By Joseph Goodman
al.com
(TNS)
This is an opinion column.
Never mind the Texas and Florida schools. The state of Alabama is suddenly at risk of falling behind Mississippi in college football.
It’s tough to keep up with the ever-changing hellscape that is collegiate athletics. The latest? Ole Miss and Mississippi State could soon have a recruiting advantage over its rivals across the border thanks to a new law. The Mississippi House of Representatives recently voted for a bill to eliminate income tax for college athletes.
It’s a brilliant move, and I’m all for it. Football is obviously more important than every other profession.
When college quarterbacks make $5 million per year—like Ole Miss signal caller Trinidad Chambliss—that adds up. The state income tax in Mississippi is 4 percent. For Chambliss, that’s $200,000 in savings this year.
Salaries for teachers in Mississippi start around $42,000. Suckers.
A judge in Mississippi is allowing Chambliss to play an extra year for Ole Miss because he had a sore throat back in 2022. Now the legislators are lining his pockets. What’s next? Free farmland for linebackers? A cow for every tackle? Eggs for life?
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Is this why we elect public officials? To help our football teams win games? In the SEC, the answer is yes, obviously.
To protect it from the NCAA, Tennessee is, by law, a pay-for-play state.
In Mississippi, athletes will soon be exempt from state income tax.
How will Alabama’s lawmakers give their state an advantage in football? The pressure is on. Legendary Crimson Tide football coach Paul Bryant once rigged the system so every direct descendant of his players received a full scholarship to the University of Alabama.
That’s the kind of spirit we need around here.
Alabama can’t match the oil and gas money in Texas and Louisiana? Time to get creative.
Sales tax in Tuscaloosa is 10 percent. An athlete tax on every beer sold on The Strip suddenly makes a lot of sense.
Who needs NIL collectives when you have an amendable tax code?
If Alabama loses four games next season, then it’s fair to blame the coach, the athletics director, the mayor and the governor, too.
Hard to believe now, but there was a time when the state government of Alabama was so vehemently opposed to paying college athletes that it drafted a bill severely limiting the earning potential of football players.
That put Alabama and Auburn at massive disadvantages. The new law lasted less than a year. Alabama’s lawmakers repealed their own NIL Act in 2022.
Mississippi’s new bill still needs to pass through the state senate and get signed off by the governor. That means there’s still a chance to add some more incentives.
Remember back when schools just wanted to build bigger and bigger weight rooms to attract athletes? The good ol’ days were so simple. The recruiting arms race in the SEC is about to unlock new levels of privilege we never dreamed about five years ago.
We all know how it goes in this league. No doubt other states in the South are looking at Mississippi and thinking of ways to incentivize college football players. Football coach Kirby Smart is already lobbying Georgia to lift the speed limit for his football players.
You laugh, but this serious stuff. Who cares about public safety when you got five-star safeties?
Can’t afford your power bill these days? Are you one of those people who couldn’t care less about sportsball and think maybe the state should consider lifting the taxes on groceries? Silly peasants. The argument for the state government helping college football teams is simple. It’s all about trickle-down economics.
How much money would people in Alabama stand to gain if Auburn hosted a playoff game next season instead of rival Georgia?
See what I mean?
Auburn home football games generate millions of dollars for businesses. Doesn’t Governor Kay Ivey have a responsibility to land the best quarterbacks possible for Alabama’s schools?
And don’t act like tax breaks are a new thing in Alabama. It’s how the state attracts employers. How is football different?
It’s more important. That’s how.
Are fans going to support college football when they know the million-dollar players aren’t even paying their fair share in taxes?
Photo caption: An SEC logo is seen on an end zone pylon before the Missouri Tigers take on the Auburn Tigers during the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 7, 2013 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images/TNS)
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