Why the Pro Model Works - Today's Take

Inside Carolina’s senior reporter Greg Barnes on why the professional leagues can have structural guidelines and rules in place while the NCAA struggles with legal challenges every step of the way.

“In the NBA, it’s college for at least a year. Baseball, you can either go directly out of high school, or if you go to college, you’ve got to be there for three years, though there are some variables there. And then football, it’s three years. So from the NCAA perspective, you can’t have that much variance if you’re making the rules yourself and those rules mentioned above aren’t NCAA rules. Those are three different sets of rules for three different organizations — NBA, MLB, NFL. Those organizations, primarily through their collective bargaining agreements, set how people can come into those organizations.

“Thirty years ago, you could go straight to the NBA, which Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and those guys did. The NBA changed that for several reasons, but one was a scouting perspective and to help lesser tier players have some longevity. The NFL has basically a farm system with college and that keeps 18 year olds from going straight to the league and potentially suffering serious injury. There’s also the scouting aspect for pro teams and at least three years of strength and conditioning and maturation and all that. 

“All those things greatly benefit the professional leagues, and while they may not necessarily benefit the players themselves, there’s a system in place – a CBA – and the owners and players are in agreement and there are no anti-trust issues. And the NCAA has no say in it.

“Because the NCAA does not have any type of CBA set up, they are limited in how they can barter within their organization itself, so they have no chance to barter with professional leagues. That speaks to some of the issues that are going on in college athletics now.”