College basketball bribery scandal

[Deacfreak07]

The NCAA’s fundamental mistake through most of this defense of their power is that they should have allowed players to profit from their likeness from the get go. It’s hard to hold the moral high ground when you don’t allow people to make money off of themselves. If someone wants to pay a kid for their signature, who are you to say they can’t?

 

[Deacfreak07]

I have to pay more per game to watch my son play AAU basketball than I do for my Wake season tickets ($10-15 per AAU session), and that's not an exaggeration. High school football players in Texas would be getting a lot more than "$0.35 in their pockets."

AAU is probably more exploitive and corrupt than the NCAA.

 

[CDeacMan]

What a dumb post.

First of all, you and others are talking about changing rules that may possibly negatively impact a handful of players that will open the floodgates to dozens of other players to fail.

We already had a system in his kids went straight from HS to college. It largely failed so the NBA changed it. It’s a simple argument. Nobody can articulate why the old system would be better now than it was back then. It’s not some huge injustice if Zion Williamson plays college ball for one year. And it wouldn’t stop the flow of illicit money into college hoops if the next Zion goes to the NBA. And it won’t hurt Duke or make Wake better either.

The obsession with the baseball system is ridiculous. That system is based on a tradition of minor league baseball and the fact college baseball is a niche sport.

If your name is not Zion Williamson. If at 18 years old I have the marketable ability to earn millions of dollars that someone would be willing to pay me for, but arbitrarily a policy was made for that person to do so, that's a big injustice to me. Given time value of money, I've lost many millions of dollars by just missing out on that one year of earnings. And if that only turns out to be one of the couple of years I earn that amount of money, that's an even bigger injustice.

 

[Rafi]

The NCAA’s fundamental mistake through most of this defense of their power is that they should have allowed players to profit from their likeness from the get go. It’s hard to hold the moral high ground when you don’t allow people to make money off of themselves. If someone wants to pay a kid for their signature, who are you to say they can’t?

This is a different argument.

Ed O'Bannon made this argument, the courts agreed, all players received $1000, and now there are no longer NCAA football and basketball games and everyone absolutely hates Ed O'Bannon. I think that if you start handling student athletes like professionals (which they are not) and paying them to play sports, it will destroy college athletics, and everyone will hate the fact that a set-up that was a win-win for 99% of college athletes was destroyed. The current system, for almost all student athletes, works really well. It's a great combination to tie together athletics and academics, as they provide dual motivation. This is why college scholarships are so strongly desired across the US. Just let the elite athletes go pro out of high school if they want, and many of the acute problems will lessen.

 

[thatguy2016]

Being a student athlete is not labor. Did you play high school or college sports, by chance? Did you consider it a job?

did you play college sports?

I didn't, but my son did - non-revenue D1. It was absolutely like a job. His sport dictated when he could take classes and when he could not, pulled him out of class often to travel to compete, forced him to allocate a lot of hours to it, etc.

For my son, it was all worth it, but it was absolutely like a job.

I have been told of other non-revenue sports teams (within the ACC) who restrict what majors their athletes can pursue because certain majors have labs that are incompatible with practice and competition schedules.

whether this means athletes should get paid beyond scholarship and per diem is a separate argument

 

[Deacfreak07]

This is a different argument.

Ed O'Bannon made this argument, the courts agreed, all players received $1000, and now there are no longer NCAA football and basketball games and everyone absolutely hates Ed O'Bannon. I think that if you start handling student athletes like professionals (which they are not) and paying them to play sports, it will destroy college athletics, and everyone will hate the fact that a set-up that was a win-win for 99% of college athletes was destroyed. The current system, for almost all student athletes, works really well. It's a great combination to tie together athletics and academics, as they provide dual motivation. This is why college scholarships are so strongly desired across the US. Just let the elite athletes go pro out of high school if they want, and many of the acute problems will lessen.

I won’t disagree with your last sentence. I think the use of college athletics by professional leagues as free farm systems is a big problem.

It also seems pretty silly to scapegoat O’Bannon for the failure of video game manufacturers to not find a way to get a product done paying the source of that content. They seem to make it work with Madden.

 

[Rafi]

I won’t disagree with your last sentence. I think the use of college athletics by professional leagues as free farm systems is a big problem.

It also seems pretty silly to scapegoat O’Bannon for the failure of video game manufacturers to not find a way to get a product done paying the source of that content. They seem to make it work with Madden.

Madden is with professionals. As is 2K. That's the difference. NCAA games stopped directly after the O'Bannon case - it was the direct cause.

 

[Rafi]

did you play college sports?

I didn't, but my son did - non-revenue D1. It was absolutely like a job. His sport dictated when he could take classes and when he could not, pulled him out of class often to travel to compete, forced him to allocate a lot of hours to it, etc.

For my son, it was all worth it, but it was absolutely like a job.

I have been told of other non-revenue sports teams (within the ACC) who restrict what majors their athletes can pursue because certain majors have labs that are incompatible with practice and competition schedules.

whether this means athletes should get paid beyond scholarship and per diem is a separate argument

No doubt it is hard, and it can limit academic, social, and other opportunities. No doubt at all. But being in plays as a theater major can do the same thing, as can being in the pep band, orchestra, etc. Organizing a major biomedical research project as a student can also be extremely challenging. Those all require practice and/or significant time commitments, but I do not consider them jobs.

 

[awaken]

I disagree. We have amateur and pro sports in the US across a large number of sports, each with their own unique set of challenges. But if an athlete wants to try to play professionally, we should let them, and not force them into attending college when they really do not want to be student athletes.

You don't get it. It doesn't matter if there are professional alternatives and how deep they run into the talent pool. College basketball using the remaining talent will still be a billion dollar industry. They will be profiting immensely from the talent and effort of those kids. As such, those kids deserve their fair market share of the revenue they generate.

 

[knowell]

You don't get it. It doesn't matter if there are professional alternatives and how deep they run into the talent pool. College basketball using the remaining talent will still be a billion dollar industry. They will be profiting immensely from the talent and effort of those kids. As such, those kids deserve their fair market share of the revenue they generate.

So we decide to pay them and the whole thing collapses. Getting a large percentage of nothing seems worse. If you pay athletes directly, schools like Wake will drop out of that. You will have maybe 20 or so schools at the most that will be fine whoring out for the dollars. Mostly lower academic state schools. That small group of schools will be the farm system for the pros if people still decide to watch.

 

[Rafi]

You don't get it. It doesn't matter if there are professional alternatives and how deep they run into the talent pool. College basketball using the remaining talent will still be a billion dollar industry. They will be profiting immensely from the talent and effort of those kids. As such, those kids deserve their fair market share of the revenue they generate.

I get your argument, I just don't agree with it. In fact, you just made a fantastic argument against your case. If you remove all the talent, yet college basketball remains a billion dollar industry (which I agree with), then the talent wasn't running the industry and therefore does not need to be compensated. Rather, the schools and their name brands are running the industry.

 

[thatguy2016]

No doubt it is hard, and it can limit academic, social, and other opportunities. No doubt at all. But being in plays as a theater major can do the same thing, as can being in the pep band, orchestra, etc. Organizing a major biomedical research project as a student can also be extremely challenging. Those all require practice and/or significant time commitments, but I do not consider them jobs.

Being in plays as a theater major or organizing a major biomedical research project as a student or playing in the orchestra as a violin major are great examples of a college student preparing to work directly in his/her field post-graduation

playing lacrosse or soccer for 20 hours a week or running 90+ miles per week as a math or history major does not accomplish the same objective; the vast majority of hiring managers will look at that experience and shrug

 

[Rafi]

Being in plays as a theater major or organizing a major biomedical research project as a student or playing in the orchestra as a violin major are great examples of a college student preparing to work directly in his/her field post-graduation

playing lacrosse or soccer for 20 hours a week or running 90+ miles per week as a math or history major does not accomplish the same objective; the vast majority of hiring managers will look at that experience and shrug

I don't think that's true at all. Many of those hiring recent colleges grads are extremely impressed by D1 athletes as they recognize the time commitment it takes. I know I am. Additionally, for many students the theater, band, orchestra, etc are not related to the jobs they will take after college.

 

[Pilchard]

NCAA basketball and football players get paid. In addition to the academic scholly, free room, as much food as they can eat, swag, every D-1 football and basketball player now gets a stipend ranging from $2K to $K a year. Wake Forest pays its football and basketball players $3,062 a year. L'ville pays its athletes $5,362. http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-acc-cost-of-attendance-post.html. That doesn't even count the summer camp and related relatively easy money opportunities that college players have during the summers.

With the recent example of Doral Moore to the G League, where each player not on an NBA two-way contract gets $7K a month for 7 months, and they are responsible for their own food and lodging expenses. At a minimum, college athletes are paid comparably to G League players, and at most Power V schools where they maximize the non-monetary benefits, college athletes receive more compensation than G League players.

 

[Deacfreak07]

NCAA basketball and football players get paid. In addition to the academic scholly, free room, as much food as they can eat, swag, every D-1 football and basketball player now gets a stipend ranging from $2K to $K a year. Wake Forest pays its football and basketball players $3,062 a year. L'ville pays its athletes $5,362. http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-acc-cost-of-attendance-post.html. That doesn't even count the summer camp and related relatively easy money opportunities that college players have during the summers.

With the recent example of Doral Moore to the G League, where each player not on an NBA two-way contract gets $7K a month for 7 months, and they are responsible for their own food and lodging expenses. At a minimum, college athletes are paid comparably to G League players, and at most Power V schools where they maximize the non-monetary benefits, college athletes receive more compensation than G League players.

You can say $49,000 for 7 months. That’s ok to phrase it that way. Because the other amounts you are quoting are annual stipends. Let’s compare apples to apples.

For example, all 85 scholarship players on TAMU’s football team could make $49,000 a year if Jimbo Fisher only made $3.3M annually.

 

[Pilchard]

Made an error. G League players get $7K a month for 5 months or $35K.

People trot out Texas A&M and Bama as examples where the coaches have massive contracts as the example of available money to pay the players. But the top 4 highest paid coaches in the NCAA football are not representative of the 130 FBS football programs. There are a handful of football programs that make a ridiculous amount of money, but of the 130 programs, at least a 1/3 and probably closer to a half don't even break even. Right now, there are 40 D-1 coaches that make less than $1 million. Sounds like the solution is to have a super division where players are paid and there is no salary cap; colleges bid on HS players and pay them for 3 or 4 years; before they seek NFL jobs. Would guess about 30 schools would play in that arena. Have no doubt that WF would take a pass on that construct. Perhaps, that is where we are heading.

 

[RChildress107]

Being a student athlete is not labor. Did you play high school or college sports, by chance? Did you consider it a job?

I did. I am certain that I generated absolutely no revenue for my school though.

College basketball and football are a business. College field hockey isn’t. This isn’t that complicated.

 

[RChildress107]

So we decide to pay them and the whole thing collapses. Getting a large percentage of nothing seems worse. If you pay athletes directly, schools like Wake will drop out of that. You will have maybe 20 or so schools at the most that will be fine whoring out for the dollars. Mostly lower academic state schools. That small group of schools will be the farm system for the pros if people still decide to watch.

It’s possible to design a system that pays players a fair market rate (meaning Zion will make more than Mike Wynn), provides an education tailored to each individual (Zion would benefit from a program designed for future millionaire NBA players vs. your standard freshman divisionals), and still capitalizes on all of the fans who watch college basketball not for the quality but because they identify with a particular school.

If the NCAA won’t do it, hopefully someone else will.

 

[Pilchard]

I did. I am certain that I generated absolutely no revenue for my school though.

College basketball and football are a business. College field hockey isn’t. This isn’t that complicated.

It's also not as easy as it sounds as there are non-Football and men's basketball programs that are big money generators. UCONN women's hoop draws bigger crowds and better local TV than the UCONN men (and more revenue than all but the top tier men's programs). Why shouldn't the UCONN women get paid? LSU baseball drew more fans per game this year than the Marlins. College wrestling is massive in Iowa and Pennsylvania. College hockey is bigger than basketball at schools like Minnesota and BC. This isn't one size fits all.

Also, should every player get paid the same? If we are going to pay players beyond the stipend that all athletes at a school receives equally, why should Tua Tagoviloa get paid the same as the back up long snapper at Bama? Tua is likely worth 7 figures to Bama this year, but at least half the roster are interchangeable parts that generate nothing for the school and are lucky to be getting a free education, meals, room and perks. If we are going to make college sports professional, the best players on the best teams deserve big money, and the crappy players that don't produce should not only not get paid, schools should be able to pull their ship at any time for a better option. Can't go half-ass on the free market theory.

 

[RJKarl]

NCAA basketball and football players get paid. In addition to the academic scholly, free room, as much food as they can eat, swag, every D-1 football and basketball player now gets a stipend ranging from $2K to $K a year. Wake Forest pays its football and basketball players $3,062 a year. L'ville pays its athletes $5,362. http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-acc-cost-of-attendance-post.html. That doesn't even count the summer camp and related relatively easy money opportunities that college players have during the summers.

With the recent example of Doral Moore to the G League, where each player not on an NBA two-way contract gets $7K a month for 7 months, and they are responsible for their own food and lodging expenses. At a minimum, college athletes are paid comparably to G League players, and at most Power V schools where they maximize the non-monetary benefits, college athletes receive more compensation than G League players.

How our people didn't figure out a way to create a higher payment to athletes is crazy. How a podunk, garbage, state school like L'ville can pay their athletes nearly 2/3 more than we do shows a massive level incompetence.