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CA about to blow up NCAA?

Pilchard said:
The problem with concept of paying athletes is that the financial circumstances/rules are completely different among the 130 FBS football programs and 350+ basketball programs. The Bowling Green football program is not making millions, and no one is interested in paying their players for their likenesses or to endorse their products. Same is true for all, but a handful of the college basketball programs. Yes, Zion Williamson and Trevor Lawrence are grossly under-compensated for the revenue that they create for their school and for the NCAA. Rondale Watson and Zach Dziengelewski (reserve OL for Bowling Green) not so much. The idea that every athlete should receive the same amount is almost as unfair as not paying them at all. Can you imagine any pro sports league paying each player the same amount regardless of their contribution? The idea of the same stipend for the star QB and for the 3rd team nose tackle who is lucky to have a scholly is total BS too.

If/when the free market opens on college football and basketball (and Title IX does create major roadblocks for that - how much profit does the WF women's basketball team generate? Less than zero; should the women be forced to pay money into the system if the program runs at a loss?), only a small fraction of schools are going to be able to play in that sandbox, and eventually, the star players from the most prominent programs will get the most (as they should) if players are going to paid what the market determines as fair. Could be wrong, but I see this as the end of WF sports attempting to compete at that level. WF does not and will never generate revenue (or have the same ability to generate sponsorships for its athletes) as the biggest schools with a national following. Mag League may be on its way.

By the way, basketball has an easier solution to this than football.

The NBA is on the verge (estimated to be 2022) of opening up the draft to HS graduates. Once that happens, HS athletes with ability generate revenue from endorsements and for simply playing basketball can elect to go straight to the pros (like baseball). Those that don't will have made the election to play under the rules that govern NCAA athletes. Football players don't have that option which further contributes to the argument that they should be paid when they are essentially forced to play in college before they can turn professional.
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This is a great post.

As I have written several times, the current system works really well for everyone, including 99% of the student athletes. Ruining it for the very select few that are already going to make millions is a terrible idea. In fact, I think it is clearly the best system in the world, as it encourages academics, provides fantastic training and coaching for athletes, and creates an enjoyable product. There are many other systems for athletic training worldwide, and I think they are vastly inferior to the US college student-athlete system. If there is a better approach in practice, I would love to hear about it.
 
Rafi said:
Suggesting that black markets only exist when the official system contains significant market failure flaws is incorrect. There are black markets in essentially all systems - they are absolutely universal. In addition, I think the black markets affecting high school athletes are pretty minimal; affecting fewer than 200 high school students annually. Finally, I think the black markets would greatly decrease if the top players were allowed to go directly to pro leagues.

In the next few years we'll have a much better idea of how much college scholarships are worth to the top basketball players, as the very top will be able to choose the college route or the developmental league for a $125,000 salary plus endorsements.
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I don't think the bolded claims are correct, and would be interested to see any sources you have. The vast majority of economic activity in this country has no significant black market component. The main exceptions involve things that are forbidden or highly regulated but desirable to large numbers of people.

The amount of corruption in college athletics that gets reported or prosecuted is almost certainly orders of magnitude less than the actual incidence. For every high profile Adidas executive that gets busted, I think there are hundreds of boosters giving $100 handshakes and similar acts of small-scale payola to try and influence players and their families, and not just to 5 star P5 basketball recruits.
 
Rafi said:
This is a great post.

As I have written several times, the current system works really well for everyone, including 99% of the student athletes. Ruining it for the very select few that are already going to make millions is a terrible idea. In fact, I think it is clearly the best system in the world, as it encourages academics, provides fantastic training and coaching for athletes, and creates an enjoyable product. There are many other systems for athletic training worldwide, and I think they are vastly inferior to the US college student-athlete system. If there is a better approach in practice, I would love to hear about it.
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"Ruining it for the few that are going to make millions" is a gross misstatement. 99% of college athletes - even revenue sport athletes don't get drafted, don't make millions; yet they generate millions of dollars in college. Craig Dawson was an awesome SG for us. Didn't get drafted; didn't play in Europe. Wake cashed several NCAA checks because of him.

There are plenty of HBO documentaries on the abuses within the system. Here are a few. These kids shift from employees to students as it is convenient for the college.

https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/student-athlete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhhexDroII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWtJOQAZvS0
 
Pilchard said:
The problem with concept of paying athletes is that the financial circumstances/rules are completely different among the 130 FBS football programs and 350+ basketball programs. The Bowling Green football program is not making millions, and no one is interested in paying their players for their likenesses or to endorse their products. Same is true for all, but a handful of the college basketball programs. Yes, Zion Williamson and Trevor Lawrence are grossly under-compensated for the revenue that they create for their school and for the NCAA. Rondale Watson and Zach Dziengelewski (reserve OL for Bowling Green) not so much. The idea that every athlete should receive the same amount is almost as unfair as not paying them at all. Can you imagine any pro sports league paying each player the same amount regardless of their contribution? The idea of the same stipend for the star QB and for the 3rd team nose tackle who is lucky to have a scholly is total BS too.

If/when the free market opens on college football and basketball (and Title IX does create major roadblocks for that - how much profit does the WF women's basketball team generate? Less than zero; should the women be forced to pay money into the system if the program runs at a loss?), only a small fraction of schools are going to be able to play in that sandbox, and eventually, the star players from the most prominent programs will get the most (as they should) if players are going to paid what the market determines as fair. Could be wrong, but I see this as the end of WF sports attempting to compete at that level. WF does not and will never generate revenue (or have the same ability to generate sponsorships for its athletes) as the biggest schools with a national following. Mag League may be on its way.

By the way, basketball has an easier solution to this than football.

The NBA is on the verge (estimated to be 2022) of opening up the draft to HS graduates. Once that happens, HS athletes with ability generate revenue from endorsements and for simply playing basketball can elect to go straight to the pros (like baseball). Those that don't will have made the election to play under the rules that govern NCAA athletes. Football players don't have that option which further contributes to the argument that they should be paid when they are essentially forced to play in college before they can turn professional.
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i am not sure why you quoted my post. I agree with you that the obstacles to having colleges directly pay the student athletes market rates are very high and probably insurmountable. The best that could be done at most colleges is some across-the-board increased stipend which would never be enough to eliminate the black market problem in college sports. Thus, I think the only realistic solution, which also happens to be "fair" at least in my mind, is to remove the obstacles to players being able to have jobs or receive other consideration from outside parties. I think you are correct that Bowling Green's backup O line is not going to get any image money or anything else, but that's a feature, not a bug.

Also under this system I think you could have significant institutional variability. You might have some coaches and athletic departments who would decide they will not allow outside jobs or compensation, and anyone who does these things is violating team rules and can't play. So be it. At least it is all open and above board and everyone knows going into it what the deal is, as opposed to the current "system" of the most valuable players and their families extracting cash in whatever back door way they can.
 
No college athletes are being exploited. At least not because they aren't getting paid enough. The real exploitation to me takes place where they are not given a real chance to obtain an education. Either by forcing them into sham classes, or onto non-degree tracks, or whatever - just to keep them eligible. And then discarding them when their eligibility is up.

Paying athletes $10k, or $20k, or $30k more a year is not going to make the black market for top players go away. You think some kid who would take $50k today to attend a certain school is going to turn it down tomorrow because they know they'll get the bigger stipend once they get there?

I do agree that we need to figure out a way to loosen the rules on athletes making money on their likeness, or however they can, really. Abuse of that system has always been the concern and I don't know how you deal with that. I guess one way to deal with it is just to ignore it - let it be the wild, wild west. Does that mean that schools with a lot of money but no basketball tradition, for example, could suddenly start stocking up on top talent just by writing them bigger checks? I don't know, maybe? Letting kids go straight to the NBA will do away with some of that since there will be fewer sure things to bid for.
 
Deacon923 said:
I don't think the bolded claims are correct, and would be interested to see any sources you have. The vast majority of economic activity in this country has no significant black market component. The main exceptions involve things that are forbidden or highly regulated but desirable to large numbers of people.

The amount of corruption in college athletics that gets reported or prosecuted is almost certainly orders of magnitude less than the actual incidence. For every high profile Adidas executive that gets busted, I think there are hundreds of boosters giving $100 handshakes and similar acts of small-scale payola to try and influence players and their families, and not just to 5 star P5 basketball recruits.
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Name an economic market in the US, and we can discuss the illegal forces at play.

Yeah, $100 handshakes aren't happening, except for the very top athletes (and in those cases it's much more than $100). Only highly organized payments, funneled through other companies (mainly shoe companies), are occurring. Otherwise, rival schools would expose the $100 handshakes immediately.
 
awaken said:
"Ruining it for the few that are going to make millions" is a gross misstatement. 99% of college athletes - even revenue sport athletes don't get drafted, don't make millions; yet they generate millions of dollars in college. Craig Dawson was an awesome SG for us. Didn't get drafted; didn't play in Europe. Wake cashed several NCAA checks because of him.
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I know very little about Craig Dawson as a person. He was a great shooter and seemed to be an excellent representative of the university. I looked him up after you brought him up, and he seems to be doing quite well as a high school basketball coach, a position he likely could not have without a college degree. https://www.coachcraigdawson.com/

In addition, the first article I found on him included this quote, "I wouldn't trade my experiences at Wake for anything and feel it has made me a better coach and more importantly a better person for having done so." So you seem to have chosen a bad example for your argument.
 
scooter84 said:
No college athletes are being exploited. At least not because they aren't getting paid enough. The real exploitation to me takes place where they are not given a real chance to obtain an education. Either by forcing them into sham classes, or onto non-degree tracks, or whatever - just to keep them eligible. And then discarding them when their eligibility is up.
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This is absolutely true and a great point. This type of exploitation would also be more common and a lot worse if a change was made from "student-athletes" to "professional athletes at colleges."
 
I’d argue that college football players and high school football players and maybe NFL players are being exploited because they don’t fully understand the impact that repeated blows to the head will have on the future health of a not insignificant percentage of them

But that’s sort of a different argument than the one asking for student athletes to be given a percentage of the revenue they create.
 
I still don't see a strong argument as to why a player can't make money off their likeness
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
I still don't see a strong argument as to why a player can't make money off their likeness
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I don't necessarily disagree, but it opens up a huge can of worms. Who polices what is considered reasonable payment for an athletes likeness? What's to stop Alabama boosters from paying all starters $50K for using their likenesses in cardboard cutouts at car dealerships? What's to stop a UNC booster from paying key contributors $100K for a signed jersey? Recruiting would become a massive bidding war, light years beyond what bagmen do today.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
I still don't see a strong argument as to why a player can't make money off their likeness
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They can. They just can't if they want to maintain their scholarship/eligibility, because the NCAA/school wants to make the money. The same way scientists/engineers usually can't make money off of their intellectual property while compensated by their employer and using the employer's lab, equipment, etc., the IP belongs to the employer because it is developed under their umbrella. If the player wants to make money off his likeness, he is free to not play college sports and make as much money as he wants off of his likeness. Nobody is making them choose one way or the other, it is their choice. But Zion Youtube mixtapes excluded, 99.9999% of these athletes have a marketable likeness solely because of the platform that the NCAA gives them.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
They can. They just can't if they want to maintain their scholarship/eligibility, because the NCAA/school wants to make the money. The same way scientists/engineers usually can't make money off of their intellectual property while compensated by their employer and using the employer's lab, equipment, etc., the IP belongs to the employer because it is developed under their umbrella. If the player wants to make money off his likeness, he is free to not play college sports and make as much money as he wants off of his likeness. Nobody is making them choose one way or the other, it is their choice. But Zion Youtube mixtapes excluded, 99.9999% of these athletes have a marketable likeness solely because of the platform that the NCAA gives them.
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Spot on. Good analogy.
 
Rafi said:
I know very little about Craig Dawson as a person. He was a great shooter and seemed to be an excellent representative of the university. I looked him up after you brought him up, and he seems to be doing quite well as a high school basketball coach, a position he likely could not have without a college degree. https://www.coachcraigdawson.com/

In addition, the first article I found on him included this quote, "I wouldn't trade my experiences at Wake for anything and feel it has made me a better coach and more importantly a better person for having done so." So you seem to have chosen a bad example for your argument.
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No, he's not a bad example. He's an example of a productive player who had no professional career. Previous posts made it sound like every college player is en route to a lucrative professional career. This is simply not the case. Craig was very important contributor to a team that brought in tens of millions of dollars to the university. I'm glad he enjoyed his time at MSD, and remembers it fondly. I'm glad he parlayed his Soc degree into coaching. I just think he should have some extra zeroes in his checking account.
 
Rafi said:
Name an economic market in the US, and we can discuss the illegal forces at play.

Yeah, $100 handshakes aren't happening, except for the very top athletes (and in those cases it's much more than $100). Only highly organized payments, funneled through other companies (mainly shoe companies), are occurring. Otherwise, rival schools would expose the $100 handshakes immediately.
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I know some guys who grew up playing football in Miami who said they would get $100 handshakes in youth leagues from people who bet on the games. These are marginal college football players you’ve never heard of.
 
PhDeac said:
I know some guys who grew up playing football in Miami who said they would get $100 handshakes in youth leagues from people who bet on the games. These are marginal college football players you’ve never heard of.
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Yeah, other college programs don’t care about that. And paying student athletes won’t stop that. It’s unrelated.
 
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