11/05/24
January 06, 2007
Players want BCS cut: "Playing in a bowl is no longer reward enough for some players." With rising revenues for schools, conferences, and seemingly anybody not wearing a jersey on the field, are the claims legitimate or are some student-athletes losing perspective?
posted by PublicUrinal to football at 01:22 PM - 16 comments
Jon Saraceno had a column on this this week. From PU's link: "There's a philosophical side of the conversation," Foley said. "But there's a realistic side. I don't see how you have a system in place that just pays men's basketball and football players. Then it becomes just a pure dollars-and-cents issue." As Saraceno points out, that would violate Title IX guidelines. I've always said it's stupid to consider paying college athletes, but when coaches are making $4 million a year, I can see why people say players should get something. However, the correct (albeit idealistic) answer would be cut the coaches' salaries, cut the corporate sponsorship and take back some control of the games. My advice would be, if you don't want to play for your scholarship and your BMOC status, then don't play.
posted by SummersEve at 03:29 PM on January 06, 2007
From the linked article: It's right there in Bylaw 2.9 of the NCAA Manual: "Student participation in intercollegiate athletics is an avocation, and student-athletes should be protected from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises." I laughed at that one. The players ARE being exploited by the professional and commmercial enterprises. Plain and simple, without the player, there is no product to sell to TV execs. There is no product to fill the stadiums on Saturday afternoon. There is no product to sell team paraphernelia. There is no product to underwrite additional athelitic programs at their school. There is no product that provides a free farm system for the NFL. There is no product for under the table booster payments. There is no product........ I understand the players, well most of them, are compensated in the form of tuition, books, room and board and misc. expenses. But the compensation is measly compared to the revenue generated by the players. Also, unlike baseball, hockey, basketball and other professional sports, college football players must wait 3 years until after high school graduation to enter the NFL draft. So they are basically stuck accepting the terms from the NCAA if they want to play professional football. This might be an "outside the box idea" but why not pay the players? Why not give the option to the player to be a player only without the added repsonsibility of attending school. If the schools were truly interested in provding a good education for these players, they wouldn't subject them to so much travel, practice, meetings, etc... But in my humble opinion, the schools are more interested in the revenue generated by the players. The players are more like pawns in the revenue stream for the powerhouse schools. On a side note, I would love to know how much money the NCAA execs take in creating these rules designed to protect the rich schools. Simply, it just pisses me off so see these young kids being taken advantage of by elitist greedy people (school regents, tv execs, corporate execs, equipemt execs, etc..)
posted by danjel at 08:19 AM on January 07, 2007
I neglected to add this to my previous post. I would love to know the total amount of revenue and expenses OSU football generated this year. I would think most USA corporations would love to have such low expense ratios. Some fodder: What would happen if the OSU and Florida players refused to play in the championship game unless they were monetarily compensated?
posted by danjel at 08:24 AM on January 07, 2007
Here is some more fodder of both sides of the arguement to pay or not pay.
posted by danjel at 08:52 AM on January 07, 2007
I would love to know the total amount of revenue and expenses OSU football generated this year. I would think most USA corporations would love to have such low expense ratios. I did some research (see my link above). Last year, OSU football generated 60.8 mil and finished 28.5 mil in the black. That is a profit of almost 47%. If I was a player, football that is, I would like some of that cash.
posted by danjel at 09:05 AM on January 07, 2007
Why stop there? Lets pay our Olympians also. You can see how this would go. Its just another reflection of our greed driven society.
posted by sickleguy at 02:46 PM on January 07, 2007
Yes, that's exactly the same thing. Explain why the greed of college administrators is ok, but college players not so much.
posted by yerfatma at 05:07 PM on January 07, 2007
If I had to explain you wouldn't understand.
posted by sickleguy at 05:39 PM on January 07, 2007
As someone who worked his way through college with a few scholarships and a lot of his own work to secure a degree and get a good-paying job, I have a difficult time feeling sorry for guys who are being compensated more than my annual salary (depending on the school) in the form of a scholarship. At some schools, that's in the neighborhood of six figures per year. Do they make more money for their schools and the NCAA than they get back? Probably. But a lot of us in the real world do, too. Welcome to life, guys. College football is just like an internship program; it has its purpose, and if you make the best of the opportunity, you'll make your money, either playing pro football or using the free college degree to its fullest.
posted by TheQatarian at 05:54 PM on January 07, 2007
If I had to explain you wouldn't understand. Which is to say you don't have an actual argument, just a pull quote. Welcome to life, guys. College football is just like an internship program; it has its purpose, and if you make the best of the opportunity Sure, just like it except the vast majority of the interns never get a job in the industry and some of them don't even have any intention of doing so. I'll never understand why so many people here are perfectly fine with crusty old guys raking in money but get upset when the next generation wants a piece of the action, especially when there would be no money at all without the players.
posted by yerfatma at 06:14 AM on January 08, 2007
College football is just like an internship program; it has its purpose, and if you make the best of the opportunity, you'll make your money, either playing pro football or using the free college degree to its fullest. I certainly can respect utilizing the degree earned to its fullest to make a living. I don't agree with the assertion of the college degree being free. By "free", do you mean your donating all your time for practice, meetings, games, travel and special events? In my opinion, the degree is earned through hard work, the school isn't giving the degree away.
posted by danjel at 10:18 AM on January 08, 2007
I wouldn't call it an internship, but it is a hell of an opportunity. Get past the Title IX lawsuits, get past the fact that most athletic dept's would collapse, get past the tons of money spent on these kids to begin with... There's a simple supply and demand. For all the studs that might be missed if they sat out, there are slew of average college players that wouldn't be missed and would easily be replaced with players eager to play D-I football for free. Ideally, Congress would step in and tell the NCAA to quit being a bunch of greedy shitbrains, and threaten their non-profit status. And then, ideally, the NCAA and member schools would have to reign in coaches' salaries, etc. Then, ideally, the broadcast money would be cut and the schools would take back power from the networks and the bowl sponsors. But that's ideal. I agree with yerfatma that the old, crusty scumballs get rich for the wrong reasons. But I disagree that the answer is to pay the players. However, my answer is probably more idealistic than his, but neither one has a snowballs chance in hell of happening.
posted by SummersEve at 12:31 PM on January 08, 2007
There's a simple supply and demand. For all the studs that might be missed if they sat out, there are slew of average college players that wouldn't be missed and would easily be replaced with players eager to play D-I football for free. I thought we got over the idea that 'ready and willing supply of victims' equals 'morally acceptable' a long time ago, or did I miss out on the discussion where we decided that the minimum wage and barring little girls from working 80 hours a week in factories were really bad ideas after all?
posted by tieguy at 05:29 PM on January 08, 2007
Yes, you're right. There is no benefit to playing D-I football and it is comparable to working in a sweatshop. Silly me.
posted by SummersEve at 05:42 PM on January 08, 2007
The BCS is a real joke. Besides the eastern bias not all the teams within the NCAA system are really represented. Until they(NCAA) and school adms decide to do away with all the conferences and have a playoff system like the basketball NE<NW<SE<SW<W<N<S<E etc...then you can have everyone participate in a real national championship.l The other side of this coin is just greed......plain and simple....there is not one ad in the NCAA system that will vote for getting rid of the conferences and going to a playoff system that would allow all to go to the national championship game. The big schools make millions in TV and Radio revenues and the games in their conferences. SC isn't willing to give away the millions in TV revenue it gets from appearing on national television and neither is ND going to give up that much money.....BOTTOM LINE is the $$$$$$$$$$$..not just for the schools but the NCAA makes millions on all the sports by being in control. Sometimes the NCAA remembers me of the moron that ran the Olympic committee for all the years and had the greatest athelic in history give back his medals because he got 5 dollars for playing a baseball game during one summer. Avery Brundage was the worst thing that could have happened to the games. Like the NCAA he wanted to control everything.
posted by ucla512 at 12:17 PM on January 09, 2007
I'd have to say that while some of these athletes are in many ways exploited (there is far too much money involved in a supposedly recreational activity), their scholarships come with more than enough perks and NCAA regulations make sure they aren't forced into more hours than other college sports. The sport they chose to indulge upon was entirely a matter of their own selection. The argument that "[Us players are] taking years off our lives out here hitting each other, and we're not being compensated for it" is moot because they are receiving a great deal of compensation through education and training for the next level, where the compensation is quite fair. I personally liken the situation to a research student that works 60 hours a week for years before being afforded a chance at a cozy position with good pay. In some professions you simply have to slave yourself to prove you're worthy of the step up.