accounts tab pops open again even if it's been previously shut.

I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place PR-wise (Not Like the Other Social Medias) particularly when converging on homogeneity in design less looks like natural convergence towards best practice and more towards 'you are baby and you need big number to press and then you press the big number over and over'. Basically the Cookie Clicker philosophy of modern design.

I've seen some of the designers on Tumblr be completely open about the fact they are trying to do the impossible (user-funded social media) which has never been done before, so they're not completely committed to abandoning the website, but golly gee I think the reaction Tumblr veterans have had to the changes isn't really comparable to 'put the reblog button back on top' and also, it's just really really bad timing. I also think that the whole psychology behind 'the way users are supposed to interact with a website' is a bit backwards and takes a lot of shortcuts, but I don't really expect commercially-driven psychology to really view people in that complex a way.

The question I have is that 'why do people interact differently now from ten years ago', which includes when Tumblr was sold for a billion dollars. That includes marked population shift in userbase and higher aspirations of desired userbase, but I also think that a lot of this stuff is cultivated, and it's not like the issue before with Tumblr was 'people are too stupid to use it and also it's not Twitter'. People are used to Twitter because they used Twitter, not because Twitter had the best design. And so on.

[newyorkprelawland-blog]

College Athlete To College Millionaire Athlete

By Nibras Islam, Binghamton University Class of 2022

September 12, 2021

The commissioner of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) earns between $4-5 million, while the commissioners of the top conferences make about $2-3 million. Some college athletic directors make over $1 million annually, while Division I football program coaches can make as much as $11 million, with their assistants earning about $2.5 million annually. Division I programs also earn more revenue from regular-season games due to the viewers attracted. Some television contracts, such as March Madness, are worth as much as $1.1 billion. The NCAA players, the stars and lifeblood of the industry, earn nothing. In fact, they are prohibited from profiting off their hard work and talents. 

The issue of athletes finally being allowed to profit off their name, image, and likeness comes after a long and heated battle that the NCAA had long tried to avoid. Under the clause that college athletes were to be preserved as “amateurs” and NCAA did not intend to compensate as such. Athletes would be subjected to high penalties for accepting any form of gifts or presents, and these punishments ranged anywhere from fines and indefinite suspensions, to losing eligibility altogether. The NCAA president Mark Emmert has long upheld that there should not be blurred lines between professional and collegiate sports, and that college sports would die if athletes were paid. They argue that compensation would draw away from the competitive nature, and the high ratings from consumers reflect a genuine love of collegiate sports games, not originating from financial motives. While this new era of name, image, and likeness certainly has yet to fully unfurl, it certainly comes as a welcome to many.

The case comes subsequent to another NCAA court defeat in June, NCAA vs. Alston which concerns the jurisdiction of the NCAA in restricting and limiting education-related benefits granted to student-athletes. The case was against the NCAA standing rule that capped the amount of scholarship funding schools could offer to student athletes. The former group of athletes that sued had done so on the grounds that the limitation violated antitrust laws designed to promote competition. The 9-0 decision was rendered by the Supreme court in favor of the group, with Justice Neil Gorsuch delivering the majority opinion stating: 

"To the extent the NCAA means to propose a sort of judicially ordained immunity from the terms of the Sherman Act for its restraints of trade- that we should overlook its restrictions because they happen to fall at the intersection of higher education, sports, and money- we cannot agree."

Justice Brett Kavanagh also delivered a concurring opinion, stating impactful words such as “The NCAA is not above the law,” and that the decision "marks an important and overdue course correction" and poses "serious questions" about the NCAA's existing compensation rule. He further tore into the corporation by delivering what would seem to indicate that the Supreme Court would align with those arguing in favor of compensation with athletes. He states:

“But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing. Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different."

The result of the decision meant that schools would now be allowed to entice student-athletes to their schools with incentives that they could not have before, such as scholarships, internships, foreign study programs, computers, and other benefits. By the time of the decision, about twelve states had already passed legislation that student athletes should be allowed to be compensated for their name, image, and likeness to enact shortly, and congress was on the verge of deliberating on the matter as well. While the issue of education related benefits was separate from the issue of compensation of the athletes, the 9-0 defeat in the Supreme Court and imminent further pending legal battles surely seemed to be a proactive measure and had some part in the NCAA deciding to allow for athletes to be compensated. 

Nonetheless, the reversal rendered on behalf of the NCAA board of governors is relatively new, and cause for conflicting discourse over what is deemed permitted in this uncharted territory of college sports.  There are existing laws in different states, but they generally seem to vary, such as the “Fair Pay to Play” Act in California, or the Student-Athlete Equity act in North Carolina. The general guidelines seem to dissuade getting sponsored by bar-like settings that promote gambling, tobacco, alcohol, adult entertainment, or anything that would be deemed questionable by a school’s morals and desire for association. University of Louisville banned its athletes from signing with Barstool Sports, which reportedly already has 150, 000 athletes signed. Other guidelines include not being directly compensated for athletic performance and understanding of the athlete to be fully aware of what is expected in return for compensation, which could be grounds for trouble. Some school officials even fear for the athlete’s personal safety, such as Professor and CEO of the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University-Tempe, Kenneth L. Shropshire, who states that students should investigate their university athletics department resources, seeking active conversations with their university compliance officer, state guidelines, and even attorneys, accountants, and personal advisers. At Nebraska, the school has taken steps as far as launching an educational support program to combat the pitfalls of navigating the athlete marketplace. Due to the predatory nature of agencies and companies trying to exploit many athletes in the professional world, many are fearful that susceptible and unwary college students may also fall victim. 

The name, image, and likeness era already has had profound effects, and not just for athlete’s personal banking accounts. For eons, the NCAA has held a monopoly in college sports, and even the universities had the leverage of advertising and marketing, attracting future talent in perpetuity. With these reversals, the power balance shifts and athletes can utilize their hard work that has led them to that point, as well as gain something monetarily to show for their grueling student-athlete schedules. They would be able to monetize their social media posts, engage in sponsorship ads, and profit from merchandise, memorabilia, and autographs. Even lesser talented athletes may be able to leverage their social media presence to attract further recognition from big brands that recognize the value and importance of personal branding. By utilizing their social media platforms to attract engagement, they possess marketability and net worth value, always a crucial factor when trying to make one’s institution more lucrative. UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi, who went viral for one of her floor routines, could have had a small fortune. Athletes such as Zion Williamson, with his viral high school and college basketball mixtapes, could have developed their brand much earlier than they had already set out to do in their assured claim to fame. One’s personal brand and likeness is arguably the most priceless item one possesses. That is the utmost essence of our personal intellectual property; the fiber of who we individually are as a human-being. 

It is crucial that we help protect athletes, given how much they sacrifice their bodies for entertainment and monetary value as with any other nationally broadcasted sports, let alone home to two of the top money-making series in college football and basketball. Given how many athletes pursue athletics to combat socioeconomic difficulties, it is absurd to think that a multi-billion-dollar industry, $8.8 billion in television deals generating in over $1.1 billion in revenue to be exact, somehow has the audacity to ensure regulations that its athletes are prohibited from something as simple as obtaining a new laptop to engage in their educational curriculum, resources which they may have not had previously. Over 19 states have enacted or are in the process of passing in the coming years, laws regarding NIL. Furthermore, there is a pending lawsuit of NCAA vs. House, in which U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken denied the NCAA and its Power 5 Conferences motion to dismiss the suit regarding four players who had been denied pay for appearing in television broadcasts. These may be the first in a string of many defeats for the National Collegiate Athletic Association and exposing the corporations’ violations of antitrust principles and regulations. 

This new era also stems into further issues, such as the gender wage imbalance in sports or international student-athlete eligibility, or whether high school NIL eligibility will become a subsequent prominent issue, such as in the case of Texas high school senior Quinn Ewers forgoing his senior year of high school due to Texas’s high school NIL ban. Not to mention, the ever-changing progression of intellectual property technology and regulation that comes with it, such as whether athletes will be able to utilize their school’s intellectual property unequivocally in their financial ventures, or regarding cryptocurrency and whether athletes will be able to profit off non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Nonetheless, the era of name image and likeness is revolutionary in a plethora of remarkable ways, and unprecedented in the existence of collegiate sports.  

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Nibras Islam is currently an undergraduate senior studying Philosophy, Politics, and Law at Binghamton University with a minor in economics. He hopes to seek admission into law school for the Fall 2022 class. He is a part of the mock trial team and is a Licensed Real Estate Agent at a student-housing oriented brokerage. His hobbies and passions include fashion, music, basketball, and football. 

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https://sites.law.berkeley.edu/thenetwork/2021/04/06/the-future-of-the-ncaas-business-model-is-in-jeopardy/

https://www.boston.com/sports/college-sports/2021/07/01/ncaa-paying-athletes-rules/

https://optimumsportsconsulting.substack.com/p/nil-newsletter-10-thursday-august?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2021/house-v-ncaa-legal-primer-1234632887/

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf

https://www.collegeandprosportslaw.com/uncategorized/the-hits-keep-coming-ncaa-loses-another-name-image-and-likeness-court-decision/

https://collegerowcoach.org/name-image-and-likeness/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelrueda/2021/02/11/why-college-athletes-must-prepare-for-the-name-image-and-likeness-era/?sh=46a2ad6e2634

https://unafraidshow.com/ncaa-pay-college-athletes-name-image-likeness/

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/name-image-likeness-what-college-athletes-should-know-about-ncaa-rules