OT - pay for play in NCAA

[UcMiami]

Just saw this from the Big10 Commissioner and am glad someone finally went there - I totally agree with his thoughts.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...iscusses-possible-football-basketball-changes
I am OK with possible tweaks to NCAA scholarships and rules and possibly sidelining the NCAA structure as I think they are problematic in various ways, but the idea that athletes should become semi-pro in college is a terrible idea that will undermine the whole college system.

 

[DobbsRover2]

It's a very messy situation, especially since you basically have two echelons of sports that include in one group mainly just football, but with a moderate dose of men's basketball and a little bit of baseball and smidgen of men's hockey. These are the sports that can either pull in money for colleges or for baseball and hockey have athletes with some earning potential post college in sports. Then you have the rest.

Delaney's comments just sidestep the big issues with a bit of side tracking about the straight-to-pro's HS athletes who hopefully can either sign a big contract or find an agency that will bring them along until they're good enough to play and get a contract. Or not, in which case the education opportunities for the athlete may be far more limited after failing to make the pro's.

Not "pay for play"???? The whole big issue that is skewing the college sports world is the increasing trend of these dependent universities to sell huge parts of their brand and resources to the media and other sports related businesses to get big gobs of money. Sounds like universities get paid to play. Besides all the hypocritical and self-righteous pap the B10 is spewing about the gone-to-pro's guys, what new does Delaney have to say about the remaining athletes who indenturize themselves to help OSU and Michigan win BCS bowls? Upping scholarships maybe for football players? Sounds sort of like paying the players round-aboutly without having to do much of anything for a WCBB player or a cross country runner.

So yeah, the gridders are cogs in the money-making machines for the universities who are giving them a full-scholarship (maybe) stipend for them to commit themselves to the campaign for a national title. And football players are definitely putting their health and future well-being on the line more than an WCBB player who is called upon to give just as many hours and just as much effort, but doesn't get her brain turned to jelly every other play.

I have no idea what the answer is (or one that would be acceptable to the university gold diggers), but the B10 comments are a retchful read.

 

[JRRRJ]

I have no idea what the answer is (or one that would be acceptable to the university gold diggers), but the B10 comments are a retchful read.

Gotta disagree.

I've been hoping for a long time now that someone with influence would say "we shouldn't be the minor leagues".

Some alumni would hate it, a few school budgets would take a hit (but not a lot, many of the faithful would come even if the level of play went down a bit and the minors would only be skimming out the top couple of percent of players).

But we could conclude the charade that we currently have "student-"athletes, the athletes would find get earlier reads on whether they can get a pro job -- because some agent or team or sponsor would have to pay them minor-league wages -- or they should concentrate on acquiring some other employable skill/knowledge, colleges could stop paying 6- and 7-figure salaries to coaches, ADs and publicists & c. because they're no longer trying to run a semi-pro sports organization, and the corrupting influence of scads of money would abate somewhat in institutions that are supposed to be focused on other things.

 

[Icebear]

It would create a fracture with Title IX.

 

[JRRRJ]

It would create a fracture with Title IX.

???

Title IX deals with the responsibilities of educational institutions toward their female athletes.

What's the disconnect?

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I'll skip reading them.

To me, its simple. Playing college football is a choice. If you are really good, you don't have to play at money-bags U to get in the NFL, and yes, you can go straight from high school. If the "contract" - a full scholly and whatever you are going to learn from the coaches - isn't acceptable, then don't sign up (or at least, don't complain about it afterward).

Also to me, the colleges run the programs to make money to run the program more high-profile or to support other programs that, in the end, put the Universities name out there. Don't tell me college sports is to offer "opportunities" to what is in most schools a miniscule part of the student base (1000 athletes is high, many of the big state schools have 50,000 enrollees). It also helps the college get donations (across the board - academic and athletic) from the alumni base. So is it any wonder that they sell their brand to the media?

I don't really buy into the exploitation of athletes stuff, because 90% (or more) aren't being exploited in any way that a case could be made. They don't have a future in the sport, they don't play a sport that more than a handful of fans care about (and that the school operates at a loss, heck, probably doesn't even charge admission for) and probably wouldn't operate in some cases if there were changes in the model.

As a separate issue, yes, I would like to see athletes be able to share in - or market themselves, in some controlled fashion - the individual items (autographs, numbered jerseys, etc.) that are sold by schools to generate additional income. Also, I have long supported a stipend for college athletes (not enough to be considered making them "semi-pro", just enough to make what is a very demanding life a little more flexible). So I'm not against the athlete, either.

 

[Icebear]

???

Title IX deals with the responsibilities of educational institutions toward their female athletes.

What's the disconnect?

If you pay some and do not provide parallel financial opportunity to others I would certainly consider it a fracture of equal treatment.

 

[John Glass]

It would create a fracture with Title IX.

I agree, are there any womens college teams that make money ? The money to pay for non-revenue (low revenue) teams comes from MBB, and football. The notion that there is plenty of money available available to pay athletes is ridiculous. If some student athletes get paid, it will be at the expense of others. I cannot see major D1 athletes being paid, the only logical option is to loosen the NCAA rules on part time jobs.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Gotta disagree.

I've been hoping for a long time now that someone with influence would say "we shouldn't be the minor leagues".

Some alumni would hate it, a few school budgets would take a hit (but not a lot, many of the faithful would come even if the level of play went down a bit and the minors would only be skimming out the top couple of percent of players).

But we could conclude the charade that we currently have "student-"athletes, the athletes would find get earlier reads on whether they can get a pro job -- because some agent or team or sponsor would have to pay them minor-league wages -- or they should concentrate on acquiring some other employable skill/knowledge, colleges could stop paying 6- and 7-figure salaries to coaches, ADs and publicists & c. because they're no longer trying to run a semi-pro sports organization, and the corrupting influence of scads of money would abate somewhat in institutions that are supposed to be focused on other things.

Um, not really sure what you're saying here. Do you seriously believe that Delaney and the B10 are saying that the conference teams are not going to be trying to rake in the mega-millions from the ESPN etc. contracts with their unpaid essentially semi-pro players that are getting the media attention and getting the school the big bucks because they are seen as NFL potential players? That is truly naive. Delaney is just saying the schools don't want to allocate any of their revenue to directly paying players, and if they lose a few candidates to the straight-to-the-pro's route, they can live with that. Obviously paying players would have huge issues for the Title IX and the non-media hog sports, but the smarmy "we are not going to be semi-pro feeders" to the pro's is pap at its worst.

But some seem to think that football is the big cash cow that feeds the other programs. Except when they don't, which is true for about 43% of FBS schools, leading to less than 20% of FBS programs making a profit. For many schools, the losses for football programs are relatively huge, and even some of the revenue generating football programs have just small gains and are running gigantically behind the LSU's, Texas's, OSU's, who are skewing the football arms races to extreme and corrupting bounds. And this structure may well be based on a house of cards, as the desperation mode cable companies and frightened universities are looking at dramatic reductions in subscription rates among the young and a continuous shrinking pool of money from states and donors respectively. The US economic state isn't as bad as four years ago, but it has another big setback maybe because some Capitol crazies throw us into deep freeze, I shudder to think what could happen to many college programs when no one can afford to pay $100 for nose-bleed football seats or $20K for luxury boxes and all those shakily financed athletic facility improvements go bye-bye.

But it is what it is, and at least some of the football cash cow schools are at least able to keep the smaller sports alive, right? Well, SEC school Mississippi gets a nice chunk of change from their conference, but pull down the list of men's sports on their athletics homepage and you will see 6 sports listed. Many schools also cynically use their women's sports programs to make the numbers for Title IX requirements, but otherwise give them almost zilcho support. And we don't want to really get into how the faculty of schools like Rutgers feel about the paper dollar chase by the athletic departments as they end up making the school spend 7 times as much on athletes (football athletes are even higher) than on non-athletes. As the "haves" schools and "have-nots" schools slide further apart, schools desperately point to the increased profile they get from the big sports, with little evidence that the money-making hope is really true when stacked against the amount of investment that needs to be sucked away from other student activities and state legislature to keep the greased juggling balls up in the air.

Market Watch printed an article two years ago that basically sums up the situation with football and college sports. UConn football gets a mention unfortunately, but the Huskies are representative of many teams. But at least the Longhorns athletic department can pull in their $80M profit and feel proud to toss a little back to the other school departments when it's feeling generous.

 

[bschwartz]

I don't think paying players is feasible, seems to me to be more viable to allow some ability for players to make money off of their own name e.g. autographs or jerseys. Perhaps that woulds address Title IX if the school doesn't provide the opp or funds. Either way, more than anything, I would just like the hypocrisy to stop. It's big business...positioning what they do in the name of an educational mission is BS. The agree to provides services to students in exchange for the right to make as much money and power off them as they can. It is a system that often works well for monopolies.

 

[Wbbfan1]

If you pay College Football and Mens Basketball players, then schools would have to pay all other athletes. If not, there would be class action law suits that would demand that they do and IMHO they would win. The rich BCS schools could probably afford it, but there would be many schools that couldn't. I would also not like to see the impact it would have on scholarships on non revenue producing sports.

 

[ed4ourgirls]

There have been a number of comments on the degree to which schools benefit from the
services of big time athletes. I think one might also reflect on the other side of that
coin.

An athlete's market value can benefit substantially from the brand name of the school
they play for. When a five star jock signs to play with Alabama is Alabama getting all
the benefit, or is the athlete's value enhanced by the fact that he plays for Alabama.

There are, of course, lots of NFL players who played for no-name schools, but most
of those were not chosen in the early rounds where the more lucrative contracts are
to be had.

And ask yourself this: If all the five star blue chippers went directly from high school
to the pros, how would that affect college gate receipts? I suspect most would agree
that revenues would be affected not at all. People go to college games to root for their
school (or the team they follow) - i.e. - it's the team that's important to the fans much
more than individual athletes.

I am not a fan of the professionalism in college athletics, and anything that diminishes
it is a good thing IMO. Thank heavens that big bucks haven't yet infected WCBB.

 

[DobbsRover2]

There have been a number of comments on the degree to which schools benefit from the
services of big time athletes. I think one might also reflect on the other side of that
coin.

An athlete's market value can benefit substantially from the brand name of the school
they play for. When a five star jock signs to play with Alabama is Alabama getting all
the benefit, or is the athlete's value enhanced by the fact that he plays for Alabama.

There are, of course, lots of NFL players who played for no-name schools, but most
of those were not chosen in the early rounds where the more lucrative contracts are
to be had.

And ask yourself this: If all the five star blue chippers went directly from high school
to the pros, how would that affect college gate receipts? I suspect most would agree
that revenues would be affected not at all. People go to college games to root for their
school (or the team they follow) - i.e. - it's the team that's important to the fans much
more than individual athletes.

I am not a fan of the professionalism in college athletics, and anything that diminishes
it is a good thing IMO. Thank heavens that big bucks haven't yet infected WCBB.

Agree that if say only 10% of NFL and NBA players went to college that the gate receipts for say the Alabama-Auburn football game would not be much affected. They could both be playing with squads of demeted yetis and the stadiums would be completely filled (might even have to put in extra seating). And sure there are a few media-name Crimson Tide athletes that likely get a boost from their school's reputation, but balance that against the players that become damaged goods while playing for a university (some even then losing their full scholarship) and the raved about HS stars who might have a better chance of becoming pro athletes if they went directly to some well-promoted pro development leagues while pulling in some decent change.

The question is about the big media contracts that provide the money to keep a lot of the programs in the black. Would ESPN\FOX\ABC still be willing to give the colleges the huge money if they are not producing the pro's of the future? Don't know about that. Not sure the already sliding cable subscription market will want to and be able to pay the price for a diminished product, and likely a big chunk of cash will be diverted to whatever professional development leagues that have the future pro stars.

Not saying that the overall college experience will be worse once young cord cutters start really killing cable and the big money starts to dwindle for colleges, but I'm not sure that any university should be making big facility development plans on any bonanza they expect to be reaping from the networks in 2018.