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Football issues

The pay (i.e. scholarship) is the same now as it was in like the 80s right? Minus the billion dollar TV deals. So the schools are making tons more but the athlete pay is unchanged. How is that reasonable?

And the other non-revenue sports still existed back then as scholarship sports, so I’m unmoved by the excuse that football is needed to subsidize them.

When I started at Wake in the 80's there was no women's soccer and no women's volleyball and the facilities were absolute junk.
 
The pay (i.e. scholarship) is the same now as it was in like the 80s right? Minus the billion dollar TV deals. So the schools are making tons more but the athlete pay is unchanged. How is that reasonable?

And the other non-revenue sports still existed back then as scholarship sports, so I’m unmoved by the excuse that football is needed to subsidize them.

As I understand it the schools never made money in the past or even now. Everything went up massively like coaches salaries, facilities, travel, tuition, etc. were it not for tv money the whole thing implodes. Take away any money source - or add player pay - and the System begins to crumble. It is all a massive house of cards waiting for player or fan (pandemic) revolt.
 
So aren’t you describing a Tech Trade school? And wouldn’t a semipro team “authorized” by a college be a form of a trade school supported by fan money independent of academia with a profit potential. So we drill down to the basic purposees of trad schools vs academic schools and the worsening problem of merging the two while tiptoeing around pay and profit The current concept cannot continue to work. Just too many diverse goals. Let Wake sell is name to apro-prep for profit and prepare athletes for the pros

No, I didn't mean a trade school. I guess I'm thinking more sports sciences or sports business, etc. Not how to be a professional athlete per se. But I find myself enjoying D2/3 sporting events more and more. This big business stuff and all the arguments that surround it have reduced my interest substantially.
 
you get rid of college sports as the minor leagues and have it actually be amateur athletics

move what college football is to a proper minor league system


sure, it's not as much fun, but it's also much less ethically murky

So late bloomers/unheralded recruits just basically play club sports and never have a chance to realize their potential and get drafted?
 
somehow every other country in the world with professional sports figures out how to do it with American-style college athletics


and the soccer example still holds here -- the best guys still do go on to have long professional careers if they're good enough

Clint Dempsey, for example, played at Furman
 
What other country is churning out American football players through youth academies ?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But I am saying that deconstructing the college football model is a daunting task. Obvoiusly the collegiate system has produced the best American football players in the world, and some of its best athletes.
 
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of course it's a daunting task with too much money at stake for it to happen in our lifetime

but it's still a model with a lot fewer ethical and financial contradictions than college football as it is
 
of course it's a daunting task with too much money at stake for it to happen in our lifetime

but it's still a model with a lot fewer ethical and financial contradictions than college football as it is

Meh. Take a look at how we treat our Olympic athletes.
 
As I understand it the schools never made money in the past or even now. Everything went up massively like coaches salaries, facilities, travel, tuition, etc. were it not for tv money the whole thing implodes. Take away any money source - or add player pay - and the System begins to crumble. It is all a massive house of cards waiting for player or fan (pandemic) revolt.

The whole point of not paying players is that those funds get funneled into higher coaches salaries and new facilities. Clemson has a fucking waterslide in their football center and they pay Swinney and his staff over $16M per year.

The money is there for some reasonable payment of athletes in sports that make money. It would require lower coaches salaries and facilities that are somewhat less insane.
 
You have to keep in mind that the only way to get the education you need for one of those obscenely high paying college football coaching jobs is by playing college football.
 
The whole point of not paying players is that those funds get funneled into higher coaches salaries and new facilities. Clemson has a fucking waterslide in their football center and they pay Swinney and his staff over $16M per year.

The money is there for some reasonable payment of athletes in sports that make money. It would require lower coaches salaries and facilities that are somewhat less insane.

I'm old school, so paying college athletes is something I really want to oppose, but when major college football has become the huge cash cow it has with salaries and facilities you mention, it's really hard to say these athletes shouldn't get something out it. Most of the players don't play at the next level, but undoubtedly some suffer the effects of the physicality for the rest of their lives. Sure, you hope they get their degree and it leads to a fruitful career, but for many I'm sure it doesn't. It just gotten to the point of being ridiculous with what some coaches make and the cost of some of these facilities, when it's off the backs of the players that come through. Sure, Dabo's done a great job at Clemson and deserves to be well compensated, but he also was lucky enough for that opportunity to fall in his lap at a place that had the potential for that kind of success. I'm not sure Dabo could come to Wake and be as good as Clawson is or Grobe was. He's having the success he's having because of the player's he gets, much more than anything he's doing as a coach. Again, give him credit for waking the sleeping giant that Clemson was, but the credit for most of the success he's had is because the kids that have put the jersey on for him. Same thing goes for Saban, great coach, has done a great job at waking Bama back up, but he's not having that kind of success without the level of recruits he pulls in.
 
I’m not trying to devalue a scholarship, it’s definitely a huge thing for most athletes but it’s stayed constant for decades while the dollars flowing into others’ pockets and worthless theme park facilities have absolutely exploded.
 
So, who would you want in charge of college football - Adam Smith or Karl Marx? Isn't that what a lot of the arguments boil down to? Sorry, just being Socratic this afternoon. I know I don't have all the answers.
 
Non-revenue sports are mostly populated by white, middle to upper middle class athletes. So the college athletics system as it exists right now shuffles money earned by mostly black athletes (football and basketball) to mostly white middle class athletes.

Mobile rep

Non-revenue scholarships overwhelmingly go to kids with middle-to-higher income backgrounds. They are funded by revenue sport profits.

It’s a transfer of wealth earned by (mostly) lower-income individuals to the children of the affluent.
 
Mobile rep

Non-revenue scholarships overwhelmingly go to kids with middle-to-higher income backgrounds. They are funded by revenue sport profits.

It’s a transfer of wealth earned by (mostly) lower-income individuals to the children of the affluent.

There are plenty of lower-division schools that have far more sports than Wake does. For example, St. Andrews in Laurinburg has, in addition to every team Wake has: men's volleyball,beach volleyball lacrosse, wrestling, equestrian, swimming/diving, and e-sports. And trust me, football and basketball ain't funding those other sports. This is a small, private university that makes $$ off all their sports, not by selling tickets or t.v. rights, but by getting students to pay grant-aided tuition to come play at the university.
 
So, who would you want in charge of college football - Adam Smith or Karl Marx? Isn't that what a lot of the arguments boil down to? Sorry, just being Socratic this afternoon. I know I don't have all the answers.

Interesting question, clearly today's glorified D1 football requires Adam Smith in spades because it is highly market driven...which is driving the marketing desire for player payments beyond what they consider "incidental" paid scholarship. i would ask first what is the objective of a college/university versus a trade school. We do have that division clearly defined and their objectives to me should define the role of athletics in universities. The current thinking is to see the role of athletics as primary, and then it becomes a trade. We have decided that some advanced "trades" like doctors, lawyers, accountants as trained in universities must also have a considerable academic education - for societal benefits. Yet we have more and more moved FB & BB to be "trade" in nature while not emphasizing academics - even to the degree of paying them for our entertainment while they learn a trade. I say stop the charade, and call much of FB/BB what it is: an Adam Smith for-profit venture - but not directly associated with the universities. Everyone would be a lot happier.
 
I’m not trying to devalue a scholarship, it’s definitely a huge thing for most athletes but it’s stayed constant for decades while the dollars flowing into others’ pockets and worthless theme park facilities have absolutely exploded.

Well, technically, the cost/value of those scholarships has also gone up exponentially over the past few decades. In 1980, full year tuition at Wake was $3600 or so.
 
And college basketball is such complete and total garbage right now. The NBA has rendered the college game unwatchable with the one-year rule and the lack of continuity in programs.

As bad as Wake has been the past 10 years, at least we knew who was on our roster because they had to stick around for a few years. I turn on a Duke game and I've never heard of anybody except Zion Williamson.

Amen brother
 
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