Alabama and Clemson players should boycott Monday's game

[deacphan]

I don't think asking players to boycott the championship game is reasonable. (And it's also part of the reason that the side of administration / ownership will always have more power in sports, the athletes have a limited number of chances / years to give.) But the optics of so much money going to not-the-players is awful.

Salaries for some NCAA conference commissioners are skyrocketing. Here's why.​

this about sums up my issue. the idea of amateurism and this being a "non-profit" enterprise is laughable. the impact on universities and spiraling cost is a big issue. just kill the charade of amateurism and make it more similar to collegiate athletes in other countries.

 

[Biff Tannen]

Pretty good game so far. I'm glad they didn't boycott.

 

[Lohengrin]

Pretty good game so far. I'm glad they didn't boycott.

lol

 

[Rafi]

this about sums up my issue. the idea of amateurism and this being a "non-profit" enterprise is laughable. the impact on universities and spiraling cost is a big issue. just kill the charade of amateurism and make it more similar to collegiate athletes in other countries.

I think that would be a big net negative for sports and academics in the US.

When assessing the situation, consider that there are well established basketball leagues throughout Europe, and many pay nice salaries. Yet, no one from the US goes there prior to college to play. Instead, the opposite happens, and Europeans come to the US to play college ball and get an education.

 

[Dekin]

I think that would be a big net negative for sports and academics in the US.

When assessing the situation, consider that there are well established basketball leagues throughout Europe, and many pay nice salaries. Yet, no one from the US goes there prior to college to play. Instead, the opposite happens, and Europeans come to the US to play college ball and get an education.

Good point.
Also, by not boycotting tonight, the players who play well will increasing their value to make big bucks when they get drafted.

 

[Strickland33]

When assessing the situation, consider that there are well established basketball leagues throughout Europe, and many pay nice salaries. Yet, no one from the US goes there prior to college to play. Instead, the opposite happens, and Europeans come to the US to play college ball and get an education.

This isn't really right. At all. I'll stick to basketball, but I'm sure that you could make the case in other NCAA sports, too:

High school-aged Americans don't play in Europe because they aren't good enough, they aren't mature enough, and because don't have passports. The latter is especially important because a lot of domestic leagues have rules limiting international players on rosters. Plus, people who make the kind of claim that you're making take the level of competition for granted. Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler weren't remotely good enough for even mid-level European basketball. Most of the American high school washouts that go places with decent basketball leagues find that they're simply not good enough to compete. I'm not sure that playing in Qatar or Panama, among other places that host shitty basketball leagues, really complicates this point. Similarly, the "paying nice salaries" argument is crap. Some players make good money, but a lot of these teams pay shit wages and are really inconsistent in terms of actually paying their players. Regardless, nobody pays as well or as reliably as the NBA pays its athletes.

The main reason why, at least in my opinion, that there is not a viable alternative to the NCAA is that the NCAA has a monopoly on exposure for college-aged basketball players in the United States and the D-League cannot compete in terms of player development or basic human comfort (the salaries are pitiful). If professional sports teams in the United States took the European "developmental" model seriously (or the academy model, more generally), then I think you would see very different trends. It wouldn't eradicate the NCAA, but that's not what deacphan is talking about at all...

When you let the free market work itself out (pre-age limit NBA), then you'll find that the best players simply do not need the NCAA. Though, as is pretty clear by the NCAA and its school's reliance on stars to build brands and generate revenue, the NCAA and its member institutions absolutely need the best "amateur" players. That alone, IMO, is the case for paying players; with very few exceptions, they generate all of the value.

 

[Strickland33]

Good point.
Also, by not boycotting tonight, the players who play well will increasing their value to make big bucks when they get drafted.

Again, that's only because the NCAA has a monopoly on exposure. Change that and this college athletics isn't the only means of getting drafted.

 

[BillBrasky]

Strickland what do you want the structure to look like instead of the NCAA? Maybe you should do some pro bono marketing work for the NBDL.

 

[Dekin]

Even before college, there are very few sports teams at the high school level to feed the next level. Most team sports for teens are club teams that aren't associated with the schools they attend.
We lived I the UK for 3 yrs while I worked in Europe. If we hadn't moved back to the US, I doubt they would have ended up being the athletes the turned out to be.

 

[Rafi]

This isn't really right. At all. I'll stick to basketball, but I'm sure that you could make the case in other NCAA sports, too:

High school-aged Americans don't play in Europe because they aren't good enough, they aren't mature enough, and because don't have passports. The latter is especially important because a lot of domestic leagues have rules limiting international players on rosters. Plus, people who make the kind of claim that you're making take the level of competition for granted. Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler weren't remotely good enough for even mid-level European basketball. Most of the American high school washouts that go places with decent basketball leagues find that they're simply not good enough to compete. I'm not sure that playing in Qatar or Panama, among other places that host shitty basketball leagues, really complicates this point. Similarly, the "paying nice salaries" argument is crap. Some players make good money, but a lot of these teams pay shit wages and are really inconsistent in terms of actually paying their players. Regardless, nobody pays as well or as reliably as the NBA pays its athletes.

The main reason why, at least in my opinion, that there is not a viable alternative to the NCAA is that the NCAA has a monopoly on exposure for college-aged basketball players in the United States and the D-League cannot compete in terms of player development or basic human comfort (the salaries are pitiful). If professional sports teams in the United States took the European "developmental" model seriously (or the academy model, more generally), then I think you would see very different trends. It wouldn't eradicate the NCAA, but that's not what deacphan is talking about at all...

When you let the free market work itself out (pre-age limit NBA), then you'll find that the best players simply do not need the NCAA. Though, as is pretty clear by the NCAA and its school's reliance on stars to build brands and generate revenue, the NCAA and its member institutions absolutely need the best "amateur" players. That alone, IMO, is the case for paying players; with very few exceptions, they generate all of the value.

Thanks for the response, though I disagree with essentially all of it. Particularly the last paragraph. I don't think the NCAA needs the best players to build brands. The brands are already built. I'm currently watching the national championship, and besides Derek Henry, I couldn't have named another Alabama player prior to this game.

 

[Strickland33]

Strickland what do you want the structure to look like instead of the NCAA? Maybe you should do some pro bono marketing work for the NBDL.

I don't know anything about other revenue sports structures, so someone else will have to work through that example, but here goes:

The NBDL is an unsustainable model because it's basically a place where NBA teams send their players to beat up on bad competition. Very few guys who don't already have NBA ties (or whose agents haven't set up an extended audition with an NBA front office) break into the NBA.

I think that a better model would be something akin to the academy-model (I don't know as much about soccer/football, but there are basketball academies sponsored by national team programs/European league programs), where you have scouts identify the top amateur youth players and do room/board/training-regimes that are oriented towards preparing the next generation of players. That's basically happening with massive prep schools like Oak Hill or Bishop Gorman, among many others, though in my vision there would be an explicit institutional connection (school-NBA) and pathway towards upwards mobility.

I see this arrangement as operating alongside of more amateur-oriented or free-market NCAA institutions that doesn't generate enough revenue to have the compensation conversation in the former or compensate athletes in the latter. The NCAA would make significantly less money, regardless, but it would be less exploitative and more accurately live up to its student-athlete model, which I think actually works well for a majority of the athletes in NCAA sports.

 

[Strickland33]

Thanks for the response, though I disagree with essentially all of it. Particularly the last paragraph. I don't think the NCAA needs the best players to build brands. The brands are already built. I'm currently watching the national championship, and besides Derek Henry, I couldn't have named another Alabama player prior to this game.

But you only know about Alabama football because of the brand "performed" by elite players recruited by iconic coaches and broadcasted on national television for the past 50 years. Athletes and coaches build brands. One of those parties is compensated and the other is not. Nobody would watch (or pay to advertise on a broadcast of) UNC's JV basketball team against NC State's best intramural team. Nobody watches the Division III football championship and you most likely don't know/follow a single DIII program if you didn't attend or live near a member institution. And even then, you probably wouldn't do either. Etc. Etc. Etc.

 

[Rafi]

But you only know about Alabama football because of the brand "performed" by elite players recruited by iconic coaches and broadcasted on national television for the past 50 years. Athletes and coaches build brands. One of those parties is compensated and the other is not. Nobody would watch (or pay to advertise on a broadcast of) UNC's JV basketball team against NC State's best intramural team. Nobody watches the Division III football championship and you most likely don't know/follow a single DIII program if you didn't attend or live near a member institution. And even then, you probably wouldn't do either. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Of course they wouldn't watch UNC's JV vs NC State's intramural team, but they would absolutely watch UNC vs NC State, no matter who the players are, and that's the point. The passion and interest is about the competition between rival schools - it matters little the absolute skill of who is playing. The relative skill is important, as bad teams don't draw fans, but the absolute skill of the student athletes doesn't matter.

 

[Rafi]

I don't know anything about other revenue sports structures, so someone else will have to work through that example, but here goes:

The NBDL is an unsustainable model because it's basically a place where NBA teams send their players to beat up on bad competition. Very few guys who don't already have NBA ties (or whose agents haven't set up an extended audition with an NBA front office) break into the NBA.

I think that a better model would be something akin to the academy-model (I don't know as much about soccer/football, but there are basketball academies sponsored by national team programs/European league programs), where you have scouts identify the top amateur youth players and do room/board/training-regimes that are oriented towards preparing the next generation of players. That's basically happening with massive prep schools like Oak Hill or Bishop Gorman, among many others, though in my vision there would be an explicit institutional connection (school-NBA) and pathway towards upwards mobility.

I see this arrangement as operating alongside of more amateur-oriented or free-market NCAA institutions that doesn't generate enough revenue to have the compensation conversation in the former or compensate athletes in the latter. The NCAA would make significantly less money, regardless, but it would be less exploitative and more accurately live up to its student-athlete model, which I think actually works well for a majority of the athletes in NCAA sports.

In this model, no one is going to watch the D league games, and the fans, TV contracts, and money will stay with the NCAA. The D league teams currently have much more skill and talent than college teams, but what do people want to watch - Duke-UNC or the Maine Red Claws vs the Grand Rapids Drive?

 

[Strickland33]

Of course they wouldn't watch UNC's JV vs NC State's intramural team, but they would absolutely watch UNC vs NC State, no matter who the players are, and that's the point. The passion and interest is about the competition between rival schools - it matters little the absolute skill of who is playing. The relative skill is important, as bad teams don't draw fans, but the absolute skill of the student athletes doesn't matter.

They would only watch it because UNC's brand is its player. Hell, Michael Jordan basically shifted the entire paradigm by himself (and brought UNC's brand with him to Nike).

Relative skill only happens within the commodity that is an NCAA institution and its brand. Back in the days of the Big 4, the brand was regional rather than it being national. Prior to that, in the days when the urban Catholic institutions were dominant, it was even more local.

College sports as they are today is a relatively new construct. It wasn't always this way and it doesn't have to continue to be this way. I'm not that old, but the way that it was strikes me as being more equitable and closer to the NCAA's student-athlete model than the system on display today.

 

[Strickland33]

In this model, no one is going to watch the D league games, and the fans, TV contracts, and money will stay with the NCAA. The D league teams currently have much more skill and talent than college teams, but what do people want to watch - Duke-UNC or the Maine Red Claws vs the Grand Rapids Drive?

First, you have perfectly articulated the problem. College athletics is supposed to be about student-athletes, at least that's how the NCAA justifies its non-profit status. When it becomes about fans and TV contracts, you're not talking about a non-profit organization anymore and you need to seriously discuss compensation. That's the point of the article in the OP.

Second: well, that's because you can't watch D-League games outside of local and regional markets at the moment. That would change pretty quickly when the top talent can select into a different system of exposure/development. You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the NCAA is a monopoly.

 

[Rafi]

Second: well, that's because you can't watch D-League games outside of local and regional markets at the moment. That would change pretty quickly when the top talent can select into a different system of exposure/development. You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the NCAA is a monopoly.

No. If there were no rules and all the top talent could go wherever (D league, NBA, Europe, etc) the interest would still be in the NCAA competition.

 

[PhDeac]

Of course they wouldn't watch UNC's JV vs NC State's intramural team, but they would absolutely watch UNC vs NC State, no matter who the players are, and that's the point. The passion and interest is about the competition between rival schools - it matters little the absolute skill of who is playing. The relative skill is important, as bad teams don't draw fans, but the absolute skill of the student athletes doesn't matter.

I don't know how anybody who has followed Wake basketball or ACC basketball in general can say something like this. The passion and interest is definitely about the skill of who is playing. Every single ACC basketball team has had more interest when they've had better players.

 

[Strickland33]

No. If there were no rules and all the top talent could go wherever (D league, NBA, Europe, etc) the interest would still be in the NCAA competition.

For a time, sure, but it would be a very different product within a generation. The NCAA would still be popular (as it was), but it wouldn't be the same type of institution at all or, probably, anywhere near as profitable.

 

[Biff Tannen]

Agree with Ph. Games I cared about watching 10 or 20 years ago aren't worth watching anymore.