February 24, 2011

I also don't like the idea of college athletes being paid, because it opens up a whole new bag of potential problems.

The reasons against paying them, however, especially male football and basketball players at elite division 1 programs, is getting harder and harder to argue against. The money universities are making off these guys is staggering, and like it or not, they ARE the university's employees. Sure they receive a paid educational experience, but when you're talking that many billions, it's obvious schools are using these athletes to stuff their respective piggy banks.

posted by dyams at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2011

The players that people think should be getting paid are already highly compensated for their skills in terms of scholarship money. If they do not feel that the education they are getting is more than sufficient compensation. They are getting for free the same education that other students are paying upward of $15k-$40k for when you include room and board. No one said that they needed to be athletes while they are in college, they can feel free to try and get by with a campus job like the rest of us while paying for their tuition and fees.

posted by Demophon at 02:13 PM on February 24, 2011

No one said that they needed to be athletes while they are in college, they can feel free to try and get by with a campus job like the rest of us while paying for their tuition and fees.

So a school brings a young person in to play football, gives them a scholarship, and now it's perfectly fair for that college or university to rake in millions of dollars based on them playing a sport? Maybe division 1 sports need to become not-for-profit entities, and only be allowed to generate money necessary to continue operating that sport. Having the entire school rake in cash based on these athletes is nothing more than having them (as goddam said) acting as "indentured servants."

And what's with these division 1 football coaches and the contracts they are signing? Millions of dollars to coach "student-athletes"? Sounds like pro football to me.

Also, don't forget the fact all the other merchandise sold due to these college athletes, from shirts to hats to jerseys, etc. Plenty more people getting rich due to that, too.

You can try to write it off with the old "They're getting a free education" comments, but I'm not buying it. These schools are running what amounts to their own professional leagues. When you bring in 100,000 people to some of these venues for tickets that aren't cheap, then add up all the other fees charged for these games, there's absolutely no difference between, for example, big-time college football and the NFL.

posted by dyams at 02:53 PM on February 24, 2011

"When you bring in 100,000 people to some of these venues for tickets that aren't cheap, then add up all the other fees charged for these games, there's absolutely no difference between, for example, big-time college football and the NFL."

Except for the fact that most of the players are not good enough to play professional football.

It may only prove that football is more about competitive games that about multimillion dollar talent. Fans are willing to shell out huge money to watch amateur talent. Sort of sheds some light on how the NFL deals with it's labor issues. Of course without college football (which is essentially the NFL's minor league) what would the NFL do?

All that said I think the system works great. The colleges make millions, the NFL get a free minor league system, the players get to go to college for free, even if they are not actually academically qualified, the TV networks have a bonanza, thousands of peripheral jobs are created, and the fans obviously love college football. I am not sure how to make it better, If you start paying college athletes, what would be next, paying high school athletes.

Calling the athletes "indentured servants" does not seem appropriate as they can quit at any time, and have made the choice to accept the offer the colleges give them. Although some may say the colleges are using the athletes, I think it is a symbiotic relationship as without the colleges the athletes really don't have a honed marketable skill or a college education, with maybe the exception of a few talented players that are pro level. Even those players are typically not ready for the pro's when they enter college, and frankly if they are, they are free to skip college and try to walk on as an NFL prospect. College does for these athletes exactly what it does for other students and that is give them career choices and training.

The talent level of a football player is not as much of a contributing factor to the revenue stream for a college as it is for a pro team. University of Tennessee does not less money on football because their QB is no longer Peyton Manning. They just plug in the next guy.

posted by Atheist at 04:01 PM on February 24, 2011

I see this from many angles:
In regard to:Safe to assume you've never asked for a raise at your job?
not sure how that fits in as these players have gotten incredible raises over the past 20 years. I know of no one that has received raises on par with what the cost of a college education has gone up by over that time period.

1) When I worked at the student newspaper in college, I got paid. It wasn't much, but it was enough for draft beer and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Why can't football players who work at the school football team get paid?

did you also get a free ride scholarship for working at the paper? If so, then the point is valid, if not, then it's a trade off.

2)True, but they have to devote so much time to their sport and academics that even if they were allowed to work outside jobs all year, they wouldn't have the time to do it.

No kid going to college full time earns enough during the year to pay for their complete year of school. I'd much rather UNT give my daughter a full ride, and then she'd only have to figure out how to get spending money. Far cheaper than her being able to earn spending money on the side and I have to figure out how to pay for the $16K room and board.

3)The money universities are making off these guys is staggering,

I would amend that to read "the money SOME universities are making..." Not all schools that currently give scholarships in football are making millions. Yes, the top schools do. So, do we allow all schools to pay their players, or just those that make millions? Is there a salary cap? Or, does Ohio State get to pay multiples of what Minnesota pays because they can afford it? Do we really want the Yankees-Royals scenario in college football? Already there to some degree, but that would only make it worse.

Do we pay them, and then take away the scholarships? Does that really make a difference in the long run? Might turn out worse for the athlete, as if it's on a pay as you play format, then if you get cut are you out the money?
Does the star QB get paid the same as the reserve guard?

I'm done.

posted by dviking at 05:20 PM on February 24, 2011

All athletics should be severed from the college educational system in the US. Spin off the athletic programs into private athletic clubs that compete in Under-23 leagues, and let them do what they want. There is no reason for an elite football player or basketball player to go through the motions of maintaining academic elegibility when they have no desire to obtain a BS degree in communications. There is also no reason for students at a MAC or Sunbelt school (i.e., a Div I school that loses money on athletics) to unwillingly subsidize a football player or basketball player, or for any student to subsidize the education of a fencer or badminten player.

Spun-off athletic clubs can pay kids tuition money or more to play or not, or charge kids to play non-revenue sports, and the kids could get an education or not.

I like sports. I just do not see its connection to college education. I think severing the two would be cool. Of course, I realize it will not happen any time soon.

posted by Aardhart at 07:21 PM on February 24, 2011

Seriously, for all you that favor paying the players, how do you envision it working?

Does each athlete get paid a set amount? All athletes, or just football and men's basketball? All other sports don't make money for the schools, so why pay them? However, if the schools have to now share the football money with the football players, all the other sports go away. (or, everyone pays a lot more for tuition)

Does every player on the team earn the same? That seems odd to me, as the argument is that universities are making millions off of these players doesn't really mean that they're making the same off of each player. Clearly, Cam Newton has more value than Steven Clark (back up punter), but how much more?

As to Aardhart's last post, baseball is already moving in that direction. Select baseball teams carry as much weight as school teams do, in terms of recruitment. Lots of baseball and hockey players go straight to minor league teams, bypassing college completely. I like watching the St. Paul Saints and the Frisco RoughRiders, why wouldn't that work in football?

posted by dviking at 11:06 PM on February 24, 2011

Enforced amateurism.

Worked so well at the Olympics and in Rugby Union.

posted by owlhouse at 07:26 AM on February 25, 2011

They already are.

Hardly. Compare the revenue generated by college football and basketball, and the excitement we're about to experience with March Madness, to minor-league sports.

The Sunbelt/MAC bowls cost schools millions of dollars, yet no team would turn down an invite to the dandelion bowl. Also, few fans/alums would make the trip.

I'm an alumnus of a Sun Belt school, the University of North Texas. I see no reason why we should drop sports because we're not Ohio State. The budget is reasonable and we're building a new stadium. It is a selling point for the university just like the School of Music and other schools that have been upgraded.

Dismissing sports as "recreation" if they don't make money on spectators is a weird standard. Would you suggest that a school drop its journalism program if the school newspaper doesn't make money? The athletes who play the other sports are preparing for careers just like anyone else at the school.

You act as if the only point of college sports is to make money and entertain people.

posted by rcade at 09:06 AM on February 25, 2011

Your view of higher education is too narrow. There's more than one purpose to college: education, career and personal networking, personal growth, character building, vocational training and more. Sports aids many of those things. It also provides a way for alumni to follow their school that encourages donations.

posted by rcade at 10:00 AM on February 25, 2011

I don't have a problem with a portion my tuition dollars going towards athletic programs. In the fall home football games are always the highlight of the week.

Maybe if we paid our players they'd have mustered more than three wins this season.

posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 10:28 AM on February 25, 2011

I just don't think that the connection between sports and college makes much sense.

I think it would be sad to throw out 140 years of tradition. Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago are hardly representative of most universities in this country. Besides, Harvard and Yale have not dropped football. The Ivy League is a storied bastion of old-school collegiate sports.

A better example: The University of Texas at Arlington killed football right before I attended in the mid-'80s. It helped obliterate the sense of community anyone held for that school. You've never seen a campus with fewer people who feel a sense of pride for the place.

Take away sports and my connection to UNT 20 years after graduation dwindles to nothing. UNT athletics, such as they are, are the school's best opportunity to get my attention and go after me for donations and other support.

posted by rcade at 10:47 AM on February 25, 2011

What's sad is that that tradition is hopeless corruption.

posted by Aardhart at 12:11 PM on February 25, 2011

I think what dispels some people from the idea of paying college athletes is that on its face, it looks like if athletes were to be paid, they would not all be paid the same amount. Therefore, the only "equitable" solution is to not pay them at all.

But of course this does not square away with the fact that everybody else is making bank on the success of college athletics except the athletes themselves.

posted by phaedon at 01:43 PM on February 25, 2011

I think the system, although it has had some corruption where top high profile athletes are concerned, is basically working pretty well. Since the huge majority of the athletes do not have a professional future, those athletes benefit tremendously from the free ride they get. The athletes who do have a pro future can either decide to skip college and try to pursue their athletic careers as undrafted free agents, or they can get the financial reward of a free education and the increased money should they prove themselves in college as their market value is much higher when they do go pro.

There are very few college athletes worth more if they were paid they they get in scholarship value. Plus the fact that for those who don't make it as pros at least they wind up with a college education.

The reason a college coach is worth money to the school is he is the one who keeps the talent and the team in the competitive running which maximizes the revenue. Most of the kids coming out of high school would not be worth much to a college, certainly not as much as the tuition would cost them if they had to pay it out of their playing pay. Stop college athletics and everybody's tuition goes up, a lot of kids who think they can play pro sports do not and wind up with no education. College athletics is part of the learning and college experience. Nobody is taking advantage of the kids.

Even an player like Cam Newton right out of high school, really has no professional value until he has proven himself for a season or two in college and he has the opportunity to declare himself for the draft early if he chooses.

posted by Atheist at 03:56 PM on February 25, 2011

I don't think we have to come up with a solution ourselves in order to believe they should be paid.

Well, actually, you kind of do. If you can't figure out, at least on a basic level, how to make an idea you have feasible, then what good is it?
Not asking for details on how to physically make it work, but if the argument holds water you ought to be able to answer my pretty basic questions.

If you can't that might be part of the problem. Scholarships are fairly easy to administer, adn everyone is treated the same. Doesn't matter if your sport makes money, doesn't matter how well you contribute (on a general sense, I'm fully aware that some schools give partial scholarships).

posted by dviking at 05:10 PM on February 25, 2011

Since universities are already dispensing scholarship funds to their athletes, why do people think it would be impossible to figure out how to give them additional money? There's no logistical issue to overcome -- there's already a system in place paying them scholarships.

The University of Michigan has 716 student-athletes who play 25 varsity sports. Sixty-six percent (471) receive some type of athletic grant-in-aid. The school generates around $50 million a year in revenue from football. So per athlete, at least $72,905 a year in revenue is being generated.

Why couldn't those athletes get a $5,000 a year grant they can spend on anything they like? Michigan would still have $67,000 a year in revenue from each athlete, and athletes would have more time to devote to their sport and schooling.

Would this give schools with profitable athletic programs an advantage because they can give athletes some money? That ship has already sailed.

posted by rcade at 06:09 PM on February 25, 2011

The athletes who do have a pro future can either decide to skip college and try to pursue their athletic careers as undrafted free agents, or they can get the financial reward of a free education and the increased money should they prove themselves in college as their market value is much higher when they do go pro.

Per NFL rules, players must be more than two years past high school graduation to be eligible for the NFL draft. I can't find a link to confirm this, but I believe you have to be eligible for a draft before you can become a free agent. If not, I would imagine the best players would just become free agents and shop their services rather than get drafted.

Rules for MLB and NHL are closer to what you have suggested, although those players not wishing to go to college get drafted straight out of high school if they declare.

posted by bender at 10:42 AM on February 26, 2011

did you also get a free ride scholarship for working at the paper? If so, then the point is valid, if not, then it's a trade off.

Even if I had been on a full journalism scholarship, the student newspaper could have paid me a salary. As far as I know, student athletes are the only people on campus who aren't allowed to be paid.

Most schools do not really earn money from their total athletic departments ...

That's because they choose to spend as much as they bring in (or more). If they had to provide a small grant to each of their athletes as the cost of the program, they would make it possible by reducing expenditures elsewhere or raising more from donors.

The Football Championship Subdivision is irrelevant to this discussion. No one expects their athletes to be paid because those schools aren't generating billions in revenue.

Keeping in mind that much of the "profits" that football, and sometimes basketball, earn, would not truly be profits in the real world.

College football generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2010. There's unquestionably a lot of real-world profit in there. I suspect there's a lot more profit than people realize, but Hollywood accounting is going on.

I don't recall paying for the school paper, but I suppose there were ads.

Every college newspaper I ever saw (or worked for) sold ads. Part of it was to train advertising students, but the money did go towards the cost of producing the paper.

posted by rcade at 11:59 AM on February 26, 2011

And, I haven't even gotten into the issue of a football program just needing to get more booster money (you know sell a suite for $1mil) in order to justify paying more.

So the billions they already generate aren't enough to pay athletes, even though TV revenue for college sports has gone through the roof in recent years? Clearly there's no solution you would be willing to entertain that would allow college athletes to collect even a pittance of the revenue they help produce.

If the courts decided that this system was illegal and required colleges to pay their athletes $5,000 a year, a school with 716 athletes would be required to dedicate $3.58 million a year to this purpose.

Does anyone think any BCS school would shut down its athletic programs for lack of $3.58 million a year?

As of 2008, Big 12 schools generated from $38 million to $128 million in yearly revenue. So in all cases, $3.58 million would be less than 10 percent of revenue.

posted by rcade at 01:21 PM on February 26, 2011

If you think it's fair that BCS schools can pay athletes, but other schools can not, I guess that would change one's perspective.

I don't think the BCS is fair to the non-BCS conferences, but it is what it is. We're talking about whether it's fair for the schools that do generate enormous sports revenue to share none of it with their athletes.

Ohio State already has an unassailable advantage over UNT without paying players. I don't think a $5,000 yearly grant would make a difference.

posted by rcade at 09:57 PM on February 26, 2011

However it would work out with regards to pay isn't really the issue. The fact is, it could be done. Nobody is suggesting these athletes have to be paid huge amounts, just a little bit of spending money. It could be based on family need, on percentage of money a certain sport brings in to a university (obviously football and basketball bring in more money than, say, baseball and wrestling, so that can't be ignored in the equation).

But the idea these programs can somehow pay their coaches for the two major men's sports millions and millions, while each kid performing on the field faces scrutiny should a mere $20 come their way, is totally wrong, regardless of the arguments. Scholarships are great, but students in many programs at various schools receive scholarships, and very few of them bring in the amounts of money to their schools that football and basketball do.

posted by dyams at 08:54 AM on February 27, 2011

Again,(and seriously, for the last time) I think some of you need to get over this idea that every school in the country is raking in millions from athletics. As has been pointed out several times in this thread alone, most schools are losing money on sports. Most are not even making money on football (check my link to Oregon's finances in my last post) So, any call for additional money to be thrown at athletes is just going to cause most schools to dig deeper into that non-existent pile of money. Modern day athletics cost a ton of money, with only bigger football programs, and a handful of basketball programs making any cash.

I just don't see how you pay a wrestler less than you pay a fullback. I can't see the NCAA going to that type of a situation. Can't see them changing to a pay for play anytime soon either.

posted by dviking at 02:16 AM on February 28, 2011

Whether it's USC, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, etc. there is absolutely NO difference between how their football programs and those of NFL teams are run

I'm not so sure about this. I can't claim to know the details, but I do know that every NFL rookie says the same thing: it's a huge adjustment and a big step up. If there really were no difference in how the programs were run (except that in the NFL, you don't even have to pretend to be a student), would they say that?

posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:10 AM on February 28, 2011

bperk...so, using your data, USF football makes 4.5 mil. Okay, what do you think all the other sports at that school cost? I'll bet a fair amount that it's considerably north of 4.5 mil. That's the point, there isn't this huge pile of money from athletics to start paying athletes out of.

posted by dviking at 12:29 PM on February 28, 2011

That's the point, there isn't this huge pile of money from athletics to start paying athletes out of.

There never will be no matter how much they make because they don't want to seem as if they are running a profit. They will build a new athletic center or pay the coaches more or find some other way to spend each and every penny that comes in. The goal is not to give your revenue to the university, but to keep it in the athletic department. Paying the players will just give the universities a smaller pool to spend on coaches or some other such thing.

posted by bperk at 02:22 PM on February 28, 2011

The reason these programs don't make money is because they choose to spend everything they bring in to be as competitive as possible

Seriously, rcade, are you just trying to see how long you can make this go on?

The reson there isn't a big pile of money at the end of the football rainbow is that the money is used to pay for all other sports.

Even if USF does spend more on football than have to, just to be as competitive as possible, how does spending an extra $3million change that? All you'd be doing is spending $3mil per school more than they do now, as everyone wants to be competitive. Since most schools don't earn a profit on sports (from your link, not mine) all that means is more schools taking on more debt.

Yes, or no, do you really think anyone, especially the NCAA is going to allow schools to pay football players $5000 a year in pocket money, but not force them to pay all athletes that money? Title IX probably doesn't allow it , I could be wrong.

posted by dviking at 10:40 PM on February 28, 2011

What are they going to cut? As you've pointed out, no football program is cutting back because they want to be competitive. The other sports run pretty lean to avoid being cut out completely. I just don't see that happening.

Here's a great link showing that 25% of the money you keep referring to comes from taxes. Given that schools probably aren't going to cut money from existing programs to fund spending money, I don't think taxes are going to be raised to create this. And, even if all the coaches somehow did find a way to cut current expenses back in order to pay for the spending money, if the public is told that their taxes money was going to go to give athletes on full ride scholarships $5000 in spending money, I think we'd have some protests on that. You and I might find value in it (okay, you might) but the average taxpayer is not.

Lastly, my previous link to the Oregon football team shows what this link does as well, that is, revenue from sports is not on a ever increasing track. Oregon went down, and over all, the rate is slowing drastically.

Just don't see how it's feasible, without cutting more non-revenue sports.

posted by dviking at 05:12 PM on March 01, 2011

You look at the top line, I look at the bottom line. 30 years of running businesses I guess.

I don't see this happening even from a non-monetary standpoint, so perhaps arguing about whether, or not, all the schools have cash laying around for this is pointless.

UNT got that stadium approved before the state ran into budget issues, doubt they'd get it approved now. BTW, just drove by it this morning, it looks great. The old one was a piece of crap the day it opened. (not that I was there the day it opened, but the layout is awful.)

posted by dviking at 02:09 PM on March 02, 2011