Dreams Unfulfilled, Graduate Unskilled -- NCAA Athletics and Exploitation

Ed O’Bannon: The Curt Flood of college athletics.

Anything that applies the Ned Stark treatment to the NCAA is OK in my book. Vampires, the lot of them.

I’m going to admit I read neither your article nor the Atlantic Monthly one, but I did read the ESPN one. And I also admit I’m paring it all down to this one line, but:
“[The solution is:] Disconnect big-ticket sports from the schools.”

The problem this doesn’t address is that the overwhelming majority of college football (and other athletic players) DO NOT EVER play professionally. So what about the people who love the sport, who relish the chance to play - even if it’s as part of the scout team - and are absolutely thrilled to get a free college education AND the chance to continue playing a sport?

They’d be the ones most disserviced by a break between schools and their athletic programs. And they’re the majority of the constituent makeup.

I read the article and was amazed at the abuses the NCAA has gotten away with while trying to hold on to their power. I read the article from a link on a Frank Deford aritcle on cnnsi.com and it was not a pay site. Once 4 - 5 super conferences form and we end up with a playoff, the NCAA is no more.

I must say that that is an extremely well thought out commentary on an incredibly convoluted and dense subject. The lack of medical / ADD / disability insurance is the most disturbing in my estimation. This should be applicable to every kid who sets foot on a practice field, not just the scolly winners.

I had a full ROTC ride in school, and the USAF paid me $150 a month just to help with day to day expenses in addition to the tuition, books, etc. There has to be some way to help an athletic scholarship student in a similar fashion so that he doesn’t need to sell signed hats for tattoos, or whatever ( the stupid ones probably still will, but that’s a personal ethics issue, not a process problem).

Between the NCAA, the BCS and the Conferences, I’d say collegiate sports is in just about as bad of a place as possibly can be. $$ rule the day, just like on Wall Street, which flat sad.

First, thanks for the overview of the law.
That article was wonderful, and yours was equally wonderful.

Second, on the topic of scholarships for various athletic clubs, I couldn’t agree with your points any more than I do. Why do we pick and choose which club members to universities receive scholarships? Most of these sports really are amateur athletics and I’m not sure why such a large budget is given to them in the first place. I do know that I was on plenty of college travel clubs, both academic and athletic, where we didn’t receive much university funding, but we still participated, and we still competed to a high level (even taking the Ultimate Player’s College Championships as a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hodags.)

If a club makes money, by all means, pay the players. If the players of a sport are not making the school money, then presumably they are only benefiting themselves to the extent that they enjoy the sport, and should therefore do it on their own dime. I never had a problem ponying up a little bit of cash to get a hotel room with 5 dudes, and buying some gas to get to the field and play. I’m not sure why Men’s Lacrosse, or what have you deserves more funding.

Good read. Frank Deford called that Atlantic Monthly piece “the most important article on college sports ever written”.

I’ve never understood the concept of these male non-revenue sports. Do kids playing tennis, golf and swimming “need” scholarships? Let’s put it this way, I’ll bet Highland Park and Plano churn out a lot more D1 athletes in those sports than South Oakcliff.

I’ve always found it weird that football players, many from some of the poorest areas of the country, are sacrificing their bodies in a brutal gladiator sport to subsidize a bunch of upper-class kids dicking around in khakis with a ball and a stick in tournaments no one watches.

I would be in favor of a system that paid former players for the use of their likeness. Granted this gets a bit tricky and would probably just result in the sale of say a number 10 Texas jersey as opposed to a VY one.

But it could also work like the actors guild (or at least how I understand it) when you make a commercial, every time it’s shown on TV you get paid. So when the LHN replays classic Texas games, some of that money should be directed to the players that played in the games, in proportion to how much they played.

This would avoid problems with title 9, and would prevent problems with paying players during school. Nobody is going to rewatch a girls soccer game 10 years down the road, and if they do, the girls would get paid in the same way.

Granted, you would essentially be promising to pay players in the future and the LHN would give Texas a HUGE recruiting advantage. But that’s as it should be.

I’ve always found it weird that football players, many from some of the poorest areas of the country, are sacrificing their bodies in a brutal gladiator sport to subsidize a bunch of upper-class kids dicking around in khakis with a ball and a stick in tournaments no one watches.

Wow, never thought about it that way, unfortunately, there is a ring of truth to your statement

“I am in favor of paying the players in revenue sports for their efforts. I am not, however, in favor of free agency in college sports, nor am I in favor of uncapped compensation.”

So the players are workers who deserve to get paid and protected just like you, me and everybody else - except not somehow for reasons that apparently can’t be stated.

It seems to me in the next ten years or so, a team made up of one year rent-a-players (i.e. john calipari’s team) might just decide that the NCAA tournament is not worth the cost of their scholarships. The ensuing boycott could be epic.

I’ve always thought that D1 athletes where getting hosed in two areas: jersey sales and video game-image licensing. I’ll add medical care to the list.

Great analysis of a great article.

Sholevar —

Take the problems inherent in any sport without salary caps (for instance, KC Royals vs NY Yankees) and multiply them times infinity if you want to imagine what happens to college football with no cap.

Playing sports in college is neither a right nor a job. If you don’t like the arrangement, don’t sign up… Forego the scholarship and go to trade school, get a job, or pursue grants like everybody else who goes to college.

The only thing in these articles that moves me about the “plight” of college players are the risks of injury. I think it makes sense to pay the medical bills for kids who can no longer play ball. But royalties on jerseys? If I wanted to watch entitled prima donnas “holding out” for bonuses, I can turn on the NFL. (I don’t, and I don’t.) I happen to believe the “student-athlete” is a reality - and one that should be preserved, regardless whether the university athletic dept is profiting.

These arguments appeal to class envy and income inequity, as much as to legal precedent. If this “image ownership” argument has any legs, then fix it by putting it in the fine print on every letter of intent that recruits are giving up rights to profit for playing on their prospective school’s sports teams.

Is the college game pure? Heck no. So let’s enforce existing rules against cheating, not open the pandora’s box of player compensation.

Thanks Allen, could not have said it better. These kids eat better than anyone on campus, get to travel more places and do more things than the kids that dont play. They get travel money. Should the basketball teams, volleyball, soccer or any other sport get left out? Lawsuits everywhere if they started paying them. Its a trade out, a scholarship is payment.

Title IX is a wrench to almost any plan you can think of to pay the athletes of revenue producing teams. I suppose something like roach’s repeat plan could be enacted, but as is it wouldn’t provide more pocket money for the individuals while they were still enrolled. Isn’t that one of the primary goals for those supporting payments? I honestly don’t think this goes anywhere. It’ll be difficult to convince the NCAA and its members to step forward into a minefield when they can likely stand still.

Its a trade out, a scholarship is payment.

This is a debatable proposition, but let’s assume it’s true. If they are exchanging their labor in response for a payment of a scholarship, why are they exempted from all other rights of laborers? Why can’t they bargain for more when they are clearly worth much, much more than the cost of tuition & room & board in many cases?

Their wage is effectively fixed by the collusion of the NCAA and the schools as a scholarship and nothing more, not a single dollar or tattoo or anything, from anybody - how is that possibly fair or legal? Because it’s not - that conduct is straight-up illegal in the US (and most other countries).

note to toadivine re: Judge Posner - if you go to his blog, he did a post a few months ago where he described the NCAA as a monopsonistic cartel, which it is, no need to invoke rule of reason there.

ESPN just reported Missouri formally agrees to join SEC

crap….*informally agreed to join SEC. Crazy the difference two letters makes.

The fallacy all those wasted words is the failure to grasp is that there really are alternative forms for athletic employment (e.g. arena leagues, the CFL, and the NFL).

I have ZERO interest in watching a UT professional or semi-professional football, basketball, or baseball team. ZERO. It would completely kill the college game. Professional athletics has zero business on college campuses. If you really want to pay players, start your own league and have at it. There are few arguments that self-humiliate their adherents as badly as the one for paying college players.

The only idea that has merit is an insurance policy that provides disability for athletes injured while playing for a school team. But there can be no differentiation between the starters and the bench warmers.

Alan and Monty: I’m not ready to go all the way to paying them either. They clearly DO give up some rights in exchange for their scholarship. What bothers me about the video game licensing and jersey sales is that it’s individualistic. There’s a direct correlation between individual image and sales. If NCAA/school profit off the team, no problem. But if it’s profit off an individual, it just leaves a bad taste.

FrozenHorn —

You cannot go straight from high school to the NFL — you have to be 3 years out of high school. The CFL is not even close to the same thing.

The only difference between what you watch now and what you would watch if the players were paid, at least as a UT fan, is that the players are not paid. I’m not sure what the emotions behind your reaction are exactly, perhaps just a longing for the halcyon days when big-time college sports were not so big-time, but with the amount of money made off the backs of the revenue sport players I see no legitimate reason not to cut them in on it.

I agree on the insurance. Everyone should be covered. The schools do plenty well enough to afford that.

Alan Couchman said: September 20th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Playing sports in college is neither a right nor a job. If you don’t like the arrangement, don’t sign up… Forego the scholarship and go to trade school, get a job, or pursue grants like everybody else who goes to college.

This is probably the most intellectually lazy and overused argument ever made, similar to “if you don’t like where you live, then move”. I’m sure in Alan Couchman’s fantasy world, everything is as easy as he dreams it to be.

+1 for posting as Learned Hand.

Learned Hand…who is living in a fantasy world? I am advocating an arrangement that is the status quo. All I added to the equation was this: if a player wants to get paid, get a @#$in’ job. Or excel in college and try to hit the NFL lottery…if that doesn’t work, you got a free ride through college. Please enlighten me to the the “fantasy” of that thinking.

To Arriviste and Monty, I wouldn’t say the scholarship is payment. Rather I would say there is no payment, because it’s not labor. The student-athletes are playing a GAME.

You bet there’s exploitation. By learning institutions.

I have never read an article on BC that I have so completely and totally disagreed with- well done.

DId I miss somewhere that the NFL has three years of college as a prerequisite? That’s totally and completely not the case. They could go deliver from a beer truck if they wanted to, and if they were good enough they’d get a shot (it’s happened).

That’s also completely and totally ignoring the argument that Vince Young, while making Texas a shit load of money, expanded his own personal brand in a way that is totally and completely unique to college revenue sports. So did Kevin Durant. Because of their university affiliation they became professionals with millions of fans in their corner, and the amount of ink they got and their endorsement opportunities show this totally and completely.

Or how about the UT letterman that plays for the football team and parlays that into a free scholarship and a job where they sell insurance or cars or whatever to alumni without breaking a sweat, and are on the golf course all the time.

If you are a football player at the University of Texas and can’t find a way to monetize that in a post graduation world you are an idiot.

I’m not against mandatory medical care for any injury that’s suffered. That’s fair and right. But the athletes get free room and board, tuition and fees plus walking around money, while also being allowed to audition for a professional career, build their own personal brand that is worth 7 figures (if they are good), or if they are a mid level schlub build connections, networking skills and stories/anecdotes that will enable them to succeed at a level in life they never would have if not for sports.

Cry me a river with the notion that athletes are being exploited by schools. The only place that argument makes sense is on the extreme fringes of the revenue sports, and like I said those guys get the benefit of being professionals with a built in brand and millions of loyal fans following them because of college sports.

Outside of Bryce Harper the average mlb fan couldn’t name you a single guy in the minor leagues that doesn’t play for their system, and most probably couldn’t name a guy in the minors or recognize him if he was sitting next to them in the bleachers even if he was in their system. That’s pretty similar to what a minor league football team would look like. Same for hoops.

American’s have no desire (in large numbers) to watch and pay big money for anyone that isn’t the best of the best. It’s why MLS won’t ever work at a major level in this country. College Revenue sports are an excpetion strictly b/c of the goodwill associated with the brand. It’s an intangible benefit (people care about them when they otherwise wouldn’t) that every name player recieves from playing college sports.

WuLaw —

Reading comprehension test: does three years out of high school mean three years of college? You can be drafted as a red-shirt sophomore or a pure junior.

Also — enlighten me as to what “walking around money” scholarship athletes receive. Assuming they didn’t go to the U.

“Playing sports in college is neither a right nor a job. If you don’t like the arrangement, don’t sign up… Forego the scholarship and go to trade school, get a job, or pursue grants like everybody else who goes to college.”
>>>Let me just edit this a minute, so you may see the ridiculousness of your statement:
“Playing sports in college is neither a right nor a job….get a job, or pursue grants like everybody else who goes to college.”
 /facepalm
>>>Um. yeah. They put in more time and effort than you do at your job (I seriously doubt you do 1000 push ups a day while studying how to get better at your career as well as, once a week, performing in front of 100,000 people (who are booing you when you hurt your arm and throw 2 picks). A scholarship takes the place of pay for the job of entertaining your mouth-breathing a**. Dancing with the stars contestants get paid. It’s the same thing (as in, they are both entertaining you). They also get paid every time that episode airs forever after.

The only thing in these articles that moves me about the "plight" of college players are the risks of injury. I think it makes sense to pay the medical bills for kids who can no longer play ball. But royalties on jerseys? If I wanted to watch entitled prima donnas "holding out" for bonuses, I can turn on the NFL. (I don’t, and I don’t.) I happen to believe the "student-athlete" is a reality – and one that should be preserved, regardless whether the university athletic dept is profiting.
>>>So, this whole re-alignment holdout thing doesn’t strike a chord or anything? The schools have become the prima donnas. Because THEY are holding out….because they make the money. I’m not saying pay anyone any more than anyone else…but the school should give a stipend of some sort to all athletes. And a player should be able to retain rights AFTER completion. On top of…the scholarship. Because others getting the scholarship (students who are not athletes) get the same deal, except, they aren’t asked to break themselves.
 Also, college prima-donnas holding out? Last year, how many athletes would fall into that category (assuming the scenario you envision takes place)? I’ll give ya cam newton, seastrunk, and I’ll even gift you an assumed 50 others. Out of how many kids? So…you are basically saying we shouldn’t help the 10,000 other athletes, because of some fictionalization you formulated while smashing your head into you keyboard? That number (the one’s who would hold out) is close to .005%. Or did I misunderstand you? You meant that there is a slight possibility that in one certain future scenario (that you decided), there could be a few kids that hold out, correct? And because of that possibility, we should not even explore different solutions to help the other 10,000? What are you an insurance adjuster?

These arguments appeal to class envy and income inequity, as much as to legal precedent. If this "image ownership" argument has any legs, then fix it by putting it in the fine print on every letter of intent that recruits are giving up rights to profit for playing on their prospective school’s sports teams.
>>>They do. That is the point. Which isn’t bad imo. It’s the fact that the school can continue making money on said player….after he leaves. This is like Nike showing a Phillip Rivers commercial endlessly after the contract expires. How does this argument appeal to class envy? And of course it appeals to income inequity…as that was the topic.

Is the college game pure? Heck no. So let’s enforce existing rules against cheating, not open the pandora’s box of player compensation.
>>>Ow. My brain hurts. What? How is this a conclusion to your argument? You can’t just dive into a topic you haven’t covered anywhere in the body of an argument in the damn conclusion. These are two separate issues, and shouldn’t be viewed as one or the other. This is akin to you concluding like this:
“Is the college game pure? Heck no. So let’s all go out for pizza, not open the pandora’s box of player compensation.”

Simply put, I doubt you know anyone who has been through a college injury and you certainly lack the skills to empathize or even sympathize….summarily, you are dismissed from the argument, as a painter would be dismissed from a board meeting.

If there was no college football but James Brown led the austin under 21 team against the omaha under 21 team to a surprising win ( tangent- would there be any surprise b/c would anyone even follow the event enough to know or care who the hell was supposed to win?) would it have altered his life in any way? Probably not. But if James Brown asked me for a job tomorrow and I had one available he would have it. And there are 100,000 other longhorns like me who feel the same way.

As far as I know James Brown never made a dime playing professional football. He beat A&M and Nebraska and helped UT attract a guy like Vince Young by being a successful black QB at UT and making us relevant (we won the big 12 title- that got us Chris Simms and the big 3, that got us knocking on the door- that got us VY- that gave us the 2005 season etc), but if he hasn’t parlayed maybe we’ll beat them by 21 into a job for life and never having to buy a drink in Texas than he simply isn’t doing it right. That’s a completely real form of compensation that all the important players get, and I’d presume you don’t particularly advocate paying the non-important ones, and your idea to piss on the non-revenue sports is apparent.

I would so much rather UT drop sports altogether, or play in a league like the Rugby league that was actually televised on NBC than I would have them enter into a quasi professional, paid league divorced from it’s educational mission. Absurd.

Alternatively, like a board member from a painting job. Take your pick.

Toad- you said if someone wants to play professional football he must first play in college. That is patently false. It’s the most common route, but it’s not a requirment. The Saints had a guy returning kicks for them that came to an open tryout that had been driving a beer truck.

The raiders and 49ers have both signed olympic track athletes that didn’t play college football. If you are good enough they will find you. I’m not saying that’s the norm, but I am saying you are WRONG in what you wrote. You DO NOT have to play in college- or go to college- you simply must have been out of High School for so many years or reached a certain age. Same exact rules in the NBA- and the rationale for paying hoops players is now even less, as guys are going to the NBADL or overseas.

And guess what? Nobody gives a shit about them overseas or in the minor leagues. And nobody to speak of is going that route and the few that have said it’s a really bad idea. And that proves my point completely that athletes in revenue sports gain from the college experience.

As to walking around money every single program has it, perfectly legally and approved by the NCAA. It ain’t much, but it’s your laundry money, meal money, travel budget to and from the bowl games etc etc. You also get a scholarship that equals the amount of money the average student pays. If you choose to live cheaper than average than you can go ahead and bank the rest of the money or spend it on hookers and blow (wait as a major D1 scholarship athlete the women throw themselves at you so that doesn’t hurt- never mind that last expense that most dudes have in college) or do whatever the hell you want with it.

I was on scholarship (academic) and I lived with 3 other dudes in a 2 bedroom apartment, and that meant I had enough left over cash to fund my drinking and fraternity dues.

I feel so bad for the college athlete - free room and board, tuition, free women, tutors, connections - all for semi-pro sports which is not sustainable without the tradition and support of alumni. As a UT grad, I’d rather have our dollars go back to the university.

>you are basically saying we shouldn’t help the 10,000 other athletes
We already do help 10,000 other athletes. Just not with a cash stipend. A full ride through college, complete with private tutors.

>You can’t just dive into a topic you haven’t covered anywhere in the body of an argument in the damn conclusion.
Sorry…kind of. I did not develop this thought but “cheating” and the “purity of the game” are quite germane to the topic. Let me connect the dots. I want to keep the game pure - in the sense of watching amateur athletes, not paid professionals. Illegal payments/benefits from boosters and agents are a reality today, unfortunately. I often hear this fact urged in a couple different arguments - 1) that this corruption would not exist, or would be greatly diminished, if players had some legit cash; and 2) that there’s nothing “pure” about the college game anymore, so why hold onto outdated student-athlete notions?

> you certainly lack the skills to empathize or even sympathize….summarily, you are dismissed from the argument
If only I had your condescension, then my training would be complete.

Ding ding ding- eskimo gets it. Without the branding and good will associated with the schools their likeness as a minor league football player isn’t worth shit.

Instead the get room, board a degree, networks, connections, fame, coaching, an all you can slay hot bitch buffet andsoft headed people in the media writing about their oppression

Don’t like it? Start your own damn league- there is nothing stopping anyone from paying 20 year olds to compete against each other in other towns and regions. Baseball already does this. Nobody cares.

Toad- you said if someone wants to play professional football he must first play in college. That is patently false. It’s the most common route, but it’s not a requirment. The Saints had a guy returning kicks for them that came to an open tryout that had been driving a beer truck

Insofar as (I haven’t run the numbers, but this is a conservative estimate) 99.99% of all NFL players in the postwar era have played football at the university level at some point in their lives - I’d argue it very clearly constitutes a requirement, even if not implicit (notwithstanding your Saints beer truck guy, who had to play several years of minor league football in any event.

The raiders and 49ers have both signed olympic track athletes that didn’t play college football. If you are good enough they will find you. I’m not saying that’s the norm, but I am saying you are WRONG in what you wrote. You DO NOT have to play in college- or go to college- you simply must have been out of High School for so many years or reached a certain age. Same exact rules in the NBA- and the rationale for paying hoops players is now even less, as guys are going to the NBADL or overseas.

This whole line of argument is basically irrelevant but it’s not really helpful to your case - you’re basically explaining to us that you must provide free labor or you need to take a course of action that will deprive you of an opportunity outright for several years and will reduce your opportunity to earn a wage by an astronomical factor. Once you’ve admitted these restraints on trade, all that’s left is for you to tell me whether you’re gonna pay your triple damages in cash, check or charge.

And guess what? Nobody gives a shit about them overseas or in the minor leagues. And nobody to speak of is going that route and the few that have said it’s a really bad idea. And that proves my point completely that athletes in revenue sports gain from the college experience.

Yes, nobody gives a shit about them, because the NCAA is a cartel that is excercising monopoly (technically monopsony) power. Nail in your argument’s coffin.

^ correction “even if implicit and not explicit”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i4UZZEr4_c&feature=relmfu

Watch this in its entirety if you can find it. There is an obvious agenda by HBO but Billy Packer as usual and the former Ivy League commissioner have a very good grasp on the subject. In fact, I think the former commissioner of the Ivy League said it best when he said that if the NCAA is forced to pay players, scholarships and the current athletic world as we know it will cease to exist.

Will you pay every athlete in every sport at every school? If not, is there a potential title IX problem. How much will you pay each athlete. Will a QB make more than an OL? Will high school players have agents? Will one school be allowed to offer more than another because of profits. Can schools cut non performing players? How do you monitor the extra benefits rule? How many programs can actually afford to pay players? etc, etc.

The fact is these kids are student athletes whether you want to believe it or not. Very few go on to play professional sports, but the ones that do are given the opportunity to maximize their athletic potential in the finest athletic facilities in the world while also receiving a free education at the finest academic institutions in the world. There are many kids who embody the model of the student athlete. Playing sports in an academic setting is a privilege not a right.

If there is a market out there for a multi billion dollar industry outside of brand names with loyal alumni like Texas, ND, and Alabama then the pay the players proponents should start a new league with a team named the Austin Townlakers and sign the best high school players. How do you think that business venture will do?

As a side, Obannon signed a multimillion dollar contract out of college. That man should never have to work again. That’s a shame.

Don’t like it? Start your own damn league- there is nothing stopping anyone from paying 20 year olds to compete against each other in other towns and regions. Basely eball already does this. Nobody cares.

If nobody cares then why would you conceivably care if Vince gets a check for the millions and millions he has made for the University?

I can tell you didn’t read the Atlantic article, you’re basically citing every hoary, self-justifiyinhg, entirely circular “student-athlete” cliche in the book….easily debunkable.

As a side, Obannon signed a multimillion dollar contract out of college. That man should never have to work again. That’s a shame

Did you do any research on that statement or just make a batch of silly assumptions?

Ed O’Bannon, at age 23, signed a 3-year, 3.9 million dollar contract. Let’s guesstiimate that to be about $3 million after tax. Do you honestly think that if you took that money at age 23, you’d be able to get married, have a family, etc….and never have to work again? His interest would probably work out to a mid 5- figure sum a year. Do the math, man, unless he likes living in a shitty apartment and eating Dinty Moore beef stew, that simply isn’t going to work

Shame, shame shame.

>If nobody cares then why would you conceivably care if Vince gets a check for the millions and millions he has made for the University?

If Vince had played for the Austin Townlakers out of high school, instead of The University, no one would have ever heard of him… You are inadvertently making wulaw and eskimo’s point for them.

^The point that the NCAA is a monopoly and effectively forces laborerers to work for free before they make a name? Which kind of happens to be illegal

That’s not wulaw’s point, , that’s MY point…and you happen to be the one making it for me?

What part of my statement was erroneous. He signed a multimillion dollar contract at the age of 23 and did so 16 years ago. With inflation and proper investing how much should he have?

But since we are having this discussion. Answer the above questions in my original post regarding the complications of paying athletes.

 Do you really believe your statement that the NCAA “forces” kids to play sports and that they are “laborerers”? Like I said, it sounds like there a real business opportunity to be an owner of the Austin Townlakers. Do you think you can sign jonathan gray to a contract so that he is not forced laborerer?

Wulaw - would you buy a drink for, say, Ryan Fiebiger? Surely you remember him, the rotation center/guard on that 1997-98 squad. Would you recognize him if he sat next to you in a bar? Would you recall his name if you saw it on a job application? Or even asked you for change on the street?

Let’s get a bit less obscure. Remember the guy who caught the pass on “Roll Left”? Derek Lewis. Would you recognize him if he stood next to you in an elevator?

Here are the players I would physically recognize from that team: James Brown, Ricky Williams, Priest Holmes. I know maybe a dozen more names but I couldn’t pick ’em out of a police lineup.

Now, I’d agree with you that there’s a limit to how bad I’m willing to feel for football players. There’s a real form of compensation that players get outside the scholarship. But for the vast majority of players that form of compensation is just as fleeting as the scholarship itself. Without that vast majority of players, college football doesn’t exist. If you don’t like to see it as exploitation, fine; consider the monopolistic aspect of it. On paper, the labor economics of the NCAA is like that of a cartel somewhere between Wal-Mart retail and Chinese manufacturing, whose sole legitimate purpose is to stop the pernicious effects of money on amateur sport. How’s that going?

To your final point: college football is already a quasi-professional league divorced from its educational mission. It’s been that way my entire lifetime, and probably yours too. The only word I left out from your phrase was “paid”, but truth is, everyone’s getting paid handsomely now except the athletes. The rising tide of cash has lifted every boat except the players’. If you disagree, all I have to say is you’re in denial. The evidence is staggering.

We already do help 10,000 other athletes. Just not with a cash stipend. A full ride through college, complete with private tutors.
>>Which is exactly the same as someone who possesses a high GPA (and gets a scholarship), except no one asks them to tackle a 300lb lineman day in and out. Have you seen Earl Campbell lately? I have. Ask him how his knees are doing.

Sorry…kind of. I did not develop this thought but "cheating" and the "purity of the game" are quite germane to the topic. Let me connect the dots. I want to keep the game pure – in the sense of watching amateur athletes, not paid professionals. Illegal payments/benefits from boosters and agents are a reality today, unfortunately. I often hear this fact urged in a couple different arguments – 1) that this corruption would not exist, or would be greatly diminished, if players had some legit cash; and 2) that there’s nothing "pure" about the college game anymore, so why hold onto outdated student-athlete notions?
>>There will always be someone that skirts the rules, agreed? Good. So it will never be “pure”…not entirely anyway. However, we could go a long way toward your “purity”, if we gave the students a stipend (that is both fair and documented), instead of some unspecified amount of money from the school for a “job” he never attends. >You are correct sir. I am the condescending one. Not the person who says that his way, and ONLY his way, is the correct way to do things. I am simply befuddled that you won’t even consider multiple scenarios….which, admittedly, might have brought about a bit of condescension toward your myopic idea, but not you as a person.

So am I to gather (do to your quippy response) that my prior argument was correct? That you don’t want to help the kid juggling baseball and school, instead telling him to get a job? Even though he practices 20+ hours a week and goes to school full time? All because in one specific scenario (one idea of how to go about it….key word “idea”) a football player might choose to be a prima donna? We shouldn’t even discuss it? Or other ways of doing it?

All I really get from your argument and rebuttal is: It’s not my way, the “pure” way, so it’s not right. The rest is just self-serving bias kicking in.

It got chopped up right before I submitted…..Should be a return before> and I wrote a bit more stating that garrett gilbert wont get any special treatment in austin….and other elaborations on that point, but you should get the gist.

What part of my statement was erroneous. He signed a multimillion dollar contract at the age of 23 and did so 16 years ago. With inflation and proper investing how much should he have?

The part where you exhibited a vastly inflated set of expectations as to the ability of a one-time payment of a low seven figure sum to enable one to never work again.

I explained to you how much his bounty woudl reap him - mid five figures, at best, annually. Try raising a family on 50 k and then you will see the error of your ways.

@todavine. You’re right about my concern that college sports has become obscenely monetized. It’s only mildly reassuring that so much of the excess Texas makes goes back into academics.

It seems to me that the proponents of paying players fail to grasp the essence of what makes the college game great. There’s a sense as an alum that these guys are walking in some of the same footsteps, and being part of the same experience I was part of. There’s valid identification. Paying players essentially removes them from sharing in what I experienced. They’re hired guns who haven’t picked Texas because they want to be a student here - they want a paycheck. And without identification, I might as well stick to NFL football where the quality of play is higher. I agree that paying players would undoubtedly multiply the prima donna effect, and further remove them from being any group I care to follow.

I’d have given my left nut to play their sport at Texas. And I’d have done it without an athletic scholarship. None of the kids who play really know for sure they will be compensated as professionals, but they love playing the game on the stage the Texas provides for them, and having the same branding benefit Wulaw Horn is talking about. I very truly would not follow any semi-professional UT sports franchise. I would have absolutely no interest in it.

With the pay-for-play legal argument, I’m not even sure how you can require a player/employee to go to class and get passing grades. What in the world does passing an English class have to do with your performance as an employee? There would be no legal basis for prohibiting a player from continuing to earn his paycheck if he performs well on the field, yet fails to pass his classes because he is not a gifted student. That’s far more arbitrary and untenable than asking a recruit to sign a waiver of his rights to compensation. There’s a billion law suits waiting behind this door.

A brief glimpse into the question of profit sharing with the paying athletes makes me shudder with the impossibility of finding any equitable approach that wouldn’t be subject to endless law suits. Then there’s the external difficulties like disparity between monster revenue schools like Texas vs. the Prarie View A&M’s of the world - does Texas get to pay more because it can? Are we going to talk about payroll caps, etc? Aren’t payroll caps equally untenable under law? What if all schools cap payroll at $0 like we do now? How’s that different than the NFL cap and who’s to determine what the cap is? Shall we have lockouts because the player’s union can’t come to agreement with the Universities? It’s easy enough to bring out all the theoretical legal arguments, but to bail when it comes to the impossible task of figuring out how to implement the concept with all the constraints inherent to an academic institution, is like writing an abstract for your dissertation without having actually done any research at all.

e1kabong - if you use the tags

(open chevron) blockquote (close chevron)

and

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it’ll make your quoted text look like this. Much clearer to the reader.

But since we are having this discussion. Answer the above questions in my original post regarding the complications of paying athletes.

 Do you really believe your statement that the NCAA "forces" kids to play sports and that they are "laborerers"? Like I said, it sounds like there a real business opportunity to be an owner of the Austin Townlakers. Do you think you can sign jonathan gray to a contract so that he is not forced laborerer?

I answered your question, but I’ll answer it again. Yes, athletes are definitely performing labor on behalf of the NCAA//schools…the benefits of their labor accrue to the university. This is not even a debatable point.

it does sound like there’s a business oppportunity for minor league football squads, doesn’t there?

Unfortunately, as I’ve explained, and has been explained by others numerous times above, the minor league football team can’t compete with the NCAA as it exercises extreme market power (near - perfect monopsony market power om fact, plus or minus a few fractions of percent denoting players who didn’t play in the NCAA/NAIA) over the labor force in terms of offering the opportunity for future, vastly higher paying NFL jobs. This basically torpedo’s any realistic chance the minor league football team has to get Johnathan Gray out of the gate. This also happens to be kind of illegal.

50K per year? Let’s assume he did clear $3mm after taxes. With proper and safe management he should make 8% a year on his money which would give him income of $240K/year all while keeping his next egg in tact.

Now, how would you compensate and structure an environment where you pay the 460K athletes that participate in NCAA athletics or “forced laborers” as you call them?

You see this is very interesting because when you get right down to it, there is no rational or legal structure to do so and as I referenced before the former ivy league commissioner stated that academic institutions will go back to the dark ages pre athletic scholarships before they pay players. Think about the ramifications that will have on the 460K NCAA student athletes.

Arriviste - to add to your point, numerous state legislatures have added laws at the behest of the universities to make alternatives to NCAA participation impossible in their state unless one jumps directly to an established pro league. In Texas, for example, an agent can’t represent a football player unless that agent is registered with the NFL specifically, and deposits something like 20 grand with the state as “insurance”. Obviously that would be a huge obstacle to a minor league that aspires to offer something competitive with what AQ schools currently offer. That’s just one example; there are lots of state laws governing “amateur athletics” that are actual law and not just NCAA rules, mostly written at the behest of universities.

With proper and safe management he should make 8% a year on his money…

If he was born in the sixties, maybe.

Wulaw —

“A quasi-professional, paid league divorced from it’s educational mission.”

That’s a pretty damn good description of big-time college basketball!

Everyone watches March Madness even though it couldn’t be more obvious that a lot of the best players are on the take. I don’t see why paying players out in the open (or at least allowing them the ability to make money while they are in school from agents/endorsements) instead of under the table is so over the line.

He was born in 1972. HAHA. He received that money 16 years ago….

Even if he was clipping coupons at 6% which is very achievable that’s $180K/year while keeping his principle in tact.

Thanks for jumping in Dagga, how would you structure a pay system for our student athlete that keeps an even playing field, but doing so in a manner that makes legal and economic sense?

So when one plays in a high school game and that high school charges $5/person to see the game, one should be entitled to those gate receipts and profits? The numbers are smaller, but the concept is the same.

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So when one plays in a high school game and that high school charges $5/person to see the game, one should be entitled to those gate receipts and profits? The numbers are smaller, but the concept is the same.
(open chevron) /blockquote (close chevron)

Not really. How many jerseys does Austin high sell a year? Player specific ones? Does Austin high get to keep his likeness, and make deals with under armour? Yeah, not really the same at all.

I believe it should be somewhere in the middle. Don’t outright pay the players. Give them help ON THE BOOKS, not on the side where it can cost a kid his education. The moneys should go to the university, but the likeness should be retained by the player upon graduation. Or Pay the player FOR his likeness AFTER he graduates (at least in terms of the university and his involvement with it), so UT can still show the 2005 NCG, they just pay each player to show it. OR Pay a player a draw on his likeness before he attends (that way the University assumes some risk, and they have a reason to want him to be able to play again, if he gets injured). OR Have a company give you insurance for players with a lingering or lifelong injury sustained on the field.

There has to be a way to better the student-athlete situation while he or she still remains a student-athlete. 1st thing is probably nixing the school retaining image.

like that Dagga?

I’ll do it in the future. That’s just how I like to do it, usually it doesn’t get chopped and is easily understood (or perhaps just to meeeee).

One thing that Toadvine’s critics miss - and one thing that I wish the Atlantic article spelled out more clearly - is that the mission of the NCAA is, and has always been, to protect the member schools from scandal. When the NCAA first emerged as a relevant body, the issue of money in college sport was all about gambling. There were no 100,000-seat stadiums or TV contracts or $10 mil donations from tort lawyers or yachts full of strippers. The original rules were all about stopping point-shaving and grade inflation by teachers who doubled as bookies. The point was not so much to fix the problem - it never really did, the money problem just morphed over time - as much as to protect the schools from criticism. Which the NCAA did quite well.

Point being: if you want to defend the idea of amateur sport in college, let’s be real. You’re defending an immaculate ideal and not something that has ever been the status quo,/i>. Big football programs have used changing financial circumstances to enrich their programs by the hundreds of millions while offering the students the exact same deal that prevailed when football was merely a student activity. And your feelings of envy toward the players are frankly irrelevant. I’m sure thousands of Roman slaves envied the gladiators, and the few that had the chance leapt at it, but that didn’t make the exchange between the lesser gladiators and the Emperor remotely fair.

http://sports.mydesert.com/2011/09/19/time-warner-cable-to-broadcast-cif-championships/

http://www.ihssn.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/sports/cablevisions-msg-varsity-nears-deal-for-psal-games.html

Looks like some TV deals are in place for high school games.

The author of the Atlantic Monthly article accidentally admits that widespread cheating was reigned in, solely, by the emergent enforcement powers of the NCAA. If the universities are to have rules about recruiting and eligibility, they need a means to enforce them. That’s why the universities keep making rules and keep asking the NCAA to enforce them.

This rambling AM article never converges on a central point except that players should be paid. He could have investigated that notion by talking to any hysterical, women’s basketball advocate in the Justice Department and learned that there is exactly ZERO chance of paying football stars any more than a bench warmer on the women’s soccer team.

He has no idea what constitutes a profit. The NCAA pays no dividends, has no equity, no cash reserves. It distributes money according to the decisions of the universities convening to set policies. In one of his pervasively anti-logical eddies he tries to illustrate the voracious appetite of the universities for money by citing the payments of sports agents to Reggie Bush and family.

Toadvine has an understanding of the labor law issues attending college athletics vastly superior to mine. I think that he could write his points without referring to or ever having read the AM article.

What I want you to gather from my quips is that it is inappropriate to call out a poster on a blog of lacking “the skills to empathize or even sympathize.” Seriously? Let’s be adults. Ironically, this was your concluding sentence, and every bit as much a non-sequitur as my own “damn conclusion.” hehe And fwiw, thanks to poster tjarks above, who makes the EXACT argument (payers are paid under the table now, so let’s pay them in the open) to which I alluded in my conclusion. (Thanks, tjarks…I’ll pay you later. ;-)

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to earn a spot on a major college football team. It was the same way 50 years ago, or 75 years ago. The only (relevant) difference is that today, major institutions make MILLIONS of dollars, so you all want to yell, “Exploitation!” Some of you act like these athletes are getting the f(**&^ing shaft. They’re not. They’re getting the same opportunity that college football players have always had - a free education, in exchange for playing a GAME called football.

Sure, football is 20 hours a week of hard work. I won’t dispute that. But every average, skinny kid that wasn’t blessed with enough athletic ability or smarts to earn a full-ride scholarship has to work 20 hours a week waiting tables or stocking groceries to cover their tuition. Big deal, in either case the student is working 20 hours a week to pay for his education. O, the injustice! Hell, that’s life. The main reason people are clamoring to pay the student-athlete today is because they see truckloads of cash pouring into the athletic dept’s coffers, and think it’s unfair that the players don’t get a cut.

But the players don’t sign up for a cut. They sign up for a free education. And that’s exactly what they get, PLUS the several benefits spelled out above by wulaw, eskimo, and others. And that’s fair. It always has been.

I’ll figure this blockquote thing out eventually.

lol, much better e1kabong.

Groundhog - First, I’d…well, let’s make a list. This isn’t a complete plan or nothing, just off the top of my head:

*Make a new NCAA division (or a new NCAA entirely) for super-conference schools - ideally, schools that don’t have to routinely borrow from the academic side to cover current expenses, and can earn significantly more money by joining forces. Loosen up the rules on petty violations; these students are (and have been for decades) semi-pro, not amateur. Let the rules reflect that. Once the new TV deals are in place, require that all athletic programs in the mega-conferences are self-sustaining, on penalty of being kicked out if they borrow money from academics more than once a decade. Promote another school in its place if it shows it can abide by the rules. Maintain the NCAA tie with the basketball tourney and let the NCAA use that money as they always have.

*Don’t fret about Title IX - that ensures equal access and opportunity, not equal expenses or exposure or benefits. If a school is concerned (and they should be, it’s federal law) they can give all athletes a percentage of net revenues for their sport, making the gender equity issue moot. And hey, if women’s soccer can sell out DKR, pay them too.

*I’d put a pretty low cap on payments - something like 50K a year. Not for its own sake but for maintaining some semblance of parity within the megaconferences. That’s the most some teams in the top 60 will be able to afford, even with better TV deals. It can be legally justified on the same grounds as the NFL salary cap. Granted, that means Ricky Williams doesn’t get paid millions for his UT body of work if he goes to an ashram instead of the NFL. But at least while he’s on campus, he’s not spending the winter crashing on a friend’s couch eating leftover Funyuns because he’s kicked out of the dorms and can’t afford a plane ride home. If football TV deals give 4-5 mil more to each school, that should be doable.

*Those TV deals should be much, much more lucrative than that, especially if the new conferences form a playoff. Take some of the extra money, partner with the NFL and their players union, and use it to insure all players for life starting on their first day of college practice against the medical costs of football-specific injuries such as premature joint or mental degeneration. It’s limited but it’s the least they can do.

*Give players a right to their likeness when they move on and offer to manage that likeness for a standard cut of royalties. I mean, if the NCAA had cut a few 15-cent checks to Ed O’Bannon, they’d have one less class-action lawsuit on their plate right now.

• Keep requiring schoolwork as part of the deal. Almost all players will need it, and if they don’t like it, they can find work somewhere else. Changing that rule would do direct damage to the players themselves and the universities. But the beauty of a work contract is that you’re not relying on some judge’s interpretation of the phrase “student-athlete” to justify it. They’ve agreed to do it, in black and white, as a condition of employment.

• If you cut a player from the team, then conduct an exit counseling session, figure out how long he needs to get his degree, and continue to provide the scholarship and academic counseling and a much more modest annual stipend (5K maybe) for that length of time. Lots of athletes come from families of far lower means than most other students so even a modest stipend would be very useful. One-year schollies are heinous.

• Let the non-super schools do things as they always have. Now that there’s no illusion left that they too could be one of the big boys, maybe those institutions will actually focus more on graduating players and keeping to their budgets. U of Houston athletics borrows 12 mil annually from its academic side and doesn’t graduate half of its football players. That’s just stupid. It’s Cougar High. They make less than half the money off of annual ticket sales than UT makes in a single home game. Very few of those players are going pro, so what’s the point? Making a handful of UH boosters feel like they’re at the grown-up table? Schools like that really should not be in the same league as Texas, let alone the same conference. Putting those programs on the same playing field is a big. big part of the problem, because it’s schools like Houston - who need massive subsidies to afford big-boy britches - that compose the majority of FBS membership. Splitting the league in two would benefit everyone in the long run, except for a handful of smaller-school administrators who happen to carry a huge amount of weight in the current setup.

*And for shits and giggles, recognize the players’ collective bargaining rights. Anyone who fears massive strikes should settle down - the players generally have very little money and nothing to fall back on without football and school, and would also be reasonably compensated by most logical measures, and thus they’d have very little leverage in negotiation. It’d ultimately grant them a power similar to student government: an audience at regents meetings, at best. But offering the players bargaining rights offsets the possibility that a judge will eventually use fair labor laws against the league and impose punitive fines, royalties, etc. that make the league unsustainable.

Alan Couchman - if I’m working my 20-hour-a-week student job and tear my ACL as a direct result of the work I’m doing, I’m entitled to Workman’s Comp. Football players aren’t; they only get medical coverage as long as the school keeps them on scholarship.

If I’m working a 20-hour-a-week job, my employer cannot encourage me to work on my own time without paying me extra. College coaches do that all the time.

If I’m working a 20-hour-a-week job and I see that my work product is worth tens of thousands more than I’m being paid, I can organize my co-workers and demand a raise. Football players can’t.

The fact that lots of people willingly sign up for it and lots of other people envy them for the chance…well, that describes a lot of East Asian sweatshops, too. Does that automatically make the terms of employment fair?

Point is, you’re trying to have it both ways. You can’t claim that being a student-athlete is not employment and then say it’s like having a normal job. My position is clear: employment is doing profitable work for compensation. Reading Gallic literature in a library is not making profits for anyone; playing football in front of a million eyeballs is. Call the compensation a schollie, or fame, or a shot at the pros, I don’t care. Tell me how football didn’t used to be that way and never should have become what it is, and I don’t care. What football players do today is employment no matter now nicely you dress it up and it shouldn’t be confused with what normal students do in classrooms or on the rec fields every other Thursday night.

And if it’s employment, then they should not be actively disallowed to ask for more compensation if their work is obviously worth more. Flexibly rising wages in growing economies is the main moral anchor of capitalism against the assault of Marxism and if you abandon that, well, uh, I GUESS YOU’RE A COMMIE HUH. Ipso facto.

What I want you to gather from my quips is that it is inappropriate to call out a poster on a blog of lacking "the skills to empathize or even sympathize." Seriously? Let’s be adults. Ironically, this was your concluding sentence, and every bit as much a non-sequitur as my own "damn conclusion." hehe And fwiw, thanks to poster tjarks above, who makes the EXACT argument (payers are paid under the table now, so let’s pay them in the open) to which I alluded in my conclusion. (Thanks, tjarks…I’ll pay you later. ;-)

The difference here being that you produced an argument, followed by said non-sequitur, whereas I simply refuted each point and then said something about you at the end.
While it may have been an outrageous statement, it was intentionally so in the (now obviously failed) hope that you might think about the players and what’s in their best interest; because the system as it is, obviously does not.

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to earn a spot on a major college football team. It was the same way 50 years ago, or 75 years ago. The only (relevant) difference is that today, major institutions make MILLIONS of dollars, so you all want to yell, "Exploitation!" Some of you act like these athletes are getting the f(**&^ing shaft. They’re not. They’re getting the same opportunity that college football players have always had – a free education, in exchange for playing a GAME called football.

Just like it is a privilege to have the opportunity to pay ridiculous annual fees to various clubs because they are Rich white guy voice Pressstiiiiigious.
Gimme a break. Sure it’s great to be recruited into a good school. For most it is definitely an opportunity. However, the landscape has changed. It isn’t the 50’s, when players rights were not even considered because no one had tvs. They are making hand over fist and when a player has a career ending injury coughs Tre-Newton, the response is, “oh well, plug another in”. Meanwhile Tre gets migraines for the rest of his life. But he got his education right? Which, he probably could have gotten if he had decent grades and applied to a university anyway…You know….minus the lifelong side effects. That GAME called football is a JOB to professionals. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Sure, football is 20 hours a week of hard work. I won’t dispute that. But every average, skinny kid that wasn’t blessed with enough athletic ability or smarts to earn a full-ride scholarship has to work 20 hours a week waiting tables or stocking groceries to cover their tuition. Big deal, in either case the student is working 20 hours a week to pay for his education. O, the injustice! Hell, that’s life. The main reason people are clamoring to pay the student-athlete today is because they see truckloads of cash pouring into the athletic dept’s coffers, and think it’s unfair that the players don’t get a cut.

Yeah, except, they then entertain you on TV. Extras get paid 50 bucks for showing up. So, it’s really not the same….especially when you consider stocking-groceries/waiting-tables don’t have Suh (watch sports science on that guy, it’s incredible stuff) running at them do they? Nor are they required to bench fridges.
It’s not because they see money rolling in and none going to the players…it’s because the players are getting screwed and the universities aren’t doing anything.

But the players don’t sign up for a cut. They sign up for a free education. And that’s exactly what they get, PLUS the several benefits spelled out above by wulaw, eskimo, and others. And that’s fair. It always has been.

Sure, fair. Migraines for the rest of your life, for an education and a year worth of tail. Occasionally a beer, and perhaps a throw away job. One you have trouble attending due to crippling migraines. slaps self in the head By God you’re right. I dunno why I never saw it before. That’s definitely fair.

So, to recap: I refute points, you establish new ones and clear up another. I refute again, you make a failed attempt at catching me being a hypocrite, and re-establish your former points, with complete disregard to any of my points, along with a little “back in my day” drizzled in and a sploosh of “You’re pussifying America”.

Well played.
/facepalm

ugh….double facepalm
stupid close tag
{/blockqoute}

And now you see why I prefer it the other way dagga.

50K per year? Let’s assume he did clear $3mm after taxes. With proper and safe management he should make 8% a year on his money which would give him income of $240K/year all while keeping his next egg in tact.
Hahahahaha, the only person in america who offered a guaranteed, riskless 8% a year from 1994-2008 was Bernie Madoff (Allen Stanford only gave out 6% on his CD’s).

Get real. You made a stupid comment drawing on stupid stereotypes; a low 7 figure sum doesn’t make anybody “set for life” in this day and age….just admit it and stop digging.

If Ed Obannon is “stuck” selling cars after getting a free ride in college then that’s his own fault. I’m somewhat neutral when it comes to this issue as I can see both sides; however, using his current career as some sob story does nothing for me considering he got something millions of Americans do not or did not get.

(Note: This is Alan C, sorry I keep forgetting to log in before posting.)

if I’m working my 20-hour-a-week student job and tear my ACL as a direct result of the work I’m doing, I’m entitled to Workman’s Comp. Football players aren’t; they only get medical coverage as long as the school keeps them on scholarship.

Flexibly rising wages in growing economies is the main moral anchor of capitalism against the assault of Marxism and if you abandon that, well, uh, I GUESS YOU’RE A COMMIE HUH. Ipso facto.

That’s a stretch. One would expect the Marxist to argue for collective bargaining rights for the laborers, decry the horrendous working conditions (grueling workouts and risk of injury), and oppose the hoarding of wealth by evil capitalist opportunists (Bellmont). That sounds more like your positions than mine.

It’s a privilege to play football at the University of Texas, one that many kids long to attain and cannot. Ask the players on Mack’s team if they feel shorted because they’re not drawing a check every other Friday, or if they’re just blessed by God to have a shot. I think I know what they’d say. Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Or are they right?

And I have not argued from the direction of “unintended consequences,” but I agree with Monty and Groundhog Day’s points about Title IX problems. Toadvine pointed out that he is only “in favor of paying the players in revenue sports for their efforts” and admits that he has “no real answer” to the likely reality that paying revenue generating players in Bball and football might well eliminate all other men’s varsity programs.

Also, Toadvine seems more willing to admit that the real changes between now and the “good old days” is the amount of money brought in by the athletic depts, writing: “

with the amount of money made off the backs of the revenue sport players I see no legitimate reason not to cut them in on it.

You made a funny, arriviste! Stupid way to express Ed Obannon’s “plight”, but having $4mm at 23 years old in 1995 was nothing to sneeze at and with proper management could have turned into a nice nest egg. I guess the point I was trying to make was he won a NCAA championship at UCLA, played professional basketball for 10 years around the world and had exposure to a top notch university.

Was my comment any more ridiculous than calling someone who chooses to attend an institution of higher learning to play a game and do so for free a “forced laborer”? You better start picketing on behalf of high school players whose games are now being televised by the Cablevision MSG network.

Dagga,

When you ask me if I’d recognize the backup center from the 1996 championship team you are making my point for me- of course I wouldn’t.

I don’t think anyone is arguing, with a straight face, that this dude deserves to be compensated for his likeness or skills in an open market- his skill set is more or less fungible.

And that really goes to proving my point- that dude was compensated. He received probably 100k worth of education, tutoring, room and board and travel, and that’s just the tangible benefits.

Intagibly, he got to bang hot chicks all over campus without trying. If he had a T-ring and came into my office to sell me insurance, or I went to him to sell a car and he could tell me some anecdotes about the team and be price competitive he would get my business. If I got his resume when I owned my own company, and he was even closely qualified and I saw under education- University of Texas, and Varsity Football player under clubs you can bet his application would go to the top of my pile (again, if he was at all qualified to do the job). This is a huge intangible benefit he reaped, in additional to all the tangible compensation that he received. My point is that for the bench warmers or non-stars this should be enough.

And for the stars, the ones people argue deserve compensation- guess what- they get it. Earl Campbell or Vince Young never had to play in the NFL to make money off their name in the state of Texas. VY is selling phone cards and Earl is hawking sausage links and both of them would have a cozy place as an executive VP in charge of being a bad ass in a corporate setting. Instead, they received teaching from masterminds like Greg Davis that allow them to further their craft and get paid in the NFL- and they still get all that stuff. The VY steakhouse in Austin doesn’t exist b/c of anything he’s done post 2005- it just doesn’t.

Now, imagine the counterfactual world where we do not have revenue level sports in the NCAA with a built in fan base of 2.5 million fans that are fans because it’s associated with the University of Texas. Imagine VY was a complete badass for the Austin Steers, not associated with UT. How many people care? Almost none. It’s strictly minor league ball and people in America want to watch the high end, or something they otherwise care about.

People aren’t watching college football b/c they represent the best athletes in 18-21 years old demographic- they are watching b/c they rep the school that they went to or grew up loving.

The Austin Steers would draw about like the San Antonio Missions, and Westlake and Lake Travis would have more of a following. The Texas brand enabled VY to create his brand, not the other way around. We provided the infrastructure and opportunity, and in him creating his own brand which he has since monetized he synergistically helped us grow our brand even more.

TJ- Rather than the fighting mercenaries from Calipari land sit out the NCAA tournament why don’t they go play in the CBL, NBADL or Europe. They can get paid and treated like professionals while they do their 1 freaking year of maturing before they become NBA stars.

IF KD was toiling in Europe does he get the intial Nike and Gatorade contract upon signing? Maybe yes and maybe no, but he got a metric shit ton of free publicity and good will for being associated with the University of Texas that he wouldn’t have in another scenario. That should be enough. How about Deginald Erskin- should he get a check for playing for UT? if so, how much? If you are talking about minor league type money, which is all that could possibly be justified based upon skill level than I argue that his compensation in the form of free academics and exposure and coaching is enough and he should be happy with the compensation. If not he’s always free to play a bastardized version of AAU until he’s good enough to get a professional gig, and if that doesn’t work out for him he can wash dishes. I bet it sucks to have to fall back on a degree with all that networking an opportunity that comes along with it if you aren’t successful enough to be a professional. Boo freaking hoo.

I’d like for someone to clarify the argument that college athletes aren’t already sufficiently compensated under law.

There are mail clerks, secretaries and janitors working for hugely profitable companies who make no more than $10 to $15 per hour. Why does the law not force their employers to more evenly distribute their massive profits? What about the graduate assistants and trainers? Don’t they have an argument here also, or an even better argument than a player who never sees the field?

There are engineers and scientists earning unimpressive wages who develop patentable inventions that make their employers billions, yet they earn nothing on the royalties whether or not they remain in their employment because they signed a waiver to such rights. How’s this any different than universities continuing to make money off of merchandise and a jersey number and name of a former player?

By all means give them a medical insurance policy for life as part of their compensation- for any injuries sustained or detriment to their health associated with their performing for the University. That would seem to me to be a no-brainer. That said, if such a policy were in place- is Gary Johnson ever allowed to suit up? Might open up a bit of a can of worms, but make that happen because it’s fair and equitable.

The scholarship athlete story would be more compelling if conferences weren’t whoring themselves for as much money as they can make, putting ads on the players’ jerseys (for bowl games), and coaches didn’t have multi-million dollar contracts. At what point does the disconnect between what these athletes are bringing in and what they are getting become embarrassing? I think we have reached that point.

And it’s not just about medical insurance witgh worker’s comp, but also disability if someone is permanently injured.

The employment of players is easily solved. When I worked at the PCL, I was hired as a normal employee. I potentially competed with people who weren’t at the university and may not have had a degree, because that was how my job was classified. In that very same job there students who did what I did, but got the job through work-study. They didn’t have to compete with people from outside the university and they were paid differently that I was. (I believe they made less and couldn’t get bumps in pay like I could.) Finally, while my unit didn’t have any volunteers, there were people who worked without pay either as interns or as part of an academic program. This same hierarchy could be applied to sports. Revenue sport athletes could be hired basically as work-study and non-revenue athletes would sign some sort of volunteer agreement.

Then when I was in grad school, I was a research assistant as well as a TA. Both covered all my tuition and paid me a stipend. As a research assistant I was directly aiding a professor in work he intended to publish for his employment and for the benefit of the university. As a TA, I was also furthering my training as a future faculty member, but in both cases I was given full-tuition and a stipend to pay for living expenses. Other students had a faculty advisor and their research was generally done in tandem with that faculty member, similar to my work as a research assistant. Their ‘work’ helped the faculty with their publishing, which in turn helped the university’s prestige, but they paid their own tuition and didn’t receive a dime from the university.

There are obvious existing models to follow within the existing university employment structure. Other than my job as a TA, none of my other jobs directly helped the university earn money, they were support positions to further the university’s mission.

Wulaw - You haven’t addressed my point. Your jealousy over Ryan Fiebiger’s sweet gig is not relevant. Through their work, players generates revenue many, many multiples of the cost of what they receive. Cartel rules demand that if they want to play college football, they cannot demand more - or even receive more from a sympathetic figure. I think that’s antithetical to a free society and market capitalism and begs for corruption. Your feelings of envy don’t and shouldn’t override that.

And your counterfactual isn’t anything like I proposed above. I’m not proposing the “Austin Steers”. I’m proposing raising the value of what players receive to at least somewhat keep pace with the rising tide of money that college programs make, while still retaining the essential features of being associated with a college. But I’ll give it to you: the status quo is indeed much better than the straw man you set up.

sinless1 -

One would expect the Marxist to argue for collective bargaining rights for the laborers, decry the horrendous working conditions (grueling workouts and risk of injury), and oppose the hoarding of wealth by evil capitalist opportunists (Bellmont). That sounds more like your positions than mine.

Actually those are classically liberal positions, not Marxist positions. The correct Marxist position would be to either storm Bellmont or sit back and wait for it to collapse of its own accord.

I understand that modern political discourse has muddied the waters between the two but there’s a massive difference. Let’s clarify. In an abstract sense, a liberal is someone who believes in the pricing efficiency power of free markets but also believes that the dangers of cartels, trusts, monopolies, market failures, etc. are too constant a threat to individual liberty for them to endorse a pure laissez-faire system. While I don’t know if you’d call me liberal in the political sense, I’m definitely a liberal by that classic definition. The NCAA is transparently a cartel by design and the financial corruption of college sports is in my view a natural consequence of that.

Frozen Horn - those other people have a right to negotiate for more. If they’re easily replaceable, they won’t get far. College players don’t have the right to negotiate; if they try, the NCAA will ban them. Good thing too if you’re an administrator who wants to pay them as little as possible, because college football players at a big school like Texas are not nearly as replaceable as the janitors. It’s reasonable to think that if their labor was priced according to the laws of supply and demand, they’d be getting a lot more than the kids working in the Jester cafeteria. Cartel economics prevent that.

Dagga, the problem is you are forcing a free market system into an institution that doesn’t want one, that’s why they don’t act like one. The main reason people like you are trying to force this is because of the amount of $ being made. While I agree you have a point in theory, how do you explain all the thousands of football players signing up and staying on teams if the system is so exploitative?

There is a ‘market’ for what the NCAA is providing or these students wouldn’t confirm that fact by signing up. Don’t you base how much an employee should be compensated based on what the market will bear? Well it’s bearing a market where students are signing up for the current level of compensation.

Now if you have an issue with the fact they can’t collectively bargain to increase their compensation, that’s fine. But that’s really trying to force free market regulation in a system that doesn’t act like one because of the amateur ideal.

So I think the real argument is whether the amateur ideal is valid or valuable enough to build a system around despite it’s anti free market nature. Sounds like some want to eschew it after X amount of dollars are generated by the industry while others find value not in the $, but in the ideal, and therefore a limited but generous compensation is good enough.

Obviously, I agree with Dagga’s formulation of classical liberalism and also consider myself a classic liberal according to that definition.

As for the other stuff —

It’s healthy to have differing opinions — I just do not think whatever justification may have existed for preserving the amateurism of revenue sport athletes in college any longer does; not in a world of EA Sports NCAA video games with Terrelle Pryor’s picture on it, but where he cannot sign jerseys to get inked. In my opinion, the idea that the struggles and strains of these athletes may be used to benefit other non-revenue sports but barely the earning players themselves is MUCH closer to a redistribution of wealth than what I propose.

In fact, the argument against paying the athletes gets much closer to communism than the one for it, in my opinion. Think about the principles behind both the amateur ideal benefitting everyone despite the efforts of a few, or the purported equal compensation rights of non-revenue sport athletes justifying not paying revenue sport athletes.

Point is — we can all agree, I think, that the players should at least get disability and healthcare protection for injuries. And no one is really advocating against scholarships. So the argument, then, is not WHETHER players should be compensated but rather in what form. Requiring it to be in certain things but not cash seems ridiculous to me.

Let’s keep this simple. Playing college athletics is not a JOB, WORK, or FORCED LABOR. Let’s not redefine terms as today’s society so often does.

Kids have opportunities to advance their athletic talents while having exposure to the finest academic institutions all the while growing and maturing as young men so that they might meet life’s great challenges.

The opportunity to play sports exist because of the institutions which will always be there. The institutions don’t exist because of the players and the sports they play. This is not the case for pro football and basketball. Those teams exist because of the players and they are highly compensated.

Why do kids and their parents sign off on this so called form of forced labor or work when there are other options out there to get paid for playing football and basketball?

Erik - Football players sign up because college football is their lottery ticket. It’s their only chance to make a payday off of the skills God gave ‘em. I think it’s clear that many, if not most, are not in it for the education.

And it should be noted - I have not called it “exploitation” once. I don’t think it’s exploitation. On balance, most players end up getting a large net positive out of the experience. But I think that by allowing the schools to siphon off gigantic profits without giving the players at least a bit of the rising proceeds, they’re dooming college sports to nonstop corruption and scandal. That’s what happens in cartel systems around the globe, whether it’s Chinese manufacturing or Colombian cocaine gangs.

And I think the “amateur ideal” is a romantic/legal fiction used to sell tickets and skirt labor laws, so yeah, I’d like to eschew it once the dollar amounts reach the billions. Worship of the “amateur ideal” created room for Nevin Shapiro to operate and his doppelganger could be cavorting with UT players on Town Lake as we speak. Treat players like adults with a least a bit of skin in the game rather than virginal 12-year-olds and stuff like that doesn’t sink the program.

Philosophy!?! No, not really in the mood today. Normally would be. Although I don’t believe modern liberalism shares much in common with classical liberalism. Although most liberals would beg to differ.

Dagga,

First, I think you’re too focused on the small minority of players who can, or think they can, make a payday off of it. Most football players do not sign up because it is their lottery ticket. This is important to realize because it speaks to why people value the amateur ideal. Like you said it may not be for education, but for love of game speaks to the ideal as well.

I appreciate your concern about human nature operating in an system that encourages corruption due to the large amount of $ in the industry. However this same human nature will be exposed in a system of paid players as well. What’s to stop a Shapiro from giving you even more than you’re being paid? I think it’s naive to think that because a player is now making 25,000, then he no longer has the incentive to be induced.

As to corruption by the institutions themselves, I think we all agree that medical compensation should change. Otherwise, I’m curious what dangers you see there, as you admit that most players get a net positive out of the deal.

Dagga- you aren’t getting my point- I’m not jealous of Ryan, I’m saying he doesn’t deserve anything more than he gets, and he gets plenty. Nobody in their right mind should be advocating paying Ryan more than scholarship, with the sweet gig that they have. By all means take care of his medical expenses for putting him in harms way.

The only guys that bank are the VY’s of the world, but although they help UT bank they aren’t doing it on their own- VY is more a creature of UT than UT is a creature of his- that shouldn’t be tough to understand.

You can’t pay VY without paying the backup womans lacross player, and you can’t pay them all, so why pay VY? He gets plenty of benefit out of the deal as it stands, which is my point.

If you openly pay the athletes you will kill the goose that lays the golden egg and all stakeholders will lose. Just how it is.

Absolutely the Obamasan of reasoning

Erik - I think we should be careful to distinguish “most players” from “most players at the University of Texas and similar programs”. I’m sure 100% of the players at Iona University are in it for the scholarship and the amateur experience. But I think the graduation rates for programs like Texas speak volumes about the priorities of those particular players, especially when you consider that people at Bellmont are moving heaven and earth to try to get these kids to graduate. That’s why I would only propose player compensation for super-conference-type programs that can afford it.

As far as corruption incentive in a world of paid players, I think people underestimate the psychology of relative payment. Right now we’re in a world where big college program revenues have increased by a factor of five over the last two decades, yet the value of the player compensation - the scholarship - has decreased. When people see their own position declining in absolute terms while others are rising, they start getting surly and seek to find ways around it. When on the other hand all boats are rising with the tide, people notice less that some boats are rising higher than others and they’re more willing to play by the rules.

But while that wouldn’t necessarily get rid of the Nevin Shapiros of the world, it would make the closure of such situations much simpler. Instead of pretending it’s a corruption of young souls, now it’s merely a violation of work contract. Those “kids” are actually adults, and you can tell ‘em, hey, you’ve got a really sweet gig here. We’re taking care of all your needs. You’re making a percentage of the revenue. You do something that hurts our image, that disqualifies us from the postseason and hurts our revenue, and your pals on the team will get smaller checks next year and you’ll be fired. Most people respond positively to that kind of message.

And as far as the corruption of individual schools, I wouldn’t look at Texas for that. Texas has enough revenue to be above-board about everything and run it like a proper business. The problem is the desire of smaller schools to try to keep up with the Joneses. That’s what destroyed SWC football in the 80’s. Look at U of H. Every year they take - not borrow like Aggy, but take - 10 mil or more from their academic side, to fund a program that can’t sell more than 3 mil worth of tickets a year. That, in my mind, is pure corruption even though it’s perfectly legal. That’s partly our tax money and partly the tuition of kids who paid for an education and apparently could care less about UH football. The biggest change I would suggest is to send those schools a clear message: if you can’t afford a big boy program without ripping off your own students, you don’t get subsidized by big brother anymore, and you don’t play in the big leagues.

Wulaw - OK, I get that. But I’m saying that the question of what Ryan deserves is neither answerable nor relevant. The integrity of the system trumps the question of who deserves what. A world of college football where the players are incentivized by the rules to break the rules isn’t stable or sustainable. That’s what cartels do and that’s why they’re so inefficient. A world where players, like most other workers, have the incentive to buy into the rules gives us a world with a better product.

As for your last two assertions, well, those are just assertions. Title IX guarantees equal access and opportunity, carefully defined in law as access to specific things integral to the college experience like schollies, facilities and whatnot. It (obviously) doesn’t generally guarantee equal expenses or benefits for male and female athletes as long as the rules don’t explicitly make it so. I think giving all athletes an identical percentage of net revenue for their particular sport would and should be legal under gender equity law. Target a percentage that gives 50K or so to players and that’s 4-5 mil per year. Hardly a goose-killing amount for a bigtime program.

If Ed Obannon is "stuck" selling cars after getting a free ride in college then that’s his own fault. I’m somewhat neutral when it comes to this issue as I can see both sides; however, using his current career as some sob story does nothing for me considering he got something millions of Americans do not or did not get.

You guys need to actually READ the article, or O’Bannon’s pleadings, if you want to address the underlying arguments.

The argument that O’Bannon is advancing isn’t based on sympathery or a sob story, you are reading that subtext into it so you can easily categorize and then dismiss it - the lazy way out.

His argument (an argument advanced by the NCAA’s own founder btw in his memori) is that its logic for more or less forcing players to cede property (in this case, intellectual property) selling it for a profit, and then denying that the property taken constitutes property - is illogical, illegal, and is another ridiculous cog in the NCAA’s whole model of exploiting labor at little to no cost.

His own car dealership business has nothing to do with the above.

If you can’t address that point then you really shouldn’t be weighing in on his particular example.

You can’t pay VY without paying the backup womans lacross player, and you can’t pay them all, so why pay VY? He gets plenty of benefit out of the deal as it stands, which is my point.

I love how we all of a sudden have a batch of Kreskins who are Title IX experts and are able to determine that a collegiate athlete payment system is a per-se violation thereof, despite it not having been tried yet. - there are many ways to structure compensation schemes that either arguably or definitiely do not violate Title IX.

 The whole argument that you have to pay every gymnaist if you pay every quarterback is a complete fallacy, as it stands today.

Seconding Arriviste again (though I’ll encourage more weighing-in). None of this has anything to do with the player’s plight or what anyone deserves. None of us are remotely informed enough to make those calls anyway. It’s about the massive difference between how the NCAA does business and how everyone else in America does business, and how as profits grow for some schools and not others it’s an increasingly unstable arrangement for college sports.

Thanks Dagga, that makes a lot of sense.

So if you pay 50,000 to a student, why give him a scholarship? If he has no scholarship, why associate him with a University? If he’s not associated with a University, why do I watch?

I’m having a hard time seeing how this could be integrated without destroying itself.

The article describes how the AAU transitioned to a system where the athletes get paid, but the AAU is a very different beast contextually.

As for UH, while somewhat appalling, I don’t think it’s true corruption. They must be getting more return on investing in football than direct money back; exposure, entertaining student experience, alumnus loyalty, all of which would bring in revenue indirectly. Even if not your going against the free market ideas you are espousing. “Sorry, you’re not allowed the opportunity to make $ in our club unless you make $ every year?”

Arriviste,
I think people understand the logical part of the argument. You’re missing their point in that those rules may not belong in an institution who values things other than free market values. Things that bring a value they believe support the institution itself, allowing it to bring in the large amounts of $.

Erik - Simple. You make being a student a condition of getting and keeping the job. Most jobs on campus are like that. If a kid gets promoted to head research assistant for $50,000 a year but is already a student with a full-ride scholarship, do you want his schollie stripped and consider him a non-student? Even for the top players, the degree should matter, and it should definitely matter to the school for the reasons you suggest. So it should be a student job like any other.

Also, while I’m a believer in markets I’m not espousing a laissez-faire approach. Quite the opposite, really. I’m warning about the dangers of cartels and corruption and the need for new rules. New rules require drawing new lines in the sand, and I don’t think it’s entirely arbitrary to draw the line at zero.

And while you may be right about U of H getting an invisible return on their investment, I don’t think that’s a safe assumption. Alum donations for athletics at UH is modest; barely topped 3 mil in 2009-10. Usually athletics-inspired donations accrue disproportionately to the athletics department.

Arriviste,
I think people understand the logical part of the argument. You’re missing their point in that those rules may not belong in an institution who values things other than free market values. Things that bring a value they believe support the institution itself, allowing it to bring in the large amounts of $.

But it’s a very hard argument to stomach; effectively you are syaing “the institution values things other than just money here” - so it’s going to take 99.999% of the revenue stream that you’re providing it with for 3-4 years, into perpetuity, so that we can perpetuate these other values, into perpetuity…." .

….that just falls on its face, and has evolved into the bizarre-o situation where the NCAA’s prmary roles today consist of 1) maximizing its revenue by any means necessary and 2) exercising an iron fist to prevent any of those revenues from flowing to athletes because money is corrupting. You don’t need to read Areeda & Hovenkamp on Antitrust to be baffled by that situation. And finally, even if the institutions have decided to “opt-out” of these protections, you really can’t without a congressional exemption, which they don’t have.

Dagga, while well intentioned, your proposals would have staggering unintended consequences and wouldn’t do a thing to end the corruption that you mention above. In fact, it would most likely enhance it. However, I do believe the NCAA needs to be more vigilant moving forward.

What if a kid tore his ACL in a high school all star game that is being covered by ESPN and is sponsored by Under Armour? Who picks up his health tab? What if a kid tears his ACL in a high school tourney that is being televised by MSG sports? Who picks up his tab? Guess what, Eryon Barnett tore his ACL in high school, but UT honored its scholarship commitment and he has received a world of opportunity without really being a factor on the football field that was originally envisioned for him. Should kids receive a portion of the profits received by scouting services for using their names in high schools?

Arriviste,

These guys should not have signed and accepted scholarships at the finest academic institutions in the world, but they did. And they continue to do so because of the enormous opportunities both on the field and off that comes with that scholarship.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Obannon lawsuit. If he wins, do you really think the NCAA will agree to pay him and others royalties for using his image on EA sports and the like? All that will happen is the NCAA will cease it’s relationship with EA and others, but the school will continue to sell jerseys with UCLA printed on the front with number 31 on both sides whether his name is on it or not.

These kids are there because of the institutions. Not the other way around. These institutions will be there whether there is one more down played or bucket made. And then who really loses out?

Groundhog - if you’re going to cite “staggering unintended consequences”, it’d help the conversation if you, yaknow, mentioned one. Or argue why, in light of what I’ve already said on the topic, you think the corruption would get worse and not better. Assertions are not arguments.

And I’m not proposing a solution to make life fair. I’m also not proposing a solution to ban all acts of kindness. It’s not about morality or immorality, one way or the other. I’m proposing something that would help address specific problems with the structure of college sports that have been long unaddressed and have made it needlessly dysfunctional on a number of levels.

Sadly, my proposal will not help the kid who isn’t paid for his And1 appearance, or the baby in Sri Lanka who lost his parents in a mudslide. That’s not the point.

Dagga,

Well I suppose because the research assistant is contributing to the mission of the institution: to educate and further knowledge. I have a hard time seeing the powers that be, ie not just the AD but the University President and Board, justifying taking up a scholarship spot if the player is an employee.

Before you said the degree isn’t a priority to players, but now you’re saying it should matter? If like you originally said, they care about hitting the lottery, why give them a scholarship. The only reason we’d be paying them, since as you say this isn’t about what the player deserves, is to prevent corruption that can arise due to the revenue the athlete helps create. Certainly there are other ways to produce incentives to fall in line besides paying them so you can threaten a decrease of wages, although your method maybe the most efficient (since $ is a strong incentive).

Obviously you’ve thought on this much more than I have. I appreciate the discussion.

Arriviste,

Just because it’s hard for YOU to stomach, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value to others. You can also look at it more as “the student values things other than just money here”, not the institution.

Sometimes the mere access or possibility to make more $ isn’t the only driving force in a human, which I understand is contrary to how economists view the world. Now, there are negative side effects to the concentration of wealth being at the NCAA and Universities, mainly abuses that can occur due to lack of power for players. We’ve seen this with the medical compensation issues.

I suppose I’m saying it seems fruitless to argue your free market protection law with those who are arguing for a system they don’t want operating in the free market world (because there are values and incentives they feel don’t belong there).

First, you propose that we lax standards on minor violations. The strict standards are in place so that there is no gray area when it comes to compensation. Second, you propose that we further divide divisions in college football into 60 teams. So it’s possible that a team full of paid players will take on a team of non-paid players? Are all 60 schools going to sing koom bah ya and offer the same exact compensation to each athlete during the recruiting process and can 60 teams and programs afford it? Do you really believe that? Will School #1 be able to offer more in compensation because their revenue is higher in football than school #25? Is this really good for the sport? And if you start compensating players, isn’t it now considered a job and whole new slew of laws and labor issues are enforceable? How many athletic programs will be eliminated because expenses are too high to keep them running because we are now paying certain athletes? Will there be jealousy because Player X is now receiving more than Player Y? How will the bidding process work for recruiting players? And how do you determine who to pay and when? You made the assertion we treat these players like adults when in fact they are still maturing and growing kids who are experiencing the college environment like every other student.

I referenced those scenarios from high school because high schoolers get injured just like college kids playing sports and I don’t hear anyone complaining that it’s the high school’s duty to pay medical comp for those injuries. It is part of the game. And oh, by the way, there are folks and companies that make money off high school athletics, but because it’s not on the same scale we shouldn’t worry about it. The concept is the same, but the numbers are different.

This is probably my last post on the subject b/c I think we are just talking past each other, but the fact of the matter is that we root for laundry at the collegiate level. It doesn’t matter if the players are talented or not- we are not watching them for their talents in and of themselves, we are watching them b/c they represent us. If we were rooting for talent we’d all just watch the NBA. Guess what, that’s what people who went to shittastic small colleges or no colleges do- NCAA basketball and football is essentially a niche market for middle and upper class white people.

I understand exactly what O’Bannon’s point is. My poin is that he signed his waiver. He relinquished his rights. He didn’t have to do this. He received a tangible benifit (college tuition, fees, books, tutoring) and an intangible benefit (fame, notariety, coaching etc). Ed O’Bannon can be a successful car salesman b/c of his career leading the Bruins to a national title, it has nothing to do with his middling career as an NBA benchwarmer. Ed benefitted here, and it’s b/c UCLA has rabid fans, pagentry, history etc.

The NCAA is not operating a cartel. There are semi-pro and minor leagues all over this country for various sports, and the NFL could always decide to let 18 year olds play. There is absolutely no way anything good comes of paying athletes, and I mean that for the athlete population at large, the schools and the leagues. It is literallly the worst idea I’ve ever heard associated with college sports.

I can hardly believe what I’m reading.

Dagga “would only propose player compensation for super-conference-type programs that can afford it,” creating essentially a new division of wealthy programs able to institute a pay-for-performance model for their amateur/collegiate athletes.

Toadvine is advocating a star player 20 times what his 2nd string teammate makes.

A multitude of arguments are being advanced to advance these models. Embarrassing disparity of income. Risk of debilitating injury without requisite health insurance. We already pay (in scholarships) so now we’re just arguing about the “form” of payment. Rights to one’s own image and to earn royalties. NCAA corruption/cartelization.

Other than the healthcare issue, I’m not persuaded that our student athletes are getting a raw deal. By arguing essentially for the status quo, I’ve been accused of living in a fantasy land, of being a Marxist commie, and of lacking not just empathy, but even “the skills to empathize,” with the players. Clearly emotions run high on the topic.

I want to step aside and re-read the original article(s) and try to digest their ideas. Because I’m still of the opinion that the above changes would ruin the college game and are the worst idea since New Coke. The law of unintended consequences applies here, in spades. The present system is functional. It can sure get a helluva lot worse.

Also, would love to hear the opinion of a former or current athlete who had/has some skin in the game.

sinless1 - I don’t actually think you’re a Marxist commie…that was a joke, just kinda indirectly pointing out that a Marxist scholar would find your statement ironic. Sorry if that offended.

And I’d like to also make it clear that I don’t think any of the people disagreeing with me lack empathy or anything like that. Y’all are just approaching the problem from a different (sensible) starting point and reaching different (natural) conclusions.

I’ll throw this in too: I know my take is going to be counter-intuitive. Most people think of paying people and ask, “Do the recipients need that money? Do they deserve it?” and form their opinions from there. That’s sensible, I get that. In fact I believed that for a very long time and only recently came around on this particular topic.

But getting involved in public affairs taught me a few things, one of which is this: complex systems aren’t morality plays. They have their peculiar dynamics of cause and effect, and sometimes the best thing to do isn’t the intuitive thing. If you’ve ever drifted on ice into oncoming traffic and experienced how intuitively wrong it feels to point your wheel into traffic and steer into the skid, well, designing human systems can occasionally be kind of like that.

A better example, and more pertinent, is what’s going on in Europe right now. It’s pretty clear that Germany just needs to get it over with and take whatever steps necessary to keep Greece from going under. If they don’t Greece WILL go under, and it’s Lehman times ten. Disaster. But politically it’s been impossible, because German voters are asking themselves and each other, “Do the Greeks need our money? Do they deserve it?” and that’s overwhelming the national discourse. Yet when you look at the underlying economics, it’s pretty clear that whether the Greeks deserve a bailout is an entirely separate issue from whether Germany should bail them out. The first is a moral question; the second is all about practical consequences, which have a moral dimension of their own totally unrelated - and much more harrowing - than any issues of Greece’s moral worthiness.

I’ve spent enough time arguing it, I think. At this point either people will understand my position or they won’t. But I feel that the practical consequences of pretending players at big schools like Texas are amateur - the propping up of schools who can’t afford or support competitive D-1 programs at the expense of academics based on an comfy illusion that they’re on the same playing field as us, the development of worthless curricula for players at some schools that allow kids (many of whom have no NFL future) to finish their eligibility without learning anything besides “music appreciation” and the like, the encouragement of cynicism and corruption by players as the degrees they get lose value while the coach brings home a million more dollars every year than the last - that stuff matters. When you look at it, the indirect moral consequences of fake amateurism overwhelm the direct moral consequences of paying players a little extra on top of their scholarship.

While people talk about “unintended consequences” I submit that those problems I mentioned are stunning examples of unintended consequences. That’s what happens when people design complex human systems, especially when they’re designed based on how things “should” be rather than how they are.

Nice discussion, folks.

O’Bannon should lose because his situation is identical to that of the middling scientist who develops a patentable widget or process that makes his employer enormous profits. He collects nothing other than his original paycheck because he signed a waiver of rights to the money his patented invention earns. There is no conceptual difference.

To grant O’Bannon a win would mean overturning millions of intellectual property rights waivers currently held by thousands of employers throughout the US.

So its Ok for a student or anyone else to get paid for selling concessions at the game, but the guys who are providing the whole reason for that person to be making money selling concessions shouldn’t get paid because it’s entertainment? I am not sure what it is about selling a Coke that furthers the University’s mission.

Arriviste,

Just because it’s hard for YOU to stomach, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value to others. You can also look at it more as "the student values things other than just money here", not the institution.

It’s not just me - it’s the founder of the NCAA itself who found this troubling. As does the Sherman Act.

O’Bannon should lose because his situation is identical to that of the middling scientist who develops a patentable widget or process that makes his employer enormous profits. He collects nothing other than his original paycheck because he signed a waiver of rights to the money his patented invention earns. There is no conceptual difference.

Actually the differences are enormous. The scientist’s contribution is a work of intellectual property which he willingly creates for the employer in exchange for compensation. O’Bannon’s contribution is his very likeness and personality - so there’s a clear difference in kind there. Further, in the NCAA’s own language, he’s not giving it away for any compensation, which leads us to…

….the fact that the scientist in your example is a paid employee who has access to the full panoply afforded to individuals who contract away their labor - if all the labs in the country got together and conspired to fix his wages, as they did for O’Bannon, he would sue them and win, as that is a clear violation of antiturst laws.

Good talk, Dagga. Way to keep it civil.

Do you know what’s hilarious about this article? The team referenced as threatening to sit in protest was UMASS with Coach Calipari and Marcus Camby. It was later discovered that Camby had taken $28k from an agent plus “jewelry, rental cars, and prostitutes”. So he was knowingly breaking NCAA rules, being paid, yet was planning to sit in protest at the same time because he felt like he was not being properly compensated.

It’s a near certainty the total package value of a football scholarship at Texas is higher than the wages of your average scientist/engineer. And that value (tuition, visibility, branding, post-school opportunity) is not the same from school to school, so no, there is no “industry” fixing of wages.

Care to venture the last instance of scientists and engineers engaged in collective bargaining as a profession? .

And for the stars, the ones people argue deserve compensation- guess what- they get it. Earl Campbell or Vince Young never had to play in the NFL to make money off their name in the state of Texas. VY is selling phone cards and Earl is hawking sausage links and both of them would have a cozy place as an executive VP in charge of being a bad ass in a corporate setting. Instead, they received teaching from masterminds like Greg Davis that allow them to further their craft and get paid in the NFL- and they still get all that stuff. The VY steakhouse in Austin doesn’t exist b/c of anything he’s done post 2005- it just doesn’t.
>>Actually, the seed money probably helped….regardless….The 1% that go on to become legends are obviously ahead. What about Tre Newton? What about Garrett Gilbert? Jeez, I can’t remember his name, but didn’t we have a receive that snapped his neck in practice a few years back? Timmons? I think that’s it.

Other than the healthcare issue, I’m not persuaded that our student athletes are getting a raw deal. By arguing essentially for the status quo, I’ve been accused of living in a fantasy land, of being a Marxist commie, and of lacking not just empathy, but even "the skills to empathize," with the players. Clearly emotions run high on the topic.
>>>Hrm. You come to a thread that has a title that reads "Dreams Unfulfilled, Graduate Unskilled — NCAA Athletics and Exploitation ", and wonder why people might be irritated with arguing the status quo. And, it’s not so much THAT you argued, it’s HOW you argued, (though, I could understand you being slightly peeved at me for the same reason) flip-flopping from one side of a topic to another.

The main reason people like you are trying to force this is because of the amount of $ being made. While I agree you have a point in theory, how do you explain all the thousands of football players signing up and staying on teams if the system is so exploitative?
>>>It’s not because of the money, it’s because players are getting screwed, so much so that the head of the NCAA pointed it out. The money just makes it even more disgusting, because they have the resources to do something. As for your second sentence, how do you explain all the children in sweatshops in china? They choose to go to work. Does that mean it’s just? Or fair?

My poin is that he signed his waiver. He relinquished his rights. He didn’t have to do this. He received a tangible benifit (college tuition, fees, books, tutoring) and an intangible benefit (fame, notariety, coaching etc). Ed O’Bannon can be a successful car salesman b/c of his career leading the Bruins to a national title, it has nothing to do with his middling career as an NBA benchwarmer. Ed benefitted here, and it’s b/c UCLA has rabid fans, pagentry, history etc.
>>>What about the woman who was raped by halliburton employees 3 years ago? She signed away any right to mediation, so she is consequently screwed; AND had to spend the rest of her time over there either locked in a portable, or in the presence of the men who raped her. Using your logic, it’s clearly her own fault, and nothing should be done about it right? She benefitted with a job paying 50k (she couldn’t have gotten over here due to lack of education), and she got to travel. Plus she got a little nookie right?

There is obviously a problem with the system as it is, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, as there would be no article. So to argue for the status quo seems folly to me. Clearly there are rights violations occurring, legally.

By the way…I spoke to a friend of mine about this issue previously, hence taking the stance I do. He is 52, and still has a lingering injury that they didn’t fix after they pulled his scholarship (not texas, another school I won’t name). And while he is doing well in life, it definitely isn’t because of football. His view on the subject goes right along with “It’s pretty messed up man, but what are you going to do? Not take the scholarship and sit on your couch all day?”. However, when it comes to the payment…..Alan is gonna love this….he said “there’s no need to pay them a stipend, simply because they already get jobs they never have to attend (and still get paid)”. Though, highly frowned upon, he says at least in his day, it was legal, and extremely popular. So much for the purity of the sport eh?.

A lot of people saying that no one would watch Vince Young play for an Austin team in an under-22 professional football league; basically all that revenue is being generated by the brand of Texas football and not because of what VY and Colt did or did not do in college.

Maybe, but by that same reasoning, how different would the history of the Big 12 be if Vince had gone to A&M or OU? Clearly his individual talents were worth a lot of money to UT.

Unfortunately, this is something that is wrong at this, but can never be righted. The NCAA makes an obscene amount of money off the efforts of others and there truly aren’t that many ways for an individual to continue in a professional career in athletics. There are the exceptions, but as a rule this is the pathway to the NFL and let’s not even talk about college basketball.

College athletics is not an amateur sport and it is far, far closer to the professional leagues than high schools and the demands placed upon the athletes in some areas are greater than the NFL at this time because there is no collective body to protect the athletes.

Funny how the death of Austin Box has fallen under the radar and yet why was a 20 something year old on that many pain meds? Why was he still playing when he most likely wouldn’t get through the NFL combine physical screening? What about the incident at Iowa? It happens in every program where gets are being pushed to their absolute physical limits. Kids are basically involved in the programs year round. In return, they get board, tuition, access to tutors, but that is not just a one side benefit. How may of the current kids on an athletic scholarship at UT could get into UT if they weren’t on athletic scholarship?

Yes, they chose to go to school there, they were told the academic demands of the school, and the only reason for many that they are at a school is they were pursued to help that school win and in turn that generates revenue. Fair trade off? Who truly knows as the world of the athletes is different from the average student and it isn’t all in favor of the athlete. To some extent they aren’t even allowed the same basic rights as a normal student.

Our oldest daughter is a third year theatre major at a large university who we are very proud of for her efforts. She has a 3.8, works 20-25 hours a week, last year had lead parts in two productions, and over the course of a year puts in as much time if not more for the year in the theatre department than the football players at this school. In the second production last year her image was used for promotional materials for the show and the school does charge for attendance to the performances. She was not compensated for the use of her image, she has been recognized by a few people around town from the materials, but no money was put into her pocket.

I could argue that she has done more for the advancement of her department than a 3rd string player who never sees the field and still is on a full ride with access to other services. What she does have available to her though that I don’t believe a scholarship athlete does not is the ability to work during the season. If i am not mistaken the NCAA prohibits athletes to work during the season. Funny because I don’t think the athlete stops having expenses during the season. Things like gas, food, clothing, etc…….everything is not always covered, everything is not always available when needed, and money is not always coming from home. The simple fact they are not allowed to work during the season if the kid needs money is damn ridiculous.

What is worse to me is that millions are made off the image of the student, off of an inferred connection to the athlete, but the student not only can not be compensated by the school but use their own image for compensation. Our daughter might not have been paid for the use of her image for the promotional materials for the production, but she was able to use the connections through her department and through school to land two paying parts in the summer this year. Why is that permissible for her and not an athlete?

Simply because NCAA rules say it isn’t legal for the athlete, but interestingly enough the school and the NCAA both profit off the sale of materials that while they might not have the athletes name on it are linked to certain athletes. How many of those #10 jerseys worn at a Texas game for Peter Gardere fans? How many 14 and 17 are seen in the stands/ What about 26 or 33’s?

Unfortunately there is no right answer. If you let a kid sell his likeness or autograph who sets the price? Hell, that has always been the problem. I remember when two UGA alums wanted to set up Herschel Walker as an insurance salesman for a summer job while in school and they were basically going to give him inforce policies. Agreed that is a problem, but that doesn’t make right the fact that the schools and the NCAA are profiting off the images of athletes and really don’t have to share any of the risk.

 If Irby down the road suffers complications from his injury and say has his lower leg amputated what recourse does he have? A friend who works for a NFL team on the medical side has told me that the bodies coming out of college today have the wear and tear on them of someone who in the past has been in the league for 5-8 years. In some cases you are already seeing early stages of degeneration, multiple surgeries, and you know down the road some of these guys are going to have a difficult time just getting around due to the early toll on their bodies. Yes, it does start in high school, but who is profiting at that level?

I am not a lawyer, much of this argument is way over my head, but for those who say that this would push college sports over the brink because they would then become pro sports have had your head in the sand if you don’t believe that any of the major college programs are not already minor league pro sports. You pay a damn PSL every year except it goes to a foundation so you can write part of it off, ticket prices are at NFL levels, and the people are that top are getting rich. Shit, at least Bob McNair and Jerry Jones had to write big ass checks to reap the benefit of owning an NFL team. Someone tell me what the NCAA and many of the people acting in the best interest of the “student athletes” put at risk to reap the benefits they are pulling in off the work of others.

It’s a near certainty the total package value of a football scholarship at Texas is higher than the wages of your average scientist/engineer.

Not even remotely true - tuition and room and board is in the tens of thousands of dollar value (even less if you coutn acutal cost) per annum.

And that value (tuition, visibility, branding, post-school opportunity) is not the same from school to school, so no, there is no "industry" fixing of wages.

But the schools have colluded to fix it at tuition, and not a single dollar or tattoo more, furhter they have actively colluded to prevent others from compensating athletes, so as to reserve these revenue streams for themselves. This is about as anti-competitive as it gets.

[quote]
Care to venture the last instance of scientists and engineers engaged in collective bargaining as a profession? .

No - why would I bother. This is not a labor law issue (though I’m sure they exist here too). I’m sure it’s happened but it’s utterly irrelevant to the monopsonistic cartel that the NCAA operates. Because that’s what it is under any rational definition of the term, and any antitrust expert and even THE FOUNDER OF THE NCAA would interpret it that way.

Look, everytime you guys bring up “but-but-but they’re compensated with a schollie!” canard you basically destroy your own argument (which is why the NCAA itself tries to shy away from this) by opening up the pandora’s box of denoting it as a commercial arrangement, to which laws against restraint of trade apply.

Great piece Davey!

This has been a very good conversation. The opinion gap is clear. On the one side, where I come down, is the group that believes that increased money in college sports (coming frequently from the players’ images) coupled with the lack of long-term care and short-term remuneration to the athletes generating the money is unconscionable, illegal, and must be remedied.

On the other side is the group that feels that the current state of college sports should remain as it is because the athletes already received scholarships, intangible financial benefits inure to them post-graduation (free drinks, cush jobs etc.), the honor and pride of playing for a University is sufficient compensation itself, the availability of smaller professional leagues provides sufficient legal justification for the NCAA to continue as it is, and the admittedly flawed amateurism remaining in the game should continue to exist.

This was an effort to fairly sum up both sides.

It’s been a really interesting and well-thought out discussion, the kind for which I read (and post) on this website. It is difficult to find such intelligent, well-mannered debate these days. Hats offs —

TJ- no doubt he furthered our brand. He only had the platform to do so b/c of what colleges have already built with fanbases in the 6 and 7 figures however.

If his heroics would have come in a minor league organization they would have been basically unnoticed/uncared about.

Unless you think minor league football would be wildly more popular than minor league baseball and minor league basketball. A little bit more popular- I can buy, but not fanbases stretching into the millions more popular.

E1k- Trey Newton and Garret Gilbert, in any rational system, would not be compensated lots of money for their services. As it is now they are compensated, it’s just that their tangible compensation is in trade of their services for other tangible services (university experience, classes, possible degree, tutoring, room and board etc) and intangible (networking, notariety, fame etc). I think for the guys that don’t move the needle that’s fair compensation, and for the guys that do like VY and KD they end up with an unbeliavable amount of goodwill that exists almost solely b/c of the market that was built on the back of goodwill toward the Univerity they play at. Both guys end up with fair value.

If they got paid a lot then few universities could play, and the result would be less opportunities. If they get paid a little then what exactly is the point? You are risking killing the goose that laid the golden egg for the hundreds of thousands of kids that get a full ride to school that wouldn’t otherwise nationwide.

Davey,

your best point seems to be the physical toll taken vis a vis the lack of reward. I think that football as we know it is now way too dangerous, and we will see it radically change in the next decade or two. They are giving up their health and in some cases their lives for our amusement. It’s starting to percolate as an issue from the NFL to the NCAA down to the high school level. I don’t know what the answer is but I’m guessing the sport might end up played with little to no pads (broken bones go way up but most of the other really bad stuff goes away without helmets to lead with, sholder pads to spear with etc), upright starts in the line and radically different blocking rules.

Football almost died as a sport after it’s inception b/c of the damage inherent to the bodies and death’s on the field. I don’t know how you make it safer, but I have to believe that is coming down the pike. If I end up with a son I will not want him to play. Even high school players are suffering serious injury consequences from sub concussive trama. I’m not worried about him breaking a leg (that’s good for kids imo- teaches them boundaries, limitations, about human frailty and overcoming something shitty) or arm, I’m worried he’ll end up deranged or addled.

I don’t think paying kids does anything to solve this, but some level of health insurance for life seems like a good idea, for those who don’t end up insured through employment.

Wulaw,

I never said to pay the athlete for the revenue generated, but instead that the governing body, the very organization who is supposed to protecting the student athlete is one of the groups that is profiting from the use of the athletes image and likeness while at the very same time prevents the athlete from even holding a part time job to make sure they have enough money in their pocket to handle basic living expenses.

When the head of such an organization is making 7 figures or more yet assumes no risk or really does nothing to generate the revenues and the person who assumes the most risk and is putting the work and yet can’t have a part-time job that seems wrong to me. When you then consider that in addition multiple individuals at the athletes university are being paid more than 99% of the population while the athlete can’t hold a job something is very, very wrong.

It is very simple to make this equitable. Open up the recruiting to a free market system. The kid and his family gets money based on what the market bears and alumni with deep pockets gets a chance to endow their university with potentially great football or basketball players.

The student-athletes get health insurance, full scholarships and a very modest stipend for up to 6 years with the condition being that they are full-time students.

Register alumni as official recruiters and let them have at it.

That way, a player can choose to play for his favorite university or for a competitor based on his market value. If there is a swimmer or tennis player who has market value, then he or she has a chance to capitalize, as well.

While on the face of it, this system seems repulsive, it allows for the incoming athletes to get fair value for their prospective talents. The university can focus on the academic side, since the alumni will be in charge of recruiting value for the university. Based on corruption patterns, there are plenty of alumni who would gladly pay for players.

If a player has low market value entering college, he has a chance to boost that when he enters the professional ranks. If a player has low market value and continues to have low market value at the end of his playing career, then he or she learns economic lessons as well as getting a chance for an university level education.

I don’t know that I fall into the group that thinks not paying college athletes is unconscionable and have no idea it is illegal, but I certainly don’t think that a stipend would necessarily spell doom for the sport. I do think what teams like UH do by siphoning off large sums of academic money to pay for their athletics programs is pretty darn close to unconscionable.

I think paying players is the best way to finally set big-time college athletics on the appropriate footing. There is absolutely no reason to have 120 teams. Most programs don’t make money and most don’t even entertain their students or us in TV land, we don’t watch them and the mostly empty stadia suggest that the students don’t either. Get the top level down to no more than 60-64 schools (half that would probably be even better) and let them all pay their players at a largely flat wage (differences based on local wage laws/cost of living) and classify them as work-study employees. Give them health insurance. Some programs will probably still be in the red, but once you get down to more limited, and more elite, set of programs the increased TV dollars will pay for the stipends. Add a playoff and those who make the big bucks off of college athletes can all give themselves raises.

Dagga hit many of my arguments. It boggles my mind that the cartel that is the NCAA has been able to set the work rules for revenue sports and pay young athletes with barter, basically with the excuse that the non-revs cost too much. The likelihood that the system would implode if athletes were paid just shows how poorly run it is.

The question remains — why do programs such as UH or Rice continue to play high D-I ball when it is has been difficult or impossible for them to do it at a profit? The answer is that this is the marketing program for these universities. They have no other reasonable way to get their names and brands on to television or radio for hours at a time. It’s worth it to run these programs at a deficit for the attention they draw. If the athletes had to be paid a stipend, that would just be a cost of business that virtually all of them would take on.

My long-held belief on how to pay athletes that play sports is based on what the individual sports earn. Texas football would be worth more than Kansas basketball, but KU basketball would be worth more than, say, A&M basketball. Take a portion of the money received for TV and radio rights, and divide it among both the scholarship and non-scholarship players (walk-ons risk injury, too). My original idea would be to pay everyone the same amount, but it doesn’t matter to me if the pot is apportioned individually. A guy very well might choose a bigger check as a sub over a starting job in lower D-I. But that would be his choice, not the school’s.

If the market worked, we’d still have Texas football and basketball. We might not have, say, women’s golf. I’m not opposed to having women’s golf, but at least we’d be looking at these things in terms of their financial value.

I’m also in favor of athletes who seriously intend to become pros to delay their attendance. If they wanted to come back later, start the scholarship then. If they didn’t, that’s fine too.

And I do like what you wrote, dogbreath. Things would change, but they wouldn’t be that much different, if you get my drift.

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