Your Feelings About College Athletes Being Paid? (1 Viewer)

[Waymer]

This topic has obviously come up from time to time, but I wanted to get a better sense of where SR.com members stood on the issue as of now -- especially in light of all the "autograph concerns" going on these days.

There are essentially three different schools of thought on whether college athletes should be paid (unless you can think of more I missed).

1. Pay them all, somehow. Give them a certain percentage of revenue, a flat fee, or whatever.
2. Don't pay them, but allow them to make money on their own.
3. Don't pay them at all, they are already getting more benefits than most students at a school, and college should be about school first, not sports.

For me, I fall mostly in line with option #2. While I agree schools need to prioritize academics first and foremost, I don't believe athletes should be completely shut out of the financial game. Let's face it, the NFL and NBA already limit players from entering their professions until a certain age -- so they have few options as is (unless they go the Tamarick Vanover / Brandon Jennings route).

On the flip side, I'm not for paying all players the same. If a team is allocated money each year to "pay" players, then you would either a) end up paying all players the same flat rate despite not being equal talents on the field, or b) ruin team chemistry and make it essentially professional sports by picking and choosing which players get what amount. That's why I fall in line with option #2.

What I think is the best scenario is that player's should be allowed to trade on their likeness and name. If Johnny Football can get $10,000K selling his autograph, I say he should be allowed to do so -- and there are a few reasons why I think it's hypocritical not to allow him to do so.

First, consider the fact that the NCAA allows players to retain amateurism in one sport, while being paid for playing in another. So, you were a 4th round pick in the MLB draft and make $50K a year? No problem, you're still an "amateur" football player then since it was only baseball. Does that make sense? To me it doesn't, as they are being paid for sports, albeit a different one.

Second, why is it only athletes that can't profit on their star power? If someone at the University of Alabama on music scholarship writes a #1 hit or wins American Idol, etc -- they aren't suddenly going to be kicked out of the band. If anything they would leave voluntarily to cash in on that sudden success -- something Johnny Football and thousands of other athletes can't do thanks to NFL/NBA rules.

Similarly, what about the kid on an academic scholarship who suddenly writes a breakthrough iPhone app or computer code that makes him a millionaire almost instantly (or comes up with Facebook for example). The school's not going to suddenly say, well Mark Zuckerburg, we're going to have to suspend you from Harvard for being so damn talented at what you do. Sorry, you can't make money while on scholarship despite what will soon "connect the world."

Third, by allowing athletes to profit on their own, the schools don't now have to choose who gets what. A star quarterback brings in more money for Texas A&M than a 4th string guard. So allow the market to set what each is worth.

Those are the reasons I fall in line with option #2 the most. I guess what bothers me the most is the NCAA preventing kids from profiting on their own name/likeness/skills, while any other ordinary college student can do as they please in the same situation.

Now, having said that, I realize there has to be some checks and balances, and that I don't have all the answers. Surely if my example were allowed you have boosters coming out of the woodwork "offering" Timmy Twoshoes $20K for his "autograph" the moment he signs with LSU on February 3rd. So I realize the situation needs some oversight somehow (and no, I haven't thought long and hard about that yet). But, lets be realistic, Timmy Twoshoes is going to have those offers regardless of whether it is legal or not.

So, what say you? Should players be paid outright by the schools/NCAA? Should they be allowed to profit elsewhere, but not be paid by the schools? Or should they suck it up, get nothing but a free education, and go about their day?

 

[El Caliente]

Title 9 kind of kills option 1 (in the sense of paying based on value).

However a hybrid of #1 and #2 is probably better.

Option #5...well everyone comes out a winner there (plumbers included).

 

[Waymer]

Title 9 kind of kills option 1 (in the sense of paying based on value).

Really good point, and something I hadn't considered.

 

[bigdaddysaints]

They should all get a flat rate.
Give them $300 or $400 a week or something like that.. the universities, especially the football factories, are making a killing off of these kids..

Sent from my SIII using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[thefifthwall]

Im against paying them to play
The cost of their education is more than most 18 year olds make.
However I feel anybody should have equal right to employment
If a 18 year old is good enough to turn pro let him
If Saints want to take a shot at a kid graduating from high school more power to them & him

 

[VVextreme]

I think looking at this issue in isolation oversimplifies the situation. At the end of the day, I think you have to look at what a school is supposed to represent and the goals it was established to accomplish. It's primary mission hasn't changed, but it has been perverted due to the greed and corruption of it's leaders. It's hard to expect more from the students when their provided leaders are acting so irresponsibly.

Schools were built to provide our children a safe place to congregate to learn, to grow, to receive mentorship and life experience in a safe, protected environment. *cough, we're looking at you PSU, cough* The schools sole purpose for existance are the students themselves. The fact that the administrators and coaches, etc have made it about themselves is a crime against humanity and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Schools were not built to make people millionaires, to become captains of industry, to treat their students like absolute pawns in their game and have blatant double standards that foster even more corruption. It's clear they view ethics more as an annoyance rather than a virtue they are tasked to instill within their students. They have covered up boys getting molested, sending players back into the game with concusions, overlooked steroids and other harmful medical issues, applied double standards based upon value to the team, revoked scholarships at their whims, made false promises to recruits, oversigned recruits, arrange strippers/orgies/drinking binges for underage recruits and these are just some of the tricks that we know...

If their leaders create this type of environment for the students, I don't know how we can expect more out of the kids. It's appalling.

If you ask me, the answer is not giving the students a free-pass. The answer is that we need to clean-house of the leadership and return to a healthy learning environment like the school was built to provide.

Take the billions of dollars, provide better scholarships for everyone. Reduce the compensation of the leaders, because clearly they have forgotten what's important. Provide better insurance policies for career-ending injuries and long-term medical care. Use the profits to actually accomplish the primary mission of the school and return the campus to a safe, protected environment where the kids are able to grow.

It's not the NCAA's responsibility to be NFL-light. Their job and focus is to teach and mentor these kids while providing a safe environment. That's it. It's so simple, yet the leaders have forgotten that basic premise as they are soley focused on the millions they are milking out of the system.

I don't want to hear about free enterprise or making the most money the market allows or any of that nonsense in a not-for-profit setting. You telling me that all of the millions rolling in at Penn State purchased the best man for the job? I'm pretty sure that most highschool football coaches that weren't involved in the sex abuse scandal while making $50k/year or however much they make... would have curbstomped Sandusky so hard that there would be nothing left to prosecute. The money has corrupted the coaches and leaders of the NCAA.

 

[texasjefe]

I can't think of any way that is legal or fair to other students to pay athletes cash in present time or deferred. No matter how much they try, universities cannot separate the enterprise of sport from the rest of the university structure. Amateurism is amateurism and the large in-kind cash value of scholarships - under the banner of amateurism - already is what separates those who pay versus those who do not. Start adding cash to the mix, and the next thing you know, football players are banking more cash than adjuncts, food service employees, etc... Probably alot of issues with laws in the areas of racketeering, antitrust, employment law, etc... start generating piles of lawsuits.

I would tell you that the whole college financing system for those who pay is going to collapse soon, as the cost of college and the debt incurred with a crap job market will make so many more opt for online courses and distance learning, and community college.

Two models gaining steam to get ahead of this are

(1) Harvard, which comes up with scholarship money so students only pay about 25% of the tab;
(2) The state of Oregon, which has proposal in legislature to make college free.

Now while you have big football-tradition schools wanting to break away from the NCAA, that will not change the amateurism - it will just be a way to streamline the rules and get control of making the rules.

Also, while vv's paragraph on better and more noble re-distribution of profits into support structures is good - recall that only a handful of schools actually make money on football. Maybe the growing conference allocations will help, but again, there's only a few big conferences that payout so much.

Unless someone else has a viable model to show, the only thing that can happen in the current environment is for football to become just like baseball. High school baseball players have a choice - they can go to college for 1-4 years and be an amateur, or, they can go play minor league baseball for pay. That's the only un-developed ground for football. Minor league football, either run by the NFL or run independently. Right there - players can earn, form a union, gain a share of revenues, and profit off their name.

The problem with that - the public loves college football and pro football, and rarely if never supports the games of the talent pool in between the two, i.e. preseason football, arena, etc...

Prediction: Nothing changes and the status quo dominates again.

 

[VVextreme]

I can't think of any way that is legal or fair to other students to pay athletes cash in present time or deferred. No matter how much they try, universities cannot separate the enterprise of sport from the rest of the university structure. Amateurism is amateurism and the large in-kind cash value of scholarships - under the banner of amateurism - already is what separates those who pay versus those who do not. Start adding cash to the mix, and the next thing you know, football players are banking more cash than adjuncts, food service employees, etc... Probably alot of issues with laws in the areas of racketeering, antitrust, employment law, etc... start generating piles of lawsuits.

I would tell you that the whole college financing system for those who pay is going to collapse soon, as the cost of college and the debt incurred with a crap job market will make so many more opt for online courses and distance learning, and community college.

Two models gaining steam to get ahead of this are

(1) Harvard, which comes up with scholarship money so students only pay about 25% of the tab;
(2) The state of Oregon, which has proposal in legislature to make college free.

Now while you have big football-tradition schools wanting to break away from the NCAA, that will not change the amateurism - it will just be a way to streamline the rules and get control of making the rules.

Also, while vv's paragraph on better and more noble re-distribution of profits into support structures is good - recall that only a handful of schools actually make money on football. Maybe the growing conference allocations will help, but again, there's only a few big conferences that payout so much.

Unless someone else has a viable model to show, the only thing that can happen in the current environment is for football to become just like baseball. High school baseball players have a choice - they can go to college for 1-4 years and be an amateur, or, they can go play minor league baseball for pay. That's the only un-developed ground for football. Minor league football, either run by the NFL or run independently. Right there - players can earn, form a union, gain a share of revenues, and profit off their name.

The problem with that - the public loves college football and pro football, and rarely if never supports the games of the talent pool in between the two, i.e. preseason football, arena, etc...

Prediction: Nothing changes and the status quo dominates again.

1.) Here's the thing... if we start paying players, then college football becomes the NFL minor league. People care about college football because it's played by amateurs and the emotional connection with their school. If we start hiring a bunch of mercenaries that are just playing for money and not for their school, then that will diminish the game and it's following. I like college football because of the passion and because allegedly it's supposed to stand for something, my alma mater. I like watching the students develop from highschool kids into young men. I like supporting that development and learning process. I don't enjoy watching a bunch of spoiled millionaire athletes run around flaunting their cash and stupidity. Not to mention, most of these "kids" can't even handle college football without mega-bucks involved. With the drug problems and everything else involved, do we really want to give these kids all that money?

2.) I wish someone would finally expose this "most college athletic departments lose money" myth. It's pure nonsense. If you're paying your coach staff and administators realistic salaries of like $100,000 to maaaaaaaaaaybe $200,000 at MOST at a small football college, then I might listen to what you have to say. But they aren't.

Further, you think these greedy money-grubbing administrators are willing to "lose money" for no reason? Wrong, it's called advertising. They get their money back elsewhere a billion times over. Look at any business and their advertisement budget... how many of them actually "make money?" It's just by a random fluke that colleges have found a form of advertising that actually can generate a profit if they were so inclined.

The bottom line is that all of these so-called businesses are publicly funded and supported Not-For-Profit institutions. We can't forget their public purpose and mission statement just because we like the game. And yes, I expect a ridiculous amount out of anyone making millions of dollars. They are tasked to grow and develop our country's kids... not corrupt them and pervert them for their own gain. It's no wonder that these kids have zero respect for those that run the NCAA. They just aren't respectable, so why on earth should these kids listen to them?

Students should be students. Coaches should be held to the same academic and moral integrity standards that every other teacher at that school are judged. That is the only way to maintain the integrity of your program.

Any schools that do earn more money than they know what to do with, it should be redirected somewhere at this publicly-funded NFP institution to do additional public good. Guys like Nick Saban and Les Miles (and all other head coaches) shouldn't be able to raid these public institutions like it's their own personal piggy bank. If Nick Saban would much rather go make $5 million in the pro's, let him. That just means someone else will be the college football star headcoach. It doesn't mean that there won't be anymore college football stars. It doesn't work that way.

 

[SunshinePumper]

I don't want to hear about free enterprise or making the most money the market allows or any of that nonsense in a not-for-profit setting. You telling me that all of the millions rolling in at Penn State purchased the best man for the job? I'm pretty sure that most highschool football coaches that weren't involved in the sex abuse scandal while making $50k/year or however much they make... would have curbstomped Sandusky so hard that there would be nothing left to prosecute. The money has corrupted the coaches and leaders of the NCAA.

Our not for profit laws are a joke. These universities make butt loads of profit both on how much they charge (and make kids take ridiculous debt loads for) tuition, and athletics. Just like hospitals that make profit all day long and organize as NFP's so they can get a leg up on, and eventually destroy the competition (and preclude the possibility of any future competition.) We can debate all day long about whether that is what should happen, but the fact of the matter is that it is happening, and will continue to happen no matter what you or any of the rest of us think.

 

[VVextreme]

Our not for profit laws are a joke. These universities make butt loads of profit both on how much they charge (and make kids take ridiculous debt loads for) tuition, and athletics. Just like hospitals that make profit all day long and organize as NFP's so they can get a leg up on, and eventually destroy the competition (and preclude the possibility of any future competition.) We can debate all day long about whether that is what should happen, but the fact of the matter is that it is happening, and will continue to happen no matter what you or any of the rest of us think.

I don't agree with that fact. I don't agree with it at all. Once upon a time, they said that we would never see a play-off in our lifetime. Guess what, we're about to have a 4 team playoff next year. All it takes is for enough people to get tired of it and demand change combined with a moment of weakness by those in charge to effect change. Apply enough pressure and eventually they will flinch.

Now I'm not saying this will be solved over night, not at all... it's a process. However let's be clear... paying a few star football players at a publicly funded school does not cure the root cause of this problem, it merely places a bandaid on it while hoping it goes away. The greed, corruption, double-standards, etc is the real problem, but everyone is focused on these silly little distractions to realize hey....... those in charge are absolutely raping the system for every dollar it's worth.

As long as schools are still, you know... schools, they should have the development of students into responsible young adults with a strong moral compass as their primary mission. Everything else is secondary, everything. Now if those corrupt schools want to repay all of the trillions of publicly funded dollars used to prop up their little house of cards in order to blatantly pursue their corrupt goals, hey I'm willing to listen.

Nick Saban is getting paid over $5 million a year to teach kids football, a skill that they MIGHT be able to use for like 3 years at most after they graduate... if they are lucky. Contrary to what people think, they don't actually die off after leaving the NFL due to concussions. They still live pretty long lives, lives where character, maturity and everything else they were supposed to learn will be used on a daily basis. After they are out of the NFL, no one will really care that they were once above-average football stars as they quickly become flat-broke soon after. Study after study has proven this reality for most NFL players.

Excuse me Nick, where are the life skills for these college kids that merited $5 million dollars a year? Whereas the physics professor is probably making like $80k?

These schools get NFP status, they also get free labor that they can exploit at will... can someone, anyone, convince me that they should be allowed to exploit these advantages to the point that they are compensated like 100 times that of the average person?

The LSU team name is the property of Louisiana State University. All revenues of the LSU Athletic Department ultimately belong to the state of Louisiana and the tax payers. Why are our kids mortgaging their entire futures just to get enough student loans to attend a University just to graduate and not be able to find a job where they can actully utilize their recently acquired, expensive skills just so Les Miles, Nick Saban, Mark Emmert, Mike Slive and company can make millions in the process. We have lost our minds as a country, wake up people. Demand better. Let's fix this country already. It all starts with the Education System.

 

[VVextreme]

Ok, I think it's clear I need to provide some more stats to support my point. Let's skip the politics mentioned in this article that can be discussed on another board. However I wanted to grab some stats from the article that I felt directly relate to this conversation. And anyone that thinks the value of college athletics can only be found in the athletic department's balance sheet, you're kidding yourself.


Here's what we are currently paying trillions for:

Today, only about 7% of recent college grads come from the bottom-income quartile compared with 12% in 1970 when federal aid was scarce. All the government subsidies intended to make college more accessible haven't done much for this population, says Mr. Vedder. They also haven't much improved student outcomes or graduation rates, which are around 55% at most universities (over six years).


"Thirty-percent of the adult population has college degrees," he notes. "The Department of Labor tells us that only 20% or so of jobs require college degrees. We have 115,520 janitors in the United States with bachelor's degrees or more. Why are we encouraging more kids to go to college?"


The higher-ed bubble, he says, is "already in the process of bursting," which is reflected by all of the "unemployed or underemployed college graduates with big debts." The average student loan debt is $26,000, but many graduates, especially those with professional degrees, have six-figure balances.

Here's the lifestyle that these top "educators" are getting in return for the outcomes stated above. I have to ask, why are they being compensated so highly if the above is their results? Education is supposed to improve your life, not destroy it.

Some college officials are also compensated more handsomely than CEOs. Since 2000, New York University has provided $90 million in loans, many of them zero-interest and forgivable, to administrators and faculty to buy houses and summer homes on Fire Island and the Hamptons.

Former Ohio State President Gordon Gee (who resigned in June after making defamatory remarks about Catholics) earned nearly $2 million in compensation last year while living in a 9,630 square-foot Tudor mansion on a 1.3-acre estate. The Columbus Camelot includes $673,000 in art decor and a $532 shower curtain in a guest bathroom. Ohio State also paid roughly $23,000 per month for Mr. Gee's soirees and half a million for him to travel the country on a private jet.


The University of California system employs 2,358 administrative staff in just its president's office.

"Every college today practically has a secretary of state, a vice provost for international studies, a zillion public relations specialists," Mr. Vedder says. "My university has a sustainability coordinator whose main message, as far as I can tell, is to go out and tell people to buy food grown locally. . . . Why? What's bad about tomatoes from Pennsylvania as opposed to Ohio?"

Here's the historical perspective on Education and the massive amounts of money involved. I think the athletic department issue actually rolls up into a MUCH, MUCH larger macro-economic discussion.

In 1964, federal student aid was a mere $231 million. By 1981, the feds were spending $7 billion on loans alone, an amount that doubled during the 1980s and nearly tripled in each of the following two decades, and is about $105 billion today. Taxpayers now stand behind nearly $1 trillion in student loans.

Meanwhile, grants have increased to $49 billion from $6.4 billion in 1981. By expanding eligibility and boosting the maximum Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350, the 2009 stimulus bill accelerated higher ed's evolution into a middle-class entitlement. Fewer than 2% of Pell Grant recipients came from families making between $60,000 and $80,000 a year in 2007. Now roughly 18% do.

What do you guys think? Is our country getting our money's worth for such a lavish lifestyle that's funded with state and federal untaxed NFP dollars, free labor and scamming teenagers into leveraging such an extreme percentage of their future earning potential? There's no doubt that many do actually benefit from this system, but there's also no arguing that lives are ruined by that very same system. I personally fail to see how these people are worth anywhere near what they are compensated, so I consider them thieves and scam artists at the highest level at this point. They aren't able to back-up what they are selling.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324619504579029282438522674.html?mod=trending_now_3

 

[BoNcHiE]

It's idiotic that a player can't make money on his own off of himself while universities rake in cash on their backs.

You don't have to pay them. But as adults hey should be able to make money how they want.

 

[VVextreme]

It's idiotic that a player can't make money on his own off of himself while universities rake in cash on their backs.

You don't have to pay them. But as adults hey should be able to make money how they want.

There are over 400,000 scholarship athletes and 99% of them go pro in something else other than their sport.

Without the "amateur" status, then they would basically become minor leagues. When have you EVER seen the same level of passion and loyalty to a minor league team?

The inescapable fact of the matter is that college sports are not at the same level as the professional sports. Schools were set-up for a reason, to teach and prepare these kids for the real world. The only reason people care about this level of play is because of the school. If these kids start making money hand over fist like the professionals, then it will ruin college sports in my opinion. A ton of people watch it simply because they are amateurs and most are playing just for the love of the game. That culture is already dying though, so they might be screwed either way. I personally think the answer is bring back their coach's and administrator salaries to realistic levels to remove the corruption from the system and try to restore some integrity like they were intended to have.

 

[BoNcHiE]

Great.

And when I was in college I could go make money how I wanted on my own time. If people had wanted my autograph I could of sold them. Even on scholarship.

I don't see any reason athletes should be different and have to suddenly be total property of the school, unable to even be taken to dinner.