Envelopes of Cash: The Board Game

FINALLY! Skybirds has entered public alpha on BGA. If you're in alpha, please check it out. If not in alpa, but you're interested, please ask for an invite! boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game…

@samcehrlich One wonders how one can "tamper" with someone who is not an employee and is not being paid to provide athletic services.

@RossDellenger One wonders how one can "tamper" with someone who is not an employee and is not being paid to provide athletic services.

In a memo sent today to NCAA schools, VP of Enforcement Jon Duncan announces that the DI Board of Directors has charged the staff to “pursue significant penalties” for tampering violations, while also more publicly announcing cases, and reminded schools about the tampering bylaw.

@mcuban they could try going 100% free market and we could see.

The crazy part, is that no matter what the WNBA does with salaries, every star college player will take a pay cut to play in the WNBA I asked a few ADs what the going rate is for the star player on a power conference WBB team -$500k to $1.2m. And, you are always a free agent with the portal. You get your room and board paid for. And you can get a good education if you work at it. It’s all subsidized by donors and shared school revenues. Which makes it more similar to Europe, where companies subsidize teams , than to the WNBA In the NBA, a team can’t go to a sponsor and negotiate a direct payment deal for a player. In college they effectively can with NIL money. When I have written checks to IU, I knew which players were trying to get with the money (although I never tie the money to specific players. It’s up to them ) The WNBA needs to look at allowing the same thing. Let the teams go to local sponsors and work out payments to players as part of sponsorship packages. The big name players have agents to do this. The rest make minimal amounts. With or without an agent. Let WNBA teams pay “NIL” money to its players. It’s counter intuitive for NBA folks, but here is the issue. WNBA teams don’t have the margin dollars from tickets, sponsors and shared revenues like tv to pay bigger salaries using their own cash flow. With help from the league , they could create NIL deals with sponsors that go directly to the players. From the sponsors. Make it legal. Create a cap per player, based on years of experience. Yes, some teams will suck at it, that’s where the wnba comes in to help. They will suck at it as well for some period. But like collegiate NIL, the sponsorship packages will supplement player salaries without undermining the economics of the teams and league itself. The next question will be competitive balance issues. The big markets can do this better. They have a great addressable market for sponsors. The wnba could require that some percentage of the NIL money deals go into a pool for a version of revenue share. This is effectively what happens (or did ) with jersey ads. I remember advocating that the jersey ads be split with all teams, because the greatest value to sponsors comes not from local tv or games, but from national tv, playoffs and jersey sales. This would be similar. Obviously I’m just spitballing this , but if they came on shark tank , that’s what I would suggest ! What do you think ?

Auspiciously, on the day of the National Cmampionship, we've sold the last copy of Envelopes of Cash. The ~600 of you who have a copy are now in possession of an out-of-print cult classic. Congrats.

@RossDellenger who gets this money. Some dudes at Deloitte?

Some schools used the $2.5M meant for scholarships on rev-share *this year,* which is against existing rules. Those schools will (1) incur a 100% fine and (2) a reduction of next year’s cap for however much of the $2.5M that was used for rev-share.

The CSC announces changes to the rev-share cap rules for next year, as @YahooSports reported last fall. Schools can now use as rev-share pay an additional $2.5M originally set aside only for scholarships. However, they will incur a 20% fine for however much of the $2.5M used.

As promised, "an inventory of Andy's garage" has located 5 spare copies, still in shrink wrap, of EoC. Absolute last chance. Get 'em now! eoc.backerkit.com/hosted_preorde…

@samcehrlich it really felt that way b/c they'd been letting the DBs get to third base with receivers all game, and then all of a sudden they remembered the rules and started calling PI and DH.

I hate to be a "the refs are keeping Georgia on the game" but the refs are keeping Georgia in the game

Hey, Hey. We are unofficially sold out of Envelopes of Cash games. Even the Ding & Dent boxes have sold. "unofficially" b/c the manufacturer sent some spare games (potentially cannibalizable for spare parts if anything was defective). Going to see if we can find them to sell.

@AD_DannyWhite Warren Zola and Andy Schwarz (me) said this at a Congressional panel in 2011.

This 👇. There is a pathway to build a much healthier environment for college athletics within the current laws of our country - it’s called collective bargaining. It will be complicated, hard, and likely not perfect, but it’s far past time that we roll up our sleeves and do the work.

Envelopes of Cash inventory is down to 2 shrink-wrapped copies, 3 "refurbished" games (torn boxes replaced with some extra boxes in the "spare parts" library, and 1 half-price Ding & Dent special.

Berkeley/Rockridge residents: @nabeel and I are opening a board game social club by Star Market called Tabletop Library this fall. If you're interested in joining: tabletoplibrary.com @BerkeleyTTL This has been a great side project for experimenting with AI - we talked about that on the How I AI podcast this week: youtube.com/watch?v=HuLL6w…

@disc0dancer is it possible to fix the Hansa T set up so that each player gets a different # of inital cubes? 1st player gets 4 cubes and 1 disc, but 2nd player should get 5 cubes, 3rd should get 6, etc.

@samcehrlich A lot of economically exploited baseball coaches can thank antitrust law for a compensatory -wait for it - envelope of cash.

A Cal. federal court has granted final approval to a settlement of Smart v. NCAA, a challenge of the NCAA's (now rescinded) volunteer coach rule for baseball. The settlement will pay out ~$33 million to those who served as a volunteer baseball coach from Nov. 2018 to July 2023.

For fans of EoC, Andy Schwarz's next BGA game, Skybirds, is now in alpha test. Ping us here if you'd like an invite.

@MarcNovicoff are you on bluesky by chance? wanted to talk about thi article. [this is Andy Schwarz, economist in the college sports space]

It’s not unfair to cut the golf team to make room to pay the football players. What was unfair was having a golf team to begin with.

breaking a long ilcen to announce there are fewer than 20 copies of Envelopes of Cash left in the warehouse (17 as of this moment). Soon it will be an OOP cult classic.

@TomMarsLaw thankfully that TN injunction was made permanent by a settlement, right?

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Casa brings an end to nationwide injunctions (aka “universal injunctions”) like the one entered by a Tennessee federal district court early last year, which prohibited the NCAA from enforcing its NIL rules. ⬇️

@pollo_hombre @BoardGameQuest @gmtgames indeed. if I ever do I'll thik about writing it!

@BoardGameQuest @gmtgames What we really need is a "How to win with the papacy" article

A guide so detailed you could nail it to the door. Check out Andy's article on Why Here I Stand from @gmtgames should be in your board game library and how to win with the Protestants. boardgamequest.com/why-here-i-sta… #boardgames

@TomCrean @John_Fanta @DietCoke Fanta needs to sign up as a sponsor. Seems like a natural tie-in

Great working with ⁦@John_Fanta⁩ tonight. For the record. It was John’s ⁦@DietCoke⁩ that spilled on him. I just put myself in charge of the cleanup. John never broke stride. Incredible Pro.