The FBI Investigation Is Actually Good
don't feel bad for these vampires plz
There is a predictable set of bins people fling themselves in whenever it's revealed that someone playing college sports got money to do so.
"DAY OF GREAT SHAME" BIN: A rapidly dwindling category mostly filled by NCAA administrators who are literally paid to misunderstand economics. Also includes revanchist portions of NCAA fanbases, the sizes of which directly correspond to perceived cleanliness. Michigan and Notre Dame have tons of these fans; Memphis not so much.
"BUT THE DETAILS" BIN: A slightly woke-r segment of the populace, this group is hypothetically okay with paying players as long as you have a 100-page congressional bill that covers every last eventuality. Like to bring up Title IX as if that disqualifies the Olympic option. Frequently baffled by capitalism despite participating in it daily. Extremely concerned that some people might get paid more than other people. Like positing the status quo as a potential dystopia. NIMBYs for college sports. They are in favor of buildings, just not this building or that building. Or that other building.
"WHO CARES" BIN: The woke and cynical. See bagmen as folk heroes, more or less. Advocate burning down the system but fight and/or downplay anyone who would talk about the hidden details as a "cop." Sometimes right about this. Hate the status quo. Wish to preserve the status quo, at least as far as the under-the-table aspects go. Doesn't correlate a willingness to ignore mutually-agreed upon rules with, say, screwing around on your wife with every prostitute you can find. Or having a fraudulent department in your university. Or ignoring a rape.
At this late date, the first group is hopeless. The second is irritating and largely arguing in bad faith when they bring up things like "what if boosters gave players a lot of cash?!?!?!" I fell into the Andy Staples hole a few days ago by quote-tweeting these uniquely infuriating takes on why making the current system more equitable is impossible. I refer you to Twitter if you'd like to relive this dark period.
I'd like to talk to the third group, though. The Who Cares bin frequently overlooks any potential upsides to the underground enterprise coming to light. Deadspin's Barry Petchesky:
What is the purpose of any straight college-scandal reporting, other than shaming players for trying to earn a tiny fraction of the money they’re earning for their schools and the NCAA? (I actually have an answer for this! The only reason fans and readers really care about recruiting scandals is because they’re hoping to see their rivals punished, and to be able to hold it over their heads for all eternity. Everything is fandom.)
That is certainly a reason but it's far from the only one. Without intervention there is no way the NCAA's system changes. Revenues have skyrocketed for twenty years and the only concessions the players have gotten have been either court-enforced or attempts to head off a PR disaster.
Without someone coming in and ripping the top off the anthill* this will continue in perpetuity. And while college basketball players are currently recouping some of their value under the table, it's nowhere near what they would in an open system. Patrick Hruby explains at... uh... Deadspin:
It’s no secret that the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s amateurism rules suppress above-board athlete compensation. Bowen’s supposed price tag shows that players are being shortchanged under the table, too. Let’s do the napkin math. First, compare NCAA basketball to the National Basketball Association—or any major sport where athletes enjoy their full rights and protections under antitrust and labor law, instead of being treated like second-class American citizens. ...
For schools at the highest level of the sport—that is, top 10-caliber programs that need the very best recruits to remain elite both in terms of winning lots of games and reaping the financial rewards that come with winning lots of games—the same NCPA study estimates that the average player is actually worth about $900,000 a year. And even that amount may be selling Bowen short, because if Louisville’s players received 50 percent of their school’s basketball revenues, they’d each be worth $1.72 million annually.
This money is instead going to worthless things like waterfalls and football locker rooms with VR headsets and Jim Delany. It will continue going to these things until such time as it is obvious to all that the NCAA's rules are not only unjust but entirely unenforceable, save the unlikely intervention of a subpoena-bearing organization. It will continue until and unless the NCAA is faced with a choice between its rules and money. An NCAA tournament in which no one gets to see Duke or a half-dozen other blue-bloods lose takes money out of CBS's pockets and therefore the NCAA's pockets. And we know what the NCAA will do: it will bend as much as it needs to maximize the amount of money entering the pockets of its executives.
That is at the very least the restoration of name and image rights to players and the expansion of the Olympic model to all sports, because that doesn't cost the NCAA anything. The FBI's investigation speeds up that day—and if it's big enough it might prompt it directly. Therefore it is good, sports tribalism aside.
*[Or a player strike at a key moment. See my annual plea for a basketball team in the national title game to go on strike for 15 no-commercial minutes at the scheduled tip time.]
February 27th, 2018 at 3:06 PM ^
Separating the revenue sources could be possible.
Please note, though, that you accused me of being offended by an athlete making more than $75k (grossly misrepresenting me in your 'straw man argument'). Then, you accused me of wanting their scholarships taxed (once again misrepresenting me and not at all catching the clear drift of my post). I, like most here, value justice and fairness. And grossly misrepresenting me is not just or fair.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:37 PM ^
Sorry if you feel I misrepresented what you were arguing. Whenever I've heard people bringing up the value of a scholarship it's generally a cop-out of "we're already paying them enough". But if "we're already paying them", why can't we pay them more? Because "enough" is market value, and should be whatever a school is willing to pay. For a lacrosse player, maybe a scholarship is enough. For Rashan Gary, it's clearly not.
I'm in favor of people being able to get paid whatever they're worth. Regulations that prevent that just keep money in the pockets of the ultra-rich, whether that be schools, businesses, or team owners. I also think there should be no salary caps or max contracts for professional teams, because that keeps players' value down.
February 28th, 2018 at 6:20 PM ^
"I'm in favor of people being able to get paid whatever they're worth."
In that case 90% of sports at UofM would be shut down and all of the money given to the 3 sports that can cover their costs and have profits to distribute to the athletes. No womens sports at all.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
offended just because you disagreed. I don't think "not getting too emotional" is a thing for him.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^
You must know him better than me, but I see your point!
February 27th, 2018 at 5:36 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 5:42 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
I'd like to bring more equitable treatment to the athletes, but you cannot ignore title IX. Even J.U.B. mentioned this when he advocated a true minor league for football/basketball. I too don't like the 'If you mention this stuff you're arguing in bad faith'.
So let's fix the system. I'm 100% in. Denard shouldn't have not had any access to the $ gained by his notoriety, particularly when the University is gleefully making money off his image.
But how do we do that and not pay field hockey? And if the answer is 'pay field hockey too' you'll never be able to pay them equitably. Further, if you do pay field hockey, I agree, the University is going to start cutting non revenue sports further.
I don't know what the solution is. I like Bacon's idea of a real, paid, minor league for these sports. In basketball in particular it might actually make things more interesting because these minor league teams could pick up talent that might not be interested in college. (I remember Rodman I think saying he wasn't even the best player in his neighborhood growing up).
But that won't be easy or quick.
Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I've missed very important data. But I don't believe I'm a bad guy for saying so, or arguing in bad faith.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:13 PM ^
If you're going to go full capitalist here, that's fine, but you should be clear what you're doing. Football and men's basketball players would get paid then. But pretty much every other college athlete would not, as they don't make the university any money. In fact, the vast majority of them would have to pay the university additional money above tuition to play their sports because, again, almost every sports team other than football and men's basketball loses money. If that's what you're arguing for, then okay. That would be great (really!) for football players and men's basketball players. But it would pretty much suck for everybody else.
I agree that change is pretty much inevitable, and probably for the good, but this pretense that the "right" thing to do is obvious and simple and there are no legitimate reasons to have concerns about it or worry about the details, is obnoxious bullshit.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:29 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:44 PM ^
I guess you can say that the athletes you listed would be worth less than the number you posted on the free market, but I could point out that the $300,000 figure is inflated by things other than the 'free market' (i.e. largely driven by subsidized loans). I seriously doubt a four-year college education would be worth anywhere close to that much in the same "free market" you reference. This could lead us down a rabbit hole, however.
February 27th, 2018 at 4:02 PM ^
While you're definitely right about some of those athletes of non-revenue producing sports being overpaid, most of the non-revenue sports do not offer many full scholarships. Football and basketball rosters are composed of players who are all on full rides. With non-revenue sports you usually have a handful of full rides and the rest are some type of partial scholarship with the student athlete's family covering the rest.
I'm guessing the university/AD's cost of running a non-revenue program (travel costs, coaches salaries, facility upgrades and maintenance, etc) is more then what the unversity spends on scholarships for a non-revenue sport.
February 28th, 2018 at 1:10 PM ^
Indy Pete - you've laid out one of the best arguments I've seen....and I think the answer is we have to abolish the BS rules that MAKE kids go to college rather than give them the option. If you decide to go to school for free, you deal with the fact you aren't getting paid. If you want to get paid by going into the minor leagues, then deal with the fact you can't get a scholarship after the fact.
Give them options and let the chips fall where they may....but getting the 1% who would be good enough to get paid out of the system would probably solve a decent chunk of the problems.
February 28th, 2018 at 3:17 PM ^
Indy Pete - you've laid out one of the best arguments I've seen....and I think the answer is we have to abolish the BS rules that MAKE kids go to college rather than give them the option. If you decide to go to school for free, you deal with the fact you aren't getting paid. If you want to get paid by going into the minor leagues, then deal with the fact you can't get a scholarship after the fact.
Give them options and let the chips fall where they may....but getting the 1% who would be good enough to get paid in a semi-pro league out of the NCAA system would probably solve a decent chunk of the problems.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^
Eh, Brian ... you keep carping about this but don't seem to get it.
I have no problem with players getting paid. To do so, they should go to the NBA, a developmental league, a minor league, Europe ... whatever avenue is available to them.
This is college sports. Granted, it's big business, but it's academics and athletics. Many, not all, institutions make money and players get a free education. If that's not enough, or if you have no interest in attending school, go play elsewhere.
It's not the responsibility of colleges and universities to provide a farm system/minor league for professional sports.
The rules for players and coaches exist. If you don't like them, work/play elsewhere or try to change them through legitimate means. There is no justification for players, their families, and coaches who cheat.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:20 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:15 PM ^
There was no sham department at UNC. There was a sham course within a department. I knew students that took AFAM courses and had to work their asses off. They were more pissed than anyone else about the scandal, because they worked their asses off just for future employers to say "Oh, you were in the AFAM department at UNC? LOL"
February 27th, 2018 at 2:17 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
Note while he's stereotyping the hell out of everyone else, he doesn't make a snidely characterized bucket for his own views.
The infuriating thing is that he makes some good points but they're undermined by his arrogant compulsion to stuff everyone else with straw. So I wind up split halfway between wanting to debate the issues but then going why bother because he's already made up his mind that literally everyone else with something to say on this issue is a closed-minded lunatic.
The takeaway I sense from this is that if you use Twitter as a window for society, not only do you divorce yourself from reality, be prepared to be sad.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:24 PM ^
while being great for things like coaching seraches (which is why I joined) and following Michigan (and other) sports, is certainly a blight on reality in many many other areas...
February 27th, 2018 at 7:15 PM ^
Just say "If you use Twitter, be prepared to be sad." It's cleaner.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
If we just let boosters pay athletes whatever they wanted, under full disclosure, it would become a free market, only without the Title IX issues. Only issue would be that athletes wouldn't get everything they are owed from television contracts and such, but I think this is a good first step.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:16 PM ^
No give them the right to hire an agent, the right to their likeness, and an ability to make money. If you allow boosters uninhibited access to procure players you are going to see kids getting offered tens of millions of dollars to sign with Alabama, Texas, etc. That's for 17 year old kids to go play college ball. You're going to be down to about 10 schools even being relevant and a great deal of schools just shutting football down.
February 27th, 2018 at 4:37 PM ^
What is wrong with that? I have a hard time seeing educational institutions as somehow disadvantaged or underprivileged. Plus, the best kids already sign with the best schools. The current landscape would not change.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:40 PM ^
If EA has to stop making NCAA games because of this, how is the NCAA still a thing?
February 27th, 2018 at 2:46 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 3:24 PM ^
I don't believe a professional minor football league could become popular enough that anyone would find it worth doing. College football is unique. It is not like any professional league could or would be. In fact for a great many people college football is preferred and viewed as far superior to even the NFL, the world's undisputed supreme best in the sport. Why is that? It is because of the emotional investment that college football fans have in their teams. It's the brand and all that goes into that: the school, the stadium, the tailgate, the tradition, the memories. Or, as Seinfield would say: "We root for the shirts."
February 27th, 2018 at 3:31 PM ^
True, so don't mess with it.
February 27th, 2018 at 7:33 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:49 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^
At the core of it, it's simply that the original concept of the student-athlete predated the modern sports landscape and the insane amount of money involved in many different hands. It's a somewhat uniquely American to have the emphasis that we have on athletics at the university level, and I mean going back to the roots of the NCAA. For many student-athlets (field hockey players, lacrosse players, etc.), their interest in the sport is almost non-monetary and for many the scholarships are plenty in payment.
The problem is, we now have kids forced to attend schools, who jump ship at first opportunity, who don't fit the original student-athlete concept and model. This sucks for the kid who can't capitalize on their monetary value, but it also takes away from the whole student-athlete ideal. Everything the NCAA has done so far just ignores this reality.
I'm not sure what the best solution is, but at least recognition that our system is best serving the men with all the money.
February 28th, 2018 at 9:39 AM ^
Actually, as Taylor Branch documents extensively in this article, the origins of "student athlete" as a category of person, lie in universities' attempts to avoid paying workman's compensation claims to football players in the 1950s.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-colle…
Key paragraphs:
“We crafted the term student-athlete,” Walter Byers himself wrote, “and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations.” The term came into play in the 1950s, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a “work-related” accident? Was he a school employee, like his peers who worked part-time as teaching assistants and bookstore cashiers? Or was he a fluke victim of extracurricular pursuits? Given the hundreds of incapacitating injuries to college athletes each year, the answers to these questions had enormous consequences. The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was “not in the football business.”
The term student-athlete was deliberately ambiguous. College players were not students at play (which might understate their athletic obligations), nor were they just athletes in college (which might imply they were professionals). That they were high-performance athletes meant they could be forgiven for not meeting the academic standards of their peers; that they were students meant they did not have to be compensated, ever, for anything more than the cost of their studies. Student-athlete became the NCAA’s signature term, repeated constantly in and out of courtrooms.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 3:01 PM ^
Don't REQUIRE payment, allow it.
For 95-99% of all college athletes, a scholarship is probably enough payment. For the 1%, risking their bodies and potential future $100+ million contracts for free tuition and a degree that doesn't matter to them, it's not.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:47 PM ^
the source of where the money is coming from needs to be very transparent and out in the open - or it's illegal. Otherwise, it's like Congressmen and Congresswomen getting all kinds of lobbying money and percs which influences their votes and positions on issues. I don't want players getting paid from sources which could potentially result in a conflict of interest with their on-field or on-court efforts. It's not too hard to think of examples of how this could happen. For example, if money from the sports gambling industry was to find its way into the player compensation pool, the results would be very bad.
February 27th, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^
You mean like the vast majority of schools do already with year-by-year scholarships? Because Saban's got you beat already.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:03 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 9:09 PM ^
Do you suddenly think coaches are going to start dropping kids from scholarships in the middle of the season when there are no real ways to replace said players during the season?
February 27th, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
I hate the argument that Title IX precludes any of this working. These schools have figured out a way to run multi million-dollar athletic departments for years, have complied with a slew of government-mandated changes already, and have smart people up and down the org. I'm sure they can figure out a way to share their millions along prescribed lines.
And as for the complaint that this will hurt your smaller schools, do people not think waterfalls and VR practice rooms enjoyed by the elites already exacerbate the divisions between the have's and have not's? At least this way, guys down the ladder get a piece of the revenue they geneate, even if it is less than the bigger players. And if you put a cap/floor on the payments, you'd be able to level out the field a bit more than the current bagmen are.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:18 PM ^
Define "any of this," because I have concurred with suggestions for a model that completely leaves schools and Title IX out of this.
But payments diirectly from universities? Hosts of problems. Title IX would require that essentially every dollar offered to a male athlete be matched by a dollar offered to a female athlete. Football and basketball are the "revenue" sports, and there are 90 scholarships there, but the NCAA won't be differentiating between revenue and non-revenue, so basically you are offering the same money to every scholarship athlete enrolled at the school.
Do you require all schools to offer the same amount? Say, $25,000 per year? That's a decent number. But why is Jane Average Tennis Player making the same $25,000 as Devin Bush? Michigan can handle this kind of expense (for an athletic department with 500 scholarship athletes, that's an expensive but doable $12.5 million per year for the 25 or so profitable schools). Nice, but then you have bottom-rung schools with serious trouble making the cut, cutting sports. So field hockey and wrestling and soccer players are suffering so basketball players can get a cut of March Madness money.
Do you allow schools to set their own rates so long as they are equal? Fine, but again, the SEC has far fewer sports, so they can transmit the same revenue into much higher payouts. Alabama pays every player $50,000, but Michigan starts out at $35,000 and hopes "the Michigan difference" wins recruits over. It doesn't work and Michigan has a couple of 8-4 seasons and the head coach is fired and the new head coach demands that 6 non-revenue sports be cut so that he can raise the salaries to parity with Bama. Non-revenue athletes get the shaft again.
There are unintended consequences for big decisions. In my opinion, getting the colleges out of this and allowing players to remain eligible while earning NIL and similar categories of income is the solution with the most fairness and the fewest problems.
February 27th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^
Title IX would require that essentially every dollar offered to a male athlete be matched by a dollar offered to a female athlete.
That's how Title IX works with scholarships already. You have to offer the same number of scholarships for both genders, and how you break those up is up to the school. It's why XC men women split partial scholarships. This isn't new if you just attach a set dollar amount to each scholarship that has an analog for the other gender.
Maybe you put a floor/ceiling by conference, maybe you make it an NCAA-level, maybe it's school-level, I don't know. You'd have to weigh each option. But we already have schools and conferences that offer full-ride 4-year scholarships and others that do 1-year renewals. And we have different conference rules aboiut the number of scholarships a team can offer in a particular class. So again, these are all hurdles we've seen already.
Cutting non-revenue sports isn't the issue here. Those are cut, in part, because of Title IX but just as often because a school wants to get Jim Harbaugh and Jim Harbaugh isn't getting on a plane for less than $7MM a year.
I don't disagree there are unintended consequences, but we know the consequences of the current system - it's athletes getting thousands of dollars under the table by agents and boosters. And the NCAA has rules against that. You want to abolish all those rules, go for it and I'll be fine with it. But I don't understand this mindset that "it will be hard to figure this out" makes giving it a try is so untennable. It's not like the current system is particularly popular, beneficial, or sustainable.
February 27th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^
February 27th, 2018 at 8:50 PM ^
Brian has convinced me that the NCAA is suppressing athletes for the benefit of NCAA officials, highly paid coaches, networks, etc. So let’s open it up and make it a free market system. Ca_prophet’s idea has merit because of the longer-term medical cost of getting hurt/concussions would place even more value on getting an education + medical coverage being a safety net for those who graduate. Who could prevent such a thing from happening? What if Michigan started providing medical coverage now? Are they allowed to do this?
February 27th, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
What is with the American obsession with the student-athlete ideal? One of my friends, who came to the states to study from India, found athletic recruitment to be the most baffling things about American higher education. Honestly, I agree with him. Why do people who have no interest in school go to to university to play sports? Why do even Ivy League schools recruit for athletic ability for sports when they are supposed to be learning? Let the pro leagues go make their own farm systems, and then get rid of varsity sports.
And yes, I do see the irony of posting this opinion on a college sports site.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:02 PM ^
Would incur the wrath of casual sports fans everywhere. Players would be tarnished as whiny beggars who should be happy with progress toward a college degree. Imagine Colin Kaepernick and the Nathional Ahthem kneel-down, 10x.
I agree with the player's position, but we need more shift in public consensus before that kind of a move.
February 27th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^
As is so often in life, I feel like my beliefs on this issue are the most rational and logical, yet I rarely see them expressed in the media. Would appreciate the board letting me know if I'm delusional or not.
I hate the idea of colleges paying players (beyond tuition, of course). If athletes are choosing schools based on where they can get the most money, as opposed to more intangible aspects (quality of coaching, education, student life, etc), then what is the point of a team being affiliated with a university at all? Why not abandon the charade, and just turn the NCAA into a professional sports league with no university affiliation?
Before the negging commences, let me clarify -- this does not mean I think that athletes shouldn't be paid. The problem is that they currently don't have a choice. The NBA and the NFL use colleges as their free minor league systems, with arbitrary age restrictions that force kids to go to college instead of earning a paycheck. This whole issue could be rectified if the NFL and NBA expanded their drafts, created their own versions of the minor leagues, and drafted kids right out of high school - like MLB does. Thus, any kid who isn't interested in college and wants to start earning a paycheck can go the minor league route (if he's good enough). If a kid attends college, it is because either he is not good enough to get paid coming out of high school (in which case, he can't complain), or he places greater value on a college education than a minor league paycheck (in which case, he can't complain).
The NCAA is always portrayed as the villain, but I think that the NBA and NFL get off way too easy -- these are extremely rich organizations that could easily start their own minor leagues, but instead choose to use the NCAA as their free farm system, and then let the NCAA take all the heat for a problem of the professional leagues' own creation.
Put it this way--no one complains that college baseball players are being forced to provide free labor, because any college baseball either voluntarily chose not to sign a minor league contract, or wasn't good enough to do so. In my ideal world, college basketball and football would work the same way.
Some may protest that if the NFL and NBA formed their own minor leagues it would destroy college sports as we know it. This is absolutely true. But having colleges pay players to attend their schools would also destroy college sports as we know it, and anyone who says otherwise is being naive. It seems to me that many people want to have it both ways -- they recognize that student athletes shouldn't be forced to provide unpaid slave labor, but they love college sports and don't want it to change in any recognizable way. This is unrealistic. If players are going to get paid, college sports are going to have to change dramatically. I would rather the quality of collegiate sports diminish to baseball levels, with many more athletes going pro immediately after high school, than have college athletics determined by which school is able to maintain the highest payroll.
Please let me know why I am way off-base.
February 27th, 2018 at 6:45 PM ^
Comments