Absolutely, gotta get the right players. Sounds like the coach, boosters, and admissions will have to get back to collaborating on "buying the groceries". Like they did back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s before the NCAA started gumming up the works with all those new rules.
Him you should kick out of school right away! Anyone who would operate on a $50K promise and not get the money up front doesn't have much potential=not college material.
Agree. Without couching it I would more plainly say high profile schools would appeal to the recruit by literally showing them their proposed marketing plan to get them exposure.
In my suggestion, it's the lure of booster money that convinces the student to attend. Since it can be done out in the open, there will be no need to pay the student athlete until they are accepted and enrolled.
I'm with you Moose .. and it's why I no longer follow pro sports, nor mens' college basketball and football .. i m perfectly content following womens' college hoops [which my daughters played] and boys and girls high school sports .. I feel that TV [money] has caused a lot of trouble...
Speaking for myself, it's not that I'm not in favor of it, but how does it get enacted and subsequently not abused by those with money? For you to label something as absurd because they don't see an issue the same way as you is also absurd.
The points you raise are valid, and have been argued by the proponents of the current system for many years. But the current system is broken. At many big time schools the “student” part of the student-athlete experience has been subjugated to a year round focus on football or basketball.
I agree with your point that it is broken and that schools must do a better job on the academic experience. But like most academic experiences, some of that is on the student as well. You get out what you put in. Emeka is an example of a driven student who got out of college what he put into it.
The other businesses you reference are all subject to collective bargaining laws. The NCAA is not. The other obvious point is that employees in any of these businesses can seek employment, and higher compensation elsewhere. NCAA athletes are basically subject to the same rules at every school in the country.
If we believe in free markets and currently do allow anybody with a lemonade stand to make money, this change is in our future. Yes, a scholarship counts and should but beyond that for the top athletes, who in major sports only play a year or two, such rewards to other student won't account for much. Coaches make tons of money now in Div 1 top sports. How to allocate the enormous TV pool fairly will be a challenge. Most schools lose money on paper due to the funny allocation of scholarship moneys and other operating costs. The fans/taxpayers are duped into viewing such losses as real. A normal business could have closed years ago.
Nobody is making them go to a college. It is in their best interest if they have professional aspirations given the quality of play and visibility, but they don't have to go. LaMelo Ball left high school before his junior year and played professionally in Lithuania. I assume there are other options as well. They have other options.
We all have options. Players like Lebron James, who skip college and go directly to the pros, are exceedingly rare. In college football, such players don’t even exist. This has nothing to do with individual choice. It is all about a system that is set up to exploit athletes so that colleges, tv networks and other entities can make millions of dollars. There is something hypocritical and frankly, un-American about such a system.
The NBA and the NFL are certainly not making them go to college but it is limiting their options by imposing draft eligible restrictions such as age. Contrast that with MLB where a player can be drafted right out of high school and DOES NOT lose the option of playing NCAA baseball.
"Paige don't go to UConn and make a paltry 500K a year. Here at Texas we can get you to 5 mil a year." Said a Texas Booster.
Since 2006 NBA Players have not been allow to go from HS straight to NBA- Agree that this is entirely Un-American.
That might be true in football, but not in WBB.
Yes, I was aware. This change was the result of a number of high profile players skipping college only to crash and burn in the pros, as well as pro teams not being particularly fond of throwing big money at untested HS kids.
Yes it is. But there is so much money around college sports today that some athletes are already sliding down that slope, albeit under the table. While I’m not naive to the potential pitfalls, my hope would be that if you bring college athlete compensation out in the open, perhaps colleges can better monitor and manage the situation.
I'm indeed familiar with Sebastian Telfair and may others that have made several bad "life" choices. I don't believe you can effectively teach people to make better life choices by restricting their options. In contrast to Telfair there have been several NBA players who have made the decision to go to the NBA straight out of high school and have been very successful: You previously mentioned Lebron, Kevin Garnett, Moses Malone did and that Icon Kobe didn't do so bad for himself either. You can also contrast that with NBA players that spent a great deal of time in college and eventually flamed out.-Dolonte West was homeless and struggling with weapons charges & mental issues much more serious than Telfair.
You hit on some of the NBA successes. For every success, there’s a Kwame Brown who crashed and burned.
Nah..... The real slippery slope is the (upwards mostly) trajectory of some of these obese coaches salaries.
The G league is a joke of a band aid. For every Kwame Brown there was a successful NBA story of HS to professional. Jalen Rose has this saying: You are not a failure if you can afford to buy your Mama a house". Not only was Kwame Brown able to buy his momma a house but with his first NBA contract he was able to acquire enough wealth for his parents, himself, and his kids=3 generations. That's not a failure in my book. It is a great American story. In America you get to make personal choices some of which turn out to be bad and others that turn out to be good. College is not the right answer for everyone.
Your opinion on the G League is hardly a universally held consensus. One of the reasons the NBA started the Professional Development program was to keep top HS kids from heading overseas. At present, the poster kid for this program is Jalen Green, who can earn almost a million dollars before eventually being drafted into the NBA. Many pro scouts believe Green could go #1.
Love you Coco, but strongly disagree.
