Posted by potter444 on 6/16/2011 1:59:00 AM (view original):
Posted by cydrych on 6/16/2011 12:23:00 AM (view original):
So... it is only because football and basketball programs make tons of money that they are obligated to share their revenue with their players. It is only because some set of university employees (ADs, coaches, presidents, etc) are getting very rich that the normal scholarship arrangement for these players is unfair. Its not about fairness amongst the athletes. The programs that do not make enough money are not obligated to share their revenue, right?
Where does the line of entitlement get drawn? Is it every football program? Just the profitable ones? Is it the ones who pay their coach at least a million dollars? Is it the programs that have enough profit to re-invest into school infrastructures? Is it the ones that have had a player drafted in the NFL within the past 5 years? How much should the kids get paid? You think it should be from state sources or are you going to let the alumni decide how much financial power the university can wield? I assume you are endorsing the players as being employees of the college and dropping the illusion of the student-athlete. Are they allowed to attend classes at all? Won't they need some sort of player's union? How would a player's union even work if the players are only committed to the union for 2-4 years and then they are gone?
Face it: paying the players won't work. Your examples of Cam Newton, OJ Mayo, SMU are all excellent examples of schools and alumni cheating. That doesn't mean that the student-athlete concept can't/doesn't work, that it isn't fair. If these kids were really worth the big money that the schools make, the NFL (or someone with deep pockets) would set up a farm league to get those players in, get them paid, and start profiting from their unique talents. But they aren't worth all that, are they? Not really. It is the college branding that makes college football the big sell that it is. Its not Cam Newton that made Auburn profitable, its the Auburn alumni. Its not the lousy Texas team that they fielded that made them profitable, its the die-hard Longhorn fans that made them profitable. Yeah, the kids think its them, even some adults! Sure they think they are entitled to at least part of the profits. But its not... its all about the universities. The NFL knows it. The NCAA knows it. And now, you know it.
So jump on a different bandwagon. Relax some of the amateur status rules... let the kids sell their crap, let them sign endorsement deals, don't worry about what they drive. I'm fine with all that. But please don't keep beating the drum about how they need to be paid. They signed up as student-athletes, are treated like rock stars, but have no claim to any part of the school's revenue stream.
The Auburn alumni made Cam Newton profitable? If Cam Newton was an NCAA free agent coming out of JC, what would have been the price for his services in a free market? No BS, how much would a school pay for his services? The prestige and value of 1 year of an Auburn education? Really?
My point is not that schools should cut checks to each and every athlete. If you start from the premise that NCAA athletes are properly compensated by the traditional package (scholie, room, board), the REAL argument is how much is the proper compensation for each athlete. Not whether or not they should be compensated. I am just disgusted by the hypocrisy. It's a big cash cow....let every deserving person profit as an individual based on what the market dictates.
Listen, I own a business. But as a wise man once said, "Bulll$hit is Bull$hit and business is business. If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense." If the NCAA had some sort of mandatory academic testing that each athlete had to complete each year to continue playing, I would reconsider the argument about the student-athlete mission. If there were criminal penalties under State law for giving money to an "amateur" athlete, I would reconsider whether state-funded institutions were truly committed to "pure" amateur student-athlete. But there's just not. It's about generating money.
A "professional" farm league for pro football would have to compete with the NCAA. And an NCAA filled with schools that are largely state-funded, huge cash reserves and one that have decades of a head start. Moreover, an NCAA that turns a blind eye to payments and benefits to athletes. It just won't happen.
Long story short...just lift the false veil. For some athletes, the NCAA provides an opportunity to play a sport a person enjoys and they get a degree. For others, it is simply a training ground for a shot to go pro. The latter view, something institutions prey and profit on. To me, the NCAA and schools have shown that the key mission is profit. If that's the case, let everyone profit.
Nobody is tuning in to watch Ivy league games or a DIII clash between St. John Fisher and St. Lawrence.
And I totally disagree with you. Football and basketball fund Archery and Lacrosse and all the other sports that are not money makers. They fund the athletic playing and practice facilities.
Only 5 of 128 Div-1A schools actually made money on athletics and no one below Div-1A did.
There is no money unless you take each sport individually.
Yes, the big name Div-1A football teams make money. If that was split from everything else, you could pay only Div-1A football players some amount of real money.
Basketball makes much less money than football at almost every school. There is not a whole lot of cash there.
Nothing else makes money.
As an example, read this article:
Fan Fare - Paying College Athletes is not as Easy as it Seems
Look at what they say about Eastern Kentucky:
To illustrate why, Sandy says suppose the "cost of attendance" stipend was $100 a month for 10 months of the year.
"We have around 350 athletes," the EKU AD says. "That's a $350,000 expense in a $12 million budget. That's 3 percent of our total budget at a $100 (a month). What if the stipend was more? Either way, I don't know how schools at our level would afford it."
Now, if you made it $10,000 (10 months, $1,000) then it would be 30% of the total althletic budget to pay players ... no way anyone other than the super large 1A programs could pay players even $10,000 ... and paying what you think they should pay is not even in the realm of possibility unless you pay football players more than Lacrosse players. And that is certainly not fair for a public university to do. Now private universities, maybe, but not public, state controlled, colleges and universities.