Deion Sanders is everything wrong with College Football

Deion Sanders, neon Dion, prime time, whatever you want to call him, he is, in my opinion, one of the most equal parts accomplished and colorful characters in

both college and pro football history.

Dion to me epitomizes those mid90s cowboy teams where he won both his rings. The glitz, the glamour, the

rings. The glitz, the glamour, the arrogance, the audacity, and most importantly, the accolades that back it all up. This is the guy who once hit a

all up. This is the guy who once hit a home run and returned a punt for a touchdown in the same week. The dude who low-key kind of pioneered that free agent mercenary role that guys like

Derell Rivas would take on in their primes. the guy who showed up on draft

primes. the guy who showed up on draft night in a tracksuit and dookie chains who walked out of an interview with the Giants telling them that they were wasting his time because he'd be gone by

the time they got on the clock and then told the Falcons, the team that ultimately did draft him, that they couldn't afford him. And it's those last two parts of the prime time mythos that

make his most recent moves so disappointing, if not utterly predictable. For y'all that don't follow

predictable. For y'all that don't follow college ball until draft season. So

that's like what November if you're a Browns fan. On September 28th of this

Browns fan. On September 28th of this year, Congress passed the Protect College Sports Act. And like one of the commenters on my initial reaction to it

said, "Anytime I see the word protect in any piece of legislation, my antenna immediately go up higher than a fly on Fent." But anyway, the bill was

Fent." But anyway, the bill was presented as a means to reign in the runaway spending in college sports, specifically in college football. More

specifically than that, D1 ball. For

y'all that don't know, NIL was instituted back in 2021, and it gave players the ability to make money on their own name, image, and likeness.

There's the NIL for you. Without being

penalized for it. Yeah, a radical revolutionary concept, I know. And since

then, the landscape of D1 ball has basically been the Wild West. And by the Wild West, I mean it's given players more autonomy than what was once thought imaginable. And that is why the bill was

imaginable. And that is why the bill was created. I'm not going to hold you.

created. I'm not going to hold you.

There are elements of the bill that aren't just good, but absolutely necessary, like capping the earnings of representatives of college athletes at

5% along with requiring those representatives to be entered into a database of or a registry system of some sort or also making it illegal to

terminate or modify a scholarship based on on field performance, which I didn't even know was a thing. And it's also exactly what I mean about the amateurism thing being a croc of kaka. But that is

not the reason the bill exists. The fact

of the matter is NIL shifted the balance of power too far in favor of the workforce. So far in fact that everybody

workforce. So far in fact that everybody else on the plantation started to feel their power being threatened. And

something about that word right that that kind of gets under people's skin.

But but but listen to what I'm saying.

Much has been made about the so-called plantation politics of American college sports. So much to the point that South

sports. So much to the point that South Park made a whole episode about it over a decade ago. Now, I'm not going to waste time talking about the subtext of middle-aged white men offering an avenue

to fiscal liberation or at least a free ride through college to primarily working to working poor and disproportionately black and brown teenagers in exchange

for at minimum four years of blunt force head trauma. I think there's a whole

head trauma. I think there's a whole scene in Django Unchained and even a key and Peel sketch about that scene about what I'm talking about. So, yeah, there you have that. What I do want to talk

about though is the obvious parts of this, right, is how the lack of antitrust or collective bargaining provisions in this bill is again just

further proof of the point that protecting college sports is really just cold for screwing the people that make us rich, which also is the sugar baby mission statement. But that that's

mission statement. But that that's neither here nor there. The stone cold reality is though Nick Sabin may be the most famous man in Alabama. Nobody was

watching the Tide to see him coach when he was. Nobody is watching Clemson to

he was. Nobody is watching Clemson to see Davos Sweeney throw a temper tantrum. Nobody is watching LSU

tantrum. Nobody is watching LSU for for some kind of lamekin fetish. And

and if they are, hey, listen, I'm I'm not the one to king shame. You know what I mean? My point is the players are the

I mean? My point is the players are the product. Or more accurately, the players

product. Or more accurately, the players are the producers of the product. They

quite literally produce the onfield product that is being consumed by us.

Dion was both smart and savvy enough to know this when he was a player. So, you

would think that he would have at least a level of empathy for college players grasping at any sense of autonomy in a system that is quite literally designed

to disempower them as much as possible.

You would think that the man who rolled shotgun for the duration of both Travis Hunters and his own son's entire pre-draft processes, even going so far as to handpick the teams that they

interview with, which ultimately came back to buy Shador on the back end. You

would think that this guy who signed with Dallas in part because he didn't like being told by the Niners that he couldn't play baseball at the same time.

You you think that that that he would get it, right? You would think that he would be the biggest opponent of a bill that robs college players of the same

again autonomy that he made the core of his personality during his playing days.

You would think that after making black excellence the whole pitch for he leaving Jackson State leaving you know

the the H.B.CU DCU family altogether for Colorado, a big time or a big-timeish program that Dion will understand how this bill undermines a workforce that is

again disproportionately black. You

would think that after shephering guys like Travis and Shadore and Shiloh and the six other players who left Jackson State to follow him out to the

mountains, Dion would get why this bill is a slap in the face to anyone who wants the freedom to control their own college career.

That's why I support the Protect College Sports Act. It gives student athletes a

Sports Act. It gives student athletes a chance to shine on and off the field.

Outside of maybe, you know, captain both sides of the mouth himself, Nick Sabin, Dion was probably the most famous face stumping for this bill. And why is that?

Because at the end of the day, everything Dion has, does, or will do is for Dion. He is part of the problem now.

for Dion. He is part of the problem now.

And that was always the intent. It was

never about beating a path for other black men to break into the ranks of D1 Ball. It was about Dion building a

Ball. It was about Dion building a platform for his own profile. It was

about he adding to his own legend and thereby net worth. This is and has always been the problem with black capitalism.

It's still capitalism. Like I explained in the video on Maine. This was the part of his analysis that Marcus Garvey got wrong. For capitalism to work, the

wrong. For capitalism to work, the capitalist, in other words, the people who own the means of production, need a bunch of people to actually produce

stuff for them to make that ownership worth it. So, they give those people a

worth it. So, they give those people a wage in exchange for their labor. A wage

that's determined by subtracting what you think you're owed for allowing them to work for you. And then you call that

profit. My point is, it doesn't matter

profit. My point is, it doesn't matter if you're black. It doesn't matter if you grew up black and poor. You're not

doing other black and brown people any favors by exploiting their labor. And

Dion knows this. But he doesn't care because that that again that that was always the goal with him. This is the goal for every black capitalist from Jay

to Bae to Braun to Riri. This is the endgame. It's not about the money

endgame. It's not about the money necessarily so much as it is the power that comes with owning capital and also the the the the means of production that

produces the capital. Yeah, y'all know what I'm saying, right? It's autonomy.

That is the goal. That is what generational wealth actually means. It's

not just being rich. There's a ton of rich folk whose wealth comes primarily from their wages, the wages that they receive from again their their employer.

That's literally the big four North America sports leagues in a nutshell.

What makes you generationally wealthy is when you have enough of it that neither you nor your family rely on wages to survive. Capital equals power in our

survive. Capital equals power in our society. More importantly for this

society. More importantly for this video, the greater the disparity in how much capital one party holds compared to the other, the one power one party holds

over the other. The capital in this case is again the onfield product and again who is actually producing that product

the players but they don't actually own any part of the product. The member

colleges own the ticket sales the radio broadcast and team merchandise which includes jerseys and other items featuring players names on there. You

know that first letter in the NIL thing, the conferences that these colleges belong to and the NCAA itself sell the distribution rights of the product to

the broadcast networks. And they also sell ad space in stadiums, on websites, on merch, and on their networks if they have them. You know, if you're like, you

have them. You know, if you're like, you know, the Big 10 or Well, I guess they're the Big 12 now, right?

The NCAA makes additional money off ticket and merch sales for championship games. Now, I explained to y'all up top

games. Now, I explained to y'all up top what makes a wage a wage and what makes profit profit. So, and follow me on

profit profit. So, and follow me on this. What if, hear me out, what if I

this. What if, hear me out, what if I allowed you to work for me and instead of giving you a share of the revenue

created with your labor, I just gave you room and board instead.

Yeah. Hey, if it walk like a duck, if it quack like a duck, y'all y'all know y'all know where this is going. Right

now, you notice there's one group that I did not mention yet in this hierarchy, and that's the coaches. You know why?

Because they don't actually own anything either. They, like the players, are an

either. They, like the players, are an exploited class in the college sport hierarchy. But they either know don't

hierarchy. But they either know don't know rather or don't care because they've been given just enough power by the ruling classes that they have just

decided to miss the forest for the $10 million tree. Remember what I said about

million tree. Remember what I said about the plantation politics thing earlier?

This is what I meant. Historically,

owners of large plantations couldn't be bothered to actually oversee the day-to-day operations of said plantation. So they hired poor white

plantation. So they hired poor white folks from around the way to do that in exchange for a little bit of coin and a degree of power over the workforce. But

the thing is the power was elucory. It

was always meant to be. Again, the

overseers didn't actually own anything.

They like the workforce were being exploited themselves by the planter class. Like matter of fact, they were

class. Like matter of fact, they were the workforce themselves. But again,

they either didn't clock it or they didn't care because power is a hell of a drug, man. Even if

it is small, even if it is elucory. And

that's what makes Dion so disappointing, if again completely predictable. It's

the fact that he has been here. He has

been a part of an exploited workforce and made a whole persona out of creating autonomy within it. I talked before about how Mike Vic was the first black

quarterback who was so in a way that was so unapologetically black to the point of being offensive to a specific kind of folk. You know what I mean? Well, Dion

folk. You know what I mean? Well, Dion

was probably the first pro football player period that I could think of to do that. Or if he wasn't, he was

do that. Or if he wasn't, he was definitely the loudest. So again, if nothing else, the optics of a very unapologetically black man lobbying to

protect the system that disempowers other black men for no other reason than his own benefit.

Hey, if it walk like a duck, if it quack like a duck, then it coaches the buffs, man. Deuces.

man. Deuces.