I've spent way too much time thinking about this...but here is the best solution I can come up with that really serves everybody's best interests. First I am going to list the concerns I would have about paying and then my solution.
Concern #1 - the money obtained by the revenue sports pays for the non-revenue sports...so the University making money actually benefits the rest of the students AND student-athletes. I know the coaches get paid significant sums of money in addition to other administrators, etc. so take this with a grain of salt, but if you start paying a lot of the players it will take away from other sports and activities that are currently funded by the revenues from football and basketball.
Concern #2 - School Revenue becomes a huge factor in the success of the team. Despite this likely benefitting Michigan, the fun of college sports is the variability and relative parity of teams. There will always be heavyweights that sit atop the standings for a decade or more, but eventually most programs have ups and downs, and even the smaller schools can compete at times (especially in basketball). Paying players would effectively kill the parity in the sport because the small schools would not be able to compete on contracts with the larger schools...and it would create a Yankees/Red Sox and everybody else type feel. Obviously there would still be players who were not highly recruited that end up being great athletes, but the statistics are that 5-stars will more likely pan out than 2-star or 3-star athletes.
Concern #3 - This is more of a personal issue I have as a UofM grad, but the athletes are basically dismissing the idea of an education/degree being worth anything. They are receiving several hundred thousand dollars as "payment" in the form of a free education to a top institution. Their lack of interest in the education does not diminish its value except in their own mind. So let's stop saying they don't get compensated...
Solution:
Let the pro leagues draft them anytime during their college careers (or prior to college for incoming freshmen) without any impact to their eligibility. Let the players hire agents/advisors and the NCAA can certify them to ensure they aren't predatory. Then let those pro leagues negotiate contracts with the players and provide them only 1 year to do so. This would mean the pro league would need to offer something fair or the player could decide not to sign and wait until the next draft. This also means that the player needs to weigh the risks associated with NOT reaching a mutually beneficial contract (i.e. they are offered $1M per year for 5 years after college and decline, then get hurt). Draft rights would only be owned for one year so if that player held out and had a breakout year, he could improve his draft standing. There would have to be guaranteed contracts so that pro leagues couldn't restrict the athlete's decision making about leaving early / keeping the player out of a bowl game so they avoid injury, etc.
I believe there would be a lot of details to be ironed out, but this would allow players to get paid their ACTUAL value for their potential based on previous playing experience AND not really restrict which college they could/would sign with because there would no longer be money dangling to entice them to sign with one college over another.
Additionally, if you wanted to address the fact that the colleges are making something off the players likenesses, you could ensure that NCAA universities would be required to relinquish XX% of those memorabilia/merchandising revenues to a fund that would set up equal trusts for ALL student athletes then you would be fulfilling some sort of revenue-sharing. This is a tough one because any payment based on the amount of memorabilia sold could sway a prospect's decision making to a larger school or one with a better brand...which is partially what the current problems stemmed from (albeit a bit backwards).
Just some initial thoughts...interested in seeing what others think of them.
Recent Comments
I've spent way too much time thinking about this...but here is the best solution I can come up with that really serves everybody's best interests. First I am going to list the concerns I would have about paying and then my solution.
Concern #1 - the money obtained by the revenue sports pays for the non-revenue sports...so the University making money actually benefits the rest of the students AND student-athletes. I know the coaches get paid significant sums of money in addition to other administrators, etc. so take this with a grain of salt, but if you start paying a lot of the players it will take away from other sports and activities that are currently funded by the revenues from football and basketball.
Concern #2 - School Revenue becomes a huge factor in the success of the team. Despite this likely benefitting Michigan, the fun of college sports is the variability and relative parity of teams. There will always be heavyweights that sit atop the standings for a decade or more, but eventually most programs have ups and downs, and even the smaller schools can compete at times (especially in basketball). Paying players would effectively kill the parity in the sport because the small schools would not be able to compete on contracts with the larger schools...and it would create a Yankees/Red Sox and everybody else type feel. Obviously there would still be players who were not highly recruited that end up being great athletes, but the statistics are that 5-stars will more likely pan out than 2-star or 3-star athletes.
Concern #3 - This is more of a personal issue I have as a UofM grad, but the athletes are basically dismissing the idea of an education/degree being worth anything. They are receiving several hundred thousand dollars as "payment" in the form of a free education to a top institution. Their lack of interest in the education does not diminish its value except in their own mind. So let's stop saying they don't get compensated...
Solution:
Let the pro leagues draft them anytime during their college careers (or prior to college for incoming freshmen) without any impact to their eligibility. Let the players hire agents/advisors and the NCAA can certify them to ensure they aren't predatory. Then let those pro leagues negotiate contracts with the players and provide them only 1 year to do so. This would mean the pro league would need to offer something fair or the player could decide not to sign and wait until the next draft. This also means that the player needs to weigh the risks associated with NOT reaching a mutually beneficial contract (i.e. they are offered $1M per year for 5 years after college and decline, then get hurt). Draft rights would only be owned for one year so if that player held out and had a breakout year, he could improve his draft standing. There would have to be guaranteed contracts so that pro leagues couldn't restrict the athlete's decision making about leaving early / keeping the player out of a bowl game so they avoid injury, etc.
I believe there would be a lot of details to be ironed out, but this would allow players to get paid their ACTUAL value for their potential based on previous playing experience AND not really restrict which college they could/would sign with because there would no longer be money dangling to entice them to sign with one college over another.
Additionally, if you wanted to address the fact that the colleges are making something off the players likenesses, you could ensure that NCAA universities would be required to relinquish XX% of those memorabilia/merchandising revenues to a fund that would set up equal trusts for ALL student athletes then you would be fulfilling some sort of revenue-sharing. This is a tough one because any payment based on the amount of memorabilia sold could sway a prospect's decision making to a larger school or one with a better brand...which is partially what the current problems stemmed from (albeit a bit backwards).
Just some initial thoughts...interested in seeing what others think of them.