The Wall Street Journal advocates paying athletes
Title says it all
Highlights the absuridty of facilities, salaries, etc. - all the places money goes except to those who create the value. Frankly, some of this logic would apply to college in general. Good read.
October 5th, 2017 at 10:49 AM ^
I'm up for some kind of compensation for the players. Just a few observations.
- I think you need to figure out how this is going to work for the whole system . . . for all the sports, for all the schools. I don't know the answer to that, but it has to be considered. I do think that if the schools with financial resources (OSU, Alabama, USC, Michigan, etc.) can pay more than other schools, it will affect things, and not in a good way.
- I also am intrigued by letting athletes benefit off their own likeness, name, etc. That's the way that you allow for the best known, best athletes to benefit more financially.
- That being said, I don't think they should be paid full market value by the school. That is to say, I like the idea of covering the cost of not only school, but living expenses, and some kind of stipend to pay for gas, insurance, pizza, cell phone, etc. But I think it might skew things if guys who would go in the first round of the draft were paid accordingly.
October 5th, 2017 at 11:57 AM ^
Schools with the financial resources *do* pay more. It goes into every possible way to lure a player to their school except (usually) going directly to the players. Facilities, perks, coaches, food, whatever. Athletic departments with money are burning it everywhere they can because they're not allowed to pay the players.
October 5th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
I too think this is a good idea. However, we should think through the issues of who gets paid and how much. Obviously, Title IX is one of the issues, and frequently the advocates of compensating players fail to address it.
So, one option is simply paying all scholarship athletes in a varsity sports the same stipend. The strictest reading of Title IX would seem to require that. A few schools could afford that, many couldn't. Also, in "non-revenue" sports it is common for one scholarship to be shared by two or more students. If these folks are included in the pay pool, how would that work? This question will come up again in the other courses of action.
If not everybody, how do we decide which sports are "revenue" sports with athletes that deserve to be paid? Before you answer, bear in mind that in some schools men's football and or basketball run deficits, some of them quite large in schools trying to make the leap to Div 1 FBS. Do you decide who is a revenue sport school by school (in which case, women's basketball might qualify at schools like Tennessee or U Conn, and men's football might not), or NCAA Div 1 wide?
Is the threshold for revenue sports a hard list of objective criteria, such that hockey or lacross might be on the threshold, or a subjective test? If the former, do we need rules to keep accounting schenanigans from making some sports look cheaper or more expensive than they actually are?
If athletes getting partial scholarships is something that happens in some revenue sports, how do they participate?
What is the place of non-scholarship walk-ons in a revenue sport? What about equipment managers? (Since we are fund raising to get them scholarships.)
Finally, will paying athletes be simply allowed, or will it be required to compete at the top level of the NCAA? Will we allow schools to be Div 1-revenue in some sports, and Div 2 in all the others? Note, if this causes a lot of schools to drop out of Div 1 - FBS, I think that would be a GOOD thing. Many schools lose money hand over fist in a vain (in every sense of the word) attempt to join the big boys. They think the money trough is just around the corner, but the truth is that they're not Boise or FAU; they are never going to see the big bucks. Quit kidding yourselves and your alumni; focus on exotic things like, oh say...teaching and research.
Some of the answers might require legislative changes to Title IX to be legal, but I'm assuming a reasonable proposal can get a sympathetic hearing in Congress.
Again, I think this is worth pursuing. But, I also think alot of the proposals are shallow and simply assume the NCAA could allow the stars of men's basketball and football to get paid tomorrow without thinking through why them alone, and what other issues might have to be resolved.
October 5th, 2017 at 11:44 AM ^
October 5th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
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October 5th, 2017 at 11:26 AM ^
People are so clueless when it comes to this. They don't realize there are 29 other sports here.
You don't think the Field Hockey team is gonna take issue with M Basketball getting a paycheck?
October 5th, 2017 at 11:57 AM ^
Thats why the solution is the olympic model, the school doesn't pay but they can make money of their likeness.
October 5th, 2017 at 12:25 PM ^
Both in its simplicity and in its universal applicability. No Title IX issue here. The school provides the same scholarship to every athlete. Either Alex Morgan playing for the women's soccer team, or DeShaun Watson playing for the men's football program can make as much as they want off of Addidas. No one's interested in the long snapper or the backup goalie? Hey that's the market.
There are a couple of consequences worth noting (not that either is necessarily a bad thing):
1) This is legalizing bagmen. The boosters will now be able to meet openly with the coaching staff, discuss what to offer top prospects, and follow through.
2) In women's sports you have what Martina Navratilova called the "cutie-petutie" problem. In other words, marginal but...photogenic athletes will get the big endorsements based on looks over better athletes (think Anna Kournikova).
You could say that's life in a market economy, and "fixing" it will have far worse consequences. I can't say you're wrong. Just be clear what you are getting.
October 5th, 2017 at 12:26 PM ^
Both in its simplicity and in its universal applicability. No Title IX issue here. The school provides the same scholarship to every athlete. Either Alex Morgan playing for the women's soccer team, or DeShaun Watson playing for the men's football program can make as much as they want off of Addidas. No one's interested in the long snapper or the backup goalie? Hey that's the market.
There are a couple of consequences worth noting (not that either is necessarily a bad thing):
1) This is legalizing bagmen. The boosters will now be able to meet openly with the coaching staff, discuss what to offer top prospects, and follow through.
2) In women's sports you have what Martina Navratilova called the "cutie-petutie" problem. In other words, marginal but...photogenic athletes will get the big endorsements based on looks over better athletes (think Anna Kournikova).
You could say that's life in a market economy, and "fixing" it will have far worse consequences. I can't say you're wrong. Just be clear what you are getting.
October 5th, 2017 at 12:14 PM ^
The Field Hockey team is welcome to sell out to big TV as well and allow them to determine when they play games, which I hear causes some consternation among fans, in exchange for a rather large fee. When the ink is dry on said contract the Field Hockey team can get paid too.
October 5th, 2017 at 1:15 PM ^
October 5th, 2017 at 1:58 PM ^
So does a water Polo player get the same money as a football player? Do D2 and D3 colleges also pay their student athletes? Because if this is the case then what we will have is smaller schools dropping certain sports that don't produce money and second tier D1 schools doing the same, so this means fewer student athletes or fewer kids getting the opportunity to attend a university.
People tend to believe that football and basketball players have so little free time between school and practice and games. Ask a baseball, softball player about 5 am practice and weight training in the fall and winter, games during the week and your first half of a season being on the road, so doing school work in your hotel rooms. Do they not deserve to be compensated the Same?
People need to take a step back and realize the kids are being paid with a quality education, and insane amount of clothing, food especially on the road, notoriety that will help them in the future when they go into a job interview and say I played football at Michigan and no student loans
October 5th, 2017 at 2:47 PM ^
Why would a water polo player get the same money as a football player, does the McDonald's fry cook get the same money as the CEO?
October 5th, 2017 at 3:09 PM ^
Title IX
October 5th, 2017 at 3:30 PM ^
So based on that, womens sports would fail exist because they don't generate money! Ok Cam Newton
October 5th, 2017 at 3:08 PM ^
https://twitter.com/BryanDFischer/status/865689879866257408
So total P5 revenue for FY2016 is $2,296,000,000. There are 64 P5 schools and 100 athletes(85 football, 13 men's basketball, and 2 because I like round numbers) per school to give us a total of 6,400 athletes in the P5 that generate the vast majority of the revenue. By NFL guidelines the players are entitled to ~48% of the revenue the league generates. So $1,102,080,000 is to be divided amongst the 6,400 athletes giving each athlete an expected salary value of $172,200. So are P5 football and basketball players getting $172,200 worth of tuition, room and board, tutoring, academic support, etc? Probably not.
But if you had to share all that revenue, not just the 48% nfl guideline with all ~650 student athletes per P5 school, or 41,600 total you end up with $55,192 per student athlete. $55,192 per student athlete isn't as much money as you'd think. This is why half of P5 athletic departments aren't even profitable when you factor in the tuition they have to pay and then the facility costs, not to mention the coaching salaries, travel, etc.
October 5th, 2017 at 3:54 PM ^
October 5th, 2017 at 4:37 PM ^
All I know is as a parent of a student athlete lm not in debt because of it and neither is she. Practicing 20 hours a week, traveling to away games, a concussion and other injuries and she wouldn't have changed a thing and now as a grad asst.coach she is getting her masters paid for. Out of state tuition is 50,000.00 a year and she will be leaving this spring debt free. I consider that paid.