I think it's also to do with college scholarship - you're not eligible if you've ever played in a "professional" league (I think)
This, like the gaming machine question, is more theory than fact.
Plus now at NCAA you have your one year gap allowance where you can pretty much do what you want. So the risk is reduced.
Yeah, the way both the American colleges and our own pokie trusts/DIA enforce their own rules is pretty fucking arbitrary anyway.
Under the current decentralised pokie funding model for the ASB Prem I would assume the Nix Reserves being in there would not cause any issues for any other franchise whatsoever.
If the Nix Reserves can get pokie funding themselves though, when the team is obviously going to include fully professional players from time to time, that's fucking appalling and I give up (but only to the same extent JD has given up, which is not at all, not even taking a short break).
I would also assume that the Nix reserves being in there would put paid to any notion of a centralised pokie funding model for the ASB Prem which a few of us have been advocating on here as a way of making better (and fairer) use of the limited funds available to the game. I'm sure Andy Martin probably hasn't even started to get his head around the extent to which pokies fund the game here (and particularly the ASB Prem). I hope he's fully aware of some of the potential consequences of going down this path and is engaging with the relevant stakeholders.