Stan Gable
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Take it easy with the facts.
College Athlete Bill of Rights proposed in Congress
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Take it easy with the facts.
PhDeac
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The IRS rule specifically distinguishes scholarships from income. So according to the IRS, scholarships aren’t income. If football players receive a cut of the remaining 50%, that would be income. Nobody has said otherwise.
And both of us said that labor doesn’t depend on income and vice versa.
And both of us said that labor doesn’t depend on income and vice versa.
Do you consider student athletes to be labor? If so, all sports or just some? Full scholarship athletes only or all student athletes? Do you consider high school sports to be labor?
I don’t consider students athletes to be “labor,” which affects how I view this discussion.
DeacMan
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PhDeac - Tax expert.
BillBrasky
#PSF
Why not? Many of them work 20+ hours/week for the university in addition to the required schoolwork to stay eligible. They bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year for the school, not to mention the millions in marketing value that comes from their athletic performance. Why is that not labor?
Hell I'd argue that Wake's football players provide more labor than most of us who regularly post on this message board.
I don't consider how much time one spends doing something as an indication of if it is labor or not. Some people spend hours a day practicing the guitar, but I don't consider that labor. The time argument also goes the other way, that one may have a side job for 30 minutes per week, but it's still labor. So, I don't buy the time argument.
The fact that money is made is a good argument, in my opinion. However, I think the college student athlete is a unique position, and the government shares this opinion (which is why no taxes are paid). Money is made in some high school sports (Texas football), but I also do not consider that labor. Someone previously brought up the comparison to the military, which is interesting. I see athletic scholarships as mutually beneficial - the athlete gets a scholarship, room and board, and a great platform to potentially become a professional. I think this is why athletic scholarships are so desired and held in such high esteem in the US. I just think there needs to be options for those that want to go right into a professional sports career - a year of college should not be a requirement. The NBA has moved in this direction.
PhDeac
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I’m no tax expert. I just live in a world and know basic things that were confirmed by your IRS link.
DeacMan
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You have a love of false semantics when it is convenient. But at least we've established you are not an expert.
PhDeac
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You’re just mad that your Gotcha! only works as “Well actually...” legalese instead of how people live their lives. Just drop it. Your link made my point anyway.
DeacMan
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This sort of comes with a tone that athletes are somehow being forced into a bargain. I presume you are not implying that the only reason kids do their school work is to stay eligible.
Regardless, you are right that the only two sports at Wake that generate any meaningful revenues are football and basketball. And football likely greatly outstrips basketball in that regard (assuming what little data that is available has rational allocations among the various sports).
I think it is also evident that Wake is a middling school in terms of TV draw and therefore takes more than its "fair share" of the revenue sharing arrangement it gains from the conference (which pulls in about ~30M a year for each school save Notre Dame who has a "special" relationship that nets it a lot less). I.e. - our athletes are not really the piston that generates the vast majority of that revenue pull for the school outside of the fact the fill up scheduling spots for the schools that are. Point being I would not try to claim Wake athletes are responsible for that big slug of conference allocated revenue so much as are the programs of other schools with far more draw than our own fan base.
As things stand the school operates it's athletic department on very thin margins (if any margin at all). As at other schools, covid has made that evident.
We could change the model and start paying athletes in some sports for the revenues they help to generate. But that is a messy bargain and it would almost certainly come at a very significant cost to others associated with athletics at the school. And it also begs whether some athletes in the revenue generating sports deserve more revenues than others in the same sport.
It all gets back to what is the problem we're trying to solve and what is the mission of athletics at Wake more broadly.
DeacMan
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Someone clearly is confused about basic concepts and is folding all over himself, and it isn't me.
Let's take it from the top bc you can't point to the tax code as proving your point when you don't even grasp the most basic foundations of the code.
A - Everything you receive in the form of money, property and services is "income". That is the premise upon which the tax code is based. Per the IRS itself "an amount included in your income is taxable unless it is specifically exempted by law." See how that works? All you receive be it in the form of services, money or property is income.
B - The government then makes policy determinations (that can be expanded and contracted at any time) as to what of that "income" is subject to exemptions from taxation.
IOW, you only "live your life" a certain way relative to your income because the government has decided some income is treated differently for now than other income. Tomorrow they could just as easily decide that you can deduct only a portion of the tuition scholarship "income" from your taxes. Tomorrow they could just as easily allow you to receive a large per diem of "income" that won't be subject to taxation. That has never changed what is and is not income.
BlackjackMc
Gil McGregor
DeacMan...
What is the mission of athletics at Wake? I'd suggest the mission is income and exposure. I'm sure there are broader and more altruistic statements that could be made, but money is the foundation. Exposure is a secondary benefit. Otherwise the university could fulfill the broader and altruistic aims at the Division 3 level, minimizing the cost of athletics to intramural and club level.
What problems are to be solved? This is twofold. How do we allow athletes to generate income from outside sources and maintain the veneer of amateur status? Simple solution is to quit the idea of amateur and rescind restrictions on income from outside sources. The idea that the NCAA serves the purpose of maintaining "amateur" and provides an equal and fair framework for competition is and has been a farce. It serves as an instrument to maximize income for itself and a minority of its member institutions.
Second problem. Should athletes be paid by the university they attend for the income producing service they provide? This is more difficult. Most athletic department budgets appear to have expenses equal to or more than the income they generate. I'm not privy to that information but I suspect the accounting of cost and actual cost is quite creative. Who should be compensated? The athletes that produce income or all athletes on scholarship? I'm sure there are other issues. I believe this is the question most vexing to the universities. Paying athletes would require a real cash cost, thereby robbing the cream their creative accounting provides.
What is the mission of athletics at Wake? I'd suggest the mission is income and exposure. I'm sure there are broader and more altruistic statements that could be made, but money is the foundation. Exposure is a secondary benefit. Otherwise the university could fulfill the broader and altruistic aims at the Division 3 level, minimizing the cost of athletics to intramural and club level.
What problems are to be solved? This is twofold. How do we allow athletes to generate income from outside sources and maintain the veneer of amateur status? Simple solution is to quit the idea of amateur and rescind restrictions on income from outside sources. The idea that the NCAA serves the purpose of maintaining "amateur" and provides an equal and fair framework for competition is and has been a farce. It serves as an instrument to maximize income for itself and a minority of its member institutions.
Second problem. Should athletes be paid by the university they attend for the income producing service they provide? This is more difficult. Most athletic department budgets appear to have expenses equal to or more than the income they generate. I'm not privy to that information but I suspect the accounting of cost and actual cost is quite creative. Who should be compensated? The athletes that produce income or all athletes on scholarship? I'm sure there are other issues. I believe this is the question most vexing to the universities. Paying athletes would require a real cash cost, thereby robbing the cream their creative accounting provides.
If the mission was income they would only field two sports (football and men’s basketball).
BlackjackMc
Gil McGregor
If Wake wants to play for pay they are required to field a minimum number of NCAA sports. They are presently at the minimum.
If the only mission of college sports/NCAA was to make money, they would run the two big sports (or add women’s bball for title IX) and that’s it.
Stan Gable
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That is not how title IX works. A school would have to fund equal opportunities for women and men. That would be roughly 100 spots for women athletes.
That’s incorrect. It’s much more complicated than that - the law requires equal opportunities for men and women, in proportion to the makeup of the student body. This has been interpreted a variety of ways by different schools and conferences, but the bottom line is that the 85 football scholarships are not balanced out with women’s scholarships. You can look at the numbers for Wake (or any other school with football) and you will see many more total scholarships for men than women.
You all realize that congress can just change the tax laws right? If they want to protect college athletes from unintended massive tax liabilities, then they can just write that into what ever “college athlete bill of rights” they come up with.
DeacMan
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First sentence seems like a relative statement when it comes to comparing Wake to other schools. Wake invests a lot into "non-revenue" generating programs. If it was all about money and exposure the school would lower its standards and take a win at all costs mentality in the revenue generating sports. They have not taken that approach historically even as they do invest in those sports too.
I don't disagree about the veneer of amateur status. But making that change will come with a lot of unforeseen consequences and raise a host of other questions. And the overall accounting is real and audited. What makes it murky is how they allocate various buckets of costs and revenues to arrive at those overall totals. We know the TV/conference allocated revenues, we have the total revenues and total cost numbers and we have a general idea how those are allocated between men's and women's sports and revenue and non-revenue sports. At the end of the day if we were to pay athletes most schools would have fewer sports they would support. And I personally don't think that's a good thing.