Athletes being "paid"

[Lohengrin]

Not true. They are paying to see GOOD players wearing the jersey of their team. Look at ticket sales for losing teams vs. winning teams.

I gather you're a train jumper then? You go watch, say, UNC when they have the best players in the state? Most of us will stay with Wake even though our players are often the worst.

 

[Deacland]

I'm opposed as well, and I do believe a college education for free is compensation a plenty. Also, I don't hear much about how the colleges provide a venue for these folks to show their talents. Football has always paid for the bulk of the athletics bills and will always have to. If this happens, it will only be the big dogs who survive, I fear.

The pros are out there, essentially when anyone wants to go - within NCAA requirements at least. And I've never figured out how this would come down - do all make the same? If not, how do you determine which athletes make what? And I don't think that's an easy answer, especially given Title IX.

Respect the opinions of those that feel differently, but I'll never move to that position on this one. And, yes, I'm "old" (Class of 1969), but I don't think the current world dictates such a move as this.

 

[avalon]

Besides, we are already paying college athletes. If it helps conceptualize it, think of it as if the schools weren't providing athletes a scholarship but, instead, are paying them the exact monetary amount of tuition and expenses. That's compensation on any definition of the term.

So then it's collusion.

 

[avalon]

Very few fans pay to see named players, even in the pros. They go to see the name on the front of the jersey. Take any one of our players out of a Wake jersey and WGAF?

So why spend so much on recruiting? Schools can just recruit a group of guys from the local area and save a ton of money. Ditto for the pros, just field a team of guys at the league minimum.

The players matter. Better players -> better teams -> more $$$$.

 

[RJKarl]

My guess is there are less than 500 full scholarships (this includes adding the 1/2 and 1/4 scholarships together) at most D1 schools. If every scholarship would get $5000 as a stipend per year, it would cost D1 schools a max of $2.5M/year.

With the massive TV contracts conferences get, are given to March Madness and the new football deal, this money could easily be found.

If an athlete is asked to take summer school the stipend should be more.

 

[Junebug]

Colleges don't want to attract the best players for economic reasons?

If scholarships are pay, why do the best athletes often go to the public schools that "pay" the least?

Socrates,

The primary mission of a college is not to make money. It is to educate and train its students.

Good athletes go to public schools because of the ancillary benefits, like the possibility of winning a championship, proximity to family, the pride of playing for a good coach/program, more exposure for the next level, etc. I would bet that the vast majority of posters on this board have at some point in their lives willingly accepted a job that paid less money than they could have gotten for similar ancillary reasons.

 

[RJKarl]

"Originally Posted by PhDeac View Post
Colleges don't want to attract the best players for economic reasons?

If scholarships are pay, why do the best athletes often go to the public schools that "pay" the least?"

I can't believe the statement PH made. It's even dumber than Ish Smith isn't an ACC quality player after setting a frosh record for assists. Then in other years.

Why would would an athlete go to a "public school that pays less"? Hmmm let me think about this. Where would a player have a better chance to make the pros- a cheap school like Alabama or Texas or an expensive school like Wake Forest or Duke?

In basketball it's even more dramatic- cheap school like Kentucky or FL or expensive school like Drexel or Bucknell?

 

[awaken]

Socrates,

The primary mission of a college is not to make money. It is to educate and train its students.

Then why are they in the entertainment business? If you were to act in a blockbuster movie, would you accept a scholarship for one of your kids as payment, or would you want to get a market set rate?

Who agreed that a scholarship is just payment? Is this negotiable? Why do football players at small schools not on TV get the same "pay" as those in the P5?

The bottom line: Since the advent of college sports on TV, the schools entered the entertainment business. They are cartels negotiating a one-sided bargain. Purists need to not watch college sports on TV, and pine for the day when you had to attend a game to watch it. Since that clock will not be turned back, and since schools are not refusing or donating TV money to charity, we need to deal with the issue that those generating the revenue are not getting a fair share of the entertainment they provide.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

I gather you're a train jumper then? You go watch, say, UNC when they have the best players in the state? Most of us will stay with Wake even though our players are often the worst.

Do you think the people who care enough to spend a lot of time posting on a college sports message board are representative of the general sports fan population?

 

[awaken]

Ever since colleges entered the entertainment business, they've sacrificed their academic integrity. Their athletes are accepted as academic exceptions, are in easy majors (often with little to no market value), and carried by their tutors. Quite often, they cannot choose their major. See Robert Smith at tOSU as one example. Of course, UNC has carried this even further by removing any pretense of educating them.

So ask yourself what would an honest system look like?

I just read Feinstein's The Last Amateurs, which is about the Patriot League. They maintained academic integrity by running every athlete's admittance by all the university presidents - every one had to sign off before the kid could play. That is one honest system, but I am not sure the collective SEC has that much integrity, and the Patriot League is not tempted by TV dollars.

Another honest system is a free market system where schools sponsor teams. The players that desire to go to college (now), and can get in on their own merits, can. Others may save their money and attend later. Schools acknowledge they are a sponsor in the entertainment business, and do not sacrifice their academic integrity.

 

[Tobacco Road]

Colleges don't want to attract the best players for economic reasons?

If scholarships are pay, why do the best athletes often go to the public schools that "pay" the least?

Because there is other "value" in playing college football? Go to a big school and get more recognition/visibility to better position yourself for your professional career. They may feel it is a better fit to prepare them and to learn the skills for a professional career. I think that can be an example of where it isn't just about the money, but that there is significant non-monetary value in the college athlete experience/training.
Doesn't mean I think college athletes should never get paid, but I'm not sure I have seen a great proposal of how that will work. Might just be that college sports have gotten so big, there is not a single great solution for everyone.

 

[PhDeac]

Recognition and visibility provided by TV. You can't say education is pay though. And the returns of undergrad education continue to diminish.

 

[BillBrasky]

I just read Feinstein's The Last Amateurs, which is about the Patriot League. They maintained academic integrity by running every athlete's admittance by all the university presidents - every one had to sign off before the kid could play. That is one honest system, but I am not sure the collective SEC has that much integrity, and the Patriot League is not tempted by TV dollars.

Hate to break it to you but Tommy Amaker and Harvard have found a way to get around that. There is no honesty in college athletics. But there isn't a whole lot of honesty left in collegiate academia either. They're locked in a similar arms race, and in both instances its the students that are sacrificing in order to pay for the bloated salaries of administrators and for shiny new facilities that a majority of them will rarely use.

 

[PhDeac]

Hate to break it to you but Tommy Amaker and Harvard have found a way to get around that. There is no honesty is college athletics. But there isn't a whole lot of honesty left in collegiate academia either. They're locked in a similar arms race, and in both instances its the students that are sacrificing in order to pay for the bloated salaries of administrators and for shiny new facilities that a majority of them will rarely use.

Excellent post.

 

[Lohengrin]

Recognition and visibility provided by TV. You can't say education is pay though. And the returns of undergrad education continue to diminish.

I don't [say education is "pay"]. It's a benefit. College athletes are not paid, and never should be paid. They are amateurs by definition. It's only the TV money that fuels this passion for paying players. In college baseball, where there is the option for a player to go play in minor leagues right out of H.S., or go to college and play, there is no argument or concern that they should be paid. It's a "farm team" issue, and that IS NOT on the colleges.

 

[Tobacco Road]

So why spend so much on recruiting? Schools can just recruit a group of guys from the local area and save a ton of money. Ditto for the pros, just field a team of guys at the league minimum.

The players matter. Better players -> better teams -> more $$$$.

Yes, but to some extent, it is the best players from the available pool. There are much better players to watch in the pros, yet college is still VERY popular. More specifically, people want to see their team win. If you took the current "money makers" off of college football teams, I think it would still make money. But, I am not sure how much. It would be interesting if we had a crystal ball to see what college football would be if there was an NFL minor league for the most elite athletes. (How much) Would interest drop off for college football? Would the better academic schools have a stronger position, now that education might be a bigger factor in the decision (choosing college or knowing the NFL is very unlikely)?

 

[vadimivich]

There is a political agenda about this and I find no merit to that agenda.

The political agenda being capitalism? Do something of value and receive commensurate compensation for it?

I'm really confused as to whatever other political agenda there could possibly be.

 

[Lohengrin]

The political agenda being capitalism? Do something of value and receive commensurate compensation for it?

I'm really confused as to whatever other political agenda there could possibly be.

It is capitalist to compensate people for JOBS, but I and others don't consider college football a job. The political agenda, I would say, is a sort of social issue -- give underprivileged kids a cut of big money. You'd have to ask one of the proponents about it for more detail I'd imagine. It's interesting that people who are no friends of capitalism generally seem very high on capitalism as an argument on this issue.

 

[vadimivich]

It is capitalist to compensate people for JOBS, but I and others don't consider college football a job.

It's not capitalist to compensate people for some arbitrary definition of "jobs" (otherwise you'd be against people receiving compensation for investing! that isn't a "job"!) - it's capitalist to compensate for performing actions that produce value. I don't think at this point that it's really arguable that playing college athletics produces enormous value.

 

[Tobacco Road]

Devil's advocate:
If these college players are so valuable, why hasn't someone developed a competing system that would more fairly compensate them? A valuable resource/market is not going to exist very long in a capitalist society without others trying to come in to make a buck.